What do you think?
Rate this book
Enjoying the Bible
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.
224 pages, Paperback
Published January 19, 2021
30 people are currently reading
469 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
June 9, 2024
Is poetry intentionally obscuring its meaning OR does poetry require a different approach? Mullins packs a lot into this short, approachable book in order to show that the form is not meant to frustrate us but to engage us.
I like to indulge myself on my birthday by finishing a book. This year I’m finally getting around to completing this one, which drills down deep into the overlap of my two passions: literature and scripture. I love that Mullins has so carefully articulated a more loving and engaging way to approach scripture. In doing this, he also models a better way to approach poetry, one that doesn’t “tie the poem to a chair” and attempt to torture a confession out of it. Instead, he advocates we approach the scripture and poetry like a work of art rather than an instructional manual. When we do this, Mullins insists, we will let it effect our emotions and imaginations in a way that forms us and helps us to love the words and the God who spoke them.
Mullins begins by unpacking the ways we’ve most likely been taught to mishandle poetry which in turn has led us to struggle with scripture. The book begins with an overview of the history of how we think about poetry. He compresses a lot of great research and thinking into his book, engaging ideas about reading and thinking from many of my favorite books (On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Booksby Karen Swallow Prior, Why Poetry by Matthew Zapruder, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit by James KA Smith, and How Does a Poem Mean? by John Ciardi). This means the book starts rather idea-heavy and broad. Stick with it. He gets to some really practical and insightful wisdom.
I listened on audiobook, which is not the best way to absorb this book. I would’ve benefitted from a slower and more thoughtful read where I could take notes. Instead I have about 10 pages of scribbled notes that I need to go through. That said, if I had to pull out the highlights of this book, I’d include these ideas:
1. In order to truly read scripture (and poetry) well, we need to engage with the emotion of the text. When we’ve actually felt the emotional impact of the scripture, you’ve begun to understand it. Pulling out a “meaning” is not the point.
2. Literature appeals to our understanding through our imaginations. We need to read scripture for the experience of shock, delight, comfort, entertainment, or being unsettled. We have to commit to reading the text on its own terms and letting it impact us.
3. Being perplexed by poetry or literature or scripture is not a failure to understand but an invitation to engage. That sense of puzzlement and ambiguity is where communion with the Lord happens.
4. It is much easier to change a person’s mind than it is to change a person’s desires or instincts. Thus, when scripture seeks to move us, this is a deliberate and wise choice by the Author. While history tells us what was, and philosophy tells us what could be, literature tells us what should be and is more likely to cultivate virtue.
I really admire the way that Mullins invites us to read in conversation with God but holds fast to the idea that the scripture can and should be interpreted carefully. This isn’t a post-modern “the text can mean anything” but it is a gentle invitation to cultivate a different attitude towards the scripture that allows us to read with patience and longing, not to "find the meaning" but to allow the literature of the Bible to provoke and engage our feelings AND our thoughts.
The more I think about this one, the more I treasure it. I might just go back and start it all over again.
I like to indulge myself on my birthday by finishing a book. This year I’m finally getting around to completing this one, which drills down deep into the overlap of my two passions: literature and scripture. I love that Mullins has so carefully articulated a more loving and engaging way to approach scripture. In doing this, he also models a better way to approach poetry, one that doesn’t “tie the poem to a chair” and attempt to torture a confession out of it. Instead, he advocates we approach the scripture and poetry like a work of art rather than an instructional manual. When we do this, Mullins insists, we will let it effect our emotions and imaginations in a way that forms us and helps us to love the words and the God who spoke them.
Mullins begins by unpacking the ways we’ve most likely been taught to mishandle poetry which in turn has led us to struggle with scripture. The book begins with an overview of the history of how we think about poetry. He compresses a lot of great research and thinking into his book, engaging ideas about reading and thinking from many of my favorite books (On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Booksby Karen Swallow Prior, Why Poetry by Matthew Zapruder, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit by James KA Smith, and How Does a Poem Mean? by John Ciardi). This means the book starts rather idea-heavy and broad. Stick with it. He gets to some really practical and insightful wisdom.
I listened on audiobook, which is not the best way to absorb this book. I would’ve benefitted from a slower and more thoughtful read where I could take notes. Instead I have about 10 pages of scribbled notes that I need to go through. That said, if I had to pull out the highlights of this book, I’d include these ideas:
1. In order to truly read scripture (and poetry) well, we need to engage with the emotion of the text. When we’ve actually felt the emotional impact of the scripture, you’ve begun to understand it. Pulling out a “meaning” is not the point.
2. Literature appeals to our understanding through our imaginations. We need to read scripture for the experience of shock, delight, comfort, entertainment, or being unsettled. We have to commit to reading the text on its own terms and letting it impact us.
3. Being perplexed by poetry or literature or scripture is not a failure to understand but an invitation to engage. That sense of puzzlement and ambiguity is where communion with the Lord happens.
4. It is much easier to change a person’s mind than it is to change a person’s desires or instincts. Thus, when scripture seeks to move us, this is a deliberate and wise choice by the Author. While history tells us what was, and philosophy tells us what could be, literature tells us what should be and is more likely to cultivate virtue.
I really admire the way that Mullins invites us to read in conversation with God but holds fast to the idea that the scripture can and should be interpreted carefully. This isn’t a post-modern “the text can mean anything” but it is a gentle invitation to cultivate a different attitude towards the scripture that allows us to read with patience and longing, not to "find the meaning" but to allow the literature of the Bible to provoke and engage our feelings AND our thoughts.
The more I think about this one, the more I treasure it. I might just go back and start it all over again.
January 25, 2021
This is why more Christians should be English majors: It produces robust interpretations of Scripture. It is important to understand form when reading Scripture.
Mullins claims that many Christians reads with Cartesian eyes (only reading for information) rather than also reading with religious affection. We are head and heart creatures. In this book, he asks us to see the lens we read and then change our lens by seeing how the text sees meaning. Form is not a vehicle for meaning but an inseparable aspect of meaning. Meaning is not mere information but also the affections evoked by the text. This was refreshing because he provides rules for how to avoid Cartesian eyes as well as textual relativism. The text is not found in the reader. While there are variances to meaning while reading a poem, there is a limit to the evoking experiences a reader should experience.
