As of my last visit to Borders I noticed that Eugene Peterson has released the latest in his series on spiritual theology, Eat This Book. It follows up on Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places and is an important exploration of how we read the Bible in a way that we can live it. I read the introduction and was hooked, though I have to admit that I find Peterson’s style of writing a bit hard to follow at times. He is very poetic and seems to take the long way in making his points. Regardless, I look forward to "snacking" on his latest offering.
From Publishers Weekly
Peterson is a retired pastor and
popular author best known for The Message, a paraphrasing of the Bible
into modern idiom. In this slender book, he invites Christian readers
to encounter the Bible anew. Drawing on language in Ezekiel and
Revelation, Peterson says that we ought not read the Bible the same way
we read a cookbook, a textbook, or even a great novel. Rather,
Christians are to absorb, imbibe, feed on and digest Scripture.
Peterson recommends a type of Bible-based prayer called lectio divina,
in which the person praying meditates on a short passage of Scripture
and listens for God to speak through the text. Peterson’s exposition of
lectio divina is one of the fullest to appear in recent years.
Throughout, he cautions that lectio is not a systematic way of reading,
but a "developed habit of living the text in Jesus’ name." The last
chapter, in which Peterson ruminates on his own experience translating
the Bible, will be fascinating to Peterson’s devotees, but is more
myopic than the rest of the book. However, this is a worthy sequel to
Peterson’s 2004 hit Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.
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