Question?

I want to set myself strongly within the tradition of Christianity that sees the Bible not as some Divinely dropped document, but rather as the greatest literary work the world has ever seen. The Scriptures were written by people; by humans with emotions, goals, dreams, thoughts, histories and disappointments. When we emphasize the Divine inspiration of the scriptures so much that we forget that each part was written by a person, we lose the beauty of our spiritual history.

Within context, each part of the Scriptures is one part in a continuing journey of discovery, judgement from, and interaction with the true Creator God. When we take passages that we like and divorce them from the context both of the time and the author, we do violence to the text.

I have read a plethora of good articles by people online and in written format about what is wrong with the church at present. There are articles that call for all kinds of reforms and many of them I think would be great. There are articles calling for a change in the way that Churches interact with politics, there are articles calling for churches to act less like businesses and more like the church, there are articles calling for unity, for honesty, for education, and generally for reform. Many of these articles and ideas flow out of these people's interactions with the Scriptures. Yet, there are very few who actually are pointing out that many of the problems with the church in the U.S. is a misunderstanding of scripture.

Good exegesis is not just an academic exercise; it is not just a personal spiritual exercise. Rather it is the tool that can lay bare the misunderstandings and misuse of scripture within this world. Never before have so many people had access to the Scriptures. But, where before has personal experience so shaded our eyes against what the authors of Scripture are actually saying?

My conviction is: there is no better use of a quality education than making good exegesis understandable and visible to all.