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The Voice of Luke: Not Even Sandals

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The Voice of Luke: Not Even Sandals (The Voice) by Brian McLaren -- This is absolutely my favorite offering from The Voice so far. Brian McLaren does a masterful job of translating the book of Luke and offering devotional commentary in this stunning volume (Brian worked with a committee of Biblical scholars to ensure the accuracy of the translation, though this is by no means a word-for-word translation). Brian's work here is absolutely beautiful. In this book, he re-captured my imagination and re-invigorated my passion for the story of Jesus. When I finished it, I immediately grabbed The Voice of Acts: The Dust Off Their Feet: Lessons from the First Church (Voice) back off of my shelf because I was so engaged with the story. If you have lost your passion for reading scripture, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Fall in love with the story of Jesus all over again, or even for the first time.The Voice of Luke: Not Even Sandals (The Voice)

"The Voice of Luke" is another of the titles in "the Voice" series, a scripture project to rediscover the story of the Bible, translated for a time of transition in the contemporary church.

Holistic in approach the readings take into consideration the heart, soul, and mind of man. The book includes commentary by the author Brian McLarnen, with additional devotional thoughts. These reflections challenge the reader to identify themselves as revolutionary disciples and followers of Christ,in the same measure as those disciples of the first century. The work respects cultural shifts, accuracy, and diversity.

Voices and dialog are arranged for easy recognition as in a script for a drama production. This approach draws the reader into the passage. I found a resonance as I begin to interact with the "players" whether, Peter and Jesus, John, Matthew or Luke.

The devotional notes throughout the narrative give insight for application, inspiration, and challenge. "The Voice of Luke" is an enjoyable reading experience, stimulating, engaging and transformative. This is relevant orthodoxy for emerging church.

I really can't recommend enough the Voice project. The material that continues to come out is amazing and from what I hear of what is to come out soon will just add to the great resources already available.

This continuing of excellent material continues with Brian McLaren's The Voice of Luke: Not Even Sandals. McLaren explores a narrative retelling of the Gospel story according to Luke. This book really gives the feel, emotion, meaning, and the "experiential" way of communicating the story of Jesus.

This project is more then a translation or a paraphrase but more a retelling and the structure and feel is more of a screenplay, which makes for interesting and sometimes more engaging way of reading. The devotional thoughts or basically McLaren's commentary throughout the whole book really is a highlight of the reading and helps with the retelling of the story. McLaren is get with bringing the reader in and really engaging the reader. McLaren ties in the themes going on and even consistently brings you back to the idea of "not even sandals" and develops that as the book goes on (I'll leave it to you to read the book to learn more about what McLaren is talking about).

Again, I can't speak enough about the effectiveness of this resource and its ability for retelling the story and engaging a new kind of reader to Scripture. This is a great resource for youth ministry, personal reading, devotional reading, bible studies, and even used in periods of worship.

matt wilson
www.mattwilson.wordpress.com

This is funny because I am actually going to eat my words in this review. I recently did a review of the Voice bible in which I tore it to shreds. But to be fair, the text of scripture if very important to me so I will always be harder on items that are offered as the word of God.

But this book is pretty good. And even though it's the same Voice translation - this has inserts and notes by Brian McLaren. It actually feels like you are reading Luke with Brian and he stops ever so often to give you his input. No, it's not Brian's "version" of Luke (which was what I thought at first) but it makes a nice devotional or lectio divina.

MacLaren has given us wonderful retelling of the longest, most comprehensive Gospel. When the Christian movement was just beginning, they didn't have a Bible or a collection of 4 Gospels. If a church were lucky, they might have one Gospel like this one to tell the story of Jesus. The commentary too is helpful in drawing you into the story. Not only was the story of Jesus and his first followers, but it is the story of all his followers as well. Well done, Brian and Thomas Nelson.

This is a volume in a new Bible translation series from Ecclesia Bible Society called the Voice. The approach is to retell the biblical stories in modern narrative and oral literary form. Brian McLaren was invited to be the reteller of Luke's story, and two dynamic Bible scholars were the reviewers and revisers who performed the textual and linguistic check to be sure the new story version was in line with the original Greek manuscripts.

Brian McLaren here joins other modern authors, teachers, theologians and lovers of the Good News to bring to life the testimony of the Gospel commonly referred to as the Gospel of Luke. Only tradition from Christian leaders from the generation after the Gospel writer tells us that the writer of the "Third Gospel" was Luke, the companion of Paul. It is also virtually universally accepted that this same writer wrote the companion story of Acts.

Oral-Relational
The Gospel in the Voice series is written in dialogue format as a screenplay, making it easier to follow the dialogue and characters. This also brings it into line with the oral dramatic culture in which the New Testament documents were originally written. In a primarily oral culture, in a concrete-relational worldview context, stories were the powerful medium of conveying core values and ultimate truths.

The relational values were foundational to the format and themes, and the presentations would be oral, as we see in the portrayal of Jesus' teaching out in the fields and marketplaces. What our modern rationalist and literate culture has now come to see as "literature" were originally written for oral presentation. As even Paul's pastoral letters themselves testify, that the writer expects these to be READ to the congregations, and circulated for reading before the other congregations in their vicinity.

