Over the last few months (October 21 and December 17), the Barna Research Group has surveyed folks about their belief in several well know Bible stories. In the survey they conducted belief about the following stories were quarried.

Survey respondents were asked if they thought a specific story in the Bible was “literally true, meaning it happened exactly as described in the Bible” or whether they thought the story was “meant to illustrate a principle but is not to be taken literally.” Six renowned Bible stories were then offered to adults for their consideration.

October 21

• The resurrection of Jesus. About 75 percent (75%) of those surveyed believed this story to be literal.
• Daniel in the lion’s den. Almost two-thirds (65%) thought this story to be literally true.
• The parting of the Red Sea. Just a shade less that the Daniel group, sixty-four percent (64%) believed this story actually happening.
• David and Goliath. Sixty-three percent (63%) found this story to be literal.
• Peter walking on water. The percentage of folks who took this to be literal was sixty percent (60%).
• The six days of Creation in Genesis. Those who accept this as literal was also 60%, but the breakdown was interesting. Seventy-three percent (73%) of the sixty percent who believed this story had not attended college, while only thirty-eight percent (38%) who attended college believed the story was literal.

December 17, 2007

• The Virgin Birth. Three our of every four people survived (75%) believed this story to be literally true.
• Turning water into wine. About seventy percent (70%) accepted this story about the event at Cana as having actually occurred.
• The feeding of the 5,000. Two out of three people, sixty-eight percent, (68%) view this story as factually accurate.
• Noah and the flood. The percentage was sixty-four percent.
• Eve and the Serpent. The survey results reads, “In total, 56% of adults believe that the story of the devil, disguised as a serpent and tempting Eve to sin by eating the forbidden fruit, is literally true.” I always find this interesting in that the text of the story nowhere identifies the serpent as Satan. So, it seems in this case, that the fifty-six percent who believed this story, believe it in a way that the story itself does not present. I often ponder how many things we believe about the stories are not really in the stories.
• The Strength of Sampson. Less than fifty percent (50%) believe this to be factually true.

How People Live Stories
Barna concludes from these statistics that Americans struggle with “the concept of truth, the nature of God, and the value of the Bible in personal decision-making.” He also notes that there is a “significant disconnect between faith and practice” and that the Bible has become “a respected but impersonal religious history lesson that stays removed from…life.”

Within modernity, we have presented the Bible in such a fragmented way that it is amazing that anyone believes any of these stories. As Barna points out, believing the stories and applying them is two different things. Maybe the problem is with the process. Usually the text of Scripture is presented and then a suggested “one-size-fits-all” application is given by the presenter. This supposedly is to keep the text from just becoming something one only believes to become something one actually does. The problem is the fragmentation of such an approach. Both a fragmented presentation of isolated verses used in a prooftexting fashion and a presentation of stories independent from their context or shuffled within the context of the books they come from produce a fragmented or quilted follower of Jesus.

What if we tried another approach. What if we stopped trying to apply parts of Scripture to our lives and discovered the Story of Scripture and how as an actor/actress within that story we are to play out our part in his EPIC adventure. How would that change the way in which we present the Story/stories of Scripture?

Reading the text is important. To that end I am preparing a reading program called Reading the Bible Without Additives in 100 Days, using Today’s New International Version’s presentation of the text in The Books of the Bible™ as the text to read.

Go to Reading the Bible Without Additives in 100 Days for more information.

 

Here are two audio presentations presented by Tom Wright from Reformational-UK, June 2007. I based my first book God’s EPIC Adventure on his five-act-play model. The second recording starts off a bit low in volume, give it a moment and it will brighten up.

Thinking about God in Tommorrow’s World

Whatever did St Paul do with the Kingdom of God

Here’s a short video clip of Brian McLaren asking me a question about God’s EPIC Adventure. Enjoy.

Two important events have occurred this week. My first book, God’s EPIC Adventure, is in print and I’ve been Simpsonized!

It has been and interesting process starting a publishing company HarmonPress and publishing my first book, God’s EPIC Adventure through that imprint. It’s an interesting feeling to hold a book in your hand and seeing your name on the front cover. For years I have researched and written lots of material. I was used to writing things like, Sweet says, or McLaren says, or Wright says, but when I saw my name appear in that context in the ForeWord which is written by Len Sweet, Griffin says, it seemed a little strange. Brian McLaren wrote the Afterword. You can read all about it at HarmonPress.

Secondly, I received an email from someone who had been Simponized and followed the link to see how that happened. It was kind of fun and you can see the results to the above.