The best part was when Mullins modeled the kind of reading a Christian should produce. This grounds Mullins theory in reality. It is doable, practical, and more importantly true to the text.
Mullins claims that many Christians reads with Cartesian eyes (only reading for information) rather than also reading with religious affection. We are head and heart creatures. In this book, he asks us to see the lens we read and then change our lens by seeing how the text sees meaning. Form is not a vehicle for meaning but an inseparable aspect of meaning. Meaning is not mere information but also the affections evoked by the text. This was refreshing because he provides rules for how to avoid Cartesian eyes as well as textual relativism. The text is not found in the reader. While there are variances to meaning while reading a poem, there is a limit to the evoking experiences a reader should experience.
The best part was when Mullins modeled the kind of reading a Christian should produce. This grounds Mullins theory in reality. It is doable, practical, and more importantly true to the text.
August 10, 2021
9/10
This book seeks to correct our modernist tendency to approach Scripture as primarily a text that we mine for propositions. Mullins shows us that we should attend to the literary forms of Scripture as well as its propositional content, open our hearts as well as our minds to God's Word, and relearn the joyful task of delighting in the Bible.
This book seeks to correct our modernist tendency to approach Scripture as primarily a text that we mine for propositions. Mullins shows us that we should attend to the literary forms of Scripture as well as its propositional content, open our hearts as well as our minds to God's Word, and relearn the joyful task of delighting in the Bible.
January 6, 2022
Not a quick read but that's kind of the point. Learn to be literary readers, and see how it helps us fall in love with the Bible. The examples were plentiful and helpful.
May 3, 2021
Absolutely. Loved. This. Book. As a student and teacher of Scripture for many years I found it a true delight to read, and I’ve recommended it over and over again before even finishing the whole work! Refreshing. Informative. Challenges us to see with new eyes. I will be a better reader - both of the Bible and also other works of literature - because of reading this book.
September 3, 2021
First sentence from the introduction: When was the last time you visited your local bookstore or logged in online and bought a book of poetry? When was the last time you read a poem, whether because you wanted to or because you had to? Can you name a single poet you didn’t learn about in school? Regardless of where you live or where you are from, if you are anything like 93.3 percent of Americans, then the respective answers to these questions may very well be these: Never, I can’t recall, and No.
Enjoying the Bible is not the book I expected--for better or worse. I'll do my best to describe exactly what the book is like so that you can make an informed decision on if you want to read it or skip it.
I'll start with the author's stated goal: "In short, this book is about the pleasure of understanding. First, I mean that understanding what we read can be pleasurable. But second, I mean that, sometimes, you must take pleasure in something in order to understand it. The basic argument of this book is that much of the Bible is written to be enjoyed. The implication is that if reading the Bible does not enact pleasure in you, then you may not understand what you have read."
He goes on to say that the book has two purposes (that relate to the main stated goal): "Therefore, this book has two purposes. First, it seeks to change the way we think about the Bible itself as a text, to expand our sense of it from instruction manual to work of literary art. Second, it attempts to teach us how to read the Bible as a work of literary art. These purposes presuppose a radical assumption: that understanding what we read is not merely an intellectual exercise, and so we need more than our brains to understand the Bible."
He argues that most people who read the Bible see it mainly or exclusively as an instruction manual. Most who read it take as much pleasure in reading the Bible as they would any instruction manual--that is very little if any. He supposes that these readers feel that the Bible is not something to be delighted in, enjoyed, treasured, feasted upon, relished. The Bible is something that you read for tips, guidelines, instructions, applications.
He spends the majority of the book urging readers to change their perspective and approach. Throw out the notion (mainly) that the Bible is an instructional manual. Embrace the notion that the Bible is literature and that it is literary. Adopt a whole new way--a way that sees the Bible mainly as literary literature--to spend time in the Word.
This is without a doubt where he spends the most time--unpacking, rearranging, repacking, reshaping what words like "meaning" and "understanding" mean. It can be a bit all over the place. If you hold all his views and opinions at once--presupposing them all to be equally true--then your mind might start spinning and you might have to reboot.
For example, he insists that no literary text has a single central meaning. The very literariness of the literary text make room for a spectrum of meanings. He argues that the number of meanings is not limitless however. There is a spectrum. Readers use their experiences, imagination, feelings, and emotions in response to the words on the page. The words on the page will exclude certain renderings--but can never be reduced to one single, central, absolute, abstract meaning.
He is all about MEANING and UNDERSTANDING and how these two terms relate to each other and to the reader's practical experiences. Because readers (who see the Bible as an instruction manual) are essentially learning how to reread from the very beginning (do, re, mi) and throwing out (mostly) everything that they think they know about how to understand what they read, he becomes teacher. And since he's a teacher in real life--teaching AMERICAN POETRY--this is where he turns.
For better or worse, right or wrong, Mullins seems determined to tie one's ability to read poetry-poetry to one's ability to read the Bible...and enjoy it. If you don't learn how to read, how to understand, how to appreciate, how to enjoy POETRY poetry, then you will never learn how to rightly read and enjoy the Bible. (I personally do not buy into this notion...at all...not even a little bit.)
So he spends his time doing two things--giving readers examples from American poetry (well, mostly poetry, there is one short story). He will present a poem. Introduce the poem. Invite you to read and reread the poem. Walk you through exercises on how to understand and enjoy the poem. Present the poem again. Keep talking about the poem. Arrive at a conclusion about how this illustrate his reworked definition of meaning and understanding. That's one aspect of the book. But he also presents two possibly three passages of Scripture. Psalm 23. And a snippet of Psalm 119. Same thing he will coach you through step by step by step on how you "should" be approaching the text to arrive at a reworked meaning and understanding of the text. Remember no literary text can have a central meaning.
At the core of this reasoning seems to be the logic: you can never arrive at a meaning until you understand the text; you can never understand the text until you have experienced the text; you cannot experience a text until you've reacted emotionally to the text. Therefore meaning = words on the page + emotions and feelings. For example, if you read Psalm 23 and fail to FEEL comforted, reassured, loved, cherished, valued--etc., then you haven't understood it and you don't know what it means. If you read Psalm 119:105 and fail to feel an increased longing for the Word of God and a desire for more of the Word, then you've failed to understand the text and don't know what it means.
