Variety: Matthew 4v4

Jesus answered, ‘It is written: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” ’ (Matthew 4v4)

More than telling us exactly what to see in the Scriptures, Jesus taught us how to see, what to emphasize, and also what could be de-emphasized or ignored. Beyond fundamentalism or literalism, Jesus practiced a form of Jewish commentary called midrash, consistently using questions to keep spiritual meanings open, often reflecting on a text or returning people’s questions with more questions. 
Rather than seeking always certain and unchanging answers, the Jewish practice of midrash allows many possibilities, many levels of faith-filled meaning—meaning that is relevant and applicable to you, the reader, and puts you in the subject’s shoes to build empathy, understanding, and relationship. It lets the passage first challenge you before it challenges anyone else. To use the text in a spiritual way—as Jesus did—is to allow it to convert you, to change you, to grow you up as you respond: What does this ask of me? How might this apply to my life, to my family, to my church, to my neighbourhood, to my country, and even the world? 

Richard Rohr suggests several steps for a contemplative reading of Scripture:  
•    Offer a prayer for guidance from the Holy Spirit before interpreting an important text. This begins to decenter our egoic need to make the text say what we want or need it to say. Pray as long as it takes to get to this inner intellectual freedom and detachment.   
•    Once we have attained some honest degree of intellectual and emotional freedom, we must try to move to a position of detachment from our own will and its goals, needs, and desires.  
•    Then listen for a deeper voice that isn’t our own. We will know that it isn’t the ego because it will never shame or frighten us, but rather strengthen us, even when it is challenging us. If it is God’s voice, it will take away our illusions and our violence so completely and naturally that we can barely identify with such previous feelings! I call this God’s replacement therapy.  
•    If the interpretation leads our true self to experience any or several of the fruits of the Spirit, as they are listed in Galatians 5:22–23—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness, and self-control—I think we can trust this interpretation is from the Spirit, from the deeper stream of wisdom.  
•    If any negative or punitive emotions arise from our interpretation—such as feelings of superiority, self-satisfaction, arrogant dualistic certitude, desire for revenge, need for victory, or any spirit of dismissal or exclusion—this is not the Spirit at work, but our own ego still steering the ship. 
 

Richard Rohr