An Author Interview from Books At a Glance
Greetings, I’m Fred Zaspel, and welcome to another Author Interview here at Books At a Glance.
Today we’re talking to Dr. Matthew Mullins about his unique and suggestive new book, Enjoying the Bible: Literary Approaches to Loving the Scriptures.
Matt, welcome, and congratulations on a fascinating book!
Mullins:
Thank you so much, Fred. I am happy to be here.
Zaspel:
Since this is your first time with us maybe you could just introduce yourself to our listeners before I have you talk about your book. Tell us where you teach and what subjects, and things like that.
Mullins:
I serve as associate professor of English and history of ideas at the college at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. What I teach falls in the field of American literature, but I also teach in our Great Books program which walks students through some of the classics in the western tradition from political philosophy to theology and so on. Most of my time is taken up with teaching. I write primarily about American literature and literary criticism.
Zaspel:
This really is a most unusual book, and I am intrigued by it. Early on you say that your book is about “the pleasure of understanding” and that your basic argument is that much of the Bible is written not just to be understood but to be enjoyed. So, tell us what your book is all about and what contribution you hope to make.
Mullins:
The project began as a kind of meditation on how I might give my Christian college students to enjoy poetry. I realized if they struggle so much with poetry in their own language and culture, how much more are they struggling with the Bible, a third of which is poetry, and most of which is literary. It is coming to them from a very alien time and place. I began to consider what resistance to poetry might mean in relation to the reading of the Bible. Then I was struck with a personal question. I do enjoy poetry, but do I enjoy the Bible? Do I enjoy it as much as a favorite poem, record, or show? I had to admit that I do not often experience the same kind of draw towards, and enjoyment of, the Bible as much as I do these lovely but less consequential things.
I set out to explore how I might change that reality. The book is about the solution to that problem. It is about altering the way we think of the Bible as a text and about adjusting the way we approach it as readers. To put it succinctly, many Christians view the Bible primarily as a source of information and a set of instructions. We tend to read it with an eye to extract the main ideas and directions. I do not in any way suggest we need to stop doing this. I fear if this is the only way we think and approach the Bible we might risk missing out on how it also designed to appeal to our emotions and shape our desires. The easiest way to recognize this appeal is to take note of the literary nature of much of the Bible.
Literature makes use of all kinds of truths and it uses speech that appeals to our hearts in addition to our minds. If we can become attuned to new kinds of heart appeals, I think we might begin to read the Bible more purposefully for its ingenious capacity to capture our imaginations and reshape our most fundamental picture of the world. That will revolutionize our desires even as it transforms and renews our minds. If we can learn to read the Bible this way, we might come to enjoy it more. If we enjoy it more, I am hopeful we might read it more, then perhaps our transformation will become exponential and catalyze our love for God and our neighbors.
Zaspel:
What is the meaning of “meaning”? How is meaning more than message? And what does it mean to “read with our gut”?
Mullins:
The meaning of “meaning” is a huge question. To narrow the field a bit I will say that meaning, when we are talking about the meaning of a text, is something like the sum of what a text seeks to convey to and invoke in a reader. In this understanding, meaning cannot simply be whatever the text means to me but it is more than a mere message or intellectual content that an author is trying to communicate.
For example, Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Because the verse employs poetic figures of speech. It cannot be reduced to just an intellectual message or declared as proposition. We should turn to God’s word in dark places, it does mean that. But there is a fuller meaning of the verse. To capture it you must account for the specificity of its poetry. Why a light and a lamp rather than a map and the stars? The psalmist could have said, turn to God’s word for direction when you are lost, but he did not. Instead under divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit used these specific metaphors.
My next question should be why a lamp and a light? I think about the imaginative landscape of the poem, the psalmist is placing us in darkness in which we long for light. The fuller meaning of the text is to ask readers to imagine themselves waking up in the middle of a consuming darkness and wonder what woke them up. It is true the psalmist is instructing us to turn to God’s word but there is more to the meaning because of this literary nature. It is also seeking to cultivate in us the kind of longing for the light of God’s word that we have in that middle of the night scenario. This is an appeal not only to our minds but also to our hearts or our literal guts.
