Ep 31: Peter Enns & How to Stop Defending the Bible (So You Can Actually Read It)

How can certainty be a form of idolatry? Why should Christians embrace the humanity of the scriptures? How did an existentialist rant sneak into the Bible? And what does that teach us about faith? Peter Enns joins us to explore all these questions and more!

Peter Enns is an biblical scholar and theologian, and Professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University. He has taught at Princeton, Harvard, and Westminster Theological Seminary, and is the author of books such as "Inspiration and Incarnation", "The Evolution of Adam", "The Sin of Certainty", and recently, "The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It"

• Pete's journey, and Uh-oh moments
• The problems of being a person whose love language is analytical. Welcome to the club!
• The paradox of churches trying shore up faith intellectually, while driving away intellectual people
• When changing your perspective forces you to leave your community
• Maybe churches should celebrate when people are ready to move on?
• How is certainty a form of idolatry?
• How Ecclesiastes explores Existentialism, and explains what faith really is—moving forward in spite of the absurdity of life
• Taking the Bible as it actually is
• Why the Bible can't act as our foundation—but can bear witness to the Spirit of God
• What does inspiration actually mean? How does it relate to incarnation?
  • “In the same way that Jesus is—must be—both God and human, the Bible is also a divine and human book.”
  • Why removing the human element is a historic Christian heresy
• New Year's Bible reading challenge? How to read through the Bible the right way.
• Why Christian faith is trans-rational
• Jewish and Christian ways of reading: Is the Bible a source of conversation, or a source of unquestioned, simple, obvious doctrine?
• The Paradox of Protestantism: putting interpretation into everyone's hands, and expecting them all to agree! :)
• A fact which challenges your theology does not mean the fact is wrong—it means you have a theology problem. Welcome to adult Christianity!
• Tweetable quotes:
• "God is in the habit of upsetting our theologies, not just confirming them." <-- (click to tweet)
• "The Bible is a compost pile. Without it, nothing grows, but the focus is on what grows out of it."
• "The need to move beyond biblical categories is biblical."
• Peter's Books
• The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It
• The Sin of Certainty
• Inspiration and Incarnation
• The Evolution of Adam
• Peter's Recommended Study Guides:
• Harper Collins Study Bible
• Jewish Study Bible