Why Do We Find It So Easy to Watch the Entire Season of Tiger King or The Mandalorian In One Sitting, But Struggle to Read the Bible?
You know you should read the Bible, but you watch other stuff instead. Why is that?
We are living in a new golden era of television as streaming giants are producing and creating as much high end content that they can to claim your $15 per month. From the fantasy worlds of Game of Thrones, the sci-fi western of The Mandalorian to the scandal of Tiger King - there seems to be an infinite source of content available to us. As cinematically engaging and thematically profound that these shows can be, it is often the storytelling that is claimed to be the peak point of interest. But for many Christians (myself included), the available intrigue often overshadow's the desire to read the bible - even though we intrinsically know that it shouldn't.
Story Telling With "The Hero's Journey"
For many Westerners, we are groomed since childhood to a certain pattern of storytelling. This pattern is most commonly know as the "Hero's Journey" as defined by Joseph Campbell - a sequence of storytelling moments that a protagonist experiences to achieve their goal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero's_journey
This is evident from the story of Luke Skywalker, Tony Stark and Thomas the Tank Engine. Our hero gets a call the adventure, receives aid from others, overcomes their challenge and achieves their goal (save the princess, fight the evil version of Iron Man, get the carriage over the hill). It is a familiar way for the audience to comprehend what is going on and to be passively entertained. Most shows and movies adequately amuse and distract us without requiring much work from the viewer, even the shows with more complex story telling have a plethora of online discussions and videos breaking down everything that is going on.
But the Bible isn't written this way
The Bible tends to go completely against the modern tropes that we're familiar with. And this can make it difficult for us to read if we're not aware of the story telling patterns we're conditioned to, and if we don't learn the narrative patterns that exist in the bible.
Instead, it is written as a Jewish meditation literature - you're not meant to find answers to confusing concepts, but take each side of the equation in to consideration and spend time thinking about it and rereading it. The Bible isn't a linear story that follows the redemptive story of one protagonist with supporting characters but is a collection of stories, poems, genealogical outlines, law and much more all intended to share an aspect of the greater story of God's desire to be in communion with mankind.
I grew up in traditions that would only study and preach on small snippets of the Bible (very often in the New Testament, and mostly in the epistles) as they were very easy to derive principles from, but when the holistic story of the Bible is ignored it makes it very hard to pick up and read the entire book. But as I've delved in to further bible studies and taken in to consideration that the bible has intentional design patterns, it has shifted the way I see the overall set up of the bible.
There is an overarching narrative in all aspects of the bible of God wanting to bless His chosen people by having them live according to His wisdom, mankind trying do life according to their own wisdom (and not doing a great job), Jesus coming as a living sacrifice to display this lifestyle, and the outworking of that in the early church (which the New Testament pulls heavily on concepts in the Old Testament to explain). And this story is integrated in to all aspects of the bible including each of its genres. But this can be really hard to see unless you understand the narrative design of the bible rather than treating it as a rule book.
One of my favourite books that describe this process is "The Blue Parakeet" by Scot McKnight. He eloquently explains how the bible has strong narrative elements that we need to take in to consideration when attempting to apply its concepts to our own context.
"The genius of the Bible is the continuity of the story as each generation learns to speak it afresh in its days and in its ways. Furthermore each wiki-story teller, each authors in the bible, tells a story that will lead us to the person of the story - Jesus Christ." (The Blue Parakeet, Scot McKnight, Chapter 19)
Various elements of the Bible repeat the same story, but in a new way that is relevant to the audience of its time. This comes out in the origins of the Pentateuch, the poems of Psalms and Proverbs, the apocalyptic messages of the prophets, and the instructional and leadership messages in the epistles.
So what should you do?
Firstly, recognised how easy it is to get entertained by modern media and that it is designed to capture your attention to stop you from consuming other things.
Secondly, start the discipline of reading the Bible for the purpose of expanding your understanding of the story of the Bible. This is a part of building your bible roadmap that can be a lot of fun - start to explore for the sake of exploring. Fill out those blank areas not to get to a specific destination, but just to extend your comprehension of your surroundings - you're getting to know the narrative landscape of the bible.
Lastly, start to retrain your perception of bible reading from a task you need to do as a good Christian, but instead to build the story. But you also need to be aware that the narrative design of the bible is very different than what we're used to. It something you have to seek out and meditate on. You need to work for it, but when you do the results are phenomenal.
Image credit: Zachary Burns