Four Mountains: An Interview with Michael Niebauer

How can war stories, farming proverbs, and strange visions draw you closer to Jesus? In Four Mountains: Encountering God in the Bible from Eden to Zion, Michael Niebauer shows how to see the Bible’s big story and meet with God in his word.

In our interview below, Niebauer discusses the inspiration behind the book and how he hopes he can inspire connections between Jesus and the various symbols in Scripture.

Michael Niebauer is an Anglican pastor and author of Virtuous Persuasion: A Theology of Christian Mission.

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Lexham Press: Thank you for participating, Michael. To break the ice, can you tell us something about yourself that only your friends or family would know?
Michael Niebauer: Listening to music has been the dominant obsession in my life. I didn’t really get into theology until later in life, around age 30, and before that I spent most of my free hours spinning CDs and records while pacing back and forth in my bedroom. While in Chicago, I played String Bass in various jazz, folk, and country bands. To me, Wayne Shorter’s Speak No Evil and Steely Dan’s Aja are like the best theology texts, providing inexhaustible riches with each listen. Though I didn’t plan on it, I wound up drawing substantially from my experience with music when writing Four Mountains.

LP: Absolutely! Music can be so inspirational. Now tell us the story behind Four Mountains and describe its basic thesis.
Niebauer: In graduate school I was gripped by the ways early Christians like Ephrem the Syrian read and understood Scripture, and their approach transformed the way I read the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. I began to have intense encounters with Jesus as I read Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus. At the same time I was pastoring a church near Penn State University, and I began to think about how I could teach my congregation to read Scripture in a similar way, along the same vector of the early church. I started a “Bible in a Year” study for Penn State students, using the first semester to focus on the mountain encounters in Genesis and Exodus, with the second semester focusing on the mountain encounters with Jesus in the Gospels and Revelation. Every time a symbol like wood or water was encountered, I would explain how it pointed to Jesus. So we talked about the wood of the cross when the tree of life was described in Genesis 2, and discussed the spear that pierced Jesus’ side when the flaming sword appeared in Genesis 3.

Two incredible things happened in these Bible studies. First, I had a few agnostic and atheist students become Christian before we even got to the New Testament. Since they encountered the cross in the tree of life, forgiveness in blood sacrifices, and baptism in the Red Sea, they were able to encounter Christ through these Old Testament passages and make a commitment of faith. Second, students themselves started to draw their own connections between Jesus and the various symbols in Scripture. For instance, one student instantly saw how Jesus took on the animal garments of Adam and Eve by donning a red robe before Calvary. I wrote Four Mountains so that many others might have these kinds of experiences, encountering Jesus throughout every part of the Bible.

LP: What contribution do you hope to make with your book?
Niebauer: I hope this book will enable Christians to read the Bible as the early Christians did without requiring an advanced degree. There has been 40 years of academic research aimed at recovering early Christian methods of interpretation, what is sometimes called spiritual or figural exegesis, but there have been surprisingly few attempts to help “normal” Christians actually read Scripture in this way. Four Mountains weaves this approach to Scripture into an overview of the entire biblical story in a way that is accessible to those without advanced theology degrees. I like to say that it teaches people to engage in figural exegesis without ever using the words figural or exegesis. In addition, the book is structured to take the reader through key chapters of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and my hope is that it can be easily used for church Bible studies or introductory Bible classes at colleges and seminaries.

LP: Can you recall a particularly surprising or enjoyable aspect that you discovered from writing your book?
Niebauer: I had many “a-ha” encounters with scripture while writing Four Mountains. While writing the chapters on Mount Sinai, I discovered the connection between God’s voice and the trumpet blast: God’s voice is a harsh blaring trumpet to those who don’t know Him, but turns into a sweet melody as one approaches God on the mountain. For us today, God’s word sounds harsh to those who don’t know Christ, but becomes a delightful melody for those who fall in love with Jesus. I then realized that God had been preparing me to make this connection through my experience listening to jazz music. When I was 15, I had a kind of conversion moment, where the sound of a blaring trumpet solo suddenly changed from a harsh sound to a sweet melody. I realized that God had enabled me to fall in love with jazz music in order to teach me about falling in love with his voice. My hope is that this book will help others draw these kinds of connections between scripture and their own walks with Jesus.