McKnight - The blue parakeet: rethinking how you read the bible

Praise for The Blue Parakeet

We desperately need someone like Scot McKnight to bring balance and a healthy evangelical perspective about how we should view Scripture. To me, this book should be read by every Christian who takes Scripture seriously and is living missionally in the world. The questions he raises and addresses about the Bible are ones we urgently need to be thinking through and answering.

DAN KIMBALL, pastor and author, They Like Jesus but Not the Church

The Blue Parakeet is like no other book about the Bible Ive ever read. I recommend it for everyone who reads, loves, struggles with, tries to teach or preach, follows, obeys, trusts, and sometimes questions the Bible. It challenges Christians to a more honest and mature engagement with Scripture, and it makes the wisdom of a seasoned theologian accessible to down-to-earth church-goers seasoned generously with honesty, clarity, and a disarming humor too.

BRIAN MCLAREN, speaker and author, A Generous Orthodoxy

For those who have spent a good deal of their Christian lives fruitlessly attempting to cage all those pesky Blue Parakeet passages in the Bible, Scot McKnights Third Way of reading and applying the Scriptures comes as a welcome relief. With this refreshing and logical approach to Gods Great Story, we can turn the pages of Scripture without dreading the tough passages and cultural divides, but rather appreciating them for their uniqueness, beauty, and truth as God intended from the beginning.

ANDREW MCQUITTY, senior pastor, Irving Bible Church

In The Blue Parakeet Scot McKnight has expertly culled from the wisdom of the ages to show us that the B-I-B-L-E is more than just a literary work for scholars and theologians to argue over. Its an ongoing dialogue with the living God. Brother McKnight good-naturedly nudges us to listen up while God swaps his stories with us.

KAREN SPEARS-ZACHARIAS, author, Wheres Your Jesus Now?

With a bold sensitivity and scholarly creativity, Scot McKnight challenges us to consider how we misuse the Bible, and he offers timely, targeted spiritual direction about encountering God together through Gods story of grace.

JOHN W. FRYE, pastor and author, Jesus the Pastor: Leading Others in the Character and Power of Christ

The Blue Parakeet is the book Scot McKnight was born to write. If you are interested in the Bible, or God, or your mind, or where these three might intersect, you will be blessed if you read this book.

JOHN ORTBERG, pastor and author, Faith and Doubt

This is far and away the best, gentlest, most intelligent argument I have ever read for the absolute necessity of embracing the Bible as Story. McKnight is in full and persuasive command of both his material and his craft.

PHYLLIS TICKLE, founding editor of the religion department of Publishers Weekly

ZONDERVAN

The Blue Parakeet

Copyright 2008, 2016 by Scot McKnight

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

ePub Edition April 2016: ISBN 978-0-310-53150-0

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

McKnight, Scot.

The blue parakeet : rethinking how you read the Bible / Scot McKnight.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-310-28488-8 (hardcover, jacketed)

1. Bible Hermeneutics. 2. Bible Criticism, Narrative. I. Title.

BS476.M3473 2008

220.601 dc22

2008025226

Scripture quotations marked TNIV are taken from the Holy Bible, Todays New International Version TNIV. Copyright 2001, 2005 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. TNIV and Todays New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Other Bible versions are listed on .

Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published in association with the literary agency of Daniel Literary Group, LLC, 1701 Kingsbury Drive, Suite 100, Nashville, TN 37215

Cover design: Curt Diepenhorst

Cover photos: iStockphoto

Interior design: Beth Shagene

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 /DHV/ 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Cheryl Hatch

Contents

Part 1
Story:What Is the Bible?

Part 2
Listening:What Do I Do with the Bible?

Part 3
Discerning:How Do I Benefit from the Bible?

Part 4
Women in Church Ministries Today

15. Silencing the Blue Parakeet (2)

Appendix 6. Junia Is Not Alone

He said to them, Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.

Jesus, according to Matthew 13:52

Blessed Lord, who caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant me so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that I may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.

Jesus, according to John 16:13

How, Then, Are We to Live the Bible Today?

W hen I was in high school, I went to a Christian camp in Muscatine, Iowa, with Kris, my beautiful girlfriend (now my wife), to horse around for a week. But one morning, we were asked by our cabin leader to go spend a little time in prayer before breakfast. So I wandered out of our cabin, down a hill, alongside a basketball court, and through an open field, and then I walked over to the campfire area, climbed a short incline, and finally sat next to a tree, and prayed what my cabin leader told us to pray: Lord, fill me with your Holy Spirit. I wasnt particularly open to spiritual things, but for some reason I said that prayer as our counselor advised. The Lord to whom I prayed that prayer caught me off guard. To quote the words of John Wesley, My heart was strangely warmed. I dont remember what I expected to happen (probably nothing), but what happened was surprising. That prayer, or I should say the answer to that prayer, changed my life. I didnt speak in tongues, I didnt see Jesus, and I didnt hear God. My eyes didnt twitter, and I didnt become catatonic. When I prayed, something powerful happened, and I went to breakfast a new person. Within hours I knew what I wanted to do for my life.

On that hot summer day, I unexpectedly became a Bible student with a voracious appetite to read. Prior to that prayer I had very little interest in the Bible, and when it came to routine reading, I read only what my teachers assigned and Sports Illustrated. Within a week or two I began to read the Bible through from Genesis to Revelation, four chapters a day. I finished my reading the next spring, getting ahead of schedule because there were too many days when four chapters were not enough. My habit at the time was to arise early to read at least two chapters before going off to school, and then to read two chapters or so at night before I went to bed. I read the