Perspective

(Partially copy 'n' pasted from my comment on Melinda Carter's blog.)
I was thinking today about the two things we do with the Bible on Sundays, Wednesday nights, and other things like that; we read it for ourselves, and we have it explained to us. I was thinking about that and realizing that a lot of time the explanation of what the Bible says is often valued more than the what the Bible actually says. I have seen it in others and in myself as I reflect on times when I didn't want to read the Bible because it didn't tell me what to do whereas some "Christian Inspiration" book would explain the problem and give me 5 steps to work it out... I have since (mostly) repented of that... :)
It seems that instead of letting the Bible speak for itself, we feel the necessity to explain what it should mean for us here and now. Of course, this is necessary, and I don't want to disparage the great gift of expository preaching, but it must arise out of a culture that is already letting "the Bible be the Bible" (to steal a comment from N.T. Wright). Now, I must to cross back over the bridge I just burned in order to say that there may need to be a lot of explaining in order to educate a culture in how to understand the Bible as the kind of ancient mostly narrative book that it is, but, after that, I say, let the stories of the Bible stir up thougths and emotions that we are not used to. Let the parables make us uncomfortable, not just because we may think we know what they mean and that convicts us, but also because we may not really know what they mean, and that should humble us before the one who does. Let us be offended, and corrected, when Jesus curses a fig tree just to make a point or refers to us Gentiles as animals who get the crumbs from his table. I think there are good theological and practical explanations to these sorts of things, but sometimes we miss the point when someone is trying to make the point for us.
So, all that to say, I don't want to do away with expository preaching, commentaries, Christian books and the like, I and we still benefit from those things tremendously, let's just tip the scales back in the direction of hearing from the stories of the Bible itself, allowing ourselves to get caught up in the Story that God has been writing since Adam and Eve, and is now including us in as key players in one of the last acts. May we be faithful to the Author and true to the story that we have inherited through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

(This last paragraph is heavenly influenced by an article by N.T. Wright entitled, "How can the Bible be Authoritative?")