I don\u2019t believe we can truly understand the Bible until we are able to \u201chear\u201d the Bible.\u00a0 And we cannot \u201chear\u201d the Bible until we are willing to find ourselves in the Biblical narrative honestly.\u00a0 When I am willing to see myself as Pharaoh (and not Moses), Saul (and not David), the Philistine (and not the Israelite), Judas (and not Peter or Paul), and the thief who did not confess, then I am able to truly receive a message of grace and mercy.<\/p>\n
If I presume, if I only identify with the eventual heroes and good guys, the winners, then I privilege my place in the narrative. I do this to make myself feel good and so I can judge others.\u00a0 In this way, the Bible is always talking about the other fellow (the one I refuse to identify with) and not me.\u00a0 This can be very comforting, but hardly salvific.<\/p>\n
When I can see myself as the man who raises his voice to heaven and is thankful he is not like all these \u201cothers\u201d and not identify with the humble tax collector, then I might be saved.\u00a0 Then I might understand and hear the Bible.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, I am reading deaf as I already know the story and have chosen the side of the \u201cgood\u201d guys regardless of what my life actually reflects.\u00a0 It becomes a double blindness and deafness.\u00a0 Our familiarity with the story, our knowing who we are supposed to identify with, can actually be a barrier to hearing.\u00a0 This is one reason the Pharisees were so deaf and blind, even though they thought they \u201cknew\u201d and had \u201cheard\u201d the story.<\/p>\n
When we read the story about the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18), the Spirit is speaking to us, the Pharisees, so that we might experience the moment the tax collector does, and not simply for us to pick out the good guys and bad guys.\u00a0 If we read the story unreflectively, identifying with the tax collector, paradoxically we may very well be the Pharisee.\u00a0 Nothing better creates a Pharisee like the delusion he, in his own mind, is more like the tax collector in his humility than the Pharisee because he knows how the story should be read or interpreted.<\/p>\n
We assume understanding the story translates into our being like the tax collector and not the Pharisee.\u00a0 No, understanding the story, what it means, translates into nothing more than that\u2014understanding.\u00a0 When we say, \u201cWe get it,\u201d do we?\u00a0 Understanding the Pharisee is the \u201cbad\u201d guy is not enough.\u00a0 Only actually having the moment the tax collector does, where we feel our complete poverty of spirit, our brokenness, our desperate need of grace, can we then truly understand the story, which is to say \u201chear\u201d the story.<\/p>\n
When this happens, I\u2019m not focused on the Pharisee in the story not getting it, where I think to myself, \u201cwow, I\u2019m glad I\u2019m not like him,\u201d but I can now focus on me, the Pharisee reading the story.\u00a0 I can\u2019t truly \u201chear\u201d and understand until I have allowed the truth to sink in, that the story is really about me\u2026the Pharisee reading\/observing.\u00a0 Now that I know my poverty and brokenness, I can say: I was the Pharisee all along.\u00a0 Lord forgive me.\u00a0 Lord have mercy.<\/p>\n
Only then am I in a place to hear and understand the story.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I don\u2019t believe we can truly understand the Bible until we are able to \u201chear\u201d the Bible.\u00a0 And we cannot \u201chear\u201d the Bible until we are willing to find ourselves in the Biblical narrative honestly.\u00a0 When I am willing to see myself as Pharaoh (and not Moses), Saul (and not David), the Philistine (and not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26,188,194,209,434],"class_list":["post-580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bible","tag-hermenuetics","tag-humility","tag-interpretation","tag-spiritual-direction"],"yoast_head":"\n