I love Thrice.

I don't think there's any hiding that fact.

The last one of these I did was actually another Thrice song, but in all honesty I could almost write an entire series of my theology through Thrice lyrics.

I won't do that. But I will share another one of their songs—one of my very favourite songs of theirs, and that's saying a lot.

When I asked the kids if they knew what The Arsonist was about, my son answered without hesitation (proud Dad moment) that it was about God destroying Israel for not obeying.

While I don't know officially what the intent behind the lyrics are, it does certainly sound  ...  ⟹

So far we have explored what I believe to be the two major keys to understanding a biblical passage—and we have been doing so using the creation stories in Genesis.

This was a very deliberate choice—the interpretive tradition surrounding Genesis shows us exactly what happens when we don't take the two keys of Genre and Context seriously when reading the Bible.

When we read the creation stories without acknowledging they are myths likely written during the Babylonian Exile, we ask the stories questions they were never intending to answer—we ask scientific questions of cosmic origins instead of questions of Israelite identity and Israelite worldview.

In other words, when we don't  ...  ⟹

Previously, I wrote about the importance of understanding the genre of a biblical passage in order to fully grasp at what the text is doing and saying—we can't, that is, fully know what the author is trying to say without understanding what sort of writing they've made.

Genre, in my mind, is one of the two keys to understanding the Bible. We miss the point of a text if we read it the wrong way.

The second key, I believe, to unlocking the meaning of a biblical passage is its context.

It's very important to remember when these texts were written—both socially and temporally. I mean, think about it: Jesus was  ...  ⟹

I wrote last time briefly on the pitfalls of the Reformation and its decentralisation of biblical interpretation.

Indeed, as a result of every person being made eligible for hermeneutics, we've become conditioned to approach the Bible in such a way that all our life's problems can be solved by plucking out a few verses here or grabbing some passages there and twisting them to apply, somehow, to our context.

We are taught to think every part of the Bible should speak to us specifically where we are. The Bible, for many, has become a sort of 'life handbook,' or DIY self-help guide.

But this is asking more of the Bible than it's prepared  ...  ⟹

Good Friday and Easter are important events we as Jesus-followers mark especially on our calendars—they comprise a major holiday weekend for those of us in 'the fold.'

These two are, combined, what in many ways the Christian faith is in fact all about.

But how we talk about Good Friday/Easter makes a huge difference for what it is trying to tell us—and tell the world.

I have attempted—in many convoluted, complicated, and meandering words—to show that the narrative about Jesus' death and resurrection which traditional theology/classical theism (i.e., evangelicalism) represents is in fact unbiblical.

It is, to put it simply, a spiritualisation of the story.

If this sounds familiar  ...  ⟹