Basket
0 Items
Living Well: Inspired by the Story behind the Bible
By Starr Tomczak
Cascade Books, 2024, £19
ISBN 978-166677-185-5
Living Well is a unique book. Seeking to blend historical critical readings of the Bible with telling her own story and showing how the two can create faith-inspiring readings, Tomczak offers a contextual hermeneutic that explores human experience while retaining biblical authority. Tomczak addresses stories, rather than texts, itself an innovative approach to biblical interpretation. For preachers keen on ‘application’, ‘relevance’ or ‘discipleship’ it will be surprising to learn that Tomczak does not venture beyond the bounds of the Pentateuch, yet explores, with real-life anecdotes, matters of living in God’s image, journeying, redemption and promised land.
Each chapter follows the same pattern; an introduction, usually related to the writer’s life and her family whom we get to know as the book goes on; The Bible’s Story, a section that recounts the story as told in the Bible; Writing the Story, in which we learn how, when and by whom the story was written; Living the Story, a kind of broad-brush application section.
Let me give you an idea of how it works. Chapter Four, Justice and Compassion in Noah’s Flood begins in the painful reality of Tomczak’s own life. ‘I never understood,’ she writes, ‘why pastors kept talking about forgiveness when I had more pressing problems – my parents were hitting, molesting, and stealing from me’ (p. 36). She goes on to explain how pastors and Sunday school teachers instructed children to obey their parents. In the Writing the Story section, the writer explains how the story of Noah’s flood came about when Israel’s scribes were trying to make sense of the destruction of Jerusalem. They attempted to balance justice and mercy – an endeavour in which Tomczak’s pastors failed. The chapter concludes with something of a handbrake turn, but what might also be taken as a challenge to preachers: ‘in contrast to the one-sided sermons I heard about forgiveness, the scribes and priests writing the flood story remind us to balance compassion with justice.’
The book is generally well-researched with one or two interpretive weaknesses. From the perspective of the UK church, and the recent impact of the Makin report on John Smyth’s abuse of boys, it seems tenuous to suggest, as Tomczak does in her chapter on Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, that the story was designed as anti-child sacrifice propaganda, and that faith supersedes love for a child.
At a time when few preachers seem to engage with the Old Testament, and possibly fewer the Pentateuch, this book offers creative ways of interpreting these ancient texts relevantly. I read it in two ways, first as an ‘academic’ read, and then as a reflective one. It works both ways. As a way of engaging congregations with parts of their story they may not know, the earliest parts of the Bible, I commend this book as a useful resource.
Welcome to The College of Preachers
To explore the website fully, please sign in or subscribe.
Non-subscribers can read up to three articles a month for free. (You will need to register.)
This is the last of your 1 free articles this month.
Subscribe today for the full range of resources from The College of Preachers, including Lectionary sermons for every Sunday, book reviews and more.
