The blue parakeet - 3

Time constraints will limit my reflections from chapters 6-8 of Scot McKnight's book The Blue Parakeet, but they are good chapters nonetheless.

Chapter 6 deals with developing a "relational" approach to reading Scripture. I whole-heartedly agree with this, but it would likely put me at odds with some in my denomination. He says rather than asking the question "What can I learn from the Bible?"... a better question is, "What is my relationship to the Bible?" And even better yet is, "What is my relationship to the GOD of the Bible?"

He says on 86, "What I learned about the authority approach to the Bible [read it and submit because it is authoritative] was that it is not personal enough or relational enough. It does not express enough of why it is that God gave us the Bible." On p. 87 he goes on, "So what I'm saying is that the authority approach to the Bible is not enough. There is more to the Bible than its subject matter."

On 91 he says, "God gave us the Bible not so we can know it but so we can know and love God through it."

On p. 95 he ends with this... "...those who have a proper relationship to the Bible never need to speak of the Bible as their authority nor do they speak of their submission to the Bible. They are so in tune with God, so in love with him, that the word 'authority' is swallowed up in loving God. Even more, the word 'submission' is engulfed in the disposition of listening to God speak through the Bible and in the practice of doing what God calls us to do."

In chapter 7 he says (95), "We need to have not only a 'view' of the Bible but also a 'relationship' to the God of the Bible. Knowing water will hydrate the body and believing that drinking five bottles of water daily is healthy are not the same as drinking the water until one's body is properly hydrated."

Chapter 8 - on "missional listening" - is a good chapter too. It can basically be summed up by two statements he makes on p. 112:

If you are doing good works, you are reading the Bible aright.
If you are not doing good works, you are not reading the Bible aright.

He discussed this in more detail on pp.104-105. I might have questioned this at one time; but I think it is right on.

Peace out; and in.