Enjoying the Bible: Literary Approaches to Loving the Scriptures

by Matthew Mullins

Overview

Christianity Today 2022 Book Award of Merit (Beautiful Orthodoxy)

Many Christians view the Bible as an instruction manual. While the Bible does provide instruction, it can also captivate, comfort, delight, shock, and inspire. In short, it elicits emotion—just like poetry. By learning to read and love poetry, says literature professor Matthew Mullins, readers can increase their understanding of the biblical text and learn to love God's Word more. Each chapter includes exercises and questions designed to help readers put the book's principles and practices into action.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781540961662
Publisher:	Baker Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/19/2021
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Matthew Mullins (PhD, University of North Carolina at Greensboro) is associate professor of English and history of ideas at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. He is the author of Postmodernism in Pieces and has written for Los Angeles Review of Books and American Book Review.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction: The Hatred of Poetry and Why It Matters 1

1 How Reading Literature Became a Quest for Meaning 17

2 The Bible Is Literature 31

3 Meaning Is More Than Message 45

4 Not Anything 61

5 Reading with Our Guts 77

6 Delight and Instruction 93

7 Why We Worship 107

8 Changing Our Approach 123

9 How to Read-General Sense 137

10 How to Read-Central Emotion 147

11 How to Read-Formal Means 157

12 A Short Compendium of Forms 167

Conclusion: Negative Capability and Habituation 177

Afterword: Reading Aloud 189

Bibliography 195

Index 201