He argues that the Bible is literature and a work of art. "Works of literature are what they say, whereas nonliterary works mean what they say." and "Literary texts mean by creating a world in which we must imagine ourselves." and "We need emotion to understand literature. Thus, to ask what a literary text means is always to ask what kinds of emotions it evokes. But my main point here is that to understand literature we must do more than identify or acknowledge these emotions. We must feel them." and "What we need to make peace with is the fact that the experience of reading is, itself, the meaning of the poem." and "The meaning is a negotiation between you and the poem, and the materials you have to work with (the poem itself and what you bring to it) are the parameters of the meaning."
He does have opinions and advice on how to read and how not to read the Bible.
"When you want to read the Bible, don’t try to “extract” anything from the experience. By this I mean don’t open the book looking for a truth. Try this first with a story or poem. Imagine yourself in the world of the story. Maybe you’re an Israelite who’s just heard that the leaders are summoning the ark of the Lord to the battlefield. How do you feel? Does it give you hope, lift your spirits? Now what happens after you barely survive the ensuing fight while your friends are killed and the ark is stolen by the enemy? How do you react? Imagine learning that while the ark didn’t seem to work for you, it’s been rumored that the Philistines’ gods are falling down before it. What’s up with that? Are you confused? Encouraged? Fearful? Immerse yourself in the story. Don’t ask, To what end? or For what purpose? Read the Bible as you would anything else designed to capture your imagination."
and
"To read the Bible well, slow down. Is there any reason you have to read an entire testament, book, chapter, passage, or even verse today? Why are you in such a hurry?"
and
"What we’re aiming for when we eat is the same thing we should be aiming for when we read the Scriptures: delight. When you eat well, you’re in a better position to train. But the relationship goes both ways; when you train hard, you’ll find yourself hungrier. You need both if you’re going to grow spiritually and learn to love God’s Word."
and
"Our hearts must be inflamed, captured, taken by a vision; they must be appealed to differently than our heads. They must be trained and habituated over time so that in moments of intellectual storm we have a trustworthy anchor. While we might normally think of our hearts as less stable than our minds, it’s much easier to change our ideas than it is to change our desires."
and
"Do you read, watch, and listen to the Bible like it’s the very food that will constitute your being? There should be evidence of the Scriptures in our breath, in our stride, in our body language toward one another, in the way we listen to and embrace each other. We need to read as if our very lives depend on it, even as our bodies rely on food. Read the Bible like you eat: to live. Practically, this means we must read it every day, we must read it at regular times, we must read it for both meals and snacks, we must read it because we have to and because it gives us pleasure, we must read it well."
and
"If you can learn to read a poem like you experience a painting, you’ll be well on your way to cultivating a different set of expectations that you can then bring to the Bible."
and
"The approach we’re beginning to develop attempts to let the text drive our reading. But by letting the text itself drive your observations and questions, you are not simply allowing it to speak for itself. In fact, I have emphasized the role of noticing what you notice and asking the questions that come from your observations to help us see that there are two horizons shaping your reading of the text at this stage: the horizon of the text and your own horizon. By “horizon” here, I mean perspective or point of view. The text is what it is, but you’re always reading it from your perspective. Right reading is not a matter of overcoming, or setting aside, your own perspective in favor of that of the text at hand. Right reading is a matter of bringing those two horizons into relation with one another."
I have very mixed feelings on Mullins' book. I do. I am bothered by one major thing he leaves out completely. That ONE essential thing is this: the Bible is a spiritual book and to understand--truly understand--the Bible one must be filled with the Holy Spirit. You must have spiritual eyes to find true meaning and understanding. Without the Spirit, the Words may be the very Word of God but they will never be more than words on the page. One cannot have a right understanding of Scripture without the Spirit. The Spirit is both AUTHOR and TEACHER and GUIDE and COUNSELOR. One's emotions, feelings, and experiences cannot guide one to a right reading, a right meaning unless one is filled with the Spirit, led by the Spirit, walking with the Spirit, abiding and growing in the Spirit. Then again, according to Mullins, because of the literariness of the Bible, there can be no central, singular meanings of a particular passage or text.
The next thing that concerns me is this notion that one absolutely MUST come to an appreciation of poetry BEFORE one can rightly come to the Bible and enjoy the Bible. I think HIS horizons as a poetry teacher are limiting his reality! One does not need to appreciate ANY poet or ANY poetry--from any century--in order to ENJOY THE BIBLE.
So where does ENJOYMENT OF THE BIBLE come from if not born out of a love of literature a love of poetry? I think it is the outworking of the Holy Spirit and/or the result of PRAYER. We develop an appetite for the Word of God when we feast on it. Feasting leads to delight. Delight leads to feasting. There is a circle of NOURISHMENT and PLEASURE. I do think we can and should change our approach to reading the Bible. I think we should a) actually read it, b) actually read it daily, c) actually read enough each day that we are not STARVING and lacking nutrients d) actually read enough so that we are satiated and satisfied, feel FED e) actually read it in such a way that OUR natural instincts of reading kicks in.
Reading the Word of God invites WONDER and AWE. It is such a gracious gift that God invites us to know him, to know HIM as HE HAS REVEALED HIMSELF TO US. It is such a gracious and loving act of worship to spend time READING THE VERY WORD OF GOD. There is nothing routine or mundane about it.
I also took issue with him for this insistence in SLOWING DOWN. I am not on team rush, rush, rush, speed. I am not on team snail's pace. I think if one wants to take PLEASURE in reading and build up an appetite, it's going to take more than SLOWLY reading a verse or two a day. Can you imagine taking a year to go through the gospel of Matthew because you are only reading two or three verses a day? And some days not even that? How would you ever CONNECT to the text and fall in love with the words on the page if one doesn't read at a NATURAL pace? It would be like taking A YEAR to watch a movie. Today we'll spend two to five minutes watching Fellowship of the Ring. We'll pick up tomorrow...or not.
That being said, it's not that I'm opposed to NATURALLY pausing when we're reading and saying WOW, I want to read that again...and again. THAT IS AMAZING. THAT IS TRULY SOMETHING. Some verses should strike us with AWE or HUMILITY or JOY or GRATITUDE. There should be natural moments when we want to say HALLELUJAH or AMEN or PRAISE THE LORD. I'm not opposed to these natural heart-felt moments of wonderment. OR even those natural pauses where we have questions. Where we want to slow down and ponder.
