How to read the bible

Mike Clawson has another excellent post on his blog. It's from a combination of conversations he's been having. I suggest reading the entire post HERE, but here's a snippet:

I view the Bible as dynamically unfolding story of God interacting with humanity at various points in our historical development. And it seems to me that God therefore has to deal with us differently depending on the culture and circumstances we faced at the time. A lot of what he told the Israelites 3500 years ago doesn’t necessarily apply to us today, because frankly, we’re not nomadic pastoralists trying to find land to settle in anymore (at least, most of us aren’t).

However, that doesn’t mean I want to just throw out those parts of the Bible. If the Bible is a story, then to throw out those parts would be like throwing out the first few acts of Hamlet because they’re not as current as the last act! There’s value in the story - in knowing where we’ve been and where the story is headed. Thus my job, as someone who is trying to live my life within this grand drama I believe God is directing, is to continue the drama as best I can from this point forward, in resonance with what has gone before, but not just slavishly repeating the lines from first act again either. Rather I have to move the story forward, keep it heading in the direction that I believe scripture has pointed us (which is in the direction of increasing love and justice in the world). If I were to just throw out the first part of the story simply because those people weren’t as far along as we are now, I might lose the sense of moral trajectory and have a harder time figuring out where the story as a whole is headed.