Your Expectation

It is mouthwatering when we take with us through a day a healthy, vibrant, eager expectation for the good that is about to happen next. It dramatically affects how we experience everything. When we strive for something good, there is everything right and proper with holding a vision of hope between us and what we may actually be facing.

[I’m not talking about “magical thinking” here—the unrealistic expectations that set us up for disappointment and failure. There is also such a thing as oppressive expectation (sometimes called “premeditated regrets”) where we expect others to act a certain way or live up to what we think they should do or be. These are quite unhealthy and not the point here at all.] 

This is especially true when reading the Bible. When we approach it with an open and energetic expectation of what could possibly happen from a forthcoming conversation with its authors and texts—truly remarkable things can come of this. It might not be a miracle, but it can certainly feel miraculous.

How do we create and nurture such positive, forward-looking, healthy expectations when it comes to having conversations with biblical authors and texts? How do we keep away from unrealistic expectations and focus on the healthy ones?

Create and Nurture

After years of experience with this, and with hundreds of people, I suggest that there are seven down-to-earth, realistic, but essential, key actions that we can take.  I'll offer only two in this post, with more to follow. 

These work!

1. Believe that you can have a conversation

It starts here. If you don’t believe it is even possible, then it can’t happen.

You have to be able to take the word conversation at face value, that a conversation between you and that text is a viable thing. You ask questions (as in any conversation), and this drives you back into it, to listen to it, and to find answers or even more questions. So, for example, you might ask: “Hey, Paul, why did you say the word ‘election’ here in 1Th 1:4?” And then you go back to the text to hear how Paul might answer that and challenge you.

Asking these kinds of questions is not easy, especially at first. However, this is how you participate in the conversation from beginning to end through sight, sound, imagination, and touch, as in any one-on-one personal conversation. But first, you have to believe it is possible—even if you don’t yet know how to do it.

2. Engage your imagination energetically

Yes, your imagination is a vital part of this. You have to be willing to light it up! This is not usually encouraged when speaking about the Bible; in fact, it is often discouraged. Not so here.  The more you can imagine yourself actually sitting across the table one-on-one with the biblical author you are talking with, the more valuable your experience will be.  

This is not about silly questions, like “Hey Paul what color is your hat?” Or about making up ideas wholesale. This is about questions appropriate to the text at hand, not about creating some fantastic fiction. It’s about allowing your imagination to push, lead, or guide you back into the text.

If you will learn to do this, it will literally begin a process of waking up your sensors, and it will enhance your conversational experience. You will be talking with these authors about letters or documents they once wrote a long time ago; but eventually you will get around to talking about the life you are now living. Look at this as a dialogue between you and those authors—as a real, personal conversation.

[While we are on this topic, of a personal conversation, is it possible that any of these authors were women?  I use the pronoun he for biblical authors as a convenience since it is likely technically correct. However, technically is a key word for the completed books. No one should think that one or more women did not have significant influence over or input into what is in biblical texts such as Ruth or the stories in the Gospels (especially the Gospel of John). Even the very story of the empty tomb itself is the story by women. Even the Gospels give them that credit. We should never imagine that the voice of women in our texts was not significant. This is another way of remembering that our texts resulted from the outpouring of community conversation.]

Now, in what follows, I’m going to say “Paul” a lot here so that I don’t have to keep referring to a nameless author. But this can apply to every biblical document, even if it is written anonymously. Just imagine an author who is implied by and consistent with the text.

So then, if you can imagine that Paul has somehow entered into your time and place and that he is conversant with the issues you face, you will increase your ability to make a real connection. This is not about dismissing Paul’s ancient context; it is a way of making sense of it. Together you will speak of God and life. He will tell you what it was like for him to live, work, and write at the time he did, but he will do it in a way that will help you live in yours.

If you can imagine that Paul is wanting to hear from you, that he is asking you to respond to what he says, you will then go a long way to realizing that “reading the Bible” is never a one-way street.

Paul is not lecturing or merely talking to hear himself speak; he wants to hear from you. He needs a conversation partner just like you. In fact, his letters were written for that very purpose! In the book “I, Paulos” (347ff) I specifically make the case that 1Thessalonians is intended, above all, as a letter of intimate apostolic conversation.

Naturally, all of this conversing and listening and imagining is about getting closer to God. This is not about confusing Paul or any other author with God. But conversing with that one who emerges from the text you are reading is a key part of understanding what led him to write what he wrote in pursuit of God—even in collaboration with the larger community, women and men alike.

Imagination is a key to effective Biblical Conversation; not for the sake of fantasy, but for engagement.

It is reading with the mind, but also with the heart and soul.

(More next week)

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