People of the book
"People of the book."
Four years ago in January of 2005 I had a once in a lifetime opportunity to visit the Sultanate of Oman with a group from Western Theological Seminary where I was studying. There is a group of donors connected to the school who highly value the experience of the gospel in different cultures, so they make sure that every person studying pastoral ministry at Western has the opportunity to do so. So with nine other students and one ethics professor I flew 22 hours to spend some time with Michael Bos, an RCA missionary living in Oman. (where, by the way, the RCA has an amazing history including providing doctors for the Sultan and starting the first school and hospital)I could write about that trip for a long time, but there is one phrase that got me thinking about my time in Oman again. "People of the book." I heard this term a couple of times as we were welcomed into conversation with some of the highest governmental and religious leaders in this Islamic Sultanate. It would pop up in a sentence like, "it is only right for us to work together towards peace in our region, because you are people of the book."
I was so intrigued by this phrase that I started asking more about what it meant. My favorite answer came from a young Arab Muslim scholar who met with our group. I have, unfortunately, forgotten his name, but I haven't forgotten his response. He said, "being people of the book means that you do not found your faith on something as tentative as personal experience, you are rooted to a text." You can get a more expansive answer here or here.I started to claim that phrase by the end of the trip. That's not to say I agreed with what it meant for our Muslim hosts who used it. Although I appreciate their willingness to find common ground to work upon, I believe with all I am that Genesis and Revelation are the book ends on God's written revelation. And while I am comfortable working with people of other faiths towards peace and justice in our communities, I make no apologies for my faith that Jesus is the only anchor for my hope and the only source of peace and justice in the world.
What I claim is the truth in my host's answer. We Christians remain rooted to a text or we are rooted in nothing. We submit all our experience and insight to the light of scripture or we wander in the dark. We are people of the book and that is why scripture is my top signposts for finding the Jesus Way.
But in what ways do we let scripture do that work? How do we turn to it for direction, both individually and as a community? How do we let it shape our imagination and those of our children? How do we live as people of the book?
Help out all of us who read this blog and take a few minutes to share your thoughts. As I said last week, I have to ok all comments to keep undesirable content off the blog, so if you don't see your comments immediately give it a little time.
posted by pastor jeff @ 12:01 AM
1 Comments
1 Comments:
Recently it struck me that one of the participants of a discussion group I was in had very little working knowledge of the part of “the book” we were talking about. It took me back to the early days of my Christian experience. I remembered being under the influence of someone who was willing to open his home for a couple hours every week for people to come and learn things together from “the book”.
How that played out was that everyone was introduced to a variety of what this man called “helps”. These “helps” were mostly in the form of books, but there were also “time lines” and “maps” and “handouts”, shared “thoughts”, etc. Sometimes there were even models of The Tabernacle and its furnishings and how this all typified Jesus and His work.
Some argued that this was just too much for ordinary “church folk”. Well, thankfully some of us didn’t agree with that and faithfully attended the fun and fellowship at Joe’s house. OK, so we got a little carried away with a certain collection of “Reformed Doctrine” and got in a little trouble with some of our Baptist brethren, but we learned a bunch of great things. One of the most important things we learned was how to become “students of the book”.
This may not appeal to some folks, but I have to argue that without such a foundation to work from, this ex-substance abuser would probably have gone back to the old ways long ago if that groundwork wasn’t there. It had its warts, just like schools of higher learning do for too many of us, but in the end – I’d not trade it for anything! And hey, I didn’t have any school debt! No degree either, but it wasn’t meant to be for this learner, I guess.
This is not THE answer for being “people of the book”. It was only a bit, albeit a large bit, of my experience of the past thirty plus years - but - I think many of us would profit much from just such a learning opportunity. It’s not a thing of yesteryear either. It can still happen in our day. Any takers?
If though, we’re looking for something more “relational”, then the “iron sharpens iron” concept comes to mind. Though the above recommendation sounds like a lot of “scholastic stuff”, nonetheless it’s still the “sharpening of iron” that takes place challenging us to be “people of the book”. (In My Not-so-humble Opinion)
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