The Blue Parakeet

The Blue Parakeet
Scot McKnight
Zondervan 2008

This book is subtitled "Rethinking How You Read the Bible" and that subtitle tells us much more about what the book is about than the title itself. The Blue Parakeet must be one of the most bizarre titles for a theology book I've ever come across. The title refers to an incident he remembers when a blue parakeet flew into his garden having escaped from its cage. McKnight uses this as a metaphor for when we find a verse in the Bible that just doesn't fit with what we think the Bible teaches.

McKnight's argument is that the way most Christians read the Bible is that we all pick and choose which parts apply to us today and which parts no longer apply. McKnight recognises this and approves of it. He points out however that this is not how many evangelicals talk about the Bible. He criticises fellow evangelicals who are more concerned with getting their doctrine of the Bible's inspiration and inerrancy right than actually practising what God says in the Bible in their lives.

McKnight says that we have to view the Bible as a story of God's dealings with his people. He helpfully breaks down the whole biblical narrative into five key sections:

• Creating Eikons (Theme is "Oneness") - Genesis 1 & 2 - how humanity is created and lives in unity with God and with each other .
• Cracked Eikons (Theme is "Otherness") - Genesis 3 to 11 - how sin enters the world and spreads, dividing humanity from God and from each other.
• Covenant Community (Theme is "Otherness Expanding") - Genesis 12 to Malachi - how God calls a people to be separate from the rest of humanity and calls Israel to be a new community that takes his message of salvation to the world.
• Christ the perfect Eikon redeems humanity to restore oneness with God and with each other (Theme is "Oneness in Christ") - Matthew to Revelation 20.
• Consummation - Revelation 21 & 22 - Restoration of perfect oneness between God and humanity forever.

McKnight is less clear, in my view, how we are to tell which parts of the Bible apply to us, though he makes a good point that ultimately the Bible is not something we learn for itself, but rather a way in which we are supposed to get to know God better and develop our relationship with him.

The last part of McKnight's book takes a specific issue that divides the church - the role of women in teaching ministry and church leadership - and seeks to use what he has discussed previously to find out what we should take from the Bible and apply to our churches in the 21st century. McKnight is an egalitarian - he believes all church offices should be open to women.

The book deserves a reading, though it could have been clearer (I would argue) in how taking the Bible as story should guide us in deciding which parts are still applicable to us, which parts are applicable in a literal or figurative way, and which parts are no longer binding on Christians.

I plan to give it a second reading in the hope of gaining a better understanding of how to apply McKnight's groundwork to real situations.