The Bible Study Blues

Here is just one thing I wanted to briefly comment on before I head off to my weekly Bible Study. I was speaking on the phone with my leader and he made a comment about how our meetings are supposed to be about what the Spirit is telling us about each passage we read for that week. OK, I have no problem with that... in general.

But what bugs me is that we tend to get "emotional" about it. By that I mean we tend to talk about how we feel, what has struck us about what we read, what do we connect with. There is almost no room for reflections on the history of the Church (i.e. precedence), what other Christians have thought about this text, some quandaries we might have about particularly hard passages. And that makes me think there is a gap being drawn between two strains of Christianity. One, the more emotional strain where faith is largely felt, and the other, the intellectual strain, where faith is explored and prodded. I don't like it when people create false dichotomies, and here is a prime example of that tendency.

This is all not to say that I'm not being blessed by going to the Bible Study Fellowship. I am. But in my prodding nature I want to explore where we might go to expand our horizons. Just call me the theological gadfly on whatever horse I manage to land on.