Endurance: The act, quality, or power of withstanding hardship or stress.

Last night my wife, daughter and I went to see a what is billed as a one-woman-show of a three part presentation of Endurance: faith, love, and hope by Linda Keeney. Linda and Colin Keeney participate in the same community of faith (Vineyard Community Church) in Shoreline, WA. These three acts were well written and acted out.

The first “The View from Here” is about the birth of her differently-capable daughter in search of an answer to the question: How on earth do you still have faith in a loving God who gives you a child like this? It is the story of Linda’s darkest hours and how previous life circumstances had built faith into her life. When she decided to run from God and the church, she ran up against what she refers to as her “singing elephant” which had, without her knowing it, become behemoth! This part of her presentation is built from the passage in Matthew 7.24-27.

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.

Her “singing elephant” proved to be the “rock” on which she had built her life, and when the “winds” blew, she was sustained.

The second act is called “Snapshots,” in which Linda tells in short episodes the story of hope that helped her discover a route through the crises that come in life. This vignette is based on the parable of Jesus, often referred to as the Good Samaritan (Luke 10.25-37, with special attention given to verses 30 and 33). She discovered how in different packages than she would have expected that God brought hope into her life when she desperately needed the upward pull in a feeling of life that was sinking around her feet.

The third and final act called “Soul Fabric” is built around the parable of Jesus in Matthew 21.28-32 about the two sons called to go work in the Vineyard. One says, “No!” but later goes and works. The other says, “Yes!” but then does not. Soul Fabric tells several small vignettes about Linda’s younger life and the fabrics, kinds of relationships, that came to her life that in the final repose built a beautiful quilt bringing warmth to those who snuggle up under it. Herein, she tells the stories in her life of saying “No!” but then discovering the beauty of saying yes. The final story of not “doing teenagers” is moving and poignant in its real expression of love in action.

Life is full of, well, life. It does not often go as planned, but one thing is for sure, with faith, hope, and love, we can find life fulfilling and, yes, even in the darkest hours, it can be lived for the sake of others. Faith, hope, and love impregnated in us by the Spirit of God makes endurance possible.

It was a wonderful and fun evening. Linda is a brilliant storyteller. Remember, stories shape our lives. She’s my hero!

For more information on these wonderful performances and a few video clips or to contact Linda go to Singing Elephant.

The Bible is the world’s best selling book! We own tons of them. Most folks that will read this will most likely own more than one Bible. Why do we own so many Bibles but read so little of it? Unlike other books that we often read, the Bible needs special care in reading. Below is a small bibliography that can help you get the help you may need to read the text of Scripture itself for both enjoyment and spiritual life. Living in God’s Grand Narrative as his new creation brings new meaning to why we live. Just move your mouse over the book to see more information about it.

• The Art of Reading Scripture
• The Beauty Behind the Mask: Rediscovering the Books of the Bible
• The Bible: A History: The Making and Impact of the Bible
• The Bible As Literature: An Introduction
• The Bible in Greek Christian Antiquity (The Bible in Early Christianity , So3)
• Birth of the New Testament
• The Book: A History of the Bible
• Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts
• The Cambridge History of the Bible
• The Canon of Scripture
• The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance
• Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading
• Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, Second Edition (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities)
• The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin, Transmission, and Limitations
• The Formation of Christian Biblical Canon: Revised and Expanded Edition
• A History of the Bible as Literature
• How the Bible Became a Book: The Amazing Story Behind the All-Time Best-Seller
• How the Bible Came to Be
• How the Bible Was Built
• How to Read a Book (A Touchstone Book)
• How to Read the Bible Book by Book: A Guided Tour
• How We Got the Bible,
• The Gospels and Jesus (Oxford Bible Series)
• The Jewish Bible and the Christian Bible: An Introduction to the History of the Bible
• The Journey from Texts to Translations: The Origin and Development of the Bible
• How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth
• The Literary Guide to the Bible
• The Literature and Meaning of Scripture
• The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture
• The Making of the New Testament: Origin, Collection, Text & Canon
• The Making of the New Testament Documents
• Making Sense of the Bible: Literary Type As an Approach to Understanding
• The New Testament Canon: Its Making and Meaning
• The New Testament in Its Literary Environment
• The New Testament in Literary Criticism (Library of Literary Criticism)
• The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church and Its Background in Early Judaism
• The Origin of the Bible
• The Oxford Illustrated History of the Bible (Oxford Illustrated Histories)
• The Septuagint (Understanding the Bible and Its World)
• Studies in Early Christianity

Have fun reading and learning!