Imagination and the Bible

I use my imagination all the time when reading the Bible.

I put imagination to good use when I teach Bible study.

But what does that mean?

For me, it started when our youth pastor, Paul Anderson, asked, “imagine how the older brother feels,” when discussing the parable of The Prodigal Son.

I was a new-to-Christianity 15 year-old and in the six minutes we were given to write  our answer, I poured out a page of ideas and description taken from what I imagined the older brother was feeling and thinking as he stomped away from his father.

When Pastor Paul read the papers, he got what he asked for: one word answers like angry, frustrated, bitter, jealous.

When he opened my page, his eyebrows went up and he read a story.

He didn’t know me well and looked surprised, but grinned. He was the only one who knew who had written it.

I was surprised at the others’ thin answers, but shrugged. I’ve always liked a writing prompt.

Putting yourself into the Bible passage.

I still use that technique when I lead Bible study — I try to take my students into the context of the story to give them a fuller sense of what also may be going on and how this teaching can be applicable to them.

I ask the question: “What would it have been like if you had actually been there?”

Jesus knew what it felt like to have the sun beating down on his head, to scuffle through dusty paths and end up with a pebble in his sandal.

He lifted his eyes to hills and saw people desperate for help.

He got hungry.

He got thirsty.

There is no temptation common to man that Jesus did not feel.

We forget the humanity of the Son of God to our peril.

Ours is a God “with flesh on,” who knows what it is to how blood pump through the veins and sun burn the skin.

Is this a legitimate exercise to apply to the Bible?

How does a Bible teacher use imagination when preparing a Bible study?

I asked a novelist and Bible teacher, Tessa Afshar (MDiv. Yale).

Her answer is illuminating, as she notes there are differences between writing a novel and preparing a Bible study.

“The Bible is silent about certain things. It may be what a person feels, their motivation, their background. Many things are left out.

“Trying to imagine how a person in the Bible is feeling is a good way of getting closer to that character as long as we make a distinction between our imagination and what is in fact available to us biblically.

“You can’t make an argument from silence. The stuff that is ultimately Truth, is the stuff that is revealed.”

Tessa writes Biblical fiction and applies her imagination all the time, but she’s more strict when preparing a Bible study:

“I like to line up the facts in front of me, then try to understand the emotional impact from there.

“For example, my last book was about the woman with the issue of blood. What do we know about her, biblically? We know she was sick for 12 years. She went to lots of doctors. They couldn’t heal her. They charged her so much money, she went broke.

“The nature of her illness made her an outcast. She was considered unclean. Few people would have touched her.

“Now, you can ask yourself (activate your imagination), how would a person like this feel? What would she battle against?”

Tessa’s questions about the text ask the reader to consider what they would feel like in the situation to get a better grasp of how and why this parable or the story would be meaningful to them.

It’s a way of making the Bible come alive and connecting with God better.

But can you trust your imagination when reading the Bible?

Tessa has an answer:

“I think the more biblical facts you have as guard rails, the less you will be likely to allow your imagination to go too far.”

Where do the safeguards come from when imaginatively reading Scripture?

Biblical novelists Tessa Afshar and Jill Eileen Smith will have answers next time.

Tweetables

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How to apply imagination to the Bible. Click to Tweet

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