Book Review: The Blue Parakeet

In keeping with my general theme on this blog, I am not a Bible expert.  Or a seminary graduate.  But I do think that anyone who wants to can learn how to read the Bible the way God wants us to.  Given that assurance, and my huge background in hermeneutics (I read How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth in a small group!) I dove into Scot McKnight’s The Blue Parakeet this week.

It’s both more readable and more mysterious than How to Read.  The tone is much more conversational and casual.  But McKnight’s philosophy is much more …. philosophical … than Fee and Stuart’s.  I give a quick summary below – not so you know what it is about, but to help me process.

McKnight’s main question is “how are we to live out the Bible today?”  And in his answer is as follows:

1. Know the Story.  Know the Bible well enough to actually understand its big picture.  McKnight gives a great summary of Biblical theology here, and I agreed with it.  The very very short form is God created us for oneness, we fractured this into otherness, and he is restoring us to oneness.
2. Listen to God, and listen to church history. These are the two “walls” that keep us travelling in the right direction.  Reading the Bible requires us to desire most of all a relationship with God and to hear his voice.  The church history part is a little more nebulous.  It includes both exegesis and recognition of how the church has traditionally interpreted the Scripture.  But it doesn’t include following the rules of the past just because they are there.
3. Discern the pattern for today.  Here’s where I got uncomfortable.  According to McKnight, each generation receives God’s Spirit and direction for its current culture.  On the many parts of scripture which are open to interpretation, the “right” reading will change with the years and the culture.

McKnight spends the second half of the book working out how this looks for a single example – that of women in ministry.  But I’m going to avoid getting sucked into that, here, and think about what his hermeneutic means.

If McKnight is correct, then “how are we to live out the Bible” changes over the years.  And is even different among different cultures.  And that isn’t an idea that I’ve seen spelled out so thoroughly before.  The Story of the Bible does not change, and any new discernment must fit the Story.  But if the most literal reading of a section of Scripture does not match what we consider is the main Story (“it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church”), then we should seek more information about why that culture required the text in order to be part of the Story. 

The most reassuring part of the book was, for me, the reaffirmation that everyone “picks and chooses.” There isn’t anyone who lives the Bible literally.  And what McKnight continually reinforces as most important is that the Bible itself and the Holy Spirit are the most important tools to help us make the right decisions. 

I certainly don’t feel like I have a real firm grasp on this philosophy yet.  It’s the kind of thing that I need practice doing, now that I’ve seen it done for one topic.  Now that would make for an interesting small group…. yo, Scot?

Recommended for anyone curious about hermeneutics, about complementarian vs egalitarian views of women in ministry, or wants their world rocked a bit by an encouraging and loving author. 

 

I never did get around to explaining the title, did I?