Episode #259 Using Your Senses to Explore Bible Stories – Unforced Rhythms of Grace

Hey friends, have you ever watched a child get totally immersed in a show or in a book? They're just captivated. Their eyes are wide, they're immersed in the adventure. They can't wait to figure out what happens next. Well, today we're talking about how we can actually approach the Bible in a similar way, using our senses and using our imagination.

Now if you're not familiar with this, that concept itself can sound scary. But we're not adding things to scripture. We're slowing down and we're asking God to help us notice him in the Bible in a way that's different than we've noticed him there before.

I had a life-changing experience with the story of the Widow of Nain many years ago. I was familiar with the story of this woman in Luke 7 and how God raised her son from the dead, but there was a specific time when I was reading her story and it came alive to me. I was able to use my senses and imagine myself physically there. Walking with her in the funeral procession as they left the town of Nain to bury her son. And I imagined her grief as if she was a friend who I knew. And I watched in my mind's eye as Jesus approached the situation and returned her son to her. And in that moment reading this story, I was moved to tears over what Jesus had done for her, like she was a friend in real life. And it forever changed my experience of the Bible because in that moment I also imagined her seeing Jesus, experiencing what it was like for Jesus to meet her in her pain.

And it grew my affection for him. It grew my awareness of how he also sees me and sees you, because we are also his children whom he dearly loves. And he also meets us in what we're going through.

I wanna read a quote for you from Richard Foster in the book Celebration of Discipline. And he talks about how our task is not always so much to study a passage, although there's value in that for sure. It's also to be initiated into the reality of which the passage speaks.

By reading scripture, we are growing more aware of God and his kingdom, and of who we are in him, and how we get to participate in his kingdom here on earth. We're being initiated into this reality of what God's like and how we can experience him and be transformed by him.
Richard goes on to say that, "We can descend with the mind into the heart most easily through the imagination. In this regard the great Scottish preacher Alexander Whyte speaks of 'the divine offices and the splendid services of the Christian imagination.' Jesus himself taught in this manner, making constant appeal to the imagination."

One of the ways we see this most clearly is in Jesus's use of parables. Yes, the word "parable" originates from the Greek word "parabole," which literally means "to throw alongside" or "to place beside". Jesus used these short parables as illustrations alongside his teaching in settings and with examples that were relatable and could be easily pictured and imagined by his listeners in their context.

One of the ways we see this is in Luke 15 where Jesus gives three parables to illustrate how he seeks out the one who is lost. He gives the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the prodigal son. And in the middle, he gives the parable of the lost coin.

It's Luke 15:8-10. And I want you to pay attention to any of the sensory clues that aid your imagination in picturing this parable, Jesus says,

8 “Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? 9 And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ 10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

I've lost a lot of things that didn't cause me to throw a party with my neighbors. When she finds her coin, she calls her friends and neighbors together to rejoice with her, which is a bigger deal then, when I finally find my car keys or my sunglasses or my kids lost homework.

And in the same way, by imagining this scene and putting ourselves in the sensory imagery, we follow this path with Jesus as he illustrates how much the Father celebrates over one of his children receiving him. And even beyond parables, if we take the Bible as a whole, God didn't just give us laws and promises and true statements. He also gave us stories.

Going back to Celebration of Disciplines, here's an encouragement for us: "Seek to live the experience, remembering the encouragement of Ignatius of Loyola to apply all our senses to our task. Smell the sea. Hear the lap of water along the shore. See the crowd. Feel the sun on your head and the hunger in your stomach. Taste the salt in the air. Touch the hem of his garment. Always remember that we enter the story not as passive observers, but as active participants. Also remember that God is truly with us to teach us, to heal us, to forgive us."

And so here's a question that you can take to him:

God, what scripture would you like to invite me into today? Please tell me more.

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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