Read the Bible Through Again

Read the Bible Through Again

I am committed to the wisdom of careful, intense scrutiny of individual words and verses in Scripture. The Bible was carefully written and the Spirit expresses Himself in each line, and the whole of the Bible points out Christ and His Salvation. The more you study, the bigger Jesus gets in your life, and the closer you study the scriptures the more riches God reveals to you.

But………

There is advantage and meaning to be gained in reading through the whole Bible, reading large sections at once, and reading for the total effect gained as you pass from one book to another.

It is only embarrasing to be asked how many times you have read the whole Bible. Your response will sound either inadequate according to some legalistic standard, or, if the number is high enough, it cannot fail to sound like boasting.

I do know the correct answer to give if someone asks, “Pastor, I have read the Bible through (a certain number) times now, how many times should I read it all the way through?” The corect answer is;”Stop Counting.”

I finished reading the Bible through again, just days before my forty-eighth birthday (today). I have stopped counting, and I have some things to share today about what you can expect to gain by reading the whole Bible.

Some Books of the Bible are tailor-made in terms of length and focus to be read at one sitting, for totality of effect. Among these are Mark, Amos, Zechariah, Zephaniah, and of course, Ruth and Esther.

You always find that you have overlooked a book that suddenly resonates with themes that you have been studying. This year, I have resolved to go back and have a look at Zephaniah, I saw some intruiging stuff as I was on my way through.

With a reasonable note-taking system, you end up with a mini-concordance of verses that you want to save for later, and the preacher has a whole list of passages to go back to for preaching material.

You become more certain of things that you learned before. I have in these latter years maintained that the scriptures are not too hard for reading, common-sense rules work well to unpack meanings, and rarely is the truth of even the most out-of the-way passage hidden or lost. More confirmation of this truth is seen that when you read it all through again, you are more familiar with the material, you don’t stumble over passages that once slowed you down, and the revealed heart of God is more easily known to your soul.

I became more certain that the lenghty rendition of Law in the Pentatuech serves a real revelatory purpose and used the form of the scroll to good effect. (If you think Leviticus comes off as pointless and long –winded, how much text was given to you with your cell phone or your toaster, and how significant to your life was that? Will it last 4000 years?) I am also more certain that the Old Testament points to the Christ through the tutelage of the Law, and I see it in new ways.

On the other end of the Book, I am more certain that Revelation repeats in signs, the same events rather than a consecutive adventure of persecutions and judgements, but I am convinced I won’t come out with that sermon series anytime soon.

You may find these new things if you read the scriptures all the way through, they cannot be properly felt just reading small distinct bits, no matter how rewarding intense study may be.

In the middle of the Book, between the inexorable histories and the intense prophets, God’s people stop to sing 150 songs. (Psalms)

Proverbs tells a man how to live so that God will bless, and makes no bones about the solemn duty of man toward man and God, Ecclesiastes points out that this is all ending up in the grave, anyway, so its rather depressing, and then, Song of Songs laughs at both and tells you to enjoy the day with your beloved, (or your Beloved), and that love is stronger than death anyway, and it sees beyond the duties of everyday life to relationship.

The prophets crop up after our lengthy religious instructions and sacred history, like a Chorus of angelic voices to encourage and warn, and name the names of the rebellious bore God and people.

You read all of Isaiah’s first thirty-nine chapters and then come to: “Comfort, Comfort ye my people,…their hard sevice is ended…” and it feels like words addressed to your weary spirit.

In the Beginning Book you find the Tree of Life the Perfect Man, the Blood of the Sacrifice and the Bow of God. In the Last Book, you find, the Perfect Man, the Tree of Life, the Blood of the Sacrifice, and the Bow of God.

You experience the 3–fold repetiotion of Leviticus that expresses obedience: The Decree of God, How Moses Set About to Obey, and How the Same Work was Completed.

You experience the pace and passion of the prophets who point to Israel, then to Egypt, then to Judah, then to Babylon, then to the priests, then to the people, and then to Edom, and so on. The messages just keep coming, His kingdom is more insistent, and just must be proclaimed in more and more contexts and settings.

You feel in Judges the decay of the society that followed Moses from Egypt. In Judges, Samuel and Kings you begin to ask, “Who will save Israel?” and you begin to long to hear of the Messiah.

After all the Labors of God and the Passion of Christ and the Power displayed in the Resurrection, you finally find in Acts Chapter 2, something that happens in the church, that the prophet Amos is quoted as singing about it. You feel like you are present at a birth, and you are. I think it is the first time in the Bible that praise goes up for what is happening in God’s people.

You feel changes in focus. The gospels are different, they are all about Jesus, and don’t read like the rest. The Epistles are intense in their unfolding of the meaning of the Christ, and their concern to guide the new Church. Revelation wants to seize the whole world and declare that “the Kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ.”

Read it all again. Stop counting Be open to what God wants to show you.

Pastor Harley Wheeler