I do think the Bible cannot be reduced to being a literary work. It is so much more than that. Mullins knows it. He just wants to place the "rules" of literature onto the Bible. But what perspectives and theories rule over "meaning" and "understanding" in the world of literature cannot be cut and pasted into reading something SACRED and God-Breathed.
Enjoying the Bible is not the book I expected--for better or worse. I'll do my best to describe exactly what the book is like so that you can make an informed decision on if you want to read it or skip it.
I'll start with the author's stated goal: "In short, this book is about the pleasure of understanding. First, I mean that understanding what we read can be pleasurable. But second, I mean that, sometimes, you must take pleasure in something in order to understand it. The basic argument of this book is that much of the Bible is written to be enjoyed. The implication is that if reading the Bible does not enact pleasure in you, then you may not understand what you have read."
He goes on to say that the book has two purposes (that relate to the main stated goal): "Therefore, this book has two purposes. First, it seeks to change the way we think about the Bible itself as a text, to expand our sense of it from instruction manual to work of literary art. Second, it attempts to teach us how to read the Bible as a work of literary art. These purposes presuppose a radical assumption: that understanding what we read is not merely an intellectual exercise, and so we need more than our brains to understand the Bible."
He argues that most people who read the Bible see it mainly or exclusively as an instruction manual. Most who read it take as much pleasure in reading the Bible as they would any instruction manual--that is very little if any. He supposes that these readers feel that the Bible is not something to be delighted in, enjoyed, treasured, feasted upon, relished. The Bible is something that you read for tips, guidelines, instructions, applications.
He spends the majority of the book urging readers to change their perspective and approach. Throw out the notion (mainly) that the Bible is an instructional manual. Embrace the notion that the Bible is literature and that it is literary. Adopt a whole new way--a way that sees the Bible mainly as literary literature--to spend time in the Word.
This is without a doubt where he spends the most time--unpacking, rearranging, repacking, reshaping what words like "meaning" and "understanding" mean. It can be a bit all over the place. If you hold all his views and opinions at once--presupposing them all to be equally true--then your mind might start spinning and you might have to reboot.
For example, he insists that no literary text has a single central meaning. The very literariness of the literary text make room for a spectrum of meanings. He argues that the number of meanings is not limitless however. There is a spectrum. Readers use their experiences, imagination, feelings, and emotions in response to the words on the page. The words on the page will exclude certain renderings--but can never be reduced to one single, central, absolute, abstract meaning.
He is all about MEANING and UNDERSTANDING and how these two terms relate to each other and to the reader's practical experiences. Because readers (who see the Bible as an instruction manual) are essentially learning how to reread from the very beginning (do, re, mi) and throwing out (mostly) everything that they think they know about how to understand what they read, he becomes teacher. And since he's a teacher in real life--teaching AMERICAN POETRY--this is where he turns.
For better or worse, right or wrong, Mullins seems determined to tie one's ability to read poetry-poetry to one's ability to read the Bible...and enjoy it. If you don't learn how to read, how to understand, how to appreciate, how to enjoy POETRY poetry, then you will never learn how to rightly read and enjoy the Bible. (I personally do not buy into this notion...at all...not even a little bit.)
So he spends his time doing two things--giving readers examples from American poetry (well, mostly poetry, there is one short story). He will present a poem. Introduce the poem. Invite you to read and reread the poem. Walk you through exercises on how to understand and enjoy the poem. Present the poem again. Keep talking about the poem. Arrive at a conclusion about how this illustrate his reworked definition of meaning and understanding. That's one aspect of the book. But he also presents two possibly three passages of Scripture. Psalm 23. And a snippet of Psalm 119. Same thing he will coach you through step by step by step on how you "should" be approaching the text to arrive at a reworked meaning and understanding of the text. Remember no literary text can have a central meaning.
At the core of this reasoning seems to be the logic: you can never arrive at a meaning until you understand the text; you can never understand the text until you have experienced the text; you cannot experience a text until you've reacted emotionally to the text. Therefore meaning = words on the page + emotions and feelings. For example, if you read Psalm 23 and fail to FEEL comforted, reassured, loved, cherished, valued--etc., then you haven't understood it and you don't know what it means. If you read Psalm 119:105 and fail to feel an increased longing for the Word of God and a desire for more of the Word, then you've failed to understand the text and don't know what it means.
He argues that the Bible is literature and a work of art. "Works of literature are what they say, whereas nonliterary works mean what they say." and "Literary texts mean by creating a world in which we must imagine ourselves." and "We need emotion to understand literature. Thus, to ask what a literary text means is always to ask what kinds of emotions it evokes. But my main point here is that to understand literature we must do more than identify or acknowledge these emotions. We must feel them." and "What we need to make peace with is the fact that the experience of reading is, itself, the meaning of the poem." and "The meaning is a negotiation between you and the poem, and the materials you have to work with (the poem itself and what you bring to it) are the parameters of the meaning."
He does have opinions and advice on how to read and how not to read the Bible.
"When you want to read the Bible, don’t try to “extract” anything from the experience. By this I mean don’t open the book looking for a truth. Try this first with a story or poem. Imagine yourself in the world of the story. Maybe you’re an Israelite who’s just heard that the leaders are summoning the ark of the Lord to the battlefield. How do you feel? Does it give you hope, lift your spirits? Now what happens after you barely survive the ensuing fight while your friends are killed and the ark is stolen by the enemy? How do you react? Imagine learning that while the ark didn’t seem to work for you, it’s been rumored that the Philistines’ gods are falling down before it. What’s up with that? Are you confused? Encouraged? Fearful? Immerse yourself in the story. Don’t ask, To what end? or For what purpose? Read the Bible as you would anything else designed to capture your imagination."
and
"To read the Bible well, slow down. Is there any reason you have to read an entire testament, book, chapter, passage, or even verse today? Why are you in such a hurry?"
and
"What we’re aiming for when we eat is the same thing we should be aiming for when we read the Scriptures: delight. When you eat well, you’re in a better position to train. But the relationship goes both ways; when you train hard, you’ll find yourself hungrier. You need both if you’re going to grow spiritually and learn to love God’s Word."
