The Bible isn't a cookbook--deviate from the recipe and the souffle falls flat. It's not an owner's manual--with detailed and complicated step-by-step instructions for using your brand-new all-in-one photocopier/FAX machine/scanner/microwave/DVR/home security system. It's not a legal contract--make sure you read the fine print and follow every word or get ready to be cast into the dungeon. It's not a manual of assembly--leave out a few bolts and the entire jungle gym collapses on your three-year-old. When we open the Bible and read it, we are eavesdropping on an ancient spiritual journey. That journey was recorded over a thousand-year span of time, by different writers, with different personalities, at different times, under different circumstances, and for different reasons. In the Bible, we read of encounters with God by ancient peoples, in their times and places, asking their questions, and expressed in language and ideas familiar to them. Those encounters with God were, I believe, genuine, authentic, and real. But they were also ancient--and that explains why the Bible behaves the way it does. This kind of Bible--the Bible we have--just doesn't work well as a point-by-point exhaustive and timelessly binding list of instructions about God and the life of faith.