Symphonic theology

There are unlikely doorways into theological understanding. The arguments over how far typology of Christ can legitimately be found in the Bible, for example, usually go the evidentiary route, and with good reason, I suppose, out of a desire to safeguard the Word of God from whacko interpretations. Luke 24 is adduced, specifically Jesus' claim that the whole Old Testament is about him. (With that settled, all we have to do is figure out what exactly that means!)

But there is another way in, as it were. The Psalmist gives a clue: God blesses the person whose "delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night" (1:2).

Experience shows me that there's no telling what the Spirit will do in you when you meditate on his Word, when the grist in your mind's mill all day long is pure Word of God. There's no telling what connections he will fire, what unlikely verses he will join, what depths he will lead you to.

We err to think theology is a quantifiable science and circumscribable business. (No one actually talks that way, we just act like we can tame it.) We are like the "inchworm measuring the miracles" to suppose we will trap God in our paradigms. My friend Leslie astutely observed to me that the Word of God, and each verse, is like a hologram, except that rather than having three dimensions it has dozens.

I once asked a theology professor about the dangers of free-wheeling and overly imaginative interpretations of Scripture. His answer surprised me. He said it seemed to him that the more serious problem abroad was a lack of imagination. Hmm. Imagine that.

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