Overview
Christianity Today 2022 Book Award of Merit (Beautiful Orthodoxy)
Many Christians view the Bible as an instruction manual. While the Bible does provide instruction, it can also captivate, comfort, delight, shock, and inspire. In short, it elicits emotion--just like poetry. By learning to read and love poetry, says literature professor Matthew Mullins, readers can increase their understanding of the biblical text and learn to love God's Word more. Each chapter includes exercises and questions designed to help readers put the book's principles and practices into action.
Many Christians view the Bible as an instruction manual. While the Bible does provide instruction, it can also captivate, comfort, delight, shock, and inspire. In short, it elicits emotion--just like poetry. By learning to read and love poetry, says literature professor Matthew Mullins, readers can increase their understanding of the biblical text and learn to love God's Word more. Each chapter includes exercises and questions designed to help readers put the book's principles and practices into action.
Media
Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction: The Hatred of Poetry and Why It Matters
1. How Reading Literature Became a Quest for Meaning
2. The Bible Is Literature
3. Meaning Is More Than Message
4. Not Anything
5. Reading with Our Guts
6. Delight and Instruction
7. Why We Worship
8. Changing Our Approach
9. How to Read--General Sense
10. How to Read--Central Emotion
11. How to Read--Formal Means
12. A Short Compendium of Forms
Conclusion: Negative Capability and Habituation
Afterword: Reading Aloud
Index
Introduction: The Hatred of Poetry and Why It Matters
1. How Reading Literature Became a Quest for Meaning
2. The Bible Is Literature
3. Meaning Is More Than Message
4. Not Anything
5. Reading with Our Guts
6. Delight and Instruction
7. Why We Worship
8. Changing Our Approach
9. How to Read--General Sense
10. How to Read--Central Emotion
11. How to Read--Formal Means
12. A Short Compendium of Forms
Conclusion: Negative Capability and Habituation
Afterword: Reading Aloud
Index
Endorsements
"What if reading the Bible is a matter not just of discerning what it says but of attending to how it speaks? Then reading the Bible is more like experiencing a poem than processing a rule book. In this marvelous game changer of a book, Matthew Mullins invites readers to encounter the Bible as literature, not to diminish its revelatory authority but to break open its luminary capacity. I'm so glad this book is in the world."
James K. A. Smith, professor of philosophy, Calvin University; editor in chief, Image Journal; author of You Are What You Love and On the Road with Saint Augustine
"The expertise and joy Matthew Mullins brings to reading and understanding the literary nature of the Bible will help you not only to enjoy the Bible more but to enjoy poetry, literature, and (dare I say?) life more too. This is a book I will recommend widely and often."
Karen Swallow Prior, author of On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books
"Enjoying the Bible is a work of art that beautifully encourages us to read Scripture with the fullness of our being. For those who consume Scripture as an intellectual exercise, this book challenges you to experience God's Word with your emotions intact. This read will captivate and inspire you."
Walter R. Strickland II, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
"Mullins offers readers of the Bible what is urgently needed in our day: an aesthetics of reading. Mullins's vision for biblical reading (not biblical interpretation!) moves beyond hermeneutical techniques, directing us toward being captured and captivated by the Word of God. As a biblical scholar, I find myself drawn to this grand vision. Erudite, funny, and penetrating, Mullins wears his considerable scholarship lightly, inviting others to delight in the banquet that is reading the Bible. I want a place at that table."
Heath A. Thomas, president and professor of Old Testament, Oklahoma Baptist University
Author
Matthew Mullins
Matthew Mullins (PhD, University of North Carolina at Greensboro) is associate professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Mullins is the author of Postmodernism in Pieces and has written for Los Angeles Review of Books and American Book Review.