Not sure if it was tiredness or hormones or actual real thoughts (blurry line there) but as I wrote about the “importance of not reading the NT into the OT, and letting the original ache and hope of the Psalm work itself out in our hearts,” I found myself very skeptical that it mattered at all.
All these papers, all these lofty assertions: about correct hermeneutics, about choosing theologically potent songs and prayers for worship, about ecumenism, about women speaking in church, about marriage, about dispensationalism….
What difference does it make?
Each season has a different focus, a different question that seems to rise in my life. And this is the question now. What do all those lovely conclusions mean in the reality of a person’s life?
The people at my church are slowly beginning to open up, to reveal hurts, insecurities, pride, fear, questions… my students (the jr.s and sr.s) do not know where the Bible came from. They do not know who Esther or Ruth is. They do not care about eschatology or symbolism or layers of meaning or any of it.
I mean, they seem kindof interested, open, but it’s totally new, all of it. And totally stale at the same time.
I feel this surge of – shock, enlightenment, despair… on the one hand, I suddenly feel the urgency of all that I learned: who will tell these kids that Christianity is a scandal and a delight and a burden and a mystery? Who will tell them of the hope to which they are called?
But on the other hand, I feel so wobbly in my own conviction. How sure am I that these things are true, that they matter, that they make sense enough to be able to explain them to middle schoolers. If it doesn’t make sense on that level, is it…true?
1 comment:
Em - i changed something so that anyone can leave a comment, i think. hope that helps. ;)
Post a Comment