I heard Julie Pennington-Russell (Lead Pastor, FBC Decatur, GA) speak while in seminary.  She began her talk with this poem.  As you read it, insert “scripture” every time that you see “poem.”  Pretty interesting thoughts about what it means to interpret scripture.

Introduction to Poetry

by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.