Editor’s Note: We continue our series of blogs for those who are reading the Bible with us cover-to-cover this year. Interspersed with our thoughts on our daily reading, we want to provide some tips about reading the Bible in general. Today we want to explore …
Old Testament Route #3
Following the Original Journey of the People of God
Our first two routes are written as a diary or journal of the actual travels of the people of God in the Old Testament. They are their history books. As we travel on these two routes, we will be following the original journeys as they unfold, often as if we were participants in the actual events. We have already considered the first two routes:
- Route No. 1: Forming the first five books of the Bible. On this route we will explore approximately 2,300 years of the formation history for the nation of Israel.
- Route No. 2: Taking a walk through the history of Israel. On this route we will explore approximately 1,000 years of Israel’s history. It will include the glory days of David and Solomon and the disaster days of Civil War and captivity. It will end with a broken and weak remnant that is allowed to return to their conquered home in Israel. When we complete this route, we will have read the entire history of the Old Testament.
The final three routes are written in a diary format to express the feelings of the eyewitnesses as each event occurred. These routes help us in:
Experiencing the Original Journey with the People of God
On these routes we are no longer just a participant or a follower on the journey. Now we also experience the events. We feel with the people of God, not just travel with them. As we experience what they go through, our emotions become involved. Consider the final three routes in our journey through the Old Testament.
- Route No. 3: Enjoying the poetry of the Old Testament. On this route we will explore the imagination, hopes, and dreams of the major poets from Israel’s history. Taken from all along the journey of the Old Testament, these works are assembled into five books. Israel’s major poets work to express themselves, their relationships with God and man, their struggles and their triumphs. Truly this is the inspirational literature of the Bible. We will look at:
- The book of Job, and explore the question of why good people suffer.
- The book of Psalms, and we will sing songs about the heart of God.
- The book of Proverbs, and discover wise words to raise children by.
- The book of Ecclesiastes, and understand the futility of a life lived for self.
- The book of the Song of Solomon, and be warmed by a love song of marriage.
We will look at the final two routes, which are written in a diary format to express the feelings of the eyewitnesses as each event occurred later on our journey through the Bible, cover-to-cover in 2011!
It is our hope that this background information helps a bit as you read on in the Bible. We will continue this series with our next installment on Tuesday when we talk in detail about the “The Book of Deuteronomy – Renewed Hope.”
For daily insights into the passage we are reading together each day, you can follow Dr. Smith on Twitter and on Facebook.
You can obtain more help from the FREE Bible reading schedule on our resource page. In His Image is a daily devotional that also follows our reading schedule and expresses the Biblical truth: “God Created You to Love You.” You can find this resource on the side bar of our website.