and
"Our hearts must be inflamed, captured, taken by a vision; they must be appealed to differently than our heads. They must be trained and habituated over time so that in moments of intellectual storm we have a trustworthy anchor. While we might normally think of our hearts as less stable than our minds, it’s much easier to change our ideas than it is to change our desires."
and
"Do you read, watch, and listen to the Bible like it’s the very food that will constitute your being? There should be evidence of the Scriptures in our breath, in our stride, in our body language toward one another, in the way we listen to and embrace each other. We need to read as if our very lives depend on it, even as our bodies rely on food. Read the Bible like you eat: to live. Practically, this means we must read it every day, we must read it at regular times, we must read it for both meals and snacks, we must read it because we have to and because it gives us pleasure, we must read it well."
and
"If you can learn to read a poem like you experience a painting, you’ll be well on your way to cultivating a different set of expectations that you can then bring to the Bible."
and
"The approach we’re beginning to develop attempts to let the text drive our reading. But by letting the text itself drive your observations and questions, you are not simply allowing it to speak for itself. In fact, I have emphasized the role of noticing what you notice and asking the questions that come from your observations to help us see that there are two horizons shaping your reading of the text at this stage: the horizon of the text and your own horizon. By “horizon” here, I mean perspective or point of view. The text is what it is, but you’re always reading it from your perspective. Right reading is not a matter of overcoming, or setting aside, your own perspective in favor of that of the text at hand. Right reading is a matter of bringing those two horizons into relation with one another."
I have very mixed feelings on Mullins' book. I do. I am bothered by one major thing he leaves out completely. That ONE essential thing is this: the Bible is a spiritual book and to understand--truly understand--the Bible one must be filled with the Holy Spirit. You must have spiritual eyes to find true meaning and understanding. Without the Spirit, the Words may be the very Word of God but they will never be more than words on the page. One cannot have a right understanding of Scripture without the Spirit. The Spirit is both AUTHOR and TEACHER and GUIDE and COUNSELOR. One's emotions, feelings, and experiences cannot guide one to a right reading, a right meaning unless one is filled with the Spirit, led by the Spirit, walking with the Spirit, abiding and growing in the Spirit. Then again, according to Mullins, because of the literariness of the Bible, there can be no central, singular meanings of a particular passage or text.
The next thing that concerns me is this notion that one absolutely MUST come to an appreciation of poetry BEFORE one can rightly come to the Bible and enjoy the Bible. I think HIS horizons as a poetry teacher are limiting his reality! One does not need to appreciate ANY poet or ANY poetry--from any century--in order to ENJOY THE BIBLE.
So where does ENJOYMENT OF THE BIBLE come from if not born out of a love of literature a love of poetry? I think it is the outworking of the Holy Spirit and/or the result of PRAYER. We develop an appetite for the Word of God when we feast on it. Feasting leads to delight. Delight leads to feasting. There is a circle of NOURISHMENT and PLEASURE. I do think we can and should change our approach to reading the Bible. I think we should a) actually read it, b) actually read it daily, c) actually read enough each day that we are not STARVING and lacking nutrients d) actually read enough so that we are satiated and satisfied, feel FED e) actually read it in such a way that OUR natural instincts of reading kicks in.
Reading the Word of God invites WONDER and AWE. It is such a gracious gift that God invites us to know him, to know HIM as HE HAS REVEALED HIMSELF TO US. It is such a gracious and loving act of worship to spend time READING THE VERY WORD OF GOD. There is nothing routine or mundane about it.
I also took issue with him for this insistence in SLOWING DOWN. I am not on team rush, rush, rush, speed. I am not on team snail's pace. I think if one wants to take PLEASURE in reading and build up an appetite, it's going to take more than SLOWLY reading a verse or two a day. Can you imagine taking a year to go through the gospel of Matthew because you are only reading two or three verses a day? And some days not even that? How would you ever CONNECT to the text and fall in love with the words on the page if one doesn't read at a NATURAL pace? It would be like taking A YEAR to watch a movie. Today we'll spend two to five minutes watching Fellowship of the Ring. We'll pick up tomorrow...or not.
That being said, it's not that I'm opposed to NATURALLY pausing when we're reading and saying WOW, I want to read that again...and again. THAT IS AMAZING. THAT IS TRULY SOMETHING. Some verses should strike us with AWE or HUMILITY or JOY or GRATITUDE. There should be natural moments when we want to say HALLELUJAH or AMEN or PRAISE THE LORD. I'm not opposed to these natural heart-felt moments of wonderment. OR even those natural pauses where we have questions. Where we want to slow down and ponder.
I do think the Bible cannot be reduced to being a literary work. It is so much more than that. Mullins knows it. He just wants to place the "rules" of literature onto the Bible. But what perspectives and theories rule over "meaning" and "understanding" in the world of literature cannot be cut and pasted into reading something SACRED and God-Breathed.
March 10, 2025
Very repetitive, but I will never read the Bible the same way again. Gold.
July 31, 2022
This is an informative and enjoyable book. Every student of the Bible should read this to understand how to read the literature in the Bible.
Have you ever heard that the BIBLE is Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth? There’s a song by Burlap to Cashmere that’s says it. But instruction manuals and literature are not the same things and should not be read the same way. If you are reading a literary Bible passage purely for a main application point, then you may be reading it wrong. Mullins teaches readers how to read literature well and how to read Biblical literature well. The author includes an exercise at the end of each chapter to apply the skills taught In it. This book makes sense and will impact me for the rest of my life. I’m very glad I read it!
Have you ever heard that the BIBLE is Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth? There’s a song by Burlap to Cashmere that’s says it. But instruction manuals and literature are not the same things and should not be read the same way. If you are reading a literary Bible passage purely for a main application point, then you may be reading it wrong. Mullins teaches readers how to read literature well and how to read Biblical literature well. The author includes an exercise at the end of each chapter to apply the skills taught In it. This book makes sense and will impact me for the rest of my life. I’m very glad I read it!
August 21, 2022
What an insightful read! Mullins proposes that to fully understand and truly love Scripture, we need to read it in a way that engages us intellectually and emotionally. He spends a while backing up this claim, and then goes into some practical steps Bible-readers can take to learn to read this way. I found it useful, and a good reminder that not everything in the Bible is meant to be taken literally, but rather, literarily. The only downside I found was that the majority of his examples were poetry. I would have been interested to hear how he used his methodology in a narrative framework as well.
