Why I Read the Bible...again and again and again

I spent the early part of the year following a reading plan that focused on the New Testament, the Book of Romans especially, as I have spent a year teaching from Romans on Wednesday nights.  I've also spent quite a bit of time harmonizing those Old Testament passages in Kings, Chronicles, and the Prophets that deal with the last days of Jerusalem before it was destroyed by the Babylonians.  I've spent some months reading a chapter from Proverbs each day.  I've worked my way through Genesis and the Psalms a couple of times.  I'm always in the Gospels because of my preaching on Sunday mornings.  But on November First, I returned to an old, familiar habit--reading the Bible through in 60 days to finish out my year.

It's not that hard, really, if one is willing to set aside the time for it.  There are 1189 chapters in the Bible, some of them long, some short.  At 20 chapters a day, the Bible can be read in two months time.  For me, that means about two hours of uninterrupted reading.  I've done it a couple of times in the last three years.  One time, six years ago now, I endeavored to read the Bible through in a month--40 chapters a day.  I read about half of the Bible the first month I tried; much less the second month; but in the third month I succeeded.  Most days I devoured 40 chapters, but if I missed a day, that meant I had to make up for it the next by reading twice as much.  Fortunately, I had nothing much else to do at the time and could spend the hours most people work at a full time job reading the Bible.

What's the point of all that reading? someone asked.  Why rush through that rich library of God's Word?  You can't possible absorb everything you read.  And what about studying?  Shouldn't you study the Word of God rather than just read it?  As to this last question, I say without reservation, "Yes, you should!"  That's why I do both.  I read AND I study.  I try to read large amounts of the Bible on a regular basis, and study it in smaller portions, both for my own benefit and for my preaching.  But I have also found great benefit in the copious reading of the Scriptures.

For instance, when one is on a yearly-reading program, it requires one to read about three and a half chapters a day in order to finish in 365 days.  So if one begins in Genesis 1, spends basically nine months wading through the Old Testament, and the last three months of the year in the New, by the time you get to Revelation 22, you might not remember that you read similar things in Genesis and Exodus.  If, on the other hand, you just read Genesis and Exodus a couple of weeks ago, you might see the connections a lot easier.

When I'm reading large amounts of Scripture at a time, I usually try to break it up into segments taken from each division of the Bible.  This time it looks something like this:  7 or 8 chapters a day in the historical books of Genesis through Esther; 4 chapters a day in the Wisdom literature; 4 or 5 chapters a day in the Prophets; 2 chapters a day in the Gospels and Acts of the apostles; and 2 or 3 chapters a day in the Epistles.  Because of my weekend schedule, I usually end up reading a little extra during the week and a little less on Saturday and Sunday.  In this way, I intend to read the whole Bible through by December 31st.

So why, one might ask, do you read the Bible like that, over and over and over again?

I read the Word of God over and over and over again because it is the bread by which my spirit is fed.  Jesus quoted the Mosaic Law when He said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."  If I want a strong and healthy Spiritual life, I need to condition to myself to feasting well on the pages of Scripture.

I read the Word of God over and over and over again because it is living.  It doesn't change, and cannot be changed, because though grass withers and flowers fade, the Word of God remains the same forever.  But it is definitely alive, and it grows inside of me.  It provides life-giving truth, and where one passage might speak one way to my soul on one occasion, it often speaks another way on a different occasion.  Reading through the Bible should never be the same way twice.

I read the Word of God over and over and over again because it is powerful and sharper than any two edged sword.  When let loose in a person's life, the Word of God divides flesh from Spirit, divides meat from bones, and reveals the issues of the heart.  When I hear Moses and David and Isaiah and Jesus and Paul all saying the same thing in one day, because I have been in them all, it makes me sit up and pay attention to what the Lord is trying to speak into my life on that particular day.  The Word of God works in our lives, if we'll spend time in it, and let it spend time in us.

I read the Word of God over and over and over again because it IS the Word of God, and it is the best way to get to know Him personally.  He reveals Himself in His word--His nature and character and values and desires and commandments and will.  To know the Word is to know the Lord.

I read the Word of God over and over and over again because it is the Sword the Spirit uses to do battle on my behalf in the heavenly realms.  It is the weapon of my warfare against every wicked scheme of the devil.  He is deceptive and seductive and completely destructive in everything he says and does.  But with the Word of God as my offense and defense, the Spirit can employ it through proclamation and prayer to defeat him in my life.

I read the Word of God over and over and over again because it never fails to teach me something new.  As I continually read and reread again and again, I see different things at different times that apply to the ever-changing nature of my life.  I find answers to my questions, guidance for my steps, direction for my decisions.  I receive strength and encouragement and help in present time of need, help I would not have if I had not been in the Word.

A stranger on a plane asked me one time, "Why do you keep reading that book?  If you've read it once, don't you already know what it says?'  To which I replied, "I keep reading it, over and over and over again, because it has more to say than any other book.  And I want to know what it says!"

The Source

As I've said many times before, I was a precocious adolescent reader, usually wanting to appear more intelligent and more mature than I actually was.  That being said, I really did enjoy reading these big books.  I became acquainted with James A. Michener in my childhood due to the television mini-series Centennial which originally aired in 1978-79, and again in the following TV season.  Thereafter, it was shown periodically on TBS in the 1980s, from which we recorded on VHS.  In the  early 2000s, we bought it in VHS format, and then in this decade we bought it on DVD.  Needless to say, we really liked the 26-hour epic.  When I was twelve, I finally convinced my mother to let me read the novel, 969 pages (or somewhere thereabouts) in length.  Took me six weeks to do it.  And when I was finished, I wanted more!

