Just recently—like this week—I had my latest prescription lenses installed in my old frames. I hadn’t had my eyes checked in 3 years or more, and according my optometrist, my prescription changed rather significantly. Thus, was explained why everything had been quite blurry—duh!
Because I didn’t need (or want) new frames (the ones I have are light, yet durable), then I spent more money on getting really good quality lenses with the “latest” technology. I was certainly hoping to see more clearly, but I wasn’t expecting the results to be so dramatic! From people, to nature, to screens, to print, etc., etc., everything was suddenly and dramatically clearer. In fact, I can’t remember when I last saw my world in such fine and precise detail. I can now read the titles on books from across the room. I can read the small “print” on the TV screen. And I don’t even have to squint. I just didn’t realize how “off” my vision was until the moment I put on my new lenses. The difference is astounding.
This is a perfect analogy for those moments in our lives when we come to some realizations, insights, perspectives that help us make much more sense of our experiences in this world. People often refer to these as “Aha” or even “Eureka” moments: moments of sudden realization, inspiration, insight, recognition or comprehension.
In a recent blog post, Peter Enns notes how some evangelical biblical scholars had their “Aha” moments that convinced them that they needed to find different ways of dealing with the biblical texts than how they had been taught. That led me to think about cataloguing, then describing, my own biblical “Aha” moments. Most of these happened in the last 15 years, with some being more significant than others in terms of their impact on the trajectory of my faith journey. In the series of blogs that follow, I will go into some detail about when these moments happened and how they changed my thinking and approach to “all things biblical.” In the first of this series, I will detail the “Aha” moments I had while taking an undergraduate course, RELG 306––Archaeology and the Bible, with the renowned Egyptologist, Dr. Thomas Schneider in 2008.
Disclaimer: If you’re content and confident with where you are at spiritually, especially in terms of your conviction that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, then you won’t be helped or encouraged by some, or any of the, things I will share. Again, for those who equate faith with certainty, I don’t want to introduce doubt or to oppose and/or irritate you. Rather, I’m sharing in an effort to offer support and encouragement to those whose doubts, questions and/or concerns are leading to a “faith crisis
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