It is easy as we read the Bible to resonate with the disciples and others who follow God in scripture. What could be wrong with this?
As a White American Christian I (we) am so used to centering myself (and being centered by others) in the story of God that I’ve forgotten a crucial element brought up by Willie James Jennings in The Christian Imagination. “Someone allowed us [Gentiles] to draw close enough to hear that there was a conversation going on between God and a people in the first place.” (Jennings, 252)
His challenge to me (and us) is to rediscover the position of reading scripture as an outsider brought in on an ongoing conversation in which we are not at the center.