A pastor who suddenly discovered 99% of the words in the Bible had mysteriously vanished, said this to his wife: “I don’t know what I’m going to do. What’s going to happen to our ministry? With no Bible to teach and preach, I’m headed for joblessness.” These are the words in John Frye’s new novel, Out of Print
, that express the dilemma created when the words began to disappear from every Bible in the world.
I’d like to urge you to support one of the Jesus Creed blog community’s constant contributors, part-time pastor and part-time missionary teacher in the Ukraine, John Frye, by acquiring Out of Print. The book hooked me, and you know how much I (don’t) like novels. John blogs over at The Radical Pastor.
The dilemma John Frye exposes in candid and real-life type people is whether or not we worship the Bible or God, whether or not when we read the Bible we are listening to God or merely examining sentences in order to bolster our theological profile. He doesn’t offer simplistic answers, but he knows the Bible too often divides Christians instead of uniting them.
Here’s my suggestion: Why not get your small group or a group of friends to read the book one week and then some evening gather together to rehearse the story and to ask questions like these? (It’s an easy read but he does manage to pack in a number of themes that deserve reading more than once.)
Why did God give the Bible?
Why did only Esther and Genesis 34 survive the disappearance?
What is the relationship of God to the Bible and the reader to the Bible and to God?
Do you have a tendency to be a Christian of the Book or a Christian of the God who gives us the Book?