A strangely inspiring quote from Eugene Peterson to begin the new year:
From The Jesus Way, in a chapter where Peterson notes Christians’ odd tendency to idolize David–he of 8 wives and a harem of concubines, he who killed thousands (including a rival lover), he who was indifferent to his own progeny. To name but a few low points from David’s life.
There is a lesson for us in all this, says Peterson, but it’s not the one we normally apply. Christians often regard David as a giant-slayer and great psalmist, but the truth of the Biblical story of David is much more complicated. So Peterson says:
The life of David is a labyrinth of ambiguities, not unlike our own. What we admire in David does not cancel out what we abhor, and what we abhor does not cancel out what we admire. David is not a model for imitation; David is not a candidate for a pedestal. The David story is an immersion in humanity…. The story of David is not a story of what God wants us to be but a story of God working with the raw material of our lives as he finds us.
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