“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 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 company with the Son.”
Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book, 18.
“When a minister reads out of the Bible, I am sure that at least nine times out of ten the people who happen to be listening at all hear not what is really being read but only what they expect to be read. And I think that what most people expect to hear read from the Bible is an edifying story, an uplifting thought, a moral lesson—something elevating, obvious, and boring. So that is exactly what very often they do hear. Only that is too bad because if you really listen—and maybe you have to forget that it is the Bible being read and a minister who is reading it—there is no telling what you might hear.”
Frederick Buechner
“The most precious part of each day for me is the 30-40 minutes I spend each morning before breakfast with the Bible. All the rest of the day I am bombarded with the stories the world is telling about itself. As I take time to immerse myself in the story the Bible tells, my vision is cleared, and I see things in another way. I see the day that lies ahead in its place in God’s story.”
Lesslie Newbigin
