Do not conform to the patterns [the stories] of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Rom 12:2)
It is precisely here that moral conviction of the truth of this story, and hence its authority, is rooted. God speaks. He convinces us that things between himself and the human race are in reality much as they are in the [biblical] story. We are drawn into the world of the text precisely as we are drawn into a relationship with its central character. As this happens, we find ourselves confronted by many of the same realities and experiences as are narrated in the text. Suddenly sin, grace, reconciliation, the power of God’s Spirit, the risen Christ and so on are not mere elements in a narrative world, but constituent parts of our own world, players and factors to be taken into consideration in our daily living and in our attempts to make sense of our own situation. —Trevor Hart
Initial Reflections
This is a bird's-eye view of my reflections on this important theme. Click on the titles of the sub-themes you want to explore.
The Nature of Scripture
Discussion forthcoming. Here I'm sharing some discussions that are relevant to the nature of Scripture in some way. I'm also recommending a few sources on this subject.
On Epic: Just Imagine
I begin with my assessment of Epic, the little book by John Eldredge, because that's where I myself began, back when I first read it in early discipleship.
I’m with Eldredge that to walk with God we need to find ourselves in the biblical Story. It makes no sense to confess allegiance and trust in God when in practice we inhabit competing narratives from our surrounding culture. I also agree that stories (in general) can foster the conversion of our imagination and can nurture us in our walk with God, just as they nurture our imaginations more generally. But I'm not onboard with how far Eldredge goes with stories and fairytales: how far he takes the analogy between reality (the narrative-world of the Bible) and stories in general.
The Nature of Scripture
Discussion forthcoming. Here I'm sharing some discussions that are relevant to the nature of Scripture in some way. I'm also recommending a few sources on this subject.
On Epic: Just Imagine
I begin with my assessment of Epic, the little book by John Eldredge, because that's where I myself began, back when I first read it in early discipleship.
I’m with Eldredge that to walk with God we need to find ourselves in the biblical Story. It makes no sense to confess allegiance and trust in God when in practice we inhabit competing narratives from our surrounding culture. I also agree that stories (in general) can foster the conversion of our imagination and can nurture us in our walk with God, just as they nurture our imaginations more generally. But I'm not onboard with how far Eldredge goes with stories and fairytales: how far he takes the analogy between reality (the narrative-world of the Bible) and stories in general.
The Epic on the Ground: Reinhabiting Life
I'm finding it helpful to realize that our aim is not to inhabit the biblical epic per se. We can't really stay at the level of the big picture. The big picture itself sends us down to the interpersonal level, because that's where life happens.
Faithful Allegiance
This is where this conversation rightly begins, with God himself and where we stand before him.
However, there's a related theme I haven't engaged explicitly here but which I assume both here and in all that follows, and that is the theme of prayer. There's no faithful allegiance without prayer. No inhabiting God's Story without prayer.
For one thing, prayer sets us up in the right frame of reference. It grounds us. It locates us. It puts everything else in perspective and sets the stage for what we do next. It sets the stage for the rest of our processing and thinking, and for the rest of our acting and relating from then on. So prayer should take precedence in all of our acting and being. It's always the first thing we want to do.
Walking with God
Discussion forthcoming
Transformed by God’s Story
Learning to inhabiting God's Story is a transformative process. It must be an important aspect of what conversion is all about. To find oneself in another story seems to me nothing less than a new birth.
On the Spiritual Dimension of Reality
In this discussion I just shared some initial thoughts about the need to take into account, and make sense of, the spiritual dimension of reality.
God's Story in Community
We inhabit God's Story in community, like everybody else, because being human is being in relationship.
Celebrating God's Story
I barely began writing this section, and I started small. But I'm thinking celebration in broadest terms now, in line with James K. A. Smith in his Cultural Liturgies: seeing and living our whole lives as a celebration of God's Story.
Co-Writing God’s Story
Humans are culture makers, co-workers with God in the making of this world. God made the world; we make something of the world. That's his design. This means that we are co-authors with God in his Story. We're co-writing the story as we live it.
In Relationship to Other Stories
Discussion forthcoming. I leave you with Paul and Sarah Williams for a good overview of some of what's at stake here.
I'm finding it helpful to realize that our aim is not to inhabit the biblical epic per se. We can't really stay at the level of the big picture. The big picture itself sends us down to the interpersonal level, because that's where life happens.
Faithful Allegiance
This is where this conversation rightly begins, with God himself and where we stand before him.
However, there's a related theme I haven't engaged explicitly here but which I assume both here and in all that follows, and that is the theme of prayer. There's no faithful allegiance without prayer. No inhabiting God's Story without prayer.
For one thing, prayer sets us up in the right frame of reference. It grounds us. It locates us. It puts everything else in perspective and sets the stage for what we do next. It sets the stage for the rest of our processing and thinking, and for the rest of our acting and relating from then on. So prayer should take precedence in all of our acting and being. It's always the first thing we want to do.
