"Eat this book" by Eugene Peterson

A phrase I used in a post last week, "my morning feeding of God's Word," reminded me of a book I've been reading by Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading.  Peterson does a marvelous job of calling Christians to a participatory reading of the Bible.  What I like most about this book is that Peterson exposes many of the ways in which we tend to domesticate the Bible.   In my Bible reading lately, I have been struck by just how strange a book it is--and how strange a God we have.  My journal entries are full of phrases like "strange and wonderful."  God's ways are not only higher than our ways, they are so totally other.   When I read the Bible and really let it say what it says, I can only be humbled--and go about my daily life, tasks, and plans with an awareness of how dimly I see.

Thanks to my friend John, who gave me this book with the inscription "The Word must be lived!"  John is a dear saint and a prolific book-giver at our church.  Bless you, brother!