The Bible is a Smelly, Gross, Pile of Rotting Garbage.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2012/12/the-bible-is-a-smelly-gross-pile-of-rotting-garbage/
The Bible is like a compost pile.
I like this image and I wish I had thought of it. But this idea comes from Walter Brueggemann’s Texts Under Negotiation
. I came across this many years ago, and it’s helped me see the Bible in a more realistic and spiritually constructive way.
Like Brueggemann, I don’t take the compost pile as a disrespectful metaphor, but a metaphor that explains what the Bible is suited to do–and how people typically, instinctively, approach it anyway.
By contrast, an unhelpful metaphor is a cookbook.
Read the Bible carefully, being sure to follow the directions, and out will pop a good, orthodox Christian with his or her act together. If something went wrong–if you have wrong doctrine or do bad things–you’re not following the directions carefully enough. Go back and try it again
I’ve found the Bible doesn’t work very well as a cookbook. Sooner or later you wind up sifting through the Bible to pick the ingredients that strike you and ignore other ingredients that don’t taste very well what you are trying to cook up. Plus the Bible is long, complicated, and a most of it looks like you’re reading a novel, not a cookbook.
The compost pile works better for me. It syncs with my study of Scripture, with my experience over the years as someone trying to figure out this following Jesus business, and with what I have learned from the wisdom of others, living or dead.
The
compost pile analogy reminds me that focusing our gaze on the Bible is
like looking expectantly at the compost pile rather than the fragrant
rose or luscious watermelon that is waiting to grow up out of the
ground. But nothing grows when our days are spent guarding the compost
pile, defending it, covering it up with a tarp of manicured sod to make
it look more civil.
Maybe this is a paradox: The Bible is not the end, but a means to an end. Yet, without the nutrients the Bible contains, the soil remains arid.
“Applying the Bible” doesn’t quite get at it. That comes across to me as a bit quiet and clean. Gardening is full of grunting, sweat, dirt–and sometimes holding your nose. Read the Bible with a pitch fork, garden rake, and shovel in your hands–not with rubber gloves and tongs delicately turning over crackling pages of an ancient book.
December 23, 2012 By 1 Comment
The Bible is like a compost pile.
I like this image and I wish I had thought of it. But this idea comes from Walter Brueggemann’s Texts Under Negotiation
. I came across this many years ago, and it’s helped me see the Bible in a more realistic and spiritually constructive way.
The Bible is the compost pile that
provides material for new life. I do not use this figure as an
irreverent metaphor to suggest that the Bible is “garbage.” Rather, I
use it to suggest that the Bible itself is not the actual place of new
growth. Our present life, when we undertake new growth, is often
inadequate, arid, or even barren. It needs to be enriched, and for that
enrichment, we go back to the deposits of old growth that have been
discarded, but that continue to ferment and may contain resources for a
way to new life. (Texts Under Negotiation, pp. 61-62)
, pp. 61-62)Like Brueggemann, I don’t take the compost pile as a disrespectful metaphor, but a metaphor that explains what the Bible is suited to do–and how people typically, instinctively, approach it anyway.
By contrast, an unhelpful metaphor is a cookbook.
Read the Bible carefully, being sure to follow the directions, and out will pop a good, orthodox Christian with his or her act together. If something went wrong–if you have wrong doctrine or do bad things–you’re not following the directions carefully enough. Go back and try it again
I’ve found the Bible doesn’t work very well as a cookbook. Sooner or later you wind up sifting through the Bible to pick the ingredients that strike you and ignore other ingredients that don’t taste very well what you are trying to cook up. Plus the Bible is long, complicated, and a most of it looks like you’re reading a novel, not a cookbook.
The compost pile works better for me. It syncs with my study of Scripture, with my experience over the years as someone trying to figure out this following Jesus business, and with what I have learned from the wisdom of others, living or dead.
The
compost pile analogy reminds me that focusing our gaze on the Bible is
like looking expectantly at the compost pile rather than the fragrant
rose or luscious watermelon that is waiting to grow up out of the
ground. But nothing grows when our days are spent guarding the compost
pile, defending it, covering it up with a tarp of manicured sod to make
it look more civil.Maybe this is a paradox: The Bible is not the end, but a means to an end. Yet, without the nutrients the Bible contains, the soil remains arid.
“Applying the Bible” doesn’t quite get at it. That comes across to me as a bit quiet and clean. Gardening is full of grunting, sweat, dirt–and sometimes holding your nose. Read the Bible with a pitch fork, garden rake, and shovel in your hands–not with rubber gloves and tongs delicately turning over crackling pages of an ancient book.
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