Q & R: What were you thinking?

March 20, 2019

Here’s the Q:

Mr. McLaren—I am a member of a small Episcopal Bible Study group that meets once-a-week and, since our yearly start-up in September of 2018, we have been making our way, one chapter at a time, through your marvelous book We Make the Road by Walking. It’s been enlightening and a delightful read at one and the same time, but we ran into our first roadblock with the verses selected for reading for your chapter titled ‘Significant and Wonderful.’ We generally don’t consider ourselves to be obtuse, but we simply could not understand why 2 Samuel 11:26-12:15 was one of these suggested readings given the discussion that followed. If you could give us an insight into your rationale here that would be very helpful. Thank you ahead of time for even taking a moment to read this email; I’ve never reached out to anyone regarding their literary work before, but was asked by the other members of my group to pursue this to see if we might get some clarification.

Thanks for this question. I just re-read the chapter and the scripture passage, and here’s the connection that I didn’t make clear enough in the book (!) –

In Chapter 21, I’m talking about how to read and interpret miracle stories. Some feel we must take them literally, because they claim to record historical facts. Some feel it is better to take them literarily – as stories intended, not to communicate fact, but meaning, using the accepted literary genre of miracle story. In the chapter, I’m inviting people, whether or not they take miracle stories literally, to read them literarily … focusing on meaning. I argue for this because the Bible calls miracles signs – which mean they signify something, and wonders – which mean they are intended to make you wonder or think. Some people take Bible stories literally without pondering their meaning, some don’t take them literally but do ponder their meaning, and some do both.

Again, I recommend people focus on meaning, whether or not they take the stories literally. Meaning is the point.

In the 2 Samuel 11:26-12:15 passage, David has done something terrible – first committing adultery (and probably rape), then engaging in a cover-up that included murder of the woman’s husband and then the taking of her as his wife. (It’s ugly, no matter how you understand it, not unlike stories we hear among powerful leaders today.) Nathan comes and tells a story.

It doesn’t matter at all if Nathan’s story is true in the literal or factual sense. Its purpose is to help David see something about himself.

It’s literal factuality isn’t the point. It’s actual meaning is the point.

I hope that makes sense! Thanks for your question, and for using the book in this way. I posted recently about others using WMTR in groups, here: https://brianmclaren.net/a-reader-writes-following-jesus-in-the-midwest/