Taste and See

Nathan Colquhuon (of Fleeting Limelight) was walking through Toronto when he had one of those that's-what-God-is-like experiences. It's a nice extended metaphor, but here's the heart of the matter:

We can be so close to God, and not be able to see him at all because we forgot that it was all about the cross. Church, relationships, alcohol, fun, past, education, careers can all be good things, but for some reason we allow them to stand between us and God, which filters the version of the God we see. Only at the foot of the cross, will everything be seen the way it was meant to be.

Meanwhile, Mark Loughridge of 3:17 shares an extensive quote from J. I. Packer. Now that's always a good thing, and this example is no exception. Packer is speaking here about the too-common habit we Christians have of browsing the word of God rather than reading it as a whole; as a story, that is, with a start, a middle, a finish, in which no one part truly can be understood apart from the rest. Packer writes,

The Bible comes to us as the product of a single mind, the mind of God. It proves its unity over and over again by the amazing way it links together, one part throwing light on another part. So we should read it as a whole. And as we read, we are to ask: What is the plot of this book? What is its subject? What is it about? Unless we ask these questions, we will never see what it is saying to us about our lives.

When we reach this point, we shall find that God's message to us is more drastic and at the same time more heartening than any that human religiosity could conceive.

I like especially that he said "drastic" as well as "heartening." Mark, thanks for sharing that one.