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How the Bible Reads You When You Read It
The Bible is intertextual. In literary theory, the term intertextuality refers to the interrelationship between texts, especially works of literature; the way that similar or related texts influence, reflect, or differ from each other. And just as many works of literature reference the Bible, whether knowingly or unknowingly, we, too, are texts that interact with every book that we read. Think of it this way. I am a collection of experiences, memories, and acquired knowledge. I have a library in my mind. As I read any work, I access this library of the mind and interact with whatever I am reading. In a sense, everything I read is now understood in a whole new way. I create a new book that no one has ever read before, at least not…
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How to Move Mountains
I live in full sight of Highland Mountain. Just one of the many in the Chugach range, it sits at 3360 feet according to the internet. While not a particularly tall as mountains go, nevertheless the Alaskan sun can barely peek over it in winter. To me, it looks primitive and wild, like the old black and white pictures of Alaska that I used to look at as a child. Squat and rugged, Highland Mountain, as minor as it is in the realm of mountains, seems immovable to me. And yet it has been moved several thousand times in the last couple of months. Each aftershock shimmies up the mountain,…
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How to Hear What God is Saying to You
Adam and Eve, besides Jesus, could hear God more clearly than the rest of us. After all, they took walks with Him in the garden He made especially for them. But like most of us, they were only passive listeners. Have you ever wondered we can read our obligatory section of the Bible (from our Read through the Bible in a Year iPhone app) and promptly forget what we have read? It is because, like Adam and Eve, we hear the words spoken but we do not store them in our hearts. The truth is God is speaking to us all the time, through His Word, through others, through the…
Healing Through Art & Words
