Scripture's confrontation

It has been six years now since the year I devoted to studying the Bible Inductively at YWAM's School of Biblical Studies in England. Reading Peterson’s Eat This Book provided a much-needed reminder for me of how God’s word is supposed to be consumed for the purpose of transformation. When the purpose of all other reading is to gather information, it becomes so natural to read the gospels as the primary source of data about the life and teachings of Jesus. Rather than his words confronting my life, I affirm their theoretic truth and ponder what it is that I can apply to my particular circumstance. If I believe however, that God’s words is living and active and capable of changing my life to reflect truth my reading should confront and arrest me and bring forth changes I’d never imagined I’d needed. As Peterson warns, “The danger of installing the self as the authoritative text for living, at the same time that we are honoring the Holy Scriptures by giving them a prominent place on the shelf, is both enormous and insidious. None of us is immune to the danger.”