In general, I find it best when musicians and politicians stick to their day jobs, and the same might be said of biblical scholarship: Let the Bible experts write the commentaries and the music experts play the songs. So you can imagine my surprise at having read an excellent biblical commentary written by the singer-songwriter Michael Card.
“Luke: The Gospel of Amazement” is the initial installment of Card’s Biblical Imagination Series, with commentaries on the other three Gospels slated to come out in the next three years. Thankfully, Card has also provided musical accompaniment to his commentary in the form of a full-length album, “Luke: A World Turned Upside Down.” Taken together, this commentary and album are a very fine and thoughtful exploration of the third Gospel. To be fair, Michael Card is no biblical neophyte. He holds a master’s degree in biblical studies and the commentary everywhere demonstrates his awareness of historical and cultural context.
The commentary is laid out in a readable fashion with an extended periscope followed by the author’s reflections on the text. Card is a fine writer and a careful reader who is able to articulate profound insights, in large part because his imagination is always biblical, drawing the reader into the text rather than away from it. In other words, Card’s strategy of “engaging with the Scriptures at the level of the informed imagination” (Page 12) allows him to draw out the wonders of the text in a fresh way. Some readers might be surprised that Card never doubts Lucan authorship, and interprets the text accordingly. While “expert” biblical scholars — and those who have been trained by them — might consider this naïve, it is an example of Card’s willingness to take the text on its own terms, to be shaped by the story and attentive to its nuances and details. He is then free to read the text with a hermeneutic of amazement, which is a fitting posture toward a book that, as Card points out, uses such language (thaumazo, ekplesso, ekstasis, thambos, existemi) more than any other Gospel (pp 22-23).
Those who know Michael Card for his music will not be disappointed with the accompanying album. What is especially impressive is how well the music augments and amplifies the themes of Luke’s Gospel and Card’s commentary: “King in a Cattle Trough” sings of the amazing reversals found throughout the Gospel with lyrics like: “How do you honor a king in a trough when you cannot bow any lower than he?” and “His poverty made him the perfect provision.” The song entitled “The Bridge” exemplifies Card’s sense that the work of the Spirit is to recapture our imaginations and reintegrate us along that “vital bridge” between hearts and minds.
This commentary and album would be of great help for church members who are studying Luke, and especially for pastors who would like to be amazed again by the good news of Jesus Christ that has captured the imaginations of Luke, Michael Card and, by God’s grace, you and me.
ANDREW NAGEL is the associate pastor of Neelsville Presbyterian Church in Germantown, Md.
