The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible

by Scot McKnight

we are to live out the Bible today by returning to the early church and retrieving all its ideas no matter how uncomfortable, no matter how politically incorrect, no matter what it costs us. The emphasis here is to practice whatever the Bible teaches—to absorb and live out all of it. There are some problems here. If we sit down and think about it, it is impossible to live a first-century life in a twenty-first-century world. “That was then, but this is now” is not an empty slogan that came my way to dismiss my questions as a college student. “That was then, but this is now” is bedrock reality. Furthermore, it is undesirable and unbiblical to retrieve it all. Paul didn’t even do that. What about the words of the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:19–23, where Paul says his strategy is one of constant adaptation? Paul’s strategy was to be Jewish with Jews and to be like a Gentile with Gentiles. If Paul was already adapting first-century Jewish ideas to first-century Gentile situations, can we expect to do anything else? Can we imagine Paul wanting to back up in time to Moses’ day? To quote Paul, “By no means!”