Inspired by Rachel Held Evans

In Inspired, Rachel Held Evans talks about the Bible containing “some of the most powerful stories ever told.” This book is all about the story!! Evans takes story after story from the Bible, tells them, reflects on them, discusses the questions they raise, and delights in them. It’s like the subtitle says, “Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again.”

My dad read stories from various children’s Bible storybooks to us after dinner each night for years. One version of the book had 3 simple questions after each story. I remember being embarrassed that so often I did not know the answers. I frequently tuned out during the reading, but somehow that was not constant. Those Bible stories are familiar to me, and the older I get, the more I delight in them. (It’s also handy when watching Jeopardy. Contestants’ shoulders seem to sag when they see the category of Bible stories, but in my family we’re happy to see it – finally a column where we’ll know the answers!)

The chapter titles show the focus on stories:

1. Origin Stories
2. Deliverance Stories
3. War Stories
4. Wisdom Stories
5. Resistance Stories
6. Gospel Stories
7. Fish Stories
8. Church Stories

Isn’t it funny that one is “Fish Stories”? The rest sound quite lofty – Origin, Deliverance, Wisdom --, but then, “Fish Stories.”

Evans wrote that she wanted to find a religion where she didn’t have to check in her brain at the door. I could relate to that. I feel that tension she writes about when reflecting on the Biblical stories of killings, massacres, human sacrifice, and genocide.

It was as though I lived suspended in the tension of two apparently competing convictions: that every human being is of infinite worth and value, and that the Bible is the infallible Word of God. (p.65*)

I feel that way often. As Evans says, you often hear Christians saying that’s just how it is, you have to have faith and accept it, times were different back then, and so on. She quotes Eugene Peterson:

“We don’t become more spiritual by becoming less human,” Eugene Peterson said. How could I love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength while disengaging those very facilities every time I read the Bible? (p. 69*)

She ends with, “So I brought my whole self into the wilderness with God—no faking, no halfway. And there we wrestled.” I appreciated this view of asking questions about Scripture. It’s not me being a bleeding heart, namby-pamby person not liking the rawness of what I read. It’s me bringing my whole self into the act of studying Scripture.

Evans does wrestle. And no one “wins.” She writes about living with the questions, living with not knowing exactly what everything means, living with the very tension she talked about. One way she describes this relationship with Scripture is by talking about the Jewish tradition of Midrash.

Midrash, which initially struck me as something of a cross between biblical commentary and fan fiction, introduced me to a whole new posture toward Scripture, a sort of delighted reverence for the text unencumbered by the expectation that it must behave itself to be true. For Jewish readers, the tensions and questions produced by Scripture aren’t obstacles to be avoided, but rather opportunities for engagement, invitations to join in the Great Conversation between God and God’s people that has been going on for centuries and to which everyone is invited. (p. 23*)

I love that. “Great Conversation.” That’s worship, right? Worship is a dialog between God and his people. Approaching the Bible as a conversation between me and God fits right into the definition of worship.

Before discussing midrash, Evans tells the story of how, when she and her sister were little, her father brought home a flannelgraph board with sandpaper-backed paper cutouts of biblical characters. (Remember flannelgraph?) She and her sister played for hours with those characters, re-enacting Bible stories and also imagining more.

We invented conversations between Abraham and Isaac as they descended Mount Moriah. We embellished the details of Ruth’s courtship with Boaz. We imagined what happened to Zacchaeus after the “wee little man” from our Sunday School song climbed out of his sycamore to follow Jesus.

That use of their imagination reminded me of the Jesuit practice of contemplative meditation. That’s what you do in that practice – imagine yourself in the Bible story. And Evans saw how it resonated with the age-old Jewish tradition of midrash.

Evans talked, too, of the Bible not being clear, although, often enough, you certainly hear that it is. (We’ve heard how it’s clear on the issue of women in church, homosexuality, slavery, and on and on.) Evans wrote, “The truth is, you can bend Scripture to say just about anything you want it to say. You can bend it until it breaks,” and goes on to give examples of how we can find verses to support anything, including directly opposing views. Then:

“This is why there are times when the most instructive question to bring to the text is not, What does this say? but, What am I looking for?”

If you want to do violence in this world, you will always find the weapons. If you want to heal, you will always find the balm. With Scripture, we’ve been entrusted with some of the most powerful stories ever told. How we harness that power, whether for good or evil, oppression or liberation, changes everything. (pp 56-57)

(Side note: I’ve fallen in love with the word “balm.” I think I’ll make that my “word for the year” – now that the year’s half over. Maybe one of my words for my life. God is a balm for healing. Jesus is a balm for healing. The Bible is a balm for healing. May I be a balm for healing.)

Evans intersperses her writing about the Bible with personal writings – poetry, stories, even plays – inspired by Scripture. You can see her delight in the Scripture through these chapters. One of my favorites was the screenplay about Job, and his friends “Eli, Bill, and Father Z” (Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite). Eli gives Job a sympathy card and says.

Eli: We got this for you, man. It’s not much, I know, but under the circumstances, we just…we wanted to do something.

Job wakes from his stupor, takes the card, and opens it.

Job (reading the card, deadpan): Remember, God will never give you more than you can handle.

He puts the card on the table and falls back into a daze. Eli seems satisfied, but Bill makes a face.

Eli (to Bill): What? What’s wrong with the card?

Bill: It’s a tad cliché, don’t you think? “God will never give you more than you can handle”? What’s that even mean?

Eli: It’s just a card, Bill. It’s not a theological statement.

Bill: Everything’s a theological statement. You of all people should know that.

And it goes on.

I could write a lot more about Inspired. It’s a delightful book. Full of serious insights, humor, and love for the Bible.

* All quotes from the paperback version, copyright 2018, published by Thomas Nelson.