Spiritual Meta Themes

Sooner or later if you are a Christian, you will need to make compromises in how you interpret some aspects of Scripture compared to others. A God of love, forgiveness vs a God of judgment and wrath. How do we balance a God of who would commit genocide with a God who loves the world to such an extent he would sacrifice his Son? You see it every where with Christians. I once knew a Christian who took 'Pauls word literally', On one hand she wore a scarf on her head to Church. Yet she also thought tongues was 'from the devil', strangely ignoring Paul's exhortation wishing all to speak in tongues. (1 Cor 14:5)
There are a number of ways you can look at this conundrum. Either you take God's word in an even more literal sense and believe that God has a reason for the conundrum which can be found in the scriptural text. 
Or you back off the literal interpretation. That the book is written by fallible humans, that much of it is  historical. That the text is just a Sign Post to God. Not God. 
It in my opinion, I like the second option. It lets the reader have more freedom with accepting truths. The reader then doesn't have to dismiss there own faith straight away, on the basis of the text been literal or not.

One aspect which has helped me, is looking at the 'Meta Themes'. That biblical 'Signposts' can be found in these "Meta Themes'. For me the basics are:: 

-A God of Love
-A God of Redemption
-A God inhibits the prescence of the broken and disadvantaged
-A God who is fair

I write about these themes in following posts.

Pluralism

I'm currently reading a book by Eugene Peterson 'Christ plays in 1000 places'. I have in the process noticed a shift in myself.

Peterson makes a number of references of how the bible is the place of objectivity in all things; this is not an exact quote. Whenever I hear this type of reference in the Bible there is something deep down which makes me cringe. I'm not sure what it is that makes me cringe but I do know that there has been deep shifts. The Bible is very important to me, it is something that I aspire to read most days. The meta themes through out the Bible are those which I try to see in life. Beauty, Love, Justice, Mercy, Redemption, Grace. The narratives, poetry and other genres make for everlasting reading.
Yet I find it hard to not look around at creation and other cultures and not see these meta themes mentioned. I'm totally convinced of the person of Jesus and what happened upon the cross. Yet when it comes to other cultures where his named is shunned, I still believe he has an influence. That the meta themes could and are played out; even though perhaps in ignorance. Still ultimately through the work of Jesus. (Romans 8:34 ³⁴ Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.)
So what about the book 'Christ Plays in 10000 places', and Petersons reference to the ultimate authority of the bible. Well I'm not sure, I know that I'm uneasy with that type of language these days...