Crater Lake and beyond!

I won't be online this week- we're going on vacation!  Chip, the boys and I are piling into Chip's parents' RV (together with Grandpa & Mimi!!) and heading to Crater Lake, Wildlife Safari, and the wonderful Oregon Coast.  Be back in a week!!

Reading the Scriptures

First I want to say Thank you Carolyn! for the most wonderful gift you sent me.  Then I want to share it with everyone else.  My sister sent me this version of the Message because it has blessed her tremendously.  The introductory pages written by Eugene Peterson are absolutely the best information I have read about how to read the Bible.  I wish I could type out all 7 pages.  But here is just the beginning:

In order to read the Scriptures adequately and accurately, it's necessary at the same time to live them.  Not to live them as a prerequisite to reading them, and not to live them as a consequence of reading them, but to live them as we read them.

Reading the Scriptures isn't an activity discrete from living the gospel; it is integral to it.  It means letting another have a say in everything we're saying and doing.  It's as easy as that.  And as hard.

This kind of reading has been named by our ancestors as lectio divina, often translated "spiritual reading".  It means not only reading the text but also meditating on the text, praying the text, and living the text.  It is reading that enters our souls the way food enters our stomachs, spreads through our blood, and transforms us.  Christians don't simply learn or study or use Scripture; we feed on it.  We assimilate it, taking it into our lives in such a 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 Father, feet washed in the company of the Son.

Words spoken and listened to, written and read are intended to do something in us, to give us health and wholeness, vitality and holiness, wisdom and hope.

We open this book and find that on page after page it takes us off guard, surprises us, and draws us into its reality, pulls us into participation with God on his terms.

Makes you want to jump into the Bible, doesn't it?  Have fun!!!!!!!!