Just recently as I was reading the books of Chronicles, it struck me that the Kings listed in these books serve as examples to us; some were good Kings, striving to elevate Yhwh to the prime position over their nation, and some were evil Kings, turning to the so-called gods of the nations around them, along with the evil practices of those gods.The Living Word
We've all read it a hundred times:
For the word of God is living and active....
Heb 4:12Recently, when I read this, it hit me.
It's not passive black text on a crisp white background.
It does something.
Put it in your head. It won't just sit there like a coffee cup on a side table. It'll do something. It's active. It's alive.
It's one thing to read the stories in the Chronicles, and learn lessons from each story; it's an entirely different thing to get an over-arching lesson of choosing to serve Yhwh or of choosing to serve other gods. If I had been reading the Bible in the "a little here, a little there" style, I still probably would have gotten the individual lessons from the individual stories, but I would have missed out on the thread that runs throughout the books - who ya gonna serve? Yhwh, or someone/thing else?
It struck me once again, that the only way to learn these subtle lessons is to read the Bible. Read it. Then read it again. Then read it again, in a different version, with a different mindset. Then read it again.
I'm afraid that we as a people have failed to read the Bible any more. Is it any wonder the church is so weak in the 21st century?
2 comments:
Amen. So how much are you reading each week? Just curious my goal is atleast 30 chapters a week. -Tracy
I have a "rule" to read at least one chapter just before bed every night. It's not unusual however to read two or six if I find it interesting reading, nor is it unusual to read during the day if I have my Bible at hand and a few minutes available. But it's also not unusual to go a week with only having read seven chapters.
I have really enjoyed my "The Message/NIV" parallel Bible; "The Message" really causes me to see things from a different angle than what I'm accustomed to, and the NIV allows me to compare it with a more literal translation. I'm anxious to get through this one; I expect my next Bible to be a Greek/English interlinear; how fascinating to be able to sort of get familiar with the underlying Greek; I expect to learn a lot with that reading through also.
I think for me, and perhaps for many people in our culture, reading thirty chapters a week might prove daunting and we might get discouraged. But adhering to a "rule" to read at least one chapter a day has worked for me rather well, and I learn a lot each time I read a different version. By the time I get to a new version, my mental processes have changed enough so that the next time through I'm asking different questions and seeing new stuff. Fascinating.
Also, every Sunday morning in the adult Bible Class, the teacher asks for a show of hands of everyone that has read their Bible daily in the past week. I get such a grade-school thrill out of being able to raise my hand (almost) every week; this "accountability test" is a good motivator for me, although I realize it may not work for everyone.
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