Not a Painting on the Wall, but a Window

In the book A Peculiar Glory, John Piper describes how he maintained a traditional view of scripture, even after he went on to advanced theological studies in California and Germany. He describes his experience here:

The Bible was never like a masterpiece hanging in a museum that I viewed this way and that. Rather, it was like a window. Or like binoculars. My view of the Bible was always a view through the Bible. So when I say that, all along the way, my view was getting clearer and brighter and deeper, I mean the reality seen through it was getting clearer and brighter and deeper.

Clearer as the edges of things became less fuzzy, and I could see how things fit together rather than just smudging into each other. Brighter as the beauty and impact of the whole message was more and more attractive. And deeper in the sense of depth perspective—I suppose photographers would say “depth of field.” Things stretched off into eternity with breathtaking implications—in both directions past and future. You could sum this up with the phrase the glory of God. That’s what I was seeing. This was not an intellectual effort. Seeing is not an effort the way thinking is. It happens.