The Bible

I really like the following paragraph from Brian D. McLaren's More Ready Than You Realize which we are studying together with Frontline.

"If you have grown up with the Bible, you have no idea how difficult the book can be for the uninitiated -- until you enter a spiritual friendship with someone like Alice. Meanwhile, we preachers constantly reassure people that the Bible is simple and easy to understand, I suppose motivated by a desire to encourage people to read it. But our reassurances are counterproductive as well as dishonest. We would be better off preparing people realistically: The Bible is an extremely difficult book for modern and post-modern readers alike. (The Bible is more honest about itself in this regard than we are. See 2 Peter 3:15-16, for example.) It is definitely worth
the effort, but make no mistake, it will take much effort.

... We are asking [readers] ...to step out of their modern and postmodern
paradigms and into the worldviews of people far removed geographically
and historically." (Emphasis mine)

I suppose this appeals to me, because -- besides the fact that this just plain seems to be true (but what is obvious to one is not necessarily obvious to another) -- I do tend to believe that life, faith and everything are not simple or answered "patly". I despair at people who disdain my attention to detail and am tempted to think of them as lazy and unintelligent, which, without a good knowledge of their thought patterns, is not fair. Just as people who pick at my my "pickiness" are not being fair either. I do realize that some people are Big-Picture people. OTOH I do believe that there are some people who are, in fact, neither. But they have other valuable contributions to make.

But I digress.

My only concern about the quoted paragraph above is that it may put the Bible back into the hands of the experts. But that is not McLaren's intention. I believe that he wants the Bible to be understood in the context of the entire community (throughout the world and all HISTORY). This can get messy. It will probably result in there often being a lot of possibly right answers and not just one. But I'm comfortable with that, too. I think that's how it is.

(To be honest, I'm comfortable in principle. Sometimes in encountering specific divergent points of view I may become agitated. However, these tend to be those POVs that arise from a simplistic reading of one proof text.)