A Thought Lived Out in “Real” Life

Peter Rollins writes a keen essay on how we as individuals try to excersize our power on God, each other, the world, and the Bible.  In an excerpt from his book The Fidelity of Betrayal he writes:

It is all too common for Christians to attempt to do justice to the
scriptural narrative by listening to it, learning from it, and
attempting to extract a way of viewing the world from it. But the
narrative itself is asking us to approach it in a much more radical
way. It is inviting us to wrestle with it, disagree with it, contend
with it, and contest it—not as an end in itself, but as a means of
approaching its life-transforming truth, a truth that dwells within and
yet beyond the words.

About the same time I stumbled across a fictive essay on the real life of Foy by Real Life Preacher.  Foy’s wrestling for domination over the Biblical text for "The Sermon," and his eventual acceptance of God’s Spirit having dominance over him, is Rollins’ ideas lived out:

Foy sighed. It had been so much easier when he was a Baptist, preaching
revivals right out of seminary. Preaching whatever text he wanted.

§ 

He got up and turned off the light. He looked back at the Lectionary
book on his desk. He held up the index and middle fingers of his right
hand.

“And I forgive you, Matthew, for putting such a terrible ending on that passage. What WERE you thinking?”

He laughed.

“Another week of the Bible messing with my mind.”

 May the Bible mess with your mind!