Faith-Based Blog a blog about faith from a believer with bandwidth

Of “Reading and Writing” Interest …

Well, it looks like today will be a slow trickle of updates as time permits. Two tidbits:

1. "Introverts in the Church: Finding our Place in an Extroverted Culture" - this looks every bit like a book for me. Christianity Today has a writeup of it.

2. Following up on the "Handwritten Word" project mentioned earlier, I settled on a book to write out: Galatians. I honestly couldn't tell you now what set the final spark for that decision other than just flipping through a handful of books that were tempting for me (Luke, Deuteronomy, Psalms).

I'm sure that the brevity of the book was a factor, but the more I've looked into the history that went into the book, the more certain I am that it's the right one to go into. Greg Boyd is about to wrap up his years-long series on Luke and I've thoroughly enjoyed those messages ever since being turned onto Boyd. It strikes me that there exists a way of looking at Galatians as being a very connected launching-off place from Luke. Here's the opening of Eugene Peterson's description of the book in his Message interpretation:

When men and women get their hands on religion, one of the first things they often do is turn it into an instrument for controlling others, either putting or keeping them "in their place." The history of such religious manipulation and coercion is long and tedious. It is little wonder that people who have only known religion on such terms experience release or escape from it as freedom. The problem is that the freedom turns out to be short-lived.

Paul of Tarsus was doing his diligent best to add yet another chapter to this dreary history when he was converted by Jesus to something radically and entirely different - a free life in God. Through Jesus, Paul learned that God was not an impersonal force to be used to make people behave in certain prescribed ways, but a personal Savior who set us free to live a free life. God did not coerce us from without, but set us free from within.

It was a glorious experience, and Paul set off telling others, introducing and inviting everyone he met into this free life. In his early travels he founded a series of churches in the Roman province of Galatia. A few years later Paul learned that religious leaders of the old school had come into those churches, called his views and authority into question, and were reintroducing the old ways, herding all these freedom-loving Christians back into the corral of religious rules and regulations.

Paul was, of course, furious ....

On the one hand, this is a continuation of the struggle Jesus was in with the Pharisees and others of his time. But at the same time, this strikes me as a good amplification of the challenges we have in defining a community in God's terms instead of ours.

The struggle now is to make the time for writing out a snippet at a time from the book. I got a nice jumpstart Saturday while at church, but am still working on finding time in the weekdays. I'm leaning toward picking up N.T. Wright's commentary on Galatians and will probably drop a note or two to reflect on some of the material. And if you're more visually inclined, I'll snap a photo or two in instances where my handwriting doesn't detract from the beauty of the message.