14. For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15. from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17. so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18. may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19. and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
20. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21. to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Oh the profundity.
I have realised, or rather decided that sometimes I read too many theological books and not enough of the Bible. I think I do this a lot, not just in this particular. I get so wrapped up in the extremities that I kind of leave out the true guts.
Today I read some of Acts, Fetus and Agrippa and Paul and I could see it. I hope the reason I liked it so much wasn’t only because I hadn’t heard it in a long time.
With only a few exceptions I steer clear from reading books over if I can remember them. There is an element of the forgetting that allows some of the excitement to creep back in and enough for me to revel in the satisfaction of an ending. The same for movies.
Yes the Bible’s a reasonably big book, the copy of the Pijin Bible that I got to hold today is a really big book. There’s a lot in there.
That big lot of book gets beautifully shoved around and sliced down to Sunday-school edible bites and somehow the rest of it wanders off. Then there’s the bits I ignore and the same that are taken up gleefully by others as the one and only.
I think we treat the Bible as a bit of a pick and mix package. I used to (and sometimes still do) open at random to see what kind of answer/encouragement/ephiphany ensues. What crap.
I’d like to learn the Bible again as a story. It is one after all. Who the hell cheats and reads the middle of the novel without giving the honor of reading the rest.
I don’t think that we always need to start from Genesis and read through to Revelation, but it’s a sad old day when we steal our Psalm of choice and ignore the rest.
It feels like I’m a 14 year old learning this over again. Perhaps a random verse now and then is better than nothing but I’m really not so sure.
But then hey, I haven’t even really been doing the one verse thing, so who am I to talk. I love it, but it’s so terribly difficult.
Oh to blow all my spoon fed understanding out the window and to be able to think free from preconceptions. I am jealous of people who come from no church background and get to read the Bible with an open mind.