I wanted to further comment on the book I reviewed last week. The Blue Parakeet is subtitled “Rethinking How You Read the Bible.” Here’s what he’s talking about…we all choose what we do and don’t follow in the Bible. What he’s encouraging us to do is to think about how we choose. We’ve all heard, “God said it. I believe it, and that settles it for me.” We have to know that it’s not that simple.
McKnight first takes commandments from Leviticus 19. Which ones do we obey today? Why?,
“Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.”
“You must observe my Sabbath. I am the Lord your God.”
“When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.”
“Do not go around spreading slander among your people.”
“Do not plant your field with two kinds of seeds. Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of materials.”
“Do not eat any meat with the blood still in it.”
“Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip the edges of your beard.”
“Do not…put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the Lord your God.”
“Stand up in the presence of the aged.”
“Keep all my decrees and all my laws. I am the Lord your God.”
Most of us would agree that since these are from Leviticus they applied to Israel but not to us today. McKnight says, “Essentially the church has always taught that the times have changed and we have learned from New Testament patterns of discernment what to do and what not to do. Often it is easy; sometimes we have to have a discussion but can agree. At other times it gets difficult.”
Even if you go to the New Testament, people have to decide how to apply God’s commands and Jesus’ words. The first discussion of this in the early church centered around circumcision. In the end, Gentiles were not required to be circumcised, but you have to know that this did not sit well with everyone at the time the decision was made. Can’t you guess that there were those who said that God has made this to be a sign between God and His people FOREVER. How could they put this aside?
Take another passage for example. Here’s what McKnight says…
“…1 Peter 3:1-6 contains three basic commands to women in first-century Asia Minor who had unbelieving husbands. They should:
*submit to their non-Christian husbands in order to convert them
*avoid elaborate hairstyles and gold jewelry and fine clothing
*address their husbands with the word “Lord”
Even if some conservative Christians today want to emphasize wives submitting to their husbands no matter how countercultural it may seem, they don’t usually insist on Peter’s commands about elaborate hair and nice clothing and fine jewelry, and the don’t, so far as I know, insist on their calling their husbands ‘Lord’.”
Why do we not follow these explicit words of the apostle Peter? The only answer I can give is that over time the church has worked out a pattern of discernment that comes to this: women (and men I might add) should dress modestly.”
So the “blue parakeets” are passages that we have to interpret and wrestle with and decide about how to live them out in our lives in our time. Passages that have to do with sexuality, wealth, poverty, attitudes, sin… and the list goes on.
It takes a lot of study, prayer, and seeking of the face of God. We don’t do this enough. We are much happier to let others tell us what to think. Walking in the light takes time and effort, but, like anything that requires hard work, the rewards are great. A friend of ours told us this week, “In the end I know I’m not going to have all the answers. My hope is that I will be less wrong than I was before.”
I’m with him on that one.
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