One of the ways I’m continually fascinated in the Bible are the vivid word pictures God sets before us. I’m like bread, like water. My kingdom’s like yeast—but be careful, the bad guys are, too.

I’ve been turning this over in my brain more recently as I pick my way through Lauren Winner’s latest book, Wearing God: Clothing, Laughter, Fire, and Other Overlooked Ways of Meeting God. Winner and I occasionally diverge theologically, but I still get so much out of her writing (how can I not, withnuggets like, “Cupid came and shot me with a Bible arrow”?).

This book spirals around the idea of our metaphors of God. It unfurls how our favored images influence us and define our responses and ways of being with God (and the resulting images of ourselves!), fleshing out some unlikely pictures of God found in Scripture and in life.