Reading The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann gave me a good understanding of why Old Testament writers used so much metaphorical talk. I mean not only does it just get the idea across of what is going to happen, but shows the intensity of it and seriousness. Just speaking of a situation is not as powerful as comparing the situation to something that brings out its intensity. When we read the Book of Joel together in class is when it really hit me how beautifully written the book was, how powerful it hit the imagination and just how a text is much more interesting when you read it how it is suppose to be read. The first time I read it I kind of just ran through the words, but in class with different people reading different parts out loud, I could hear Joel’s speaking in a way I didn’t hear the first time. I don’t know it just touched me in a different way and was a really good experience. It showed me how important it was not only to read the text, but to read it in a way that the writer was writing it in their own mind. In fact once we got going in the text, I wouldn’t have minded reading the rest of it because it just caught my attention more then the first time when I read it by myself.
In my Hermeneutics class on Monday, Dr. White was speaking about how the church today seems to think that every promise in the Bible is a promise for us. This caught my attention because so many Christians take the old testament and apply it to our life as if God was directing a promise for the Israelites specifically to us as well. We can apply much of the Old Testament to our life but a lot of it is to be descriptive rather then to be taken as a promise for us. One example she gave was that the promise land is not a promise for us if we are faithful to God but yet we still can relate because our promise land can be considered heaven. I have heard preachers use the Book of Joel in sermons directing these things to us, I have no position yet, but I wonder if the outpouring of the Spirit was relating to a generation that has already passed? Because so many times my pastor has directed those sons and daughters to be those of the congregation.
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I agree with you completely. When you read a work aloud or have someone else read it aloud it can change your perspective on the work. When you experience a text in this manner you sometimes notice things you did not before and you might feel differently about a character then you did before.
ReplyDeleteAmen Jose! It is so true that even today the Old Testament brings value to our very lives.
ReplyDeleteAnd if we can grasp this, I think we will find more wisdom that what we allow in sometimes.
Reading aloud does help, but I wonder how the prophets felt speaking for the first time and letting God speak through them. I don't know if they had it written down at first or if they just spoke and wrote it after, but imagine their own revelations within speaking to a crowd. Their emotions must have been so different, changing in seconds from each word because it is the LORD that is using them at that moment. Ahhh. So good. (: