As an avid reader, I have always had great respect for books. Now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t underline and make notes in my books, but I would never throw one away or destroy it.
Well, I should probably note the one exception in my almost 65 years: after I finished my Russian History exam in my Senior year at Houghton College, I did rip up my Russian history book as you can see by the following photo:
Yes, that is really me—several pounds lighter and no gray hair – sitting on the floor at East Hall in the spring of 1966 wreaking havoc on a poor, innocent book.
Today, I willfully destroyed another book and not just any book, but the Bible. Well, it’s not really destroyed – I took it apart very carefully as you can see by this photo:
I have 3 NASB Inductive Study Bibles (those published for Precept Ministries) – 2 with hard covers and one leather-bound. At the recommendation of Gene Edwards in The Power of God’s Word … Unlocked, I separated the New Testament in one of my hard cover Bibles so I could begin to put the New Testament in the order it was written. At some point in time, I think it would be interesting to put the books of the Old Testament in the order in which they were written also.
I think we forget sometimes that Paul’s letters were just that – letters, letters to groups of people and letters to individuals. Paul had a history and a personal relationship with these people. We can discover a lot of this not only from the content of the letters, but from Luke’s account in The Acts of the Apostles. References in Paul’s letters were influenced by the events that were taking place in the Roman empire, in Jerusalem, and in the places where Paul was when he wrote the letters.
I’m so excited to be studying in this manner and look forward to seeing things I’ve never noticed before that will make God’s Word even more real and meaningful to me.
Until next time...
No comments:
Post a Comment