Oral Bible

It’s interesting… the larger part of the Scriptures is narrative. Most of the Bible began life as oral storytelling. The very DNA of the Scriptures are narrative units designed to be memorized. 

In Jesus’ day, Jewish boys between the age of 6 & 11 yrs, would go to their local Synagogue for school and the focus of their studies was the Torah. Apart from learning to read & write Hebrew, kids would memorize Genesis through to Deuteronomy by heart. Kids who showed particular aptitude would move on to memorize the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures then the next step was the oral traditions – the Mishnah – that included the rulings of particular rabbis down through the centuries. Beyond that, gifted students would become disciples of particular rabbis. So if the memorization of Scripture was the foundation of Judaic discipleship, I’m wondering why we don’t use narrative memorization in the same way for kids in our churches ? Particularly if we want our kids to grow into mature disciples of Jesus.

Kids learn & think initially in very concrete ways right up into their teens. The type of Bible teaching that seeks to draw out underlying principles for personal application is much more abstract & suitable for adults. My teaching experiences over the years have taught me that narratives stick much better than principles. Kids seem to get clever at reading truth into stories at a surprisingly young age.

New Tribes Mission pioneered the oral storytelling method as a way of introducing the Gospel to animistic tribal groups. They would begin with the Old Testament and over the course of six months, up to even a year, they would move through to Jesus & the Gospels. The idea was to imbed Jesus’ story in God’s much bigger story that we encounter in the broad sweep of the Scriptures. 

Similarly, when my wife & I were working in Africa, we worked among a people group who were mostly illiterate. That meant they were oral learners & as we discovered over time, truth imbedded in narrative is very important to learning and holding important information to these kinds of people. One of the questions I started asking myself was, “What if we gave people an oral Bible instead of a written one ? What narratives from Scripture would it need to be made up of to capture the broad sweep of the Scriptures & the kernel of the Gospel ?”

As the stories of Scripture become a rich part of our psyches, they flavour our imaginations, our actions and thinking a lot more than our traditional deductive styles of teaching. I wonder if that is why Jesus taught using parables.

He trusted people, with the help of the Spirit of God to come to truth & insight by themselves.

Dark Heart of Africa

“So Abram went down to Egypt [in Africa] to live there as an alien…”

The dark heart of Africa…  I remember being in a rural African village & watching a colleague, newly arrived from Australia, playing a game of bawo. Despite the excitement, I became aware I was staring at the feet of a young boy, sitting close by me. It must have been the contrast of the white soles against his richly tanned skin that got my attention. I found myself questioning, “What kind of place is this, that a young boy’s feet can look like those of an old man – cracked and eroded ?”

Suddenly my concentration was broken & I was looking up into the eyes of some children staring back at me. Instead of being a spectator, I was now the focus of many deep brown eyes looking my way. Each face seemed to be asking the same question, “Who are you ? What are you doing here ?”

I wish I could say that was the only time I felt like an alien in a strange land…

The Friend I Sleep With

I have a friend who I sleep with who is the mother warrior, with the strong spirit of Africa beating within her. She is the stone woman, fertile yet unshakable. To be enfolded in her arms is to be enfolded into a soft and cooling place – safe & truly nurtured.

I have a friend who I sleep with who is like the sun in morning – arisen and bright. She is like the sun in the evening too – hibernating, spent and wrapped in velvet darkness. To be beheld by her big compassionate eyes is to glimpse the vast capacity of her overflowing heart.

I have a friend I sleep with whose beautiful form has been etched and truly formed by the experiences of living. To be massaged by her fingers is to ‘BE’ in the presence of exquisite pleasure – content & blessed. To be caressed and loved by her is to be transported and to die a little.

I have a friend that I sleep with who I love mostly unworthily – yet I am drawn to her like a moth to the fire. I am fascinated and drawn in to the dance. Truly I am refined in her presence.

Go And Learn What This Means

Sometimes blogging intensifies the chances of people missing each other. At times it seems to lack the intimacy of two friends who through an effort together can clarify confusion or continue speaking about an issue until they vibrate in tune.

 

Recently I asked the question, “What would happen if we allowed mission to become the focus of our churches instead of worship ?” Out of the hit and miss world of the internet I got back this comment… “A church that is first and foremost mission-oriented is a church of works. Works are both wonderful and needed in the world but they must be God working through us rather than us doing what make us feel good…” Now keep in mind I titled my post, ‘I Desire Mercy Not Sacrifice’… This is a direct quote from Matthew 9:13, where Jesus is being criticized by his rabbinic peers for eating with the wrong kinds of people. Jesus is reminding the Pharisees of a verse from Hosea that is saying that true knowledge of God translates into merciful actions on behalf of undeserving others rather than pious temple sacrifices.

 

I make no apology for saying it is time to refocus the church around the organizing principle of mission when the church is losing ground in this country. I’d have no trouble gathering around the organizing principle of worship if 80%, 70% even 60% of people in our communities declared the Lordship of Jesus. The problem is the truth that on any given Sunday there is less than 10% of people who do that.

 

Jesus says to the Pharisees, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice…” because fundamentally discipleship means being a sent one. The Kingdom of God propels people out into a hurting world to engage with those who don’t yet know Jesus, to stand in solidarity with them where they are, to serve them compassionately, mercifully. Amazing grace is the knowledge of God expressed as compassionate action among undeserving men. John 20:21 sums up this idea, “As the Father sent me, so I send you…”.  

“Doing what makes us feel good”… for me this kind of activity is costly, mostly sacrificial… going against the flow. When I think back to my experiences of mission in Africa and South East Asia sometimes they were oh so sweet, often they were just plain hard. Yet the stretch of those experiences made me more God dependent, more sensitive to what the Spirit of God was doing.  

I pray for the refocusing of the church around the organizing principle of mission because the organizing principle of worship isn’t releasing the Kingdom of God and holy bedlam into our communities.

 

“Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24) The prophet Amos spoke these words because his vision of Yahweh was the vision of the missionary God – the mystery of a never-ending surging, fighting movement.