He had me at incarnation.
“…as Christ is both God and human, so is the Bible.”
The incarnational analogy Peter Enns debuts in Inspiration & Incarnation captivated my imagination immediately. I’d never thought of the text in those terms, but the moment I read his words, the concept resonated with me.
The Bible is both genuinely human and genuinely divine, embracing both humanity and divinity in ways that challenge us to see the text amid various cultures, languages and time periods while recognizing the presence of the Spirit. And as the Spirit works through these inspired words, we are pressed to honestly encounter diversity, complexity, even ambiguity. So we hold a sacred text that is a living mystery with many fingerprints on it.
And that seems real to me – a revelation of God that brims with mystery, complexity, nuance. Because God embodies mystery as The Incarnated One, and as God does, so does God’s word.
So if Jesus can host the fullness of humanity – learning obedience, praying to discern the Father’s will, experiencing hunger, emotions and even temptation – and still possess the fullness of divinity, why would we not attribute such a possibility with the Bible?
Jenny Flannagan summed it up perfectly in her tweet: Loving how this book is exploding the idea that Jesus was the only incarnating God did. To which I added: So much incarnating to do!
We say God is ever creating, but this read makes me think that God is also ever incarnating! The Bible is incarnation, Jesus is incarnation and us… we’re invited to incarnate His Kingdom in our communities.
And that offers me some solace, that the complexity and contradictions I experience in my own attempts to embody gospel goodness in my neighborhood (or even my own house) don’t stand as an aberration that require constant apology or shame. But if the Bible stumbles to incarnate, I have holy company in my efforts. And maybe incarnation is more messy than we’d prefer, but that seems to be the real story and therefore I can tell my real story of incarnational living within my community.
So as our God incarnates (more than once), then in God’s likeness we ought to be incarnating, too.
There’s so much more in this book that was instructive, but this is my late night response. This incarnational analogy is what sticks and what stirs me even days after I finished the book.
I will say another a-ha moment for me was realizing that the New Testament is Second Temple literature and often functions as such. In all my seminary years, I never made that connection. Now I hope Krista Dalton will unpack this a bit more for us in her response (she did HERE) , as this is her area of expertise / passion, and she’s already indicated there are some other considerations to temper my enthusiasm here!
Great read, one I’d easily recommend to others. I’m looking forward to reading more of Enns work in seasons to come.
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I’m on a little hiatus from blogging at the moment, but I did read along and, Kelley, I agree, it was the concept of incarnation that struck me as well. God incarnating himself in Scripture, through flawed human beings. It was also his focus on God doing His work in the ordinary. I’ve been thinking on that for a week or so. I really enjoyed the book, and Enns’ perspective on the OT writers and history. Looking forward to Yoder!
Kelley, Baker Books passes on to me reviews of my books every once in while, including out “book club.” It was great to read the responses to the book, and I am very gratified to see how what I was trying to do is (more or less) getting through.