Isaiah 57:16-19

16 I will not accuse forever,
nor will I always be angry,
for then the spirit of man would grow faint before me—
the breath of man that I have created.

17 I was enraged by his sinful greed;
I punished him, and hid my face in anger,
yet he kept on in his willful ways.

18 I have seen his ways, but I will heal him;
I will guide him and restore comfort to him,

19 creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel.
Peace, peace, to those far and near,”
says the LORD. “And I will heal them.”

“I have seen his ways, but I will heal him.” Isn’t that beautiful? I went looking for that one.

This may seem simple, but I suppose I have a difficult time living it out.Often I feel like I try to live a sinless life so that my life will have changed. I will be a good person. Little did I realize that I have that notion when I read the bible too.

I suppose it comes from the fact that people say you gotta get to know God. The more time you spend with him the more you’ll become like him. So I figure the more I read the bible the more my life should change.

(Skip the italics if you want a shorter read)

Thus when I read the bible, I am always searching for principles and application that I can bring back to my own life. Generally, that seems to be the way most people that I’ve encountered interpret the bible. It seems like the end goal is to get to the application. Bible studies, you figure out what’s happening, and then you apply it to your own lives. Sermons are chock full of application.

But then being exposed to literature in the secular world, they read books in generally completely differently. They don’t try to take the text out of it’s context. Yet we seem to always try to draw the principle out of the bible that can be applied to our context. Secular literary theorists hate didactic (teaching) type of texts. They don’t read texts like that.

Which made me think, if the bible is made to give out principles the way I’ve been reading it, then why is the bible written in poetic, narrative, prophetic and other genres? Why isn’t everything written like a textbook? I concluded that the reason must be because there is much more than just the principle in the a particlular biblical passage. The context must matter just like it matters in other literature. The bible is for us to experience God not for us to “principlize.”

In an IM conversation with Nick, I recently realized that the purpose of reading the bible is to experience God, not necessarily to change my life. Yes life change is good and God wants that to happen and that is one way you experience God, but that’s not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is just to know him experience him, and remain in him.

Thus it’s not necessary to “principlize” some passages. Some passages can’t be “principlized.” We just need to look at God in those passages and think “wow, God is awesome.”

Update: Something similar to this really did happen to us in 2006 when Bun buns got sick… about two years after this entry was written.

You have a pet. Your pet is a rabbit, a holland lop. You love the rabbit a lot and love to hold it and its a really cute rabbit, but the rabbit doesn’t really l ike being held too much and runs away from you often to escape being held. It’s not the most friendly rabbit, and often does its own thing with little care for you, its owner. No matter, you buy a lot of good veggies for the rabbit, take care of it, make sure the nails are trimmed, clean its litter box every day because you love it so much. You even give it treats of fruit every once in awhile. It makes your day when your rabbit jumps on your lap to eat food from your hand.

One day your rabbit has an accident. It falls off your bed or something and injures itself. It’s weezing on the ground obviously hurt. You run over very distressed and you see the pain in your rabbit’s eyes. Its ears are on the ground with no life. Something is wrong inside the rabbit. You immediately take your rabbit to the vets. When you’re at the vets, the vet tells you that your rabbit will be okay, but it needs surgery. The surgery will cost 3000 dollars. The vet says, “I know that is a lot of money and if you can’t pay that much, it’s okay, don’t feel bad.” You go in to see your bunny. Its laying there all wrapped up. You look into your rabbits eyes. You do have 3000 dollars, but you were saving that money up for school. If you spend that money, you might not be able to go to school. Petting your rabbit for a few seconds, you decide to take the plunge. You tell the vet to go ahead and do the surgery. You couldn’t live without your rabbit. You love your rabbit that much.

The surgery is completed and your rabbit seems pretty normal. The healing took awhile, but at least you have your rabbit now. The rabbit is basically the same, still doesn’t like to be held, still runs away from you. You had to wait another year before you could go to school because of the money you spent on the rabbit. “Here, bunny, come here I love you,” you say to your rabbit as you try to scoop your rabbit up. The rabbit wriggles its way free and once it gets on the ground, thumps in anger and runs to a safe corner of the room behind the couch. The rabbit will never know the sacrifice you made for it. Perhaps the rabbit is a little ungrateful, but it doesn’t matter, you love it just the same.

“I’ll never know how much it cost, to see my sin, upon that cross.”