May 7, 2024
Really good encouragement to slow down, read the Bible as literature, and really immerse yourself in it. This book points you towards the truth that the Bible wants command of your affections, not just your mental assent. Mullins includes helpful exercises as well, but I do wish he would have examined more scripture instead of using secular poems.
September 25, 2025
This was a good book. Mullins’s thesis was that most people do not engage with, encounter, or appreciate the Bible because they do not know how to engage with, encounter, or appreciate literature. It was interesting to know that Mullins is Baptist but is very suspicious of a fundamentalist reading of the Bible.
The irony of the book was that the author was trying to convince the reader to read the Scriptures without the goal of merely extracting the meaning….and the whole time I was like, “Dude, get to the point.” 😂 which probably means I need this book. I would have enjoyed it more if it wasn’t required reading for my hermeneutics class. Would recommend!
The irony of the book was that the author was trying to convince the reader to read the Scriptures without the goal of merely extracting the meaning….and the whole time I was like, “Dude, get to the point.” 😂 which probably means I need this book. I would have enjoyed it more if it wasn’t required reading for my hermeneutics class. Would recommend!
September 7, 2021
Having been substantially-trained in both the joy of reading and also the skills of interpreting literature (love to all my English teachers [heart hands]), there wasn't a lot that was new in this book. But the author's intent of applying James K.A. Smith's epistemology to Bible-reading can serve as a helpful corrective for some people. I appreciated the book, as it affirmed some of my own tendencies while giving me language for them. So, I do think it is a very good book. I would say the strength of the book is the more theoretical first part. The second half seemed a bit rushed and superficial.
Personally, reading this was also a reminder that poetry is good and important to me.
Personally, reading this was also a reminder that poetry is good and important to me.
December 21, 2022
This book took me a while to finish because I found it a little boring, to be honest. But I’m giving it 4 stars because the author makes a really good point: that is, that it’s good to read the Bible, specifically the poetry of the Bible, simply as a literary masterpiece, instead of always looking for the main point and the practical application to our lives. He provides reading exercises to help one get in the habit of reading for general sense, central emotion, recognizing literary forms, etc. The general thrust of the book, in my opinion, is to sit with the Bible in a contemplative and curious frame of mind. What do you see? What do you feel? Why does the author use the simile or metaphor that he does? What would it be like to be there?
We often use the Bible as instruction manual and nothing else, but this book encourages us to go deeper in a really thoughtful way. So as my daughter encouraged me when I almost DNF’ed, I encourage you to push through any boring or muddy bits and finish the book. It’s worth it.
We often use the Bible as instruction manual and nothing else, but this book encourages us to go deeper in a really thoughtful way. So as my daughter encouraged me when I almost DNF’ed, I encourage you to push through any boring or muddy bits and finish the book. It’s worth it.
October 25, 2022
this book redefines the process of understanding the bible as something that necessarily includes feelings… it’s SUPPOSED to make you feel something because that’s what drives behavior.
“The more you read the Bible as a work of literary art, the more you’ll come to love it. And the more you love Gods word, the more you’ll keep it”
“The more you read the Bible as a work of literary art, the more you’ll come to love it. And the more you love Gods word, the more you’ll keep it”
December 24, 2021
I’m thankful for any book that helps me enjoy and appreciate the Bible more! Mullins’s passion is contagious as he offers a great introduction to appreciating the poetry and literary forms of the Bible.
March 9, 2025
Really intriguing stuff and I’m glad I have this on my shelf for the future. This was perhaps the worst time for me to read it though, so I’ll have to revisit it later when I can be more intentional with the practices.
October 21, 2021
One to revisit, consult, reference...
March 21, 2022
Solid. If you've read Robert Alter, Leland Ryken, Tremper Longman III, you won't find much surprising, other than perhaps the additional influence of James K.A. Smith. If you've never read those authors, I'd recommend it. If you have, it might still be good, but not required reading.
Want to read
September 22, 2021Review here.
March 10, 2023
Summary: Explores how learning to read literature helps us love the Bible rather than just reading it as a divine instruction manual.
Sometimes, people come to the Bible, say a passage in the Psalms, and come away baffled. Shouldn’t we be able to just read it and get the message? Yet this is not always our experience. We walk away saying, “I don’t get it.” Or we treat the Bible as a divine instruction manual, looking for the answer to particular challenges in our lives. Or perhaps, from our Bible quiz days, if we did such a thing, we treat the Bible as an information source. But Matthew Mullins wonders whether such ways of engaging the Bible help us love the scriptures, and in turn the Triune God to whom they point.
Mullins teaches English, and he finds that for many of the same reasons, people hate poetry. They read it and don’t get it, the message isn’t straightforward. He contends that our difficulty is reading with Cartesian eyes, looking for information: who is the author and what is the author trying to say? When was it written? What is the main idea? He encourages instead, a hermeneutic of love, where we enter deeply into the passage, allowing it “to captivate, entice, comfort, shock, and even sicken” to allow ourselves to experience the emotional weight of the passage, not just the information within.
He contends that the Bible is literature and to be read literarily, recognizing the various forms that make up scripture. He contends that the literary parts of scripture, like the Psalms don’t just tell us something but invite us to inhabit a world. Psalm 23, for example, not unlike Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” elicits emotions, feelings, the sense of a world. The Psalm invites us to see what a relationship with God is like, in both times of peace and danger.
He invites us to read with our guts rather than “studying.” He encourages us to slow down, even, in the words of Alan Jacobs, to read at whim. Using poetry alongside scripture, he takes us through a number of exercises that allow us to enter into the world of the text–standing in front of it and looking, asking questions based on what we see. Three chapter follow on how we read, looking for the general sense, the central emotion, and the formal means (that is, the forms, like metaphor, used to convey meaning). He uses Paul Laurence Dunbar’s powerfully evocative “We Wear the Mask” alongside Psalm 119. He follows the chapter on the formal means with an explanation of some of the forms we encounter in scripture.