Walking with God
Discussion forthcoming
Transformed by God’s Story
Learning to inhabiting God's Story is a transformative process. It must be an important aspect of what conversion is all about. To find oneself in another story seems to me nothing less than a new birth.
On the Spiritual Dimension of Reality
In this discussion I just shared some initial thoughts about the need to take into account, and make sense of, the spiritual dimension of reality.
God's Story in Community
We inhabit God's Story in community, like everybody else, because being human is being in relationship.
Celebrating God's Story
I barely began writing this section, and I started small. But I'm thinking celebration in broadest terms now, in line with James K. A. Smith in his Cultural Liturgies: seeing and living our whole lives as a celebration of God's Story.
Co-Writing God’s Story
Humans are culture makers, co-workers with God in the making of this world. God made the world; we make something of the world. That's his design. This means that we are co-authors with God in his Story. We're co-writing the story as we live it.
In Relationship to Other Stories
Discussion forthcoming. I leave you with Paul and Sarah Williams for a good overview of some of what's at stake here.
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The Reframing Story
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Cultural Stories
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Life in the Spirit
And all of the above is possible because of the Holy Spirit, God's empowering presence.
General Resources
I also share relevant sources in most of the discussions above.
- Reading Scripture as a Coherent Story by Richard Bauckham, in The Art of Reading Scripture, edited by Ellen Davis and Richard Hays.
- The Transforming Vision, by Brian Walsh and Richard Middleton.
- A New Heaven and a New Earth, by Richard Middleton.
- Creation, Power and Truth: The Gospel in a World of Cultural Confusion, by Tom Wright.
- Seriously Dangerous Religion, by Iain Provan.
- Getting Involved with God, by Ellen Davis.
- Cultural Stories, by Sarah Williams.
- The Universality of the 'Jesus-Story' and the 'Incredulity Toward Metanarratives,' by Stanley Grenz (in No Other Gods Before Me? Evangelicals and the Challenge of World Religions, edited by John Stackhouse).
- Telling God's Story: Bible, Church and Narrative Theology, by Gerard Loughlin.
- Inhabiting the Story: The Use of the Bible in the Interpretation of History by Stephen I. Wright, in 'Behind' the Text: History and Biblical Interpretation 4 (Scripture and Hermeneutics Series, edited by Craig Bartholomew et al.).
- The Promise of Narrative Theology, by George W. Stroup.
- Being Human in God's World: An Old Testament Theology of Humanity, by J. Gordon McConville.
- Big Questions, Big Dreams, by Sharon Daloz Parks (at least chapters 2-6).
- Sensemaking, by Christian Madsbjerg (chapters 1 and 8).
- The Courage to Teach, by Parker Palmer (chapter 1).
- Wisdom's Wonder: Character, Creation, and Crisis in the Bible's Wisdom Literature, by William P. Brown.
- You Are What You Love, by James K. A. Smith.
- Culture Making, by Andy Crouch.
- Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World, by John Stackhouse.
- Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism, by Larry Siedentop.
- BioLogos' Faith and Science Seeking Understanding.
- The Ethical Demand, by Knud Ejler Løgstrup (at least the Introduction and chapters 1-5).
- The Moral Vision of the New Testament, by Richard Hays (chapters: 1-6, 8).
- What Does It Mean to Be Saved? Broadening Evangelical Horizons of Salvation, edited by John Stackhouse.
- The Essentials of Christian Thought, and The Mosaic of Christian Belief, by Roger Olson.
- Evangelicals and Tradition, by D. H. Williams; see also his Tradition, Scripture, and Interpretation: A Sourcebook of the Ancient Church.
- For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy, by Alexander Schmemann.
- Supernatural, by Michael Heiser. See also Christ and the Powers, by Hendrik Berkhof.
- The Apocalypse (The Great Courses on Audible), by Craig Koester (lectures 2 and 3 on the apocalyptic dimension of biblical faith).
- The Prophetic Imagination, by Walter Brueggemann.
- Understanding Spiritual Warfare, edited by James Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy.
- The Gospel of Jesus, by Ben Witherington III.
- The Incarnation and the Cosmic Christ by Richard Bauckham, in Incarnation: On the Scope and Depth of Christology, edited by Niels Henrik Gregersen.
- Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God, by Gordon Fee.
- Living the Story: Biblical Spirituality for Everyday Christians, by R. Paul Stevens and Michael Green.
- Created for Community, by Stanley Grenz.
- The Living God and the Fullness of Life, by Jürgen Moltmann.
- Dwell: Life with God for the World, by Barry Jones.
- The Life Jesus Made Possible, by Bill Randall.
- Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God, by Bobby Gross.
Wayfinders by José Soto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.