Today is the last piece in the section on the living word among African American slaves. Bount wants to make sure we heard that the scriptures were not simply dismissed when they spoke a word about slaves that was a dead word for them.
This doesn't mean that the New Testament text lost its sense of authority for the slaves. But it does mean that their perception of God in their midst was more authoritative. The text must be in line with God's being and God's agenda of liberation. Where it is not, the text, because of the frailty of the humans who composed it, must be challenged and, if need be, resisted as much as the system of slavery it was purported to support. In this way the slaves were perhaps the first biblical critics in America to read so aggressively from "in front of th text" that they could recognize the text for what it really was, the words first century human writers employed in their attempt to convey the Word of the eternal God.
The text stays vital and yet how it is read and how it is received comes into play so that it can be taken as a word that is either alive or dead at the time of the reading. If a passage is so out of tune with what is the context of the day of reading that it cannot be accepted within the realm of the great "agenda of liberation," then we need to look at it again and come to grips with how or if it is still able to speak to us. Again, we must remember that we are talking about specific texts becoming dead words - not all of Scripture. In fact, as we read here, the African American slaves knew the whole book...and what they read in the whole story that brought them life and hope and vision was not being heard in these texts that were locked in the slavery of the mindset of the day of writing. The powerful word of Scripture brings about a new world, and yet, we must continue to stay focused on what is the power that comes from this word...what makes it alive...what then, causes it to be quite dead and lost among us.
Connection: Remember that this way of looking at Scripture is not the way some would like to hear it. So, how do we talk about this faithful encounter with Scripture that is not willing to buy the message in each verse hook-line-and-sinker? Obviously there are folk out there who find it very difficult to question anything in the "book." And yet it is necessary.
Lord of the Living Word, we are fed by the Scriptures and we are encouraged for new life as we encounter the stories of your faithfulness through the ages in the lives of our ancestors. Today as we continue our faithful journeys we long to hear that life-giving word that will always be a word of life and liberation and a call to faithfulness. Amen.
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