At the weekly men's Bible study there was a full table of caffeinated thinkers and seekers. The Gospel of John has been the location for wrestling with God's word in our times. A few weeks ago it was Nicodemus' visit under the cover of darkness to meet Jesus (Chapter 3), and last week continuing today is was the scene in Samaria where the woman of many husbands runs into Jesus at the well in the middle of the day, unaccompanied.
We read the printed pages and thing of the omniscient narrator (John) and the perspective of Jesus in his public phase of ministry. But I wonder what the Samaritans made of the ongoing tension between the other players - the stooges set up by Roman occupiers to play the role of (Jewish) king; the Sanhedrin and Pharisees; the Zealots; the work of John the baptizer and then the Nazarene carpenter and rabbi? Since mainstream/orthodox Jews regarded Samaritans as strayed or benighted Jews, I wonder if things looked different from the Samaritan point of view: did they also see value in making sacrifices at the Temple; in keeping kosher; in following the high holy days including Pesach (passover)?
One of the guys around the table talked about the way that parables work: they are different than myths meant to tell how come things are the way that they are. Instead parables work in the opposite direction, causing listeners to question the way things are and to look at things in a new way in order to discover new meaning or significance. And the apparent untidy and unbecoming passages that appear in scripture, too, cause readers to register the tension or apparent contradiction and come face to face with the idea that God's way is not Man's way. We are prone to seize a small sharp fragment of the Bible and hold dearly to the moment of clarity, disregarding the other parts. In doing so we convince ourselves that we have made sense of God's Will and that everybody should cleave to the small fragment and build their personal faith and daily interchange with others on that alone.
How does Men's Bible Study fit in with seeking, knowing, and loving God? Head knowledge alone does not reveal secret wisdom (mystics or Greek tradition of chasing the most esoteric and subtle teacher to reveal hidden knowledge), but for some believers this is a medium for interacting, articulating, and testing one's understanding by connecting to experience and other sorts of knowledge one has accumulated. There seems to be a virtuous circle: know more stuff and grasp God's character more closely. Know God in a personal, relational sense (know =mutual recognition or personalized trust and care; versus know =facts memorized and organized for recall) and thereby love God more, seek God more. All of this builds the next: know, love, seek. This is different to testable, book knowledge of ritual, chapter and verse, splitting theological hairs, and so on. Ultimately all this centers on the (sacred) heart, not intellectual nimbleness. One's heart must be open to embrace God; open by being broken (circumstances of health, finance, interpersonal relations, encountering great wonder or beauty) or opening of its own accord when reaching for something bigger than oneself.
