BIBLE APPLICATION

'...until the Reformation, people heard the Scriptures in church - and only in church. That meant the natural question when interpreting the Bible was, "What does this mean to us?" With the double-edged gift of Gutenberg's printing press, the process is often reduced merely to writing-reading. Now we read the Bible alone in our homes. This allows a communal process to become individualized. Worse, one can own the Word of God (meaning a book), rather than hear the Word of God, which is actually a communal act. The act of carrying around a book gives the individual the perception: I have the Word of God. Now instead of asking,  "What does this mean to us?" our instinctive question is "What does it mean to me?" The shift to individual, reader-centered interpretation was natural, post-Gutenberg. But we must never lose sight of the implications of that shift.' 

E Randolph Richards and Brandon J O'Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, p.197. 

PRAYER

'When I...was living in a remote part of Indonesia, I was often awakened in the middle of the night by grave news: "Quick, come to the dormitory, so-and-so is dying." That will wake you up in a hurry. The first times it happened, I nearly killed myself dressing and running full speed through the dark to rescue a student from the precipice of death...only to discover that he or she had a cold. The old "take two pills and call me in the morning" approach literally was the best treatment. Hundreds of students were sped towards recovery by the thousands of of ibuprofen tablets I distributed.  

A few years later, I discovered that students considered me a man of little faith. All I did was give them medicine! They would always pray for the student after I had left. In my worldview, we had quit praying for colds and ear infections a generation ago. We understood them, so God was no longer involved - although we never said it so crassly. This is a serious loss. We no longer had a loving Father watching over in the night. Our point is not that there is anything faithless about taking medicine. Our point is that at an unconscious level, our expectation that the universe operates according to natural laws excludes the possibility from our minds that God might intervene in our daily affairs.' 

E Randolph Richards and Brandon J O'Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, p.172.  

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

'...the Christian life is more helpfully viewed as a journey along a road...to use Jesus' image. Along this road, there is a ditch on both sides. The goal is to avoid both ditches, which means that the difference between good instruction and bad instruction depends upon which ditch you have drifted toward. The problem with the Western view of a rule is that it has to always apply. But "veer right" is only good instruction if you're headed toward the ditch on the left.' 

E Randolph Richards and Brandon J O'Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, p.167. 

SIN

'We deceive ourselves when we think sin is individual and independent of a community's honor. Our individualism feeds the false sense that sin is merely an inner wrong - the private business between and God to be worked out on judgement day. Paul thought otherwise. He considered sin yeast that influences the whole batch of dough (1 Cor 5:6).' 

E Randolph Richards and Brandon J O'Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understanding the Bible, p.132.