Untangling Cliché: "Blessing," Part II

"Theological reading" as I mean it assumes a system lies behind the reading that makes coherent sense and leaves no remainder.  The Bible isn't like that.

Read it like it's poetry, like it's written: it means you don't stand under the text waiting for it to tell you what you do not know, but rather is one man, or woman, or community's recollected perception of a truth for which they had no more words than you do.

And no fewer.

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Untangling Cliché: "Bless," Blessing," "Blessed."

So for the Hebrew / ancient Israelite, "blessing" was the gift of the king.  Anything bad was the scheming of one of the god's less sympathetic entourage.

If you want to know what the "system" is, look not at your Bible but first at your life.  Is it embued with good things?   Or is it brutal and beset with difficulty?

Now consult your imagination: how do you see God? 

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