Von der hinteren Coverseite

Why Can't I Just Be a Christian?”

Parakeets make delightful pets. We cage them or clip their wings to keep them where we want them. Scot McKnight contends that many, conservatives and liberals alike, attempt the same thing with the Bible. We all try to tame it.

McKnight's The Blue Parakeet has emerged at the perfect time to cool the flames of a world on fire with contention and controversy. It calls Christians to a way to read the Bible that leads beyond old debates and denominational battles. It calls Christians to stop taming the Bible and to let it speak anew for a new generation.

In his books The Jesus Creed and Embracing Grace, Scot McKnight established himself as one of America's finest Christian thinkers, an author to be reckoned with.

In The Blue Parakeet, McKnight again touches the hearts and minds of today's Christians, this time challenging them to rethink how to read the Bible, not just to puzzle it together into some systematic theology but to see it as a Story that we're summoned to enter and to carry forward in our day.

In his own inimitable style, McKnight sets traditional and liberal Christianity on its ear, leaving readers equipped, encouraged, and emboldened to be the people of faith they long to be.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

The Blue Parakeet

Zondervan

Contents

1. The Book and I.......................................................92. The Birds and I......................................................22Part 1 Story: What Is the Bible?3. Inkblots and Puzzles.................................................414. It's a Story with Power!.............................................555. The Plot of the Wiki-Stories.........................................66Part 2 Listening: What Do I Do with the Bible?6. From Paper to Person.................................................837. God Speaks, We Listen................................................948. The Boring Chapter (on Missional Listening)..........................104Part 3 Discerning: How Do I Benefit from the Bible?9. The Year of Living Jesus-ly..........................................11510. Finding the Pattern of Discernment..................................129Part 4 Women in Church Ministries Today11. The Bible and Women.................................................15312. What Did Women Do in the Old Testament?.............................16313. What Did Women Do in the New Testament?.............................17614. Silencing the Blue Parakeet (1).....................................18615. Silencing the Blue Parakeet (2).....................................197Now What?...............................................................208After Words.............................................................213AppendicesAppendix 1. A Discernment Quiz..........................................215Appendix 2. Images of Jesus.............................................220Appendix 3. 1 Corinthians 14:34-35......................................224Appendix 4. Petronius on the New Roman Woman............................226Appendix 5. Juvenal on First-Century Women..............................228Notes...................................................................230

Chapter One

How, Then, Are We to Live the Bible Today?

When I was in high school, I went to a Christian camp in Muscatine, Iowa, with Kris, my beautiful girlfriend (now my wife), to horse around for a week. But one morning, we were asked by our cabin leader to go spend a little time in prayer before breakfast. So I wandered out of our cabin, down a hill, alongside a basketball court, and through an open field, and then I walked over to the campfire area, climbed a short incline, and finally sat next to a tree, and prayed what my cabin leader told us to pray: "Lord, fill me with your Holy Spirit." I wasn't particularly open to spiritual things, but for some reason I said that prayer as our counselor advised. The Lord to whom I prayed that prayer caught me off guard. To quote the words of John Wesley, "My heart was strangely warmed." I don't remember what I expected to happen (probably nothing), but what happened was surprising. That prayer, or I should say the answer to that prayer, changed my life. I didn't speak in tongues, I didn't "see Jesus," and I didn't "hear God." My eyes didn't twitter, and I didn't become catatonic. When I prayed, something powerful happened, and I went to breakfast a new person. Within hours I knew what I wanted to do for my life.

On that hot summer day, I unexpectedly became a Bible student with a voracious appetite to read. Prior to that prayer I had very little interest in the Bible, and when it came to routine reading, I read only what my teachers assigned and Sports Illustrated. Within a week or two I began to read the Bible through from Genesis to Revelation, four chapters a day. I finished my reading the next spring, getting ahead of schedule because there were too many days when four chapters were not enough. My habit at the time was to arise early to read at least two chapters before going off to school, and then to read two chapters or so at night before I went to bed. I read the Scofield King James Bible, and Paul's letter to the Galatians became my favorite book. The Bible was full of surprises for me, and my eyes, mind, and heart were stuck on wide-open wonder. All because I asked God's Spirit to fill me.

Some of my former Sunday school teachers were as surprised as I was by what was happening. My youth pastor encouraged me to read serious books, and he also modeled a way to study the Bible by teaching Romans to our youth group. He also suggested I learn Greek, which, because he had a spare beginning Greek grammar book, I began. I had no idea what I was doing, but I liked languages, so I plugged away, never knowing quite what to expect. My father gave me some books to read, like John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. I devoured books. My teachers observed that I read books for class, not because I had to, but to learn and to engage in conversation.

I had no idea what I was getting into when I asked God's Spirit to fill me. I had no idea that I would go to college in Grand Rapids and become a bookaholic, buying books with money I didn't have! I hung out at Eerdmans and Zondervan and Baker and Kregel looking for bargains. I knew the sales clerks by name and they knew mine. I had no idea that I would then go on to seminary and from there for doctoral studies in England (Nottingham). I had no idea how hard it might be to find a teaching position. But I have lived a privileged life, teaching at a seminary for a dozen years and now teaching undergraduates at North Park University for nearly fifteen years. I had no idea that I would eventually get to travel to and speak in churches around the world, that I would get to write books about Jesus and Paul and Peter and the Bible, and that I would become friends with Bible scholars all around the world. I just had no idea that teaching the Bible meant these things when I asked God's Spirit to fill me. All I know is that from the time I was converted, I wanted to study the Bible. I'm sitting right now in my study, surrounded by books, books about the Bible, and I love what I do. I just had no idea.

The Discovery of a Question

Throughout this process of conversion and reading the Bible, I made discoveries that created a question that disturbed me and still does. Many of my fine Christian friends, pastors, and teachers routinely made the claim that they were Bible-believing Christians, and they were committed to the whole Bible and that-and this was one of the favorite lines-"God said it, I believe it, that settles it for me!" They were saying two things and I add my response (which expresses my disturbance):

One: We believe everything the Bible says, therefore ...

Two: We practice whatever the Bible says.

Three: Hogwash!

Why say "hogwash," a tasty, salty word I learned from my father? Because I was reading the same Bible they were reading, and I observed that, in fact-emphasize that word "fact"-whatever they were claiming was not in "fact" what they were doing. (Nor was I.) What I discovered is that we all pick and choose. I must confess this discovery did not discourage me as much as it disturbed me, and then it made me intensely curious (and it is why I wrote this book). The discoveries and disturbances converged onto one big question:

How, then, are we to live out the Bible today?

This question never has been and never will be adequately answered with: The Bible says it, and...