Here are Alan’s “Observations and not too deep thoughts” on Chapter 1, Fine Wine:
A. Writers' Seminar - Have you ever found yourself in a situation, ie, around proper and nice Christians that seemed to have it all together, but you just didn't seem to fit in?
B. Formulas - pg 9 "..when God had the Bible put together, He hid a lot of the ancient wisdom so, basically, you have to read into things and even kind of make up things to get a formula out of it."
WHAT IS DM GETTING AT? IS HE BEING HYPER-CRITICAL OF SOMETHING THAT JUST DIDN'T WORK FOR HIM? OR IS THERE DANGER IN TRYING TO FIT GOD INTO A FORMULA, A SERIES OF STEPS, A CREED?
C. Fine Wine - "Reality is like fine wine. It will not appeal to children."
DM says he has learned to appreciate life itself, as it is, without the false hope that formulas offer. Have Christians ever offered "false hope" - a version of God that actually doesn't exist?
D. pg 14 -last paragraph that Rubena read last week: I find these thoughts exciting and probably the non-formula God that DM is trying to point us to.
See you Thursday,
Alan
Thanks for the outline, Alan!
This ought to get us off to a great start.
(How much time do we have ?)
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2 comments:
I relate with both your criticism and compliment of Miller. One has to read for the content behind the "silly" style. The suden leaps into humor and sarcasm. I'm going to look up words like hyperboly, irony, metaphor, exaggeration, sytlistic dissonance, sarcasm, pandering to the "street," and even fantasy to give labels to some of his writing techniques.
When I talked to a student at FPU about the book she was effusive in her compliments about it. So, I suspect that the style meets the needs of contemporary students. Perhaps the "misconceptions" about what the "church" has been teaching (as perceived by Miller)are shared by many people. I seem to have had a more positive growth in the church, and perhaps have had more healthy instruction than Miller (or is his dilimena an example of hyperbole to get a point across). The Bible has both relational language and "formula" language. After all, who wrote the 10 commandments and the book of Leviticus and the instructions of St. Paul that everything in the church should be done "with order."
So far, I sense that Miller is trying to correct one extreme by going in the other extreme. Yet, his message is good. We need to grow in our understanding and relational experience with our loving God.
Here's a couple of things I got out of the first chapter.
We each discover and relate to God individually, so what works really well for you, might not have the same impact for me. Just as my answers probably won't help you discover yours. So why then, do we continue to distill what we've learned into easy steps for others to follow. It gives us "control", but it also takes away from allowing God to show each of us what He wants us to learn and experience. When we set up formulas, what we're left with is superstition, and not a real relationship. When I think about the biblical "formula" language which Larry points out, Old Testament Law and such, I see it as wisdom the people of Israel discovered through their own experience of God's truth, and how it directed them to live together. Some of this wisdom is the same things God teaches me every day, and some is not. When that is all we focus on, however, we miss that underlying story of “an invitation to know God!”
2) It will probably take some time to fully appreciate God's truth, and that's okay.
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