Things Make So Much More Sense in Context
I don’t have anything too profound to say today. Let me just mention to those of you who have tried to read the Bible before, but found portions of it–especially from the Old Testament–to be either incomprehensible, boring, or whacko, that it makes a lot more sense if you start at page 1 and just plow forward.
Personally I have tried to read one chapter a night, in sequence. Sometimes when I hit discussions of genealogy I skim. And there are still plenty of geographical and cultural discussions that leave me clueless.
Even so, when I hit Job (for example), it now makes tons more sense than when I tried to read it a few years ago, after I had become a born again Christian.
I realize this post might sound odd to some of you, who have been reading the Bible your whole lives. But I came from a background where personal reading of the Bible was not stressed. In fact I have hit upon books that I know I never read before in my life. I was surprised to discover some of the stylistic variety in the Old Testament; it’s not just creation and the Israelites leaving Egypt, then a bunch of sinning until Jesus shows up. It is that, of course, but it’s so much more!
