The Bible as our Bread for 2002

In these difficult times, our hunger is for the assurance that God loves us, that we are still persons created in His image and that God has sent the message of our redemption through His Son Jesus by the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. That assurance makes the present shortage of income and jobs less difficult to bear, and though many of us seek an alleviation of our shortage, let us not forget our real hunger. That hunger and thirst does not go away in times of prosperity, for Amos did speak for God to a prosperous Judah that “you will hunger and thirst to hear my message.” (Amos 8:11). Thanks be to God that that message is available in the bible to which I invite you to read daily.

Long and difficult though it may be, the biblical text is designed to engage human imagination by employing human narrative, vivid metaphor, evocative parables, symbolic signs, intense poetry, etc. In our world of visual media, the imagination of many has become atrophied. In his book Under the Unpredictable Plant, Eugene Peterson warns that when imagination is neurotic and sluggish, “it turns people,millions of them, into parasites, copycats and couch potatoes.” (.171). For Christians, imagination is indispensable as he underlines eloquently for “we, who are made in the `image’ of God have, as a consequence, imag-ination. Imagination is the capacity to make connections between the visible and the invisible, between heaven and earth, between past and present, between present and future.” (p. 169)

Today we urgently need to rehabilitate and rediscover how to use our imagination, not least when engaging with the scriptures. Not only does the bible employ imagination in the communication of the Word of God to us. It encourages us to use it in order to hear God speak to us. One of the ways of imaginatively engaging with the scriptures is through meditative reading. Yet meditation is not highly ranked in much western spirituality, partly because we tend to associate the word meditation with ‘transcendental meditation’, and partly because our tendency when reading the bible is to focus on the meaning of the text rather than its message.

Meditation is more than study of the text. In study, we step back from the text, while in meditation we step into it. Our imagination first helps us to enter the biblical story and then to discover ways in which God’s Word can enable us to live today. It makes us more open to encounter God, not merely at the cerebral level, and hear him speak to us through His Word.

Psalm 119, the longest psalm and the one most devoted to God’s message in words, suggests that the meditative and the cognitive may alternately take the lead. In verse 99, meditation leads to understanding: I understand more than all my teachers, because I meditate on your instructions.

In verse 27 however, the cognitive precedes the meditative: Help me to understand your laws, and I will meditate on your wonderful teachings.

It is wiser to opt for a “both/and” rather than an “either/or” approach. We need to be open to both, sometimes following one and sometimes the other, and always holding both together in creative tension. As Peterson puts it, “explanation keeps our feet on the ground; imagination lifts our heads to the clouds.” (p.171)

Three suggestions come from Thomas Merton (in his book Contemplative Prayer) as to how to meditate: · Be still. Stilling our busy lives helps us sense the presence of God (Psalm 46:10) Silent spiritual “retreats” are beneficial in creating space in our hectic lives to listen to God. · Be patient. God’s blessing is seldom available on demand. (`I waited patiently for the Lord’s help; then he listened to me and heard my cry’). · Be prayerful. As we meditate on scripture, we will find ourselves moving naturally into prayer. Meditative prayer is a two-way conversation. It involves imagination as well as reason and most important of all, the Holy Spirit.

However it is not the length but the quality of reading, and the meditation, that matters.

Your word is a lamp that gives light wherever I walk.

Psalm 119:105

Scripture Exchange for the Edification of the Destitute (S.E.E.D.) project

There are many in Singapore however who are without a bible to meditate on. Can that be true in a country with the second highest per capita income in the Asia-Pacific? No wonder there is a famine in Singapore of God’s word! It is however a matter of transferring bibles from those who have to those who do not have, as an old bible to one can be a new one to others.

The Prison Fellowship is short of several hundred bibles, and so also the various drug half-way houses. There are many foreign workers who cannot afford to buy one, as well as those in homes for the aged and in hospitals. There are also needs from those serving seamen, etc.

The society is therefore embarking on a SEED project together with Mindmanna, another Christian organization in book distribution. The seed sown by those who have bibles can reap a mighty harvest, with the bible society acting as a bridge between those who have and those who do not have.

Dr. Lee Soo Ann General Secretary Bible Society of Singapore December 2001 <>

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