A couple years ago, Ed Dobson decided to spend a year living like Jesus (The Year of Living like Jesus). He had heard A.J. Jacobs talking about his book, The Year of Living Biblically. Jacobs, who was agnostic and Jewish, needed a new book idea after having read through the Encyclopedia Britannica, and decided to live for a year doing what the Bible said to do. Dobson, who had been a pastor now was retired and living with ALS, decided that someone should try the same thing as Jacobs, but this time living like Jesus lived and taught.

What both of them realized was that living according to the Bible was a consuming project. It demanded reflection about how literal and how figurative to be. A.J. Jacobs wrestled with how to obey the teaching about stoning people. Ed Dobson struggled with living in a very conservative culture and following Jesus’ example of hanging around with sinners. Both of them found that they had to arrive at some accommodations. Each of them thought about quitting. But both of them completed their year of living with the constraints. Both of them were changed by the process.

Dobson and Jacobs shifted from “whether” questions to “how” questions. They made a commitment – “I will live for a year this way” – and that removed them from thinking about whether or not to obey, whether or not to think about the Bible. They shifted to “having made a commitment, how can I live it out?”

Their commitment meant that they didn’t say, “the Bible is stupid.” Or “The Bible makes no sense.” Or “The Bible is irrelevant.” Instead, they worked to understand why the Bible might say this thing and that thing and the other thing.

Commitment is an interesting decision. It changes the questions. It eliminates some options while opening up others. In a sense, commitment reduces breadth and enables depth.

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You can learn more about Dobson’s wrestling with life and death and purpose in his movie My Garden from edsstory.com. It’s 10 minutes that shook me.

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And it’s Andrew Swanson‘s birthday today. I love my son.