The companion to Volume 2 of The New Church’s Teaching Series, Roger Ferlo’s Opening the Bible, Michael Johnston’s Engaging the Word teaches us how to use the critical and practical tools for reading the Bible described by Ferlo to interpret the Hebrew and Christian scriptures: what did they mean for their original audience and what do they mean for us today? Johnston introduces us to the key terms and concepts of biblical criticism that show us how to read Scripture on three key levels: the literal, historical, and prophetic. He explores with us passages that touch on questions of ethics, the nature of God, the teachings of Jesus, and eschatology, and offers vivid insights into the physical setting and geography of the Bible. Above all, the purpose of Engaging the Word is to help us become people who can read and interpret the Bible intelligently and perceptively. It offers the fundamental questions that we must ask of any biblical text in order to enter fully into its meaning for us and for our worshiping community: Who wrote the passage? When was it written? What does it actually say? For what community or group was it written? What was its message for that community? What is its message for us today?
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Engaging the Word teaches the reader how to use critical and practical tools to explore the Hebrew and Christian scriptures intelligently and perceptively (The Midwest Book Review )
Engaging the Word teaches the reader how to use critical and practical tools to explore the Hebrew and Christian scriptures intelligently and perceptively (The Midwest Book Review )
Johnston . . . teaches the reader to read the Bible in three senses: the literal, the historical, and the prophetic or spiritual sense. This helps cut through the idea that reading with untutored eyes will automatically help readers find the word of God. The greatest strength in the book is Johnston’s discussion of the God of the Bible and the Jesus of the Bible. He gives the reader permission to see that there are many differing pictures, images, icons of God depicted in the Bible. (The Living Church )
The book will be of great use, I believe, for the many of us who have been marginalized in various ways by the experience of the church: women, gay men, lesbians, people of color or of minority ethnicity. It should find eager audiences in urban and university parishes. (Anglican Theological Review )
Engaging the Word builds on the foundation laid in the earlier Opening the Bible, and it is as practical and profound as that companion volume. Michael Johnston demonstrates how the Bible is to be engaged responsibly by contemporary readers. He proposes both a theological understanding of the Bible and a hermeneutic that honors the questions and the cultural insights of our time. (Sewanee Theological Review )
Engaging the Word builds on the foundation laid in the earlier Opening the Bible, and it is as practical and profound as that companion volume. Michael Johnston demonstrates how the Bible is to be engaged responsibly by contemporary readers. He proposes both a theological understanding of the Bible and a hermeneutic that honors the questions and the cultural insights of our time. (Sewanee Theological Review )
This volume is rather more speculative than its predecessors [in the New Church’s Teaching Series], offering a strategy for reading the Bible (using a literal–historical –prophetic matrix), and a methodology for group study. Unafraid of controversy, Johnston bases his reading of Mark on a relentlessly political hermeneutic connected with the Roman Occupation and the fall of Jerusalem. However, he insists that his strategy remains viable whatever hermeneutic is adopted or preferred, and I think the book as a whole supports his contention. (Theological Book Review )
A group of adults who want to encourage an open exploration of the Bible, contemporary challenges to its authority, and other related issues can find solid content based on a good grasp of the work of recent biblical scholars in Michael Johnston’s easily read text. The book focuses on what it means to read the Bible as part of a community of faith, rather than simply for personal spiritual enlightenment. (Encounter )
Engaging the Word teaches the reader how to use critical and practical tools to explore the Hebrew and Christian scriptures intelligently and perceptively (The Midwest Book Review )
Johnston . . . teaches the reader to read the Bible in three senses: the literal, the historical, and the prophetic or spiritual sense. This helps cut through the idea that reading with untutored eyes will automatically help readers find the word of God. The greatest strength in the book is Johnston’s discussion of the God of the Bible and the Jesus of the Bible. He gives the reader permission to see that there are many differing pictures, images, icons of God depicted in the Bible. (The Living Church )
