Eat This Book...

Ten years ago, I read one of the most liberating and inspiring books I've come across with regards to reading the Bible. It's called 'Eat This Book' by Eugene Peterson, and is part of his accessible and refreshing Spiritual Theology series. I thought I'd share some of his insights in a season when you might be hungry for scripture but finding it hard to get stuck in. 

He passionately, poetically and sensitively commends us to mot merely read the Bible but to eat it! He writes that 'Christians feed on Scripture. Holy Scripture nurtures the holy community as food nurtures the human body. Christians don't simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such as way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus' name, hands raised in adoration of the Fathe, feet washed in company with the Son.'

And so he commends four elements of spiritual reading that we can interweave together when reading any passage in the Bible*:

lectio (read the text) 

Read slowly and attentively. Two or three times. Imagine hearing the passage. Particularly tune in the metaphors that are abundant in Scripture and let them draw you into the passage and into God's world.

meditatio (meditate on the text)

Dwell on the passage. Be curious (like a child). Notice the connections and echoes with the rest of the Bible. This aspect trains us to read Scripture as a connected, coherent whole, not a collection of inspired bits and pieces. 

oratio (pray the text)

We respond. Being truly ourselves and moving beyond ourselves. Allowing Scripture to give us the vocabulary and grammar of prayer - especially the Psalms and Jesus' examples. It's not neat and tidy, there is mystery and there is honesty. 

contemplatio (live the text)

We live what we read. It is not optional. It is necessary. 'Contemplation means living what we read, not wasting any of it or hoarding any of it, but using it up in living.' We submit to the biblical revelation, we take it with us and we live it unpretentiously without fanfare. And we will fail. But we don't give up. Peterson writes 'Contemplation is not ..thinking about God, not asking continuously "what would Jesus do?" but jumping into the river; not strategizing the success of my life but just being myself, my Christ-in-me-life; not calculating effects but accepting and submitting to on-earth-as-it-is-in-heaven conditions. And that means that most contemplation is unnoticd, unremarked, unself-conscious.' (p116)

So, maybe start with some Psalms. Or a gospel. Read a small section. And then 'Eat This Book'.

Blessings

Sera

*Some of you might recognise this as being Lectio Divina which he describes as the 'wise guidance developed through centuries of devote Bible reading to discipline us, the readers of Scripture, into appropriate ways of understanding and receiving this text so that is is formative for the way we live our lives, not merely making an impression on our minds or feelings.' (page 81)

Book: 'Eat This Book: The Art of Spiritual Reading' by Eugene Peterson 2006 Hodder & Stoughton