blue parakeets

Originally posted on October 07, 2008 – by Andre Piet

On the website emergingchurches.nl (Johan ter Beek) I read a review of The Blue Parakeet. Rethinking How You Read the Bible, by Scot McKnight.

According to McKnight, there are sometimes blue parakeets in our Bible. Such a little blue bird in the garden initially scares off other birds, but after a while they get used to its strange sounds and color, after which they find a way to deal with it. Blue parakeets are texts that stand out and initially frighten us.

And then this quotation:

The Blue Parakeet is built around the proposition that “we all pick and choose.” No one believes everything that is in the Bible, let alone that they do it all. In one way or another, a selection is always made of what we do and what we do not do.

Here two things are being confused. Believing everything that is in the Scriptures (Luke 24:25!) is something entirely different from doing everything that is in the Scriptures. All of Scripture is FOR us, but it is not always ABOUT us.

Scripture speaks of different “times and seasons.”
Whoever does not understand that the law was given to one people only 430 years after Abraham and moreover would be valid only until a certain time, cannot possibly understand the whole of Scripture (Gal. 3:17–19).
Whoever does not recognize that Jesus in the Gospels was sent exclusively to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. 15:24) and that James, Peter, and John address themselves to “the circumcision” (in contrast to the apostle Paul; Gal. 2:7–9), will constantly become entangled in understanding the NT.
Whoever does not see that certain charismata are connected with the childhood of the Ecclesia (1 Cor. 13:8–13) will get stuck in the present charismatic confusion.
Without clear indications such as these, we hopelessly lose our way in a jungle of questions.

The garden called “the Bible” is teeming with blue parakeets! Texts that are strange and with which we do not know what to do. So what? The first question is not how we can apply everything we read to ourselves, but: for whom, for where, and for when was it written? This is what I mean: the Bible is its own explainer. It is not clever theologians or hermeneuticists who must tell us how to construct a responsible “pick and choose” theology. God Himself causes us to understand His Word!

During this time of Israel’s being set aside, we sit at the feet of Paul, who by God (!) has been appointed apostle and “teacher of the nations.” He points out the way for us in the Scriptures and causes us to fall from one amazement into another over the many-colored richness that is to be found in them.
Blue parakeets… and so much more!

Delen: