🤨 One Book Week and It's Theology!

 

    I'm in the middle of two large fantasy books--because sometimes you need to read a book when it's available--so I only finished one book this week. 

    It was a really good one. Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible by E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O'Brien. This book has been bobbing up from several places, asking to be read. I was reluctant because I am weary of books explaining how I needed to try harder and do better. That was nothing like this book. Richards and O'Brien are excellent Biblical scholars with many years of teaching seminary in non-western places. Their insights are well-reasoned and considered. Insights were communicated warmly with personal anecdotes, historical examples, and our present culture. For what is primarily a book about theology, it was enjoyable and informative. The authors cover complex topics like food, time use, dating versus arranged marriage, racism, finance, rules versus relationships, and more. 

    It made me uncomfortable when it challenged things I tend to rely on, such as rules over relationships. Rules are so predictable, whereas relationships are chaos! Give me the rules.

    Here are some quotes that resonate with me:

 "We can easily forget that Scripture is a foreign land and that reading the Bible is a crosscultural experience."

― E. Randolph Richards, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible

"Thinking critically about why you assume what you assume can make you sensitive, over time, to the cultural mores you bring to the biblical text."
― E. Randolph Richards, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible

🧐🤨🤓