Screenplay
The dramatic screenplay format McLaren uses here brings to life the real possibilities Luke presents about the Rule of God in our lives. This book will be a refreshing and enlightening encounter with the dynamic original context and format of this life-oriented practical story of Good News.

But here McLaren's new presentation of this old material enables us to experience the story as a participant in the story. This dramatic story comes to life as the original writer-dramatist tells the story of Jesus and the meaning of this new Good News for the lives of the people in the Roman Empire.

In THE VOICE OF LUKE, the fourth book in the multi-author The Voice series, emergent church author Brian McLaren tries his hand at retelling the Gospel of Luke while offering background commentary throughout, with interesting results.

The Voice series is a scripture project touted by the publisher as "designed for the emerging church culture and those seeking new ways of exploring Scripture." For those not familiar with the term "emerging church," it's often used to describe young Christians dissatisfied with traditional Christianity and looking for alternative ways to pursue community and faith with Christ still at the center. The Voice is an ambitious project, planned to span all books of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. In the series, authors work to present the scriptural text as narrative story --- including emotion, meaning, experience and more holistic communication --- rather than direct translation or paraphrase.

The formatting may take readers a while to get used to, with so many things happening on the pages. In McLaren's Gospel of Luke, dialogue is set off and highlighted (avoiding the use of quotation marks) to intentionally give the reading the feel of a screenplay. McLaren uses present tense narration, which he believes helps the reader enter the story imaginatively. This, with McLaren's commentary (or "devotional notes" as the book calls it), gives the book the feel of a contemporary Sunday morning service that features a long skit paired with pastoral teaching.

The italic typeface, often used in other books to give emphasis, is used here to indicate words not directly tied to a dynamic translation of the original translation. This creates the biggest hindrance in smooth story flow; I had a hard time not emphasizing those words as I read, and it made the narrative a little choppy. The frequent use of exclamation points also may seem a little overdone (one page alone had eight). But who can fault McLaren for letting the characters be so enthusiastic? (Shepherds: Let's rush down to Bethlehem right now! Let's see what's happening! Let's experience what the Lord has told us about!) Chapters are sometimes referred to as "episodes" within the narrative, and a chapter might open with "As our story continues..." This adds to the screenplay effect.

What may work best about THE VOICE OF LUKE is McLaren's short "devotional notes" or personal commentary, given in shadow boxes on the pages. McLaren points out developing themes, looks at gaps in the narrative (such as Jesus's life between birth and age 30) and draws the reader into the text by making relatable comparisons ("Jesus' family was a lot like our own --- full of mishaps and misunderstandings.") McLaren is in full pastoral swing in these sections: warm, engaging and educational. One of my favorites: McLaren explains in Luke 3 how, while genealogies may seem tedious to us (all those names!), they were crucial for the culture of Luke's time. "Luke places Jesus in the mainstream of biblical history, connected to King David, Abraham, Noah, and Adam. Since all humanity is seen as Adam's descendants, Luke shows how Jesus is connected to and relevant for all people." Another interesting note tells of the symbolic nature of the rending of the temple curtain during the crucifixion. While a biblical scholar might find these sections basic, a young Christian engaging with the text for the first time will find the commentary helpful in navigating the story.

McLaren also speaks to readers directly in the commentary/devotional notes, inviting them to engage and apply the text: "In the coming chapters, as you encounter these signs and wonders, try to feel the wonder that the original eyewitnesses would have felt, and then ponder their significance as signs of the kingdom of God."

I found myself nostalgically comparing this series to THE GOOD NEWS BIBLE, which in the early '70s was my youth group's New Testament of choice. It was considered radical by our parents, which was key to its attraction. It also tried (in its own way) for a "meaning" version of the Bible as opposed to a translation. Although The Voice project is very different, it continues the tradition of recasting scripture for new generations.

--- Reviewed by Cindy Crosby

Written by popular clergyman who is addressing the social action writings of the Gospel of Luke in a manner that will deepen understanding of the paths that Jesus followed as opposed to the rules and regulations of his day. The same is true for modern readers of this book.

This is the first book, I've read, in the Voice "series" of presenting books from the Old and New Testaments in a new way:
picking an writer to create a more modern text with the help of scholars, and even poets. Some parts of Luke are transformed into a drama with speakers, dialogue and even "stage directions".

Personally, I felt that I was reading the Gospel of Luke anew --- seeing things and realizing things that I had not experienced before.

Very well done. Worth reading.

Nothing is wrong (that I know of) with this book...it just bores and frustrates me that I paid for it.

Basically its the book of Luke, yes thats right, Luke in the Bible...BUT as told and embellished by Brian McLaren and in play/script form. It has notes and devotionals that may help a new Christian understand some content but it will have the 'flavor' of the authors involved.

Spends a lot of pages and introduction time telling you how they 'rewrote' the book of Luke for you...I personally would enjoy the 'message' better for reading a present day understanding of Luke from a book not explicitly the Bible.