EngineeredTheology

Chapter 3
For me, my entire Christian understanding was the morsels of law. It was a big fight for me to see anything outside of that type of view.

I agreed with his shortcut #4 (seeing the bible as a puzzle) – not for the metaphor, but for the idea that if you think you know what it says you don’t try to understand it anymore. I continually go through this. As for the metaphor, I see most things as pieces of a puzzle. This is how we assemble truth. It is natural to assemble the pieces that fit and downplay those that don’t. The problem is when we assume we have all the pieces (so what we have assembled has no possibility of changing).

Chapter 4
I had a tough time figuring out if he actually meant wiki-stories, or meant meta-stories. I have some issues calling the bible a wiki-story (wiki = What I Know Is…) because the various authors contributing didn’t intend on playing a part of the grander narrative. I feel more comfortable calling them meta-stories (stories about stories). That each book gives information about the larger story. It’s trivial, but it tripped me up in this chapter.

Chapter 5
The grand narrative (page 67) is played out all through the bible. We continually see creation->covenant->fall->redemption all through the bible (these would then be meta-stories).
His point on page 73 is a good one. We tend to like to skip from the first part in exodus to the gospel. The idea of reading the bible as a story does not help this though (the law and prophets are easily read over without missing the narrative). I would call the law and prophets the expansion of the redemption story. It is the trial and error of all other ways for community with god (“god’s people don’t get the job done” – pg 74). We can think of all the ways that we would be happy (military might, riches, political freedom, etc.) but they were all found wanting.

Chapter 6
This is a big point “I teach students” pg 86. When we discuss the bible, does it really matter if someone learned that Aaron did X or Job 6:4 says Y (I didn’t actually look up Job 6:4 – I’m going to have to now). Do those things really matter?

The barn door blowing point is “God != Bible”. Exa-freaken-zactly! I don’t know how to put more emphasis on this, but the implications to modern understandings of Christianity are enormous. The bible is neither the beginning or the end of Christianity. It’s a story. Understanding Christianity is understanding YOUR story. The bible is a piece to that, but I think we often act as if bible > God.

Chapter 7
“How many of us know our doctrine about the Bible but don’t do what the God of the Bible says?” Pg 95. Now, he moves back into Shortcut #1 – but it is ok to prove a point. We all know that Jesus talked more about helping the widow and orphan, but we act as if when he said widow and orphan he actually meant sex before marriage. He goes on to listening to the bible, but I think it is superfluous because the main point is to act on what we know. We get all caught up on what God really wants me to do (another question you had). You know what God wants you to do. The problem is that you don’t want to do it because it really doesn’t sound like a lot of fun (I can relate to that). The key is finding how our own unique selves fit into God’s narrative (we are not all supposed to work in soup kitchens – we all have unique gifts).

Chapters 10
This preview (for part 4) chapter was a good one to take one some hotly debated topics. His arguments are pretty strong and begins to show how the topic of women in the church could be rightly addressed. Unfortunately, the book drops off here..

Part 4
This section should have been a great opportunity to walk through a difficult topic built from the rest of the book. Unfortunately, while I agree with his conclusion that women are called in ministry and we have done a disservice to ourselves to hinder them, his discussion is not on par with the rest of the book.

Unfortunately, he has already spoken strongly against his argument in the book (we should not just look at what happened in the Bible and blindly apply it to our lives). The argument that women did something in the bible and so they should still be doing it is woefully unconvincing and unfortunately begins to discredit the entire rest of the book (as this is the last thought you are left with).