Working backward

One thing in particular has stuck in my mind from the conversation I had the other day — this friend talked about approaching Scripture without his mind settled on what it all meant. In particular, he liked approaching the person of Jesus without superimposing the idea of "Son of God" on him beforehand; rather, he preferred to approach Jesus with the same sense of confusion that the people of the day had about him and then to tease out and work through the text to discover that he must be the Son of God. Rather than being handed the answers and conclusion in advance, he found it more beneficial in making it his own belief if he put the pieces together himself and was surprised by this Jesus anew. "Don't tell me Jesus is the Son of God and then present the Gospels to prove it," was something to the effect of what he said. Tell me about Jesus himself, and let me be drawn in by the question."