5th day update (on the 7th day)

It has been a while since I read through Genesis all the way. It was in Bible Bowl, so it was more of a superficial read the first time. There is one theme that has jumped out at me throughout the book of Genesis: deception. Husbands pretend to be brothers of their wives. Brothers deceive their siblings (sometimes for revenge, sometimes for blessing). At first I was a little frustrated at all of the lying and trickery, but I've realized something that makes me appreciate this first book of our religious tradition. Christ's message is all about grace which we as Christians tend to focus on. We forget that the grace came from God in the first place and that it has always been around. I think it's beautiful that the patriarchs of the great nation of Israel, the very people of God, were cheats and liars. Their flaws are representative of the flaws of all humans. God chose to establish His people through humans. If these men were flawless and perfect, they would not be human. These men were considered righteous and they were as screwed up as you and I. The Bible is characterized by an over-arching message of grace and hope through God and it only makes sense that these would be presented in the first book.

I've been keeping up with my reading well, but then again I haven't reached Leviticus. I am excited about getting to the stories of my third favorite man from the Old Testament:Moses. Well, that's all for now.

Give Me the Bible

I just finished the book The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs (Kayla, I saw it one time when you had it and then when I was at the Book Rack over Christmas break I was able to get it on store credit). If you haven't read it, I highly recommend that you do. It is a very interesting and compelling look at the Judeo-Christian traditions from the view of an agnostic man. That being said, I've decided that I need to read the Bible. I don't mean that in the sense that I need to read a little each day. I have felt for a long time that I need to read the scriptures of my faith in their entirety. I think it's a shame that there are books in the Bible that I have never even turned to in my Bible let alone read them. Today I sat down and planned out a schedule to read the entire Bible. Now, in case you didn't know, the Bible is a really big book. I decided that ten chapters per day was a fair amount considering the time I need for school, Seekers, and a little fun (not that reading the Bible isn't loads of fun). A few days will have different amounts (I decided twenty psalms would be about ten chapters and Revelation got split differently) because when I got the the end of the schedule I found a number of days that I couldn't resist. I have always had a strange thing with certain numbers (maybe more about that in another post). I am going to read the entire Bible in 111 days. I know it sounds like a long time and that's because it is a long time. The length of this undertaking will give me more time to absorb each section of scripture while leaving me with a light load each day so I don't get burned out. I'm going to try to posts updates about weird/interesting/funny/amazing things I find, but don't hold your breath since my blog track record is terrible. Well, that's all for now.

-Matt