What's in a Phrase?: Pausing Where Scripture Gives You Pause

by Marilyn McEntyre

Overview

Well-known biblical phrases -- "in the fullness of time," "fearfully and wonderfully made," "in the beauty of holiness," and others -- suggest and evoke and invite. In this book Marilyn Chandler McEntyre offers brief reflections on more than fifty such scriptural phrases that prompt readers to pay attention, to pause where we sense a beckoning.
Some of these select phrases are devotional, some speculative, some whimsical, some edgy. McEntyre encourages us to see such "words within the Word" as invitations and, in doing so, to discover that they are places of divine encounter, epiphany, or unexpected guidance.
The three sections of the book "Assurance," "Invitation," and "Surprise" -- organize the reflections by tone as well as theme. Rich with eloquence, wisdom, and wonder, these reflections will lead readers to enter the sacred spaces of Scripture, play with possibilities, and connect the biblical word with the ordinary -- and extraordinary -- lives we've been given to live.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467440547
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	04/20/2014
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	127
File size:	240 KB

About the Author

 
Marilyn McEntyre is the award-winning author of several books on language and faith, including Where the Eye Alights, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies, Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict, When Poets Pray, Make a List, Word by Word, and What's in a Phrase? Pausing Where Scripture Gives You Pause, winner of the 2015 Christianity Today book award in spirituality.

Marilyn McEntyre is the award-winning author of several books on language and faith, including  Where the Eye Alights, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies, Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict, When Poets Pray, Make a List, Word by Word, and  What's in a Phrase? Pausing Where Scripture Gives You Pause, winner of the 2015  Christianity Today book award in spirituality.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

Assurance

incline your ear 1

put in custody 3

fed you in the wilderness with manna 5

for you alone, 0 Low, make me dwell in safety 7

hidden with Christ 9

all Israel was recorded in genealogies 11

delight is in the law 12

teach me your paths 14

in the night also my heart instructs me 16

make a way 18

I will scatter 21

become one flesh 23

we live and move and have our being 25

Invitation and Admonition

speak peace 29

make for yoursefl a carved image, or any likeness 32

pray to the Loxv for you 34

mourning over the faithlessness 36

leave them for the poor 38

that I may discern 40

considers the poor 43

no one spoke a word to him 45

and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you 47

to love kindness 49

whatever your hand finds to do 52

exhort one another 54

made no further answer 57

some fell into good soil and grew and yielded 59

holy convocations 61

to hear the groans of the prisoners 64

imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises 66

solemn rest 68

work heartily 71

those who sold and those who bought 73

do not harden your hearts 75

for the wild goats 78

in the beauty of holiness 80

in prison and you came 82

Mystery and Surprise

in the fullness of time 85

praise him, you highest heavens 87

when the mountain goats give birth 89

fearfully and wonderfully made 91

dawns on them like the morning light 93

who can play well 95

put a new song in my mouth 97

let there be light 99

looking at him, loved him 101

born of water and the Spirit 103

who do people say that I am 106

wrestled with him 108

suppose 110

Works Cited 113

Editorial Reviews

REVIEWS
Scott Cairns
—author of Idiot Psalms
"With her profound summonings, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre recovers for many contemporary readers an ancient practice that is reminiscent of rabbinic attention to the dark sayings of Scripture, those compelling, curious, often challenging passages that would nudge us into seeing more, would have us glimpse the inexhaustibility of the One in Whom we live and move and have our being, even the inexhaustibility of His Word."
Cornelius Plantinga Jr.
—author of Reading for Preaching: The Preacher in Conversation with Storytellers, Biographers, Poets, and Journalists
"McEntyre has again written with conspicuous grace and truth. She sees deeply into the Christian life. She writes simply and nobly, but with an enormous weight of discernment and suggestion. Some passages here are as powerful and lovely as any I've encountered in years."
Carol Zaleski
—coauthor of Prayer: A History
"Seamlessly blending exegesis, philology, lectio divina, and prayer, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre teaches us how to listen for the divine word in all times and circumstances."
Library Journal
"McEntyre's elegant writing and sensitive awareness of nuance make this brief book a pleasure as well as a source of instruction and insight, excellent for poets and general readers as much as for Christian and spiritual ones."
John Wilson, Books and Culture
"Over the past few years, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre has written a remarkable series of books. . . . These books are fresh, concise, not quite fitting in familiar genres, informed by scholarly learning and literary study but not ‘academic.' It must give her great joy to write just the sort of books she wants to write, and that joy is contagious. Her latest, from Eerdmans — What's in a Phrase? Pausing Where Scripture Gives You Pause — is a slim volume of brief meditations, each one triggered by a very brief passage from the Bible. Put this on your bedside table as soon as possible."
The Banner
"McEntyre invites readers to join her in quietly, prayerfully contemplating passages that have caught her attention. . . . This book embraces the Bible as God's living Word — mysterious, powerful, and meant to be engaged."
Presbyterian Outlook
"This is a lovely book. . . . A generous, wise book that will make us more generous and wise because we have learned to pay attention more carefully to words that evoke such virtue."
Retailing Insight
"Marilyn McEntrye describes small, familiar phrases as ‘places of divine encounter' which invite us in and inspire reflection. . . . This is a breath of fresh air with a very creative edge to it."

From the Publisher

05/15/2014
McEntyre (medical humanities, Univ. of California, Davis) is by no means the first or only poet to care deeply about matters of faith, but her history as a writer (Patient Poets; Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies) suggests an unusual, subtle, and touching concern for the words in which faith is conveyed, carried, and treasured. Structured around the broad categories of "assurance," "invitation and admonition," and "mystery and surprise," these brief reflections—really miniessays—respond to a variety of different syncopes from the Bible; they are a kind of close reading of text, but from a spiritual as much as a literary point of view. VERDICT McEntyre's elegant writing and sensitive awareness of nuance make this brief book a pleasure as well as a source of instruction and insight, excellent for poets and general readers as much as for Christian and spiritual ones.

Library Journal