The final turn of my argument is that if you do not experience that longing for God’s word that the verse seeks to develop in you then you do not actually understand the verse. That longing is integral to its meaning. There are times when I read Psalm 119:105 and do not get it as much as other times. I am trying to teach how to engage our minds while we read, the part that longs and loves. We must read with special attention to those appeals that Scripture makes to those parts of us.
Zaspel:
When we go to read our Bibles, why or how is it important for us to know that it is more than a training manual? And relate this to your point in chapter 7 about why we sing.
Mullins:
It is important to attend to the Bible’s appeal to our hearts because the Scriptures are the words of the Lord that we have the readiest access to in our time. They seek not only to inform us but also to form us. We need to pay attention to how the Bible might be seeking to redirect our desires or how it offers us alternative pictures of the world. Not just how it might tell us what to do or think. If we are not reading it to be formed, it is possible that the power of God’s word to form us may be short-circuited somehow. I know this approach might seem strange to many.
In the 7th chapter what I am trying to do is to examine a handful of practices in which Christians already leverage our whole self and not just our minds. I talk about baptism, communion, and singing. Singing is something people do in and outside a church context. Why do we sing together? We are exhorted to speak together in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Singing involves so much more than our minds in the act of praising God. Whether we are pleading or offering adoration. We often stand, lift our voices, use our ears if able. The melody invokes in us activation in ways that are distinct from the more passive activities of our spiritual lives. If you have ever sung in church, I want to encourage you by saying you already have what it takes to begin to enjoy the Bible as a divine work of literature that has the power to change your life by activating your imagination.
Zaspel:
Okay, talk to us about “how-to,” which you take up in chapter 8. I think that upon hearing your thesis everyone will have to agree in theory, but they may wonder how this works in practice. So how should all this influence how I read Psalm 23, for example, or Psalm 90, or Psalm 110, or some sections of the Prophets?
Mullins:
It is easy to see the theoretical truth here. For most of us, if we have been reading mostly with our heads for our lives, this is going to change our practice. It is difficult. It is essential because it is only through changing our practice that the text can then act on us and change our relation to the Bible. So, it is useful across all the Scriptures, not just for the poetry or narrative genre.
There are three chapters in which I walk through a pretty simple process. I show a plain understanding of the poem and pay attention to how it might be trying to appeal to our emotions. Then we look at the text to figure out if this is a part of the text and appeals to sympathy or engendering anger or love. Then the last question is how the text does this. The short answer to how to do this is, you must start asking questions of the text that cannot all be basically reduced to what the main idea is.
Let’s go to Psalm 23. It is not that this psalm does not have ideas or a main idea. The comfort of God’s protection for example. Rather it is more so that Psalm 23 is trying to evoke comfort in you. In practice, I suggest that when you run across a text that uses literary devices to convey its meaning you allow them to do their work, this will take time and practice. God is obviously not a literal shepherd; he came as a carpenter. We know right away that the psalmist is using a type of figure of speech to try and help us understand the way he is relating to God. His purpose is to make abstract things more concrete. There are important theological truths and ideas here, but they are inseparable from whatever the metaphor of the shepherd conjures in your heart and mind. The psalmist ties the two together. The ultimate outcome is if we can read the text this way, and imagine a person who is taking good care of me we can know more of what it looks like for God to be our shepherd.
Zaspel:
It seems a lot of this comes down to reading it more meditatively.
Mullins:
I talk about some methods to slow down. One is to read aloud. If we were to resume what was once historically a more normal practice. That is just one concrete example of how we might start slowing down and attending to the literary and imaginative aspects that are designed to appeal to that part of us.
Zaspel:
Before you go, give us a brief overview of your book so our listeners can know what to expect.
Mullins:
It starts out with a preface that tells the story of the genesis of the book. The first half is trying to do historical and critical work to understand how we came to read the Bible primarily for information. There is a turning point midway through where we look at examples like singing, baptism, and communion. The last part is devoted to practical strategies for how we can start developing ways of reading to invoke our emotions and guts in ways that come alongside our heads as the Bible seeks to form us as complete beings who love God and neighbor.
Zaspel:
We are talking to Dr. Matthew Mullins about his intriguing new book, Enjoying the Bible: Literary Approaches to Loving the Scriptures. It is needed instruction that will make a genuine difference in your Bible reading, and we are happy to recommend it.
Matt, thanks much for talking to us today.
Mullins:
Thank you, Fred. Thanks for the time.
