On Reading the Bible as Scripture

"Let the Scriptures, then, first of all be themselves.  Let us admit that here are words from another era that are now alien to us.   Once we have done so, we will be able to see that, in their own terms and their own context, the biblical authors were dealing with the same issues that confront us -- issues of faith and understanding that do not fade in a thousand years or in ten thousand.  Who is God? What kind of world has God made? Who are we, human spirits and souls and bodies, who find ourselves in this world? What are the limits of our existence and our power, and what lies beyond them? Why is suffering a part of our lives? Why does this world not measure up to the best that we might hope of it? And why does it give us so much more than we could have asked?  The mysteries of our existence remain with us; to grow in comprehension of Scripture will mean that we grow in the mysteries, too."  - William Countryman

L. William Countryman, Biblical Authority or Tyranny?: Scripture and the Christian Pilgrimage, rev. ed. (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1994), 103.  Italics mine.