Reading the Bible Deep AND Wide

All my bible readers out there, don’t you love it when you find a powerful passage that you can chew on for weeks?  Or how about when you find a verse that is jam packed with a bunch of goodies for you to chew on for a hot minute? We love a good passage or verse that we can dissect and dig into.  In fact, many have grown accustomed to digging real deep into passages. We can read, study, and meditate on the same passage for over months at a time, shoveling out all kinds of bible bits for us to eat.

I think the practice of digging deep into biblical text is a great thing, but it can be dangerous in and of itself.  Our culture loves to take an individual verse and chew on it, but hardly are we challenged to see how the verse fits in context with the passage, and how the passage fits in context with the biblical book, and how the biblical book fits in context with the entire biblical narrative.

May I suggest that we need to read both deep and wide. I believe we actually should read the bible not only in quality, but in quanity too. Discover and read the gospel of Luke in just one or two sittings and see what it was that Luke was trying to say about Jesus. What was the unique portrait of Jesus that Luke paints for us, and what are the specific themes of his gospel? What happens when we begin to read teh bible as a great meta-narrative, as the greatest story ever told, and then allow everything we read to fall in context with that great story.  Is the story taking place before or after the fall? Is it before or after Christ? And does it matter and change its implications for our lives?

Freestyle with me folks, has your Christian community encouraged you to read both deep and wide?

Messiah College Hosts Henry Louis Gates Jr. on Feb. 25th

Messiah College Centennial Celebrations: Keynote lecture

Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Alphonse Fletcher University
Professor and Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for
African and African American Research at Harvard University

Messiah College Humanities Symposium Lecture
“Genetics and Genealogy” • February 25, 2010, 8:00 p.m.
Brubaker Auditorium, Eisenhower Campus Center

Henry Louis Gates Jr., Ph.D., will deliver the second keynote lecture of the Centennial year and the keynote address for the Messiah College Humanities Symposium. Professor Gates is editor-in-chief of the Oxford African American Studies Center, the first comprehensive scholarly online resource in the field of African American Studies and Africana Studies, and of The Root, an online news magazine dedicated to coverage of African American news, culture, and genealogy. In 2008, Oxford University Press published the African American National Biography. Co-edited with Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, it is an eight-volume set containing more than 4,000 biographical entries on both well known and obscure African Americans. He is most recently the author of In Search of Our Roots (Crown, 2009), a meditation on genetics, genealogy, and race, and a collection of expanded profiles featured on his PBS documentary series, “African American Lives.” His other recent books are America Behind the Color Line: Dialogues with African Americans (Warner Books, 2004), and African American Lives, co-edited with Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (Oxford, 2004).

Immediately following the lecture, audience members are invited to attend a public book signing by Dr. Gates in the Eisenhower Campus Center.

This event is open to the public. Seating is by ticket only; no charge. Tickets available beginning January 14, 2010 through the Messiah College Ticket Office, (717) 691-6036.

White Man’s Religion???

Did you know?

During the 4th century A.D., that both the church father of the east and of the west were both African.  Yes, that puts a ruffle in the Islamic claim that Christianity is “the White Man’s Religion”.

In the east, there was Athanasius of Alexandria.  It is noted, that some people even called him “the black dwarf” back then.  Nonetheless, he was the church father of the eastern church, and is noted for valiantly defending the full deity of Christ, even to the point of being temporarily excommunicated.

Simultaneously, Augustine of Hippo was the patriarch over the west and was also from North Africa.  His massive works and development on theology are still studied vigorously to this day. It is his theology that Calvin and Luther would later draw from to arrive at what we call today western theology. While their theology is very different and distinct from Augustine, making some claims and assumptions he never did, it is indisputable that he is the Father of Western Christianity and Theology.

While some could argue that the western tradition has used theology to promote and justify slavery, racism, and apathy towards social justice, those current ideologies were not held by these church fathers.  In fact, at that time the church was much more multi-ethnic, and its face was very diverse.  The amazing thing is that simultaneously both the two primary church fathers were black.  Check it out for yourself.

Freestyle with me, does this information matter?

Jon Stewart confronts Keith Olbermann

Had to throw this clip in cause it was funny. Jon Stewart is actually challenging Keith Olbermann for being too nasty (I know it sounds like bizarro world, right?). Enjoy.

Happy Birthday Rosa Parks!!!

On February 4th, 1913, Rosa Parks was born. She is now famously thought of as the “mother of the civil rights movement” for courageously sitting down on that city bus, so that the African American community could finally take a stand. It was her faith and resilience that gave her the strength to make that courageous move. We remember her today, and her faithful commitment to God’s principles of love, justice, and equality. Happy Birthday Rosa Parks!!!

Dr. West’s note to Obama

The brilliant Dr. West shares words of challenge and encouragement with our President.

Free MP4 Available for a Limited Time

I have a recent sermon available for the month of February that can be downloaded for free. Just click on my “free freestyles” page where you will find the link. As well, I often offer other free resources on that page as well. Enjoy.

Black History and Heritage Month

While most months of the year our country is consumed in white history and culture, ignoring the contributions and culture of African Americans, February (yes the shortest month) is set aside for the purpose of learning and celebrating African American history and culture. For many this month is only Black History month in name, while in reality everyone just goes on as usual. However this month I invite you to actually be intentional, listening and learning from the rich heritage of the black community!

Genesis 1:1a: Creativity

“In the beginning God created…”

How often do you think about God as creative?  Creativity is one of the very first things that are revealed about God in the Bible.  What does it mean to be created in the likeness of a creative God? Freestyle with me…

Nas – I Can

It’s time for us to invest in our young people! Too many young folk dropping out of school, too many young folk that don’t believe in their own gifts and talents, too many young folk with demoralized and beat down psyches. While I think we must continue to address the wealth disparities that exist, we need to do much work in the psychological and spiritual realm.

How do we begin to restore what was stripped from the black community in America through 400 years of inhumane slavery, jim crow laws, lynching, segregation, brutality, stereotypes, and hatred?