Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading by Eugene Peterson challenges Christians to read Scriptures in order to be formed by the Holy Spirit in accordance with the Bible.

Christians are to read spiritually as Scripture is spiritual writing. Because the Bible is written by a personal God in order to draw us into his story, reading it requires our whole body, our worship, prayers, imagination, and daily lives. Peterson later clarifies that this does not mean reading them distantly in some ethereal way--Scripture is vernacular, rough, and earthy. It's written in common, everyday language because it enters the everyday lives of common people.

In an age of spiritual formation, Peterson calls us back to the text of formation, the Bible. It is authoritative because its author has authority. We can't approach the Bible to take from it what we want but to give our lives.

Peterson takes beyond reading it intellectually, objectively, or pragmatically. He argues that we enter into God's story, participate in it, and follow Jesus. Reading in this way requires the hard, tedius work of exegesis but doesn't settle for pinning down facts. Peterson encourages readers of the Bible not to try to get God or Scripture into our lives but to get our lives into God and Scripture. We don't read it as impassive observers but as active participants. In this way, Scripture pushes us to live Christ-like.

To teach Christians how to read, Peterson uses Lectio Divina, which includes reading in a way that enters the culture of the text, meditating on it, praying through it, and living it. Reading and meditation is not to discover how we feel about it but to jump into the culture of the text and hear the patterns in throughout the Bible. While he advocates commentary reading for all Christians and briefly describes the place of metaphor in the Bible, he doesn't provide for more tools or resources for understanding the culture and world of the text in a way that allows us to enter into it.

Eat This Book inspires the reader to do the hard work of reading Scripture in a way that opens our lives to God's work of shaping us. Scripture, Peterson says, addresses how we live this every day, in our families, work places, and recreations. I highly recommend this book for anyone serious about their Christian life more than Sunday mornings.

Review by Heather A. Goodman