The book will be of great use, I believe, for the many of us who have been marginalized in various ways by the experience of the church: women, gay men, lesbians, people of color or of minority ethnicity. It should find eager audiences in urban and university parishes. (Anglican Theological Review )
Engaging the Word builds on the foundation laid in the earlier Opening the Bible, and it is as practical and profound as that companion volume. Michael Johnston demonstrates how the Bible is to be engaged responsibly by contemporary readers. He proposes both a theological understanding of the Bible and a hermeneutic that honors the questions and the cultural insights of our time. (Sewanee Theological Review )
Engaging the Word builds on the foundation laid in the earlier Opening the Bible, and it is as practical and profound as that companion volume. Michael Johnston demonstrates how the Bible is to be engaged responsibly by contemporary readers. He proposes both a theological understanding of the Bible and a hermeneutic that honors the questions and the cultural insights of our time. (Sewanee Theological Review )
This volume is rather more speculative than its predecessors [in the New Church’s Teaching Series], offering a strategy for reading the Bible (using a literal–historical –prophetic matrix), and a methodology for group study. Unafraid of controversy, Johnston bases his reading of Mark on a relentlessly political hermeneutic connected with the Roman Occupation and the fall of Jerusalem. However, he insists that his strategy remains viable whatever hermeneutic is adopted or preferred, and I think the book as a whole supports his contention. (Theological Book Review )
A group of adults who want to encourage an open exploration of the Bible, contemporary challenges to its authority, and other related issues can find solid content based on a good grasp of the work of recent biblical scholars in Michael Johnston’s easily read text. The book focuses on what it means to read the Bible as part of a community of faith, rather than simply for personal spiritual enlightenment. (Encounter )
About the Author
Michael Johnston is rector of Grace Church in Oak Park, Illinois, and has taught Bible study in a number of parish groups. He has also taught homiletics at Seabury-Weston Theological Seminary and in the Diocesan School for Deacons, and has studied and traveled extensively in the Holy Land.
Michael Johnston is rector of Grace Church in Oak Park, Illinois, and has taught Bible study in a number of parish groups. He has also taught homiletics at Seabury-Weston Theological Seminary and in the Diocesan School for Deacons, and has studied and traveled extensively in the Holy Land.
Michael Johnston is rector of Grace Church in Oak Park, Illinois, and has taught Bible study in a number of parish groups. He has also taught homiletics at Seabury-Weston Theological Seminary and in the Diocesan School for Deacons, and has studied and traveled extensively in the Holy Land.
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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Identifying the proper uses of the Bible,
By
This review is from: Engaging the Word (The New Church's Teaching Series, Vol. 3) (Paperback)
This book, written primarily for Anglicans/Episcopalians, is a concise and wonderful answer to Christians who give the Bible too much prominence in their faith-life, those who are perhaps guilty of practicing "Bibliolatry." Without disrespecting the Good Book, Johnston speaks about the importance of reading the Bible within the context of a community of faith, and like communities of faith, the Bible is a living and ever-changing thing. I especially appreciated the distinction he draws between reading the Bible literally, historically, and prophetically. And anyone who considers the Bible to be a sacred text needs to read it in all three senses. Reading the Bible literally means to read exactly what's on the page (not to read into it things you remember for Sunday School or Christmas pageants)--to see it with fresh eyes. To read it historically means to be reasonably curious about the story behind the scene and to be willing to do a little background research to better understand the context of these ancient texts. And to explore the Bible in its prophetic sense is to be willing to understand what the text has to say about the way we apply the lessons of the Bible and live out our own lives today. One statement Johnston makes that I will continue to ponder for some time is, "Bible readers in Christian communities do not so much need experts as they do adepts, skilled readers who can both instruct and inspire with their own passion for the Bible" (p. 40).The last three chapters ("Who is the God of the Bible?", "Who is the Jesus of the Bible?", and "The Word as Sacrament") are especially thought-provoking. ENGAGING THE WORD is volume three in a twelve-part series called "The New Church's Teaching Series." Volume 2, OPENING THE BIBLE by Robert Ferlo, is also worth reading and deals with more practical issues about what Christians should know in order to begin a meaningful and satisfying practice of reading the Bible.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The word made real...,
By FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (TOP 500 REVIEWER)
This review is from: Engaging the Word (The New Church's Teaching Series, Vol. 3) (Paperback)
The Episcopal church in the twentieth century took advantage of the general availability of publishing to good advantage, compiling through several auspices different collections and teaching series, the latest of which was only completed a few years ago. There have been 'unofficial' collections of teaching texts, such as the Anglican Studies Series by Morehouse press, put out in the 1980s, as well as an earlier teaching series. However, each generation approaches things anew; the New Church Teaching Series, published by Cowley Publications (a company operated as part of the ministry of the Society of St. John the Evangelist - SSJE - one of the religious/monastic communities in the Episcopal church, based in the Boston area) is the most recent series, and in its thirteen volumes, explores in depth and breadth the theology, history, liturgy, ethics, mission and more of the modern Anglican vision in America.This third volume, 'Engaging the Word' by Michael Johnston, picks up where second volume leaves off. Whereas Ferlo in the second volume looks at the Bible as a document in practice and development, Johnston's emphasis is on interpretation and meaning. The first several chapters of this look at narratives - stories. How does one tell the story? What are the important aspects of retelling the story, and of receiving the story? How do we adapt the story to our own situations and make it our own? There are key stories in the biblical text - the Abraham cycle, the story of the Exodus, the gospel stories of Jesus - identifying these and the worlds they came from are key steps. Re-reading to grasp aspects of community is also a critical step - Johnston uses the example of the gospel of John and the Johannine relationship with the more-dominant Jewish culture to show the complexities that can arise. These first three chapters can be considered strategy sessions. The next chapters look at methods and uses. Johnston discusses some of the more recent hermeneutic processes, as well as methods for tying things together to make general sense. These can then be turned to answering critical questions such as 'Who is God?' and 'Who is Jesus?' The key purpose to all of this is to build community and find the place of Jesus. In his epilogue, Johnston focuses upon two particular pieces from the Emmaus text (Luke 24:27 and Luke 24:30-31) that locate Jesus for us; we must also find and form ourselves in process with these. Anglicanism is sometimes accused of not taking the Bible seriously. Nothing could be further from the truth, as this text will indicate. The Anglican church requires no particular hermeneutical framework, nor any particular translation of the text to be used. However, this freedom is accompanied by the longer traditions of the church that give respect and authority to certain kinds of interpretation over others. Michael Johnston is an Episcopal priest who has taught Bible study and classes in lots of parish groups. He has also taught at Seabury-Western (the Episcopal seminary in Chicago) and his diocese's school for deacons. Each of the texts is relatively short (only two of the volumes exceed 200 pages), the print and text of each easy to read, designed not for scholars but for the regular church-goer, but not condescending either - the authors operate on the assumption that the readers are genuinely interested in deepening their faith and practice. Each volume concludes with questions for use in discussion group settings, and with annotated lists of further readings recommended.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Resource,
By
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This review is from: Engaging the Word (The New Church's Teaching Series, Vol. 3) (Paperback)
Johnson takes the reader through a method of Biblical exegesis and analysis that includes looking at all passages of Scripture in the terms of their historical setting, what did they mean to their historical audience, and what do they mean for us today. His gift to the discussion is his illustrations of various interpretations of New Testament passages in light of the Judeo-Roman War and destruction of the Temple, as well as the persecution of the early Christians. His approach is one of asking fundamental questions, and reminding us that if something looks kind of fishy (like "herds of swine" when pigs don't congregate in herds) should draw our critical thinking to deeper meanings of the text. A good read.
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