“Eat this Book” by Eugene Peterson: Heart-Stopper, PLUS a Thought-Provoking Sermon…
Friends! Let’s start with a little fun: Name some of your favorite foods… Rattle on in your brain if you don’t have a pen and paper. (This is daydreaming at its’ finest...)
My “Top 10 Foods” List includes:
1- Chocolate
2-Stuffed Baked Potatoes (LOADED with bacon, cheese-n-butter)
3-Italian Anything at least 5 out of 7 days a week: Pizza, Pasta, Pizza, Pasta, Pizza…
4- Chocolate
5-Gelato in Italy (Anybody found a good match here in the U.S.?) This pic was taken in Rome just a few years ago. This truly was our very first gelato: a scoop of chocolate and one of banana. Mamma Mia...
6-Honey wings from Mark’s Feed Store www.marksfeedstore.com
7- Chocolate
8 – Paul’s Fruit Market’s White Cheddar Pimiento Cheese spread www.paulsfruit.com with wheat thins or nut thins…
9 – Cheddar Box’ infamous Cheese Torte www.thecheddarbox.com with any type of cracker, or all by itself. Dreadfully delicious.
10 - Chocolate
Well, I know we could talk about food all day, dream about food 24/7, and partake of food just about anywhere, any time.
I’d like to offer you an interesting twist on eating from a book worth digging in to…you will be so blessed.
Let’s look at some highlights from Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading by Eugene Peterson.
Eugene also happens to be the genius behind The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language among many other excellent books he’s authored.
You’ll never think about studying or reading the Bible the same after I share this story with you….
Several years ago, Eugene took some teenage boys on a hike thru’ challenging mountainous trails. As we’d suspect, these boys became ravenous from all the exercise.
Eugene revealed the Camp Director had struck gold at an army surplus outlet, or so he thought, paying bargain basement prices for vast amounts of dehydrated food.
Eugene read the directions very carefully:
“Soak pork chops in water for one hour.”
He put the paper-thin, dehydrated pork chops in a bucket. To everyone’s amazement, these chops indeed took on water, transforming right before their eyes into large, fat-n-juicy pork chops.
Wide-eyed with delight, the starving teenagers patiently waited. Eugene reported, “This was a great conclusion to what had been a strenuous day on the trail.”
The fire was red-hot-ready. They placed the fat-n-juicy chops in a large skillet, directly over the coals. “The minute the heat penetrated the skillet, the chops virtually disappeared. Within seconds, they were left with paper-thin slices of pig, identical to what they’d started with.”
Here comes Eugene’s terrifying two cents’ worth:
“There is a sense in which the Scriptures are the Word of God dehydrated, with all the originating context removed—living voices, city sounds, camels carrying spices from Seba and gold from Ophir snorting down in the bazaar, fragrance from lentil stew simmering in the kitchen—all now reduced to marks on thin onion-skin paper.
We make an effort at rehydrating them; we take these Scriptures and spend an hour or so in Bible study with friends, or alone in prayerful reading. But five minutes later, on our way to work, plunged into the tasks of the day for which they had seemed to promise sustenance, there’s not much left of them—only ink on india paper.
We find that we are left with the words of the Bible but without the world of the Bible. ..it’s just that without the biblical world—the intertwined stories, the echoing poetry and prayers, Isaiah’s artful thunder and John’s extravagant visions—the words, like those seed words in Jesus’ parable that land on pavement or in gravel or among weeds, haven’t taken root in our lives.”
Ouch, o-u-c-h. I recently read the above few paragraphs to my Bible study buddies. We then, in unison, all groaned...
Same case could be made each week as we leave church on Sunday morning:
Did the sermon impact you?
How are you driving out of the parking lot?
How are you treating waitresses at restaurants?
Are you fussing at your spouse, or building him or her up for getting you there in the first place?
Bottom line: Is the Bible TAKING ROOT in your life?
Confession: Some days I’d answer “yes.” Oh, but on other days, sadly, it wouldn’t be very evident. Eugene warns, “It is the devil’s own work to take what is presently endearing and innocent and perpetuate it into a lifetime of reading marked by devout indifference.” Oh, may it not be so…
So, how do we eat this book???
God’s Word is intended to “get inside us, to deal with our souls.”
The answer? Lectio divina, translated means ‘spiritual reading’:
“Reading that enters our souls as food enters our stomachs,
Spreads thru’ our blood, and
Becomes holiness and love and wisdom.”
Eat this Book teaches us how to read the Bible via lectio divina. Eugene walks you thru’ various methods which are fascinating.
The book’s title came from Revelation 10:9-10 where John walks up to an angel and says, “Give me the book.” The angel hands it over to him and says, “Here it is; eat it, eat the book.”
Eugene explains this metaphor in beautiful fashion. He says, “Reading is an immense gift, but only if the words are assimilated, taken into the soul—
Eaten,
Chewed,
Gnawed,
Received in unhurried delight.”
(He even quotes Kentucky’s beloved Wendell Berry!)
As he does with The Message, Eugene wants to “show men and women that the Scriptures are livable—
God’s Word is:
Personal address,
Inviting,
Commanding,
Challenging,
Rebuking,
Judging,
Comforting,
Directing—but not forcing.
Not coercing...
I wanted to help my friends see the organic connection between the word read and the word lived.”
If you’d prefer learning about lectio divina from reading a novel vs. studying thru’ Eugene’s book, you would enjoy Sensible Shoes: A Story about the Spiritual Journey by Sharon Garlough Brown. She does an excellent job of showing her characters learning and living the concept.
Either choice will enhance your reading the next time you pick up your Bible. Share this with a friend and perhaps challenge each other to learn lectio divina. You will be blessed!
Finally, while this review posted a few years ago, I felt it worth repeating after I caught a recent sermon by Matt Proctor called, “a Hunger for God’s Word.” (See link below to watch.) He was guest preaching over in Lexington at Southland Christian Church. He is currently the President of Ozark Christian College. Matt’s contagious style will encourage you to crave God’s Word like never before. Don’t miss the end where he shows us “Jesus is there” in every single book of the Bible. I watched it back several times to be able to write down his phrases for each book. If Eugene Peterson were alive today, he’d appreciate Matt’s sermon and I know the Lord is smiling on Matt for his creativity in compelling congregants to hunger daily for God’s Word. Enjoy!