{"id":11537,"date":"2017-10-12T22:36:32","date_gmt":"2017-10-13T03:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yogisden.us\/?p=11537"},"modified":"2017-10-12T22:36:32","modified_gmt":"2017-10-13T03:36:32","slug":"finally-finished-reading-the-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/?p=11537","title":{"rendered":"Finally Finished Reading the Bible!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"20171012-213140-4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/28381904@N06\/36994003253\/in\/datetaken\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4452\/36994003253_d3b428f586_z.jpg\" alt=\"20171012-213140-4\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" \/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Nine years ago, I decided that I would<a href=\"http:\/\/yogisden.us\/?p=1924\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> read the Bible clear through<\/a>. I thought I could do it in a year reading three or four chapters a day. Instead it has taken me about nine. If I had averaged one chapter a day I could have read the 1189 chapters in a little over three years so you can see I fell off the pace a little bit. I kept coming back to it though.<\/p>\n<p>I skipped around quite a bit alternating the Old Testament with the New.<\/p>\n<p>It was interesting. I read all the parts of the Bible that maybe are considered &#8220;filler&#8221; for one reason or another. All the dietary laws for instance. All the genealogy for another. I don&#8217;t have any big spiritual insights for reading it all. But the book does have great power. I can sense that. Somehow, it all hangs together and tells a story of a living God who acted in history to make great things happen.<\/p>\n<p>My favorite books, Genesis in the Old Testament. The beginning and the subsequent stories are wonderful. Man keeps messing up and God keeps forgiving and blessing us. Sorry I am not a biblical literalist. The universe is several billion years old, and I believe in natural selection, and evolution and all the rest.\u00a0 The important thing is that God put us here and we are his people. Whether it took him a day or nine billion years matters not a whit to me. People who agitate otherwise are just pursuing, wittingly or unwittingly,\u00a0 the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wedge_strategy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wedge Strategy<\/a>, designed to gather political power.<\/p>\n<p>My favorite book of the New Testament is the Gospel of John. So mysterious. I love the questions more than answers. I have always distrusted people that had have all the answers. I want to hear good questions. That is where you learn things.<\/p>\n<p>My favorite Bible Story, that is a no-brainer. Chapter 37 of Ezekiel, the Valley of Dry Bones story. Where Ezekiel in a dream like state has a vision of dry bones coming together and getting covered by tendons, flesh, and skin and coming alive. I love it. I see and hear all these bones snapping and crackling together and coming to life. It has been my favorite story most of my life.<\/p>\n<p>Strange stories? The Bible has a bunch of them. Talking Donkeys, bears killing children for mocking a bald man,\u00a0 and check out Genesis\u00a0 6:1-4 about the Sons of God marrying the &#8220;Daughters of Men.&#8221; Uhh, you ever hear a sermon on that?<\/p>\n<p>Anyhow, I am glad that I did it, and although it took me quite a while to get it done, it did involve lots and lots of reading. I can&#8217;t say that I made any great spiritual insights. In my opinion, an important part of Bible Study is discussion and focus. Reading it the way I did, one loses a lot of context. So I doubt I will do it again. I think I will look around for Bible Studies or Bible reading programs where I can get some more background, discussion, and context on what I am reading.<\/p>\n<p>But hey, if you want to give it try, you might want to sign up at <a href=\"https:\/\/operationreadbible.blogspot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Operation Read Bible<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nine years ago, I decided that I would read the Bible clear through. I thought I could do it in a year reading three or four chapters a day. Instead it has taken me about nine. If I had averaged one chapter a day I could have read the 1189 chapters in a little over [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[415],"tags":[2097],"class_list":["post-11537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","tag-bible"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11537"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11537"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11539,"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11537\/revisions\/11539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}