Forget all the theology you’ve ever heard and all the churches you’ve ever been in. Get a copy of the gospels that has no chapter and verse divisions so you’ll forget it is supposed to be sacred. Read the 4 books like you’d read any biography: to touch the essence of the person. Try to forget, as you read, all the abuses the text in front of you has been subjected to.
If, having done that, you can’t respond to Jesus of Nazareth the way they did on the road to Emmaus — “our hearts burned within as you talked with us” — well, then. But only then.
TimothyOne 