I am currently writing this from my favorite coffee shop on the planet: Midnight Oil. I’ve got a Mr. Blonde (White Chocolate Mocha), it’s raining, and I’m reading a good book. I’ve been reading through Eugene Peterson’s Eat This Book: a Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading. This is the second of five books Peterson is writing on the subject of “spiritual theology.” Last year’s Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places was the first in this series and was a challenging read. Eat This Book is considerably shorter but so far has been just as riveting. Here are some snipits from chapters 1 & 2:

The Christian Scriptures are the primary text for Christian spirituality. Christian spirituality is, in its entirety, rooted in and shaped by the scriptual text. We don’t form our personal spiritual lives out of a random assemblage of favorite texts in combination with individual circumstances; we are formed by the Holy Spirit in accordance with the text of Holy Scripture. God does not put us in charge of forming our personal spiritualities. We grow in accordance with the revealed Word implanted in us by the Spirit. (15)

I want to pull Christian Scriptures back from the magins where they have been so rudely elbowed by their glamorous compeditors, and reestablish them at the center as the text for living the Christian life deeply and well. I want to confront and expose this replacement of the authoritative Bible by the authoritative self. I want to place personal eperience under the authority of the Bible and not over it. I want to set the Bible before us as the text by which we live our lives, the text that stands in such sturdy contrast to the potpourri of religious psychology, self-development, mystical experimentation, and devotional dilettantism that has come to characterize so much of what takes cover under the ubrella of “spirituality.” (17)

Most of us carry around a handful of essential commands that keep us on track: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart… Love your neighbor… Honor your father and mother… Repent and believe… Remeber the Sabbath.. Be not anxious… Give thanks at all times… Pray without ceasing… Follow me… Go and tell… Take up your cross…” Add this to your repertoire: Eat this book. Not merely Read your Bible but Eat this book.

Christians feed on Scripture. Holy Scripture nurtures the holy community as food nurtures the human body. Christians don’t simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing, and evangelism and justice in Jesus’ name, hands raised in adoration of the Father, feet washed in company with the Son. (18)