Free Book: Eat this Book (The Art of Spiritual Reading)

“I don’t like to read long and boring theological books. Yet, Eat This Book is a deep theology book disguises as storybook to me. I ‘hate’ the truths in this book, but I love the way Eugene says it and I’m persuaded to read it anyway - and be changed. Reading this book makes me want to read and living the Book, the Bible ever more faithfully. I fully recommend this book!”

(Richard Angelus)

Eugene Peterson is convinced that the way we read the Bible is as important as that we read it. Do we read the Bible for information about God and salvation, for principles and "truths" that we can use to live better? Or do we read it in order to listen to God and respond in prayer and obedience?

Peterson's Eat This Book challenges us to read the Scriptures on their own terms, as God's revelation, and to live them as we read them. With warmth and wisdom Peterson offers greatly needed, down-to-earth counsel on spiritual reading. In these pages he draws readers into a fascinating conversation on the nature of language, the ancient practice of lectio divina, and the role of Scripture translations; included here is the inside story behind Peterson's own popular Bible (paraphrase) translation, The Message.

Countering the widespread practice of using the Bible for self-serving purposes, Peterson here serves readers with a nourishing entree into the formative, life-changing art of spiritual reading.

[Description is taken from: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/97852.Eat_This_Book]

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

FREE BOOK OF THE MONTH

If you want a copy of this book for FREE, you can e-mail me your name and postal address to Adam_son_no7@hotmail.com. All information given is strictly for delivering the book only. For Malaysians ONLY. Thank you.

Hymn to a Good Wife

Pic taken from: confessionsofacollegestu.blogspot.com

A good woman is hard to find,
    and worth far more than diamonds.
Her husband trusts her without reserve,
    and never has reason to regret it.
Never spiteful, she treats him generously
    all her life long.
She shops around for the best yarns and cottons,
    and enjoys knitting and sewing.
She’s like a trading ship that sails to faraway places
    and brings back exotic surprises.
She’s up before dawn, preparing breakfast
    for her family and organizing her day.
She looks over a field and buys it,
    then, with money she’s put aside, plants a garden.
First thing in the morning, she dresses for work,
    rolls up her sleeves, eager to get started.
She senses the worth of her work,
    is in no hurry to call it quits for the day.
She’s skilled in the crafts of home and hearth,
    diligent in homemaking.
She’s quick to assist anyone in need,
    reaches out to help the poor.
She doesn’t worry about her family when it snows;
    their winter clothes are all mended and ready to wear.
She makes her own clothing,
    and dresses in colorful linens and silks.
Her husband is greatly respected
    when he deliberates with the city fathers.
She designs gowns and sells them,
    brings the sweaters she knits to the dress shops.
Her clothes are well-made and elegant,
    and she always faces tomorrow with a smile.
When she speaks she has something worthwhile to say,
    and she always says it kindly.
She keeps an eye on everyone in her household,
    and keeps them all busy and productive.
Her children respect and bless her;
    her husband joins in with words of praise:
“Many women have done wonderful things,
    but you’ve outclassed them all!”
Charm can mislead and beauty soon fades.
    The woman to be admired and praised
    is the woman who lives in the Fear-of-God.
Give her everything she deserves!
    Festoon her life with praises!

(Proverbs 31:10-31, The Message) 

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

 

Eugene H. Peterson on Eating the Book!

“I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll; and he said to me, ‘Take it, and eat; it will be bitter to your stomach, but sweet as honey to your mouth.’ And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it; it was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it my stomach was made bitter.” (Revelation 10:9-10)

 

Apostle John who wrote the inspired Book of Revelation in the Bible was an early-church apostle and pastor and writer is stood before the angel and eats the scroll. Hey, he eats the scroll! This is the most striking biblical metaphor for reading the Scripture. “He ate the book”, observed Eugene H. Peterson, “Not just reads it – he got it into his nerve endings, his reflexes, his imagination. The book he ate was Holy Scripture.” Can you imagine if God ask you to eat the Holy Scripture? Can you swallow it? Wait, it is just a metaphor. But have you ever wondered what does it mean to “take it, and eat”? How does it apply to us now?

In his introduction for Eat this Book: The Art of Spiritual Reading, Eugene H. Peterson (author of The Message) wrote about what does it really mean to read the Bible and how we should read it:

“I have been at this business of reading the Bible ever since I was not much older than Hans (his seven-year-old grandson). Twenty years after I first started reading it I became a pastor and a professor; for over fifty years now I have been vocationally involved in getting the Christian Scriptures into the minds and hearts, arms and legs, ears and mouths of men and women. And I haven’t found it easy. Why isn’t it easy?

Simply this. The challenge – never negligible – regarding the Christian Scriptures is getting them read, but read on their own terms, as God’s revelation. It seems as if it would be the easiest thing in the world. After five or six years of schooling, schooling that the whole community pitches in to pay for, most of us can read most of what is written in the Bible. If you don’t own one and can’t afford to buy one, you can steal a Bible from nearly any hotel or motel in the country (except in Malaysia of course). And without fear of arrest – who has ever been arrested on a misdemeanor charge for stealing a Bible in this fair land?

But as it turns out, in this business of living the Christian life, ranking high among the most neglected aspects is one having to do with reading of the Christian Scriptures. Not that Christians don’t own and read their Bibles. And not that Christians don’t believe that their Bibles are the word of God. What is neglected is reading the Scriptures formatively, reading in order to live.

…’reading’ but not reading, reverent and devout but uncomprehending, honoring in a most precious way this book but without awareness that it has anything to do with [everyday life]… the Scripture depersonalized into an object to be honored; the Scriptures detached from precedence and consequence… it is the devil’s own work to take what is presently endearing and innocent… and perpetuate it into a lifetime of reading marked by devout indifference.

What I want to say, countering the devil, is that in order to read the Scriptures adequately and accurately, it is necessary at the same time to live them. Not to live them as a prerequisite to reading them, and not to live them in consequence of reading them, but to live them as we read them, the living and reading reciprocal, body language and spoken words, the back-and-forthness assimilating the reading to the living, the living to the reading. Reading the Scriptures is not an activity discrete from living the gospel but one integral to it. It means letting Another have a say in everything we are saying and doing. It is as easy as that. And as hard.”

“Take it, and eat” mean to live the Bible as we read it;

To read in order to live it;

To let God of the Scriptures have a say in everything we are saying and doing.

Are you really reading the Bible?

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP. EAT THIS BOOK!