Initial obstacles reading the Bible

[EarlyActs]

Not everyone is going to have the persistence of a F Schaeffer as an agnostic to commit to read an entire Bible on their own plan.

Here are two things--difficulties--at first that, once seen, may help a person get past initial difficulties.

1, there will always be strange expressions. For ex., 'John wore a belt of camel's hair.' This is material that is indeed 2000 years old, humanly speaking, no matter the enduring eternal truth it contains. My suggestion is 'ignore them' until later.

By comparison, a person will have the same problem with an E George novel or a Dickens. Shall we, or do we, then just stop? No, we go on and return to a strange expression later.

2, the usual range for seeing the big picture of the Bible is about 3 months. We can find this from NT lines ('the deacon should not be a new believer') or Perpetua's record, about 200 AD, that inquirers about Christian faith came to study for 3 months before they were included in a fellowship. This was partly due to security in a time of frequent persecution, where trust was difficult to establish.

The Bible will have its many '2 and 2' that come together, but even these are not the ones we are expecting. So again, like absorbing a novel, we must let the thing form its own. For some reason people are perfectly willing to do this for the latest science fiction, but get kind of tight about a book that they have been told is direct from God.

 

[Josheb]

It was with some joyous recollection and irony I read this op because I had begun reading the Bible cover to cover while also reading Francis Schaefer's "He is The and He is not Silent." My mother had given me a Thompson Chain Reference Bible in KJV and I would read a few pages of it every night and then re-read the same passage in the GNB so I could understand what I'd just read in the KJV. Managed to get all the way through it without being...... (how shall I put this ???) changed. I had intellectual assent, but it did not compare with what came later on my road to Damascus. In fact, back then I knew a lot of people who believed with their mind what the Bible said is true..... every step of their way to hell. Bong in one hand, beer in the other, and pockets stuffed with piles of excuses.

Blessedly, I later learned a pile of them met Jesus in spite of their belief . Unblessedly, I also learned a pile did not .