Ask, Seek, Knock... Repeat

I was listening to Rob Bell from Mars Hill Church the other night. Since I've been working so many nights and weekends, I haven't gotten to church much lately. I went through the list of recent sermons, and settled on titled "Ask, Seek and Knock", since I recently read through that and I wanted to see what Rob had to say. It was quite good. I usually only can get into a sermon if it's saying something that I don't already know or is looking at something from a different angle I hadn't thought of. He was saying that the ask, seek, knock part was not so much about us and God as it was about us and other people. He sees that whole section as being about us and other people. Chapter 7 starts out with "don't judge", continues on with "don't cast your pearls before pigs" (which he sees as being about trying to manipulate people, if I caught that correctly) and then moves to the ask, seek, knock section. He talked about us needing to ask others for help and not be so independent.

His points were good, but I wondered if they weren't a little out of context. I figured that passage was about God, not other people. But he had an answer for that. He said that in an "Eastern" (or more precisely Middle Eastern) mindset, it wouldn't have to be one or the other, it could be about both God and other people. Makes sense. What it points out to me, though, is that if we try to hard to universalize the text, it loses its intended meaning. Again, it seems that we need to put ourselves into the context to which Jesus spoke.

Now, I might get into trouble by saying this, but maybe this idea that "God gave us the Bible" isn't entirely correct. Before you fire up those torches, let me explain. The stories and teachings of the Bible take place in a certain time and space. Even the things that God says directly are spoken into specific situations. The text isn't universally understandable the way it is. There is a lot of context that has to go along with it. There is so much that doesn't make complete sense without the proper context. Sure, we can get the gist of it, but it's much fuller in its context. If we have this mindset that God gave us this book, as a book, we will just take that book at face value and try to figure it out. I think, though, if we have the mindset that God has spoken and acted in history, and we have some of that preserved for us in this wonderful collection of works put together as "the Bible", then we'll be more aware to put it into its proper context.

I always think about the "salt and light" passage. I don't think I've ever heard a completely intellectually satisfying explanation as to what Jesus is talking about. Maybe it's because there's some bit of context that is missing to me, some cultural relevance that is as yet undiscovered in a cave in Israel.

So, that's just me thinking out loud. If you haven't noticed, I get really excited about the context of the Bible. It's only been in the last few years that I've consciously tried to read it as though I am that Hebrew being spoken too, or that paralytic who has been healed. I've seen so much more in this way than I ever did just reading those stories as stories.