Can you remember the first time you started reading the Bible? There were a lot of weird names and miraculous things happening and, whether you finished a single book or the entire Bible, you probably had a pretty good handle of the story because you read most of the words. Now, think about the second, third, or twentieth time you read through a book of the Bible. You began to discover things that you didn’t see the previous times. If you are involved in a bible study, others around you point out things that they saw that are new to you and vice versa. This awakening comes with the expansion of our imagination, growth that is a product of our deepening relationship with the Author of the story. Mark Labberton talks about worship that broadens our imagination in chapter nine of The Dangerous Act of Worship. True worship fires our imagination and enables us to have a more expansive view of our roles in restoring that justice that God wants for His world.
Imagination here is not just fanciful musings on what could be. Worship that brings us closer to the King is worship that fills us with God’s dreams and it leads us to look at people and events and our lives in a different way, discovering things that were not there the last time we looked, just as when we read the Bible over and over again. This process is enabled by our realization that God has placed His repentant children in a new place where we live by His grace power rather than our own contrition and energy. Our participation is ignited through prayer and scripture reading that opens our eyes to those around us. We seek their benefit while trusting in the Father for our own. As our imagination expands in this way we begin to see how God has arranged our intertwining lives such that we can contribute to a restoration of justice in their lives. Worship expands beyond our hour on Sunday to become our lifestyle.
At Saddleback last Sunday, Pastor Rick Warren said it plainly, if you don’t have a dream – a God sized dream- you’re just marking time. What’s your dream?
LOVE | ACCEPT | FORGIVE 
The only thing I find dangerous with this article is the use of imagination. Imagination has a way a taking things out of content and I see this done on a regular basis, especially with the bible. This miss interpretation is very bad and is causing many deaths and segregation. Think about how the bible promotes racism. The Jews weren’t allowed to marry anyone who wasn’t a Jew, it was a big sin. People use that today to promote their hate of blacks, Mexicans, and many other races.
The Spokesman
That’s a very imaginative interpretation of what the post was about. I need to correct an assumption that you made though, the Bible does not promote racism nor does it cause death and segregation. People do that. Corrupted people.
For whom are you the spokesman?
It’s the language in the scriptures that say that Jews aren’t supposed to marry non- Jews. At least today that is know as racism. That they shouldn’t even walk on the same side of the street that the gentile is walking on. It’s all there in the old testament.
I feel that in some ways I represent people who views you don’t see every where. The People who only say what they think when they are around others that feel the same way because they don’t want to argue, debate, or be assaulted ( either physically or by the statements that are made) for having those beliefs.
Thank you for your decent response back to me. I’ve been posting in some Kentucky forums and have been getting cussed out and talked down too when I post something, and they claim to be Christians.
It’s sad that you’re experiencing the difficulties that you talked about with other Christians. Sometimes defensiveness of their beliefs causes them to behave unlovingly when confronted with challenging ideas.
The OT does say that God prohibited Israel from marrying outside the Jewish community. This is not racism – this prohibition is strictly to maintain the devotion of the people to Yahweh. If they married outside of the Jewish community there would be the risk of the outside party bringing in their religious beliefs, contrary to God’s insistence that He alone is God. None of this has anything to do with the color of the people’s skin. How would handle the text in Numbers 12:1-15?
That is a great example of God’s love and acceptance for everyone, along with his parable on the Good Samaritan. I think you miss understood me and thought I said that I believe God taught racism. I was just stating that’s what many racist fake Christians use to support their racism. I hope many of them will read Numbers 12:1-15 and the story of the Good Samaritan. Sorry I wasn’t clear in my last statement.
The Spokesman
PS- I’ve changed my site around. I placed a piece about me called Welcome to my site. http://clericthespokesman.wordpress.com/