I had planned to blog this as I went.  Clearly I did not.  It is quite the time gobbler-upper in and of itself.  I found/find myself always a half day to two days behind trying to play catch-up and thus I have not been writing at all.  I’ve been surprised  how dedicated to it I have become though.  It has to come first.  Sorry tv show, you’ll have to wait (and I don’t have DVR), sorry book recommendation from a friend, sorry online movie, sorry netflix, sorry shopping trip, sorry online chat date.

A lot of folks talk about how much more sense things make and say “God has really been speaking to me through this”.  I get both of those, I really do, but here is the thing – for me, having read through it all, has actually normalized the Bible for me.  I won’t go as far as saying “it’s just another book”.  But certainly, it’s a book.

For me, I would say my favorite part is seeing the context.  Having grown up as a “church person”, an awful lot, especially the Gospels, is very familiar.  But knowing which stories and passages come from where, what is before them, and what is after them, is enlightening.  A lot of the stuff you hear quoted, whether to teach someone the right way to live, or that have unfortunately been used negatively, to put someone down, when taken in context do not mean the things so many folks truly believe they mean.  Most folks believe they mean that because that is what they hear, over and over again.  You can memorize passages all you want, but if you don’t know the context, you can use them to mean whatever you desire.

Which brings me to another point I’ve learned, or rather had made clear, by this endeavor.  Even if you do know the context, you can still use them to mean whatever you desire.  Growing up I would think that you can’t just interpret the Bible however you want.  Now I know that makes no sense at all.  In fact, that is all you can do.  I think this is what I mean when I say ‘it’s a book’.  No one is alive today who wrote any of the stories, or knew anyone who did.  You either interpret the Bible however you want, or you chose someone else to interpret it for you.  Either way, unless God is sitting next to you explaining exactly what every book, story, verse, chapter, means, then any old Biblical scholar is just as right as the next Biblical scholar.  The best they can do is use their human minds to get out of it what makes sense to them.

I definitely feel like I have a much greater understanding  in general now.  I don’t feel so lost listening to sermons (I listen to a lot of podcasts at work now too).  It’s increased my thirst though.  Once I finish this, I’d like to do research on this history of the times via other books.  I’d also like to do this again and of course study separate books in greater detail.

Not sure how this is really going to work, but if anyone has any questions, that would be awesome.  I really want to write more about this experience and think about/understand what I’ve gotten from it more, but I’m not entirely sure what to talk on. Ask on here or on facebook, comments or messages, or email…

Anyone?  Anything at all.  Don’t be afraid to offend or anything like that.  It is a goal to be pretty open about this stuff.