In concluding, he discusses “negative capability,” our ability to wrestle with and rest in uncertainty. Entering the world of a biblical text takes time and if we are uncomfortable with lots of questions and uncertainty, we will never get to the other side of its complexity, of encountering and loving God in the text. He invites us into habituation, taking regular time to sit with texts of scripture. Then, in the afterword, he invites us into one further practice–reading aloud. Reading aloud slows us down and helps us hear the rhythm of the language. It enables us to listen to the sound and sense of the text. Done communally we hear and speak the word of God with each other, and love the One who speaks.
I found much to commend and a few sticking points. The biggest sticking point was that I felt he created a straw man of Cartesian reading. Perhaps this is a reality in his own circles, but much more common in my experience is the lost art of reading observantly, contemplatively and literarily. Many have spoken of how the internet has “broken” our brains when it comes to attending to more complex forms of writing, whether poetry or the Bible. The other issue is the focus on poetry. There is a lot of poetry in scripture to be sure, but also a lot else, with relatively less guidance for how to read these genres or forms other than to be aware of them.
Having noted these criticisms, I found much of value in his approaches to paying attention to the general sense, central emotion, and formal means of the text. I loved setting poetry alongside scripture to show similar reading strategies with each. I appreciated his encouragements that we become comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty, similar to what his students (and perhaps all of us) have felt before a poem like The Wasteland. I’ve often asked graduate students why they are comfortable spending months or years studying a challenging text, trying to accurately render a historical event, understand a physical phenomena, or solve a math problem but are uncomfortable that they still have questions after studying a Bible passage for 45 minutes.
Many people don’t love scripture. They think they should but often walk away frustrated. This work can help, particularly if read slowly, working through the exercises the author gives the reader. To begin with, he leads us into some familiar texts and helps us love them. He offers strategies for reading that, if they become habits, may help us “in-habit” the text and come to love it as we encounter in it the God who loves us. And, who knows, reading Mullen might whet our appetite to try our hand at other poetry, which would not be a bad thing.
Sometimes, people come to the Bible, say a passage in the Psalms, and come away baffled. Shouldn’t we be able to just read it and get the message? Yet this is not always our experience. We walk away saying, “I don’t get it.” Or we treat the Bible as a divine instruction manual, looking for the answer to particular challenges in our lives. Or perhaps, from our Bible quiz days, if we did such a thing, we treat the Bible as an information source. But Matthew Mullins wonders whether such ways of engaging the Bible help us love the scriptures, and in turn the Triune God to whom they point.
Mullins teaches English, and he finds that for many of the same reasons, people hate poetry. They read it and don’t get it, the message isn’t straightforward. He contends that our difficulty is reading with Cartesian eyes, looking for information: who is the author and what is the author trying to say? When was it written? What is the main idea? He encourages instead, a hermeneutic of love, where we enter deeply into the passage, allowing it “to captivate, entice, comfort, shock, and even sicken” to allow ourselves to experience the emotional weight of the passage, not just the information within.
He contends that the Bible is literature and to be read literarily, recognizing the various forms that make up scripture. He contends that the literary parts of scripture, like the Psalms don’t just tell us something but invite us to inhabit a world. Psalm 23, for example, not unlike Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” elicits emotions, feelings, the sense of a world. The Psalm invites us to see what a relationship with God is like, in both times of peace and danger.
He invites us to read with our guts rather than “studying.” He encourages us to slow down, even, in the words of Alan Jacobs, to read at whim. Using poetry alongside scripture, he takes us through a number of exercises that allow us to enter into the world of the text–standing in front of it and looking, asking questions based on what we see. Three chapter follow on how we read, looking for the general sense, the central emotion, and the formal means (that is, the forms, like metaphor, used to convey meaning). He uses Paul Laurence Dunbar’s powerfully evocative “We Wear the Mask” alongside Psalm 119. He follows the chapter on the formal means with an explanation of some of the forms we encounter in scripture.
In concluding, he discusses “negative capability,” our ability to wrestle with and rest in uncertainty. Entering the world of a biblical text takes time and if we are uncomfortable with lots of questions and uncertainty, we will never get to the other side of its complexity, of encountering and loving God in the text. He invites us into habituation, taking regular time to sit with texts of scripture. Then, in the afterword, he invites us into one further practice–reading aloud. Reading aloud slows us down and helps us hear the rhythm of the language. It enables us to listen to the sound and sense of the text. Done communally we hear and speak the word of God with each other, and love the One who speaks.
I found much to commend and a few sticking points. The biggest sticking point was that I felt he created a straw man of Cartesian reading. Perhaps this is a reality in his own circles, but much more common in my experience is the lost art of reading observantly, contemplatively and literarily. Many have spoken of how the internet has “broken” our brains when it comes to attending to more complex forms of writing, whether poetry or the Bible. The other issue is the focus on poetry. There is a lot of poetry in scripture to be sure, but also a lot else, with relatively less guidance for how to read these genres or forms other than to be aware of them.
Having noted these criticisms, I found much of value in his approaches to paying attention to the general sense, central emotion, and formal means of the text. I loved setting poetry alongside scripture to show similar reading strategies with each. I appreciated his encouragements that we become comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty, similar to what his students (and perhaps all of us) have felt before a poem like The Wasteland. I’ve often asked graduate students why they are comfortable spending months or years studying a challenging text, trying to accurately render a historical event, understand a physical phenomena, or solve a math problem but are uncomfortable that they still have questions after studying a Bible passage for 45 minutes.
Many people don’t love scripture. They think they should but often walk away frustrated. This work can help, particularly if read slowly, working through the exercises the author gives the reader. To begin with, he leads us into some familiar texts and helps us love them. He offers strategies for reading that, if they become habits, may help us “in-habit” the text and come to love it as we encounter in it the God who loves us. And, who knows, reading Mullen might whet our appetite to try our hand at other poetry, which would not be a bad thing.
