Shortly after getting married, Meredee and I began going through The One Year Bible. We had been reading sporadically through other books of the Bible, but didn’t have a plan. This version allowed us to have a set daily reading schedule to follow in order to accomplish the goal of reading the entire Bible. For the first week or two it wasn’t difficult. But then we arrived at the minutiae of the Law and instructions for the Tabernacle found in Exodus. This was neither easy nor spellbinding reading. But we plowed on and continued through Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Despite the technical nature of the text, after a few weeks, we found ourselves appreciating the Old Testament in a way neither of us had before.
When I was a child, the Old Testament was a collection of stories and something for reading time with dad or Sunday School trivia games. Now as a married adult, I am enjoying going through the same stories and viewing them from a much different perspective. For example, when I was a child, I thought the Israelites were moronic for not following God and could not comprehend how they went away from worshiping him and instead followed foreign gods and did what was right in their own eyes. As an adult however, I am trying to read with a view of human nature and our brokenness. I try to put myself in their shoes and wonder what it would be like to follow Moses and this Yahweh that had been with their ancestors some 400+ years earlier. Was worship of God commonly taught among them while living in Goshen or was following him a big new step? If I were used to a life of slavery and oppression and was suddenly freed and told to worship God in the desert, would I know how to handle it? Apparently Moses and many of them did, so it was possible. The difference now is that I don’t assume obedience and faith to be the norm as I did when I was a child growing up in church. The Israelites were sinful for forgetting the miracles and goodness of God demonstrated in Egypt, but I can empathize with them now because of my own sinfulness.
Perhaps more than anything, reading through the Old Testament has taught Meredee and me the seriousness nature with which God approaches obedience. When we read through Exodus to Deuteronomy, it was staggering how many times a phrase like “just as the Lord has commanded you” would appear. The text made a point of using this phrase first in the giving of the instructions and then in the past tense to summarize how they did or did not follow through on the command God had given. Apparently, when writing the Pentateuch, Moses thought it was important to emphasize strict obedience to God and his laws. There was no debate, bargaining with God, or adapting God and his ways to the culture. He was God and that was it. This lesson was totally lost on me as a child but now rings loud and clear.
While the instructions for obedience and punishments for sin were explicit, one cannot help but see the love of God for the Israelites. This takes some time to grasp and does not come with every reading, but it’s there. I can almost feel a minuscule fraction of God’s heartache when he pleads with his people to obey him, all the while knowing they will walk away. He goes to great lengths to warn them of how they will be destroyed and punished for generations to come if they choose disobedience. This has sparked conversations between us about how Israel was a microcosm of humanity and how God still created us even though he knew we would reject him despite being warned. What kind of unimaginable love must God have to do this?
The Old Testament has also caused us to think more about the supernatural. Scriptures like Genesis 6, where it speaks of supernatural beings coming to the earth and having intercourse with women, cause us to wonder and scratch our heads. This is a text that can be glossed over and explained away so that we feel comfortable with our tangible, explainable world, and Christians have done that plenty. Or, it can be read as something supernatural, possible, and heart wrenching for God because of its wickedness. Add to this the plagues of Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, miracles in the desert, and Balaam’s talking donkey and you’ve got a lot of unexplainable material. Do these stories embarrass us and put a dent in our faith because they’re not what we experience in the Western world? Or do we read them and ask, “How have we strayed so far from a belief in the supernatural and wanting to be a part of it and God’s work on the earth?” We’re not even close to being there, but Mer and I are praying and asking God to help us believe in the supernatural and expect great things, not just live by what makes sense to us. This is a tough battle for the mind and I don’t have an easy solution.
As I write this, I feel futile trying to explain the slow transition that’s taking place in us by going through the Bible in a way we’ve long wanted, but did not have the discipline to follow through on. It was obvious something was happening when we visited a church in February and the pastor was preaching about devotions and prayer. He said that the Bible was a book with a lot of difficult passages but that it also had passages filled with action. Therefore, if we were struggling to maintain disciplined devotions, we should just read the action parts. I was furious! Here Meredee and I had been laboring through Exodus and had not encountered much action. Yet, we were learning and growing in our thinking. Many of the lessons we were learning or examining had nothing to do with action. Rather they had to do with confusion or being overwhelmed by the idea of a God bigger than we could understand. How dare this pastor say that?! He was doing his people a disservice and helping contribute to the dumbing down of the evangelical church. Mer could tell I was angry because I wasn’t laughing at his stupid jokes interspersed throughout the sermon. I wanted to leave and I wanted him to resign and apologize to his congregation.
I’m not saying the Old Testament is easy to understand or that I have a firm grasp on its context. I still have lots of questions and we will continue our reading throughout the year, which will raise further questions. My only point is this: I fear many Christians have become too much like the pastor that angered me. We stick to the portions of Scripture which make sense to us, make good sermons, or have a lot of action, but we avoid the difficult topics. What about the violence of the Old Testament? They completely wiped out women, children and whole cities. What about divorce? How do we deal with Jesus, in the New Testament, saying that if a man or woman divorces, except for marital unfaithfulness, and then remarries, they are an adulterer? What do we do with that? How have we ignored that when Jesus talks about it?! There are people I respect that ignored or explained that one away when it hit too close to home. What about envy that pervades every fiber of our society so deeply that we’re blind to it? How do we preach against the victim or entitlement mentality that rots people from the inside and destroys their souls? Are we going to step on too many political toes with that one? (I could go on and on just examining my own heart.)
I am no Bible scholar and am not interested in being one. But I can’t help but be filled with questions and a desire to know the God that I have ignored in many ways. One of the aspects I love about Meredee is her genuine nature. As we’ve been reading, no matter how simple or profound the question that comes to her mind, she asks it. At the same time, I’ve allowed myself to say “I don’t know.” It’s refreshing to say that. No longer do I have this pressure to be able to explain everything I read or question I have. (I don’t know where the stupid notion that I could do that came from anyway.) This makes it feel like we’re going through Scripture both as children and adults–children because it’s okay to not understand and adults because we examine with more maturity and introspection.
God is infinite and we humans are finite and insignificant to a level we cannot begin to grasp. Reading through the Old Testament has helped us grow and begin to ask God to put our lives and faith in perspective. Let’s hope this continues.
