My friend Ben Curtis introduced me to this poem by Bill
Collins titled “Introduction to Poetry”:
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
As I listened to and then read this poem about the
perspective necessary to appreciate poetry, I was convicted of the fact that
this is often the way that I have treated the Bible. Too often I have approached a passage of
scripture seeking to “beat it into submission” as I sought the kernel of truth
contained therein so that I could teach or preach it. Using the best tools that I had, I sought to
wring something out of it that was new, fresh, and relevant---something that I
could share with my congregation or study group. In so doing, I failed to appreciate the real
message embodied there.
I am not saying that hermeneutical studies are unnecessary
or irrelevant, but I have come realize that scripture can speak to me if I give
it the opportunity. If I can suspend my presuppositions
for just a little while, I may hear something that I need to hear at that
moment in my life. This means that I
move beyond many of the traditional ways that we see scripture—rule book, sociopolitical
document, the history of God’s revelation to God’s people—to the word of God
for me.
On most days, I am
not sure that I am ready to do what it takes for that to happen. Such a stance requires humility, vulnerability,
and perception that I do not possess.
Perhaps that is where the Spirit of God intervenes and speaks through
the Bible in such a way that I can hear.
I don’t think I have it in me to accomplish that on my own.
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