March 5, 2021
This really was a wonderful, slim* little book that resonated more than anything else I've ever read with the primary ways in which I tend to read the Scriptures if I am going to experience them as a source of life-giving truth and wisdom. Citing our culture's preference for didactic, purely informational reading that boils down to a quick, singular "point," Mullins points out that this is how most of us (and certainly the broader culture) tends to approach the Bible: as little more than an instruction manual, to be consulted for, and reduced to, neat and tidy answers if and when we need them. It's little wonder, then, that there doesn't seem to be much joy or interest to be had in this type of reading. But, using his academic background in English literature to draw the connection, Mullins reveals that this is a faulty, impoverished way to read the Bible; there is more mystery, more poetry, more gripping emotion, and FAR more of the human experience to be had if only we would appreciate the literary qualities of the text and enter into the emotion that IS there, but which we've simply been conditioned to ignore. This is not at the expense of less literary, more instructional passages in the Scriptures, but rather in addition—and an essential part of Bible-reading if we are going to have a valid opinion of it, negative or positive. Without this element, we cannot say that we have truly read or understood the text with any sincerity. Speaking as it does to my own love of my faith and literature, I wish this approach could be more widely appreciated in BOTH our secular and Christian cultures, which often seem aligned in missing the same things, albeit with different outcomes.
*The one thing I will say is that the book is a bit TOO slim for the list price. $20 for a paperback of less than 200 pages is a little mystifying to me.
*The one thing I will say is that the book is a bit TOO slim for the list price. $20 for a paperback of less than 200 pages is a little mystifying to me.
December 18, 2020
I find it fairly easy to make reading the Bible something I need to check off my daily list. I don’t view it as a chore, but I don’t always looks for the full message in the passage. Enjoying the Bible is meant to move reading the Bible from just looking for knowledge to looking for joy in God’s word.
There is a lot to take in when reading this book. I had trouble shifting my focus away from reading to glean information, which means I’m the type of person this book is aimed at. It is well written, but I feel that it is aimed more towards the academic crowd. That doesn’t lessen the impact of the book, though.
I received a complimentary copy from the publisher through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
There is a lot to take in when reading this book. I had trouble shifting my focus away from reading to glean information, which means I’m the type of person this book is aimed at. It is well written, but I feel that it is aimed more towards the academic crowd. That doesn’t lessen the impact of the book, though.
I received a complimentary copy from the publisher through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
February 4, 2021
Matthew Mullins wants us to not only read the Bible. He wants us to enjoy it. But in order to enjoy it for all that it is, to enjoy it as God desires for us to enjoy it, we have to rethink how we seek meaning in the Bible.
Mullins focuses primarily on the Bible as literature to encourage readers to a new way of reading the Bible. With a strong emphasis on poetry in the Bible, Mullins helps us to understand why we struggle with finding what we are looking for in biblical poetry. We are reading it the wrong way.
This book was not at all what I thought it would be, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to putting the lessons into practice.
Mullins focuses primarily on the Bible as literature to encourage readers to a new way of reading the Bible. With a strong emphasis on poetry in the Bible, Mullins helps us to understand why we struggle with finding what we are looking for in biblical poetry. We are reading it the wrong way.
This book was not at all what I thought it would be, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to putting the lessons into practice.
May 4, 2021
This is right up my alley. If you're like me and you are used to reading scripture primarily to learn information, it will give you an imagination for engaging the scriptures differently/more deeply. One of his main points is that Scripture communicates on levels other than pure cognition ("thinking without feeling is impoverished") and that the affective influence of the text is essential to the message of the text.
Would recommend it to anyone who wants to enjoy reading scripture more; especially if you are interested how the Scriptures transform/change us beyond teaching us logical propositions.
Would recommend it to anyone who wants to enjoy reading scripture more; especially if you are interested how the Scriptures transform/change us beyond teaching us logical propositions.
October 19, 2025
wow just wow
What a book! I finished this book in a week and was only slowed down because it goes against the grain of the book. This book helped with a sermon preparation for the I Kings 17:8-24 and I used the technique to enjoy the Bible and swim in the literary form. The group I shared with it commented on how helpful the sermon was and I told them that I took the ideas from this book! I assume there will be an advanced version soon. I ran out my highlighted. The audience is basic readers but as a wider reader in Tamil language and English, I completed the book with a glad “Amen” and read aloud!
What a book! I finished this book in a week and was only slowed down because it goes against the grain of the book. This book helped with a sermon preparation for the I Kings 17:8-24 and I used the technique to enjoy the Bible and swim in the literary form. The group I shared with it commented on how helpful the sermon was and I told them that I took the ideas from this book! I assume there will be an advanced version soon. I ran out my highlighted. The audience is basic readers but as a wider reader in Tamil language and English, I completed the book with a glad “Amen” and read aloud!
June 21, 2021
Ahhh wonderful book. I am flipping through as I prepare to write this review and noticing all my markings, some with a giant "YES!". My favorite chapter was five, Reading with Our Guts, of the fourteen pages included, every one had something that resonated with me, taught me, and verbalized something I had only known, well, in my gut.
Already used some of what I learned in teaching my Sunday School class yesterday.
Thank you for your work Matthew Mullins. I believe reading this book will increase my "pleasure of understanding" as I read my scriptures.
Already used some of what I learned in teaching my Sunday School class yesterday.
Thank you for your work Matthew Mullins. I believe reading this book will increase my "pleasure of understanding" as I read my scriptures.
September 20, 2021
One of the introductory chapters is entitled “The hatred of poetry and why that matters.” It is this idea that fuels much of what follows, as Mullins lays out a case for approaching poetry differently (in both our attitude and how we actually read it). Much of what he says though is easily applicable to any literary text. This is such a wonderful resource for learning to interact with Scripture beyond the common approach, which is to see it as an instruction manual.
April 20, 2023
Interesting look at reading the Bible, especially the poetry, for pleasure and not always seeking to find instruction. I also liked the analysis of the poem We Wear the Mask.
It was interesting reading this after the first half of The New Testament in its World as it audio talked about not ignoring the literary aspects of the Bible in favor of history or theology. All three need to be considered.
It was interesting reading this after the first half of The New Testament in its World as it audio talked about not ignoring the literary aspects of the Bible in favor of history or theology. All three need to be considered.
February 7, 2021
A fresh, compelling, understandable approach to reading Gods Word. Many essential takeaway points to consider sharing. On the surface, this book seems pedestrian but it is far from it. The author draws from thinkers like James K A Smith and C S Lewis and expands on their ideas in practical ways. This will remain on my ‘reachable’ shelf for awhile.
November 6, 2021
Mullins uses poetry to explore how to read the Bible less as an informational text and more as the literary masterpiece it is. He gives some basic teaching on how to experience literature, and how we can develop a deep love for the Bible by understanding how to read it. We often miss the emotional aspect of reading the Bible because we are too busy looking for the moral.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews