Perhaps the reason Scripture includes so much poetry in and outside the narrative, so many parables and stories, so many visions and emotional letters, is because it is attempting to describe a relational break man tragically experienced with God and a disturbed relational history man has had since then and, furthermore, a relational dynamic man must embrace in order to have relational intimacy with God once again, thus healing himself of all the crap he gets into while looking for a relationship that makes him feel whole. Maybe the gospel of Jesus, in other words, is all about our relationship with Jesus rather than about ideas. And perhaps our lists and formulas and bullet points are nice in the sense that they help us memorize different truths, but harmful in the sense that they blind us to the necessary relationship that must begin between ourselves and God for us to become His followers. And worse, perhaps our formulas and bullet points and steps steal the sincerity with which we might engage God.
Becoming a Christian might look more like falling in love than baking cookies. Now don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that in order for a person to know Jesus they must get a kind of crush on Him. But what I am suggesting is that, not unlike any other relationship, a person might need to understand that Jesus is alive, that He exists, that He is God, that He is in authority, that we need to submit to Him, that He has the power to save, and so on and so on, all of which are ideas, but ideas entangled in a kind of relational dynamic. This seems more logical to me because if God made us, wants to know us, then this would require a more mysterious interaction than what would be required by following a kind of recipe.
I realize it all sounds terribly sentimental, but imagine the other ideas popular today that we sometimes hold up as credible. We believe a person will gain access to heaven because he is knowledgeable about theology, because he can win at a game of religious trivia. And we may believe a person will find heaven because she is very spiritual and lights incense and candles and takes bubble baths and reads books that speak of centering her inner self; and some of us believe a person is a Christian because he believes five ideas that Jesus communicated here and there in Scripture, though never completely at one time and in one place; and some people believe they are Christians because they do good things and associate themselves with some kind of Christian morality; and some people believe they are Christians because they are Americans. If any of these models are true, people who read the Bible before we systematically broke it down, and, for that matter, people who believed in Jesus before the printing press or before the birth of Western civilization, are at an extreme disadvantage. It makes you wonder if we have fashioned a gospel around our culture and technology and social economy rather than around the person of Christ.
This passage was an excerpt from Searching for God Knows What.
Loved the book. Challenging and Inspiring to look at things a new way. Oh how easy it is to try and “do” the right things.
By far one of my favorite passages from any of your books. I challenges me and inspires me to remember that relationship is the endgame. I know facts and figures about my friends because I care about them not because friendship equals facts and figures. How much more so with Jesus?? GAH! So so good. Thanks for sharing.
It* challenges
(Sorry for the typo)
And this is why I love sharing the gospel message with kids in the context of a relationships. It is SO simple for kids to grasp the idea of a great, big God that wants to be their friend. We adults over complicate the simplicity of God’s love and desire to be in relationship with us. This past summer one of my staff shared his story with his campers. One of the guys in his group said he was interested in becoming “friends with Jesus” but he wanted to go home and think about it. The following morning he came back and told his counselor that he prayed to God the night before and then went to sleep. While he was sleeping he had a dream that he was in heaven and he met God. Then God turned into a tornado and the tornado came inside of him!! Of course it is as simple as a Holy Spirit tornado coming and stirring up our hearts and souls. There will never be a formula or recipe for that
These are some great points. I love to learn. I love when things are all clear and cut nicely into bit size pieces of information for me to digest. I thrive in a learning environment!
Relationships are messy. I have been married for over 2 1/2 years and I have learned so much about relationships in that time. They are unpredictable and crazy and they really pull at your heart. Relationships try your patience and gets under your skin. But at the same time relationships are beautiful, and beneficial and enlightening. They are fun, challenging, and freeing.
I think that God calls us to both. He wants us to learn the truths He provides for us. He wants us to know about Him. But at the same time God wants us just to know Him. There is a difference between knowing about and knowing. Knowing is messy and difficult. But at the same time it is an adventure.
I struggle between these two words. They should fit together so nicely but we have done such a great job at separating them it is difficult to reconcile. I guess that is part of the adventure as well.
[...] http://donmilleris.com/2012/01/31/why-scripture-includes-so-much-poetry/ Posted by georgeblog at 10:21 pm [...]
Yes to everything you wrote.
Don,
I love what you’re saying, that God is a person, not an idea or movement. I also love the notion that we can and should know him relationally. I agree with what Brandon Weldy responded to this entry with, that knowing and knowing about are different. Knowing is messy. Knowing about is usually not so crazy.
While I suspect this is all true, I struggle with knowing God relationally. It is very hit and miss for me, and I don’t think I’m alone. It seems like just about the time I lose heart, God connects with me in deep, quiet way, often with some bit of info that’s so personal that only I would know about it.
Later, however, I wind up wondering how that random moment moved me so deeply. Still, I walk deeper and deeper down this path, even when it leads away from the culture I’ve grown up in; even when it departs from “normal.” I go kicking and screaming, but I wind up going just the same.
[...] Posted Why Scripture Includes So Much Poetry. [...]
Becoming a Christian might look more like falling in love than baking cookies…thank you for that.
Crazy thing is is that for some, baking is poetry…Finding beauty in spreadsheets and inspiration in formula…Sure they’re weird but still.
Guess God’s pretty open minded in finding resonance with us, unfortunately we’re not always good at letting him.
I love learning, studying God’s word .. It it what satisfies me the most in this life, my relationship with Jesus. I would die before I give that up.
But I am so tired of organized religion. I don’t mean this as any disrespect to anyone.. I am just tired of all the labeling, separation, judging.
I find myself on my face these last couple of days, and as I look at both sides now, I wonder if I were lost today would I even want to become a Christian. I am sorry if this stings, but again we need to start looking within and stop wearing mask, start seeing others as God see’s them and leave the judging to Him.
well said…
This makes me think of The Kings Speech—- how they use alternative methods to heal the king. OTHER doctors are straightforward and ‘practical’, but what REALLY works are the more abstract and poetic approaches. Thanks for this
Well, I am just thinking with myself…music, poetry are easyer to remenber, especially for me, I love to sing, so I can remenber alot God words because I remenber singing songs!:)
“It makes you wonder if we have fashioned a gospel around our culture and technology and social economy rather than around the person of Christ.”
Bingo; Exactly; Bullseye; Nail on the head, etc.
Just reminds me how much I like the way you write. Next book? Soon, please.
don, i know you are a man of poetry. have you read any Hafiz? i think you would like him so much. if you haven’t, please try: I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy by Daniel Ladinsky. the poems tell this story of falling in love with God and God being madly in love with us so beautifully and so well. i know they would speak to you too.
I still remember reading this section. Since that day, it’s all sounded a bit more like poetry and grace than religion and judgement.
Hi Don,
Am so glad you wrote this; because I often feel that westerners are great at structuring things, so great that it’s hard for them to let God and His word shape them and structure them, and not the other way around! I find it sad that we have so much resources, so many Bible versions and comentarie, devotions, Christian books, yet very little concern to actually read the word of god regularly and submit to him!
How can we have a relationship with HIM, Jesus, if we do not know him? How can we know HIM, if we do not know his word?
I can read article and blogs, see videos about Don Miller, but that doesn’t mean I know him?!! Reading his books might give me a better idea of how he thinks or what are his ethics, but still, that does not mean I know the man!!
Jesus indeed is alive, His Spirit is willing to show us who he is, his gift is offered to all, but will never be forced on any! In the west, I don’t find many of the beautiful traditions we have in the East [middle east] for marriage and waiting bride for bridgroom! Jordanians for instance, have a tradition called ‘el Jaha’ where the bridegroom takes his family and all important men in his community to visit the Bride’s family and ask for her hand in marriage; the bride’s family offer coffee, and if the father of the bride says drink your coffee that means he agrees that his daughter would marry this man! so there’s anticipation, excitment, preciousness of the Bride! The man she loves brings all his community to request to be married to her; what trouble is that??? Then if the father of the bride agrees, he then goes to prepare for the marriage, prepare a home, buys his bride gifts and all she needs to start a househould! [I wish I was Jordanian, Egyptian-Americans do not do that! bummer!]
Why did I mention all this? well, Jesus is precious, and we make him cheap! We evangelicals have claimed ‘salvation is free’ for so long? who says? Jesus, the son of God paid with his life, he left glory, and the came to the earth he made one day to the creation that came to being through him [according to Hebrews 1]! then he gave up his life to pay for my mistakes, asked me and you to be his bride, and to wait for him until he prepares a room? what manner of bride waiting for her beloved, goes on watching hours of TV, spending hours at the gym, hours at the mall, with friends; without one thought of this precious man who came for her, exalted her, and gave her honor, forgave all her debts, and went to glory to prepare a place for her?
I know, I am not a good bride! I am busy, and sometimes I make myself busy, because Jesus is not so much on my mind, knowing him is not a priority, and anticipating his coming is along forgotton idea! am a lukwarm bride, cold, aloof, and not really worth his time and passion! Yet his love never changes, because Jesus is a man of his word, he is faithful to me, his faithfulness embarrases me, and puts me to shame [good shame]; makes me want to love him and be just as passionate to see him, wait for him, and for now represent my ‘prince’ well!
How about you?
This was so wonderfully laid out when I first read it (a few years ago now). Your ability to write in such a simple tone about something so weighty is astounding.
The last point about the printing press is something that always bugged me a great deal growing up Christian, because I never understood how people were able to know God if they could not conduct a bible study. It appears that they learned just fine, and that practicing these teachings may have been the only ‘reading’ of the bible Christians or non-Christians would have done.
*the last sentence I wrote should read:
…and that practicing Christians demonstrated these teachings, which was the only ‘reading’ of the bible other Christians and even non-Christians did, seeing the Word in action.
I’m in the middle of re-reading searching for God knows what. I usually don’t re-read books but I have to say I have re-read all your books. Each time I read them I discover something new that I can re-late to. Your words always speak to me and get me thinking about God in ways I hadn’t before or in ways I thought no one but me thought about. Thanks for always inspiring.
I see scriptures as a mixed bag of poetry, teaching, wisdom, analogies, and the list goes on. This is just one thing that I so love about scripture and this wonderful God we serve, diversity.
Although I see it all leading us astray and blinding us to the importance of seeing and knowing Christ if we put a method over Jesus. Jesus said it we search the scriptures in search of life yet it all points to Him – God with us, our Life.
Thanks.
Oh, I see formula too, but yes, that should never be seen beyond our Root, but I see it too and it helps me. If we see the formula apart from Christ, then it is blinding.
[...] 4. You ever wonder why Scripture has so much poetry? Donald Miller share some insights in his post: Why Scripture Includes So Much Poetry [...]
Yeah, poetry rather than prose touches a different part of us, maybe a deeper part. We need the propositional to give a framework for our faith, maybe like families need “Family Rules” in order to get along and get the dishes washed before the next day. But at the core, the family needs to simply love each other and put the others before themselves. Was it Augustine that said, “Love God with all your heart and people as much as yourself, and do what you want”?
[...] Don Miller on why Scripture has so much poetry: “…because it is attempting to describe a relational break man tragically experienced [...]
I believe scripture has so much poetry because there was so much inspiration by men and women who deeply were searching for God’s heart and found it. Such poetry has become what we now are able to read and considered the most wonderful, powerful book: the Bible. I hope that today Bible reading would create more poets writing poetry not in the attempt to explain, because poetry in not understood but felt with the heart, but to simply repeat what once happened,yet in a different kind of experience… through faith.
A great question: have fashioned a gospel around our culture and technology and social economy rather than around the person of Christ. I’m pretty sure we do! I love that God left His home culture to relate to us in our home culture!