I read Chesapeake, followed by The Covenant, Poland, and Space, enormous historical epics that dealt with issues across the centuries and generations of its character families.  I devoured each one hungrily, reading every page, but I have to admit I didn't grasp even a fraction of meaning from any of them.  The only one my mother forbid me to read was Hawaii, because she had seen the movie in her own teen years and thought it was a little to sensual of a story for me to read.  She was probably right.  I read Texas as soon as it was published in 1985, but I kept after her to let me read Hawaii.  In the meantime, my favorite teacher suggested I read The Source.  It wasn't until the summer of 1987--when I was almost fifteen--that I finally tackled these two.  I'm pretty sure I read Hawaii first, and then in August 1987 I bought my own paperback copy of The Source.  I've read it perhaps a handful of times in the last 30 years, but picked it up again a couple of months ago for fresh look at this fascinating novel.

The Source is a tale spanning the history of humanity from the earliest days of civilization to the present day (1964 in the case of this novel).  Its setting is a small village in what became northern Israel, fixed on a trade route between the Mediterranean and the Galilee, between Egypt and Damascus, and beyond.  Its characters are the descendants of a cave dweller named Ur, joined by the nomadic Hebrews and their assorted Jewish descendants.  Its primary plot is one of religion, the origins and expansion of Canaanite paganism, Hebraic monotheism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, told reasonably evenhandedly by the likely agnostic and certainly humanistic author.  And the structure of the novel is built upon a modern archaeological dig examining the Tell Makor--an unnatural hill beneath whose surface lies the many levels of civilization that occupied the site.  In the opening chapter, the archaeologists dig two trenches down through the layers, uncovering 15 artifacts that become the basis for each successive chapter of the story.

It is an exciting and enlightening rampage through history, hitting the major cultural peaks that defined that part of the world throughout human habitation.  From the primitive farmer who intentionally planted the first wheat field, moved out of the cave into a rock hut, teased a wild dog into an unlikely friendship, and became aware of the existence of the spiritual forces it interpreted as God, to the Canaanites who turned that fledgling awareness into polytheistic rituals of seedtime and harvest, sex, and sacrifices by fire.  From the Hebrew patriarch who led his tribe out of the wilderness by the command of God and conquered the land by His power and the edge of the sword, to the many tribes who untied themselves under the psalmist and shepherd King David.  From the ancient engineer who devised and dug the underground tunnel to the community well that would give the city water to sustain them through times of siege, to the divinely inspired prophetess who foresaw the Babylonian captivity and took radical steps to perpetuate the purity and sanctity of her family until their return long after she was dead.  From the fierce faith of the Jews who began the Maccabean revolt against Syria, survived the madness of King Herod the Great, and faced the wrath of Roman Emperors, to the determined rabbis who studied the Law of Moses, assembled the Hebrew Scriptures, and wrote the voluminous explanations of the Talmud in order to preserve the Jewish people during their centuries-long dispersion.  From the desert dawn and spread of Islam to the well-intentioned but ill-fated European crusades to retake Jerusalem for Jesus Christ.  From the Spanish Inquisition, German Ghettos and Russian pogroms that drove the Jews from their adopted homelands, to the rise of Zionism that gave birth to the modern state of Israel.  All of this culminated in the explosive and miraculous war for Israeli Independence which saw the final set of characters moving into the positions where we found them at the beginning of the archaeological dig--a Catholic scholar searching for truth, two Jewish freedom fighters longing for life and love but trapped by the forces of their nation and their religion which will keep them apart, and a Palestinian with a deep awareness of his own people, their long and storied history, and how they managed to survive it.

I laughed and wept and cringed my way through 1088 pages, and walked away with an understanding of the nation of Israel, the Jewish people, and their Judaism that I have never had before.  It is at times thrilling, at times terrifying, at times a tremendous examination of both the human and the divine.  I sympathized with the ancient patriarch Zadok who truly loved his God, but struggled with complete obedience to His will; with Jabaal the Hoopoe who worked so hard to accomplish great things for his kingdom, only to be abandoned by his wife, mocked by his contemporaries, and forgotten by the king he had faithfully served; with Gomer the prophetess who preached a difficult message to an unyielding people, who made the hardest decisions of all.  I grieved with Yigal and Beruriah, who paid the highest price in defending their homeland against the Roman conquest; with Rabbi Simon Ha-Garzi, God's Man, as he was driven by bigotry from the land that he loved; with all of those persecuted Jews the world over who suffered so much at the hands of those who loved their same God.  I experienced the Crusades, inwardly protesting the merciless and ignorant Crusaders who blazed a path of destruction and death across two continents in the name of Jesus Christ, indiscriminately killing Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Pagans, for all of whom Jesus died to save.  I relived the horrors of the Babylonian, the Roman, and the Mameluke sieges of the little town, fearfully anticipating the final assaults that would result in so much slaughter.  

I didn't necessarily appreciate Michener's perspective that all religion has its origin in the human imagination.  Like those Jews and Christians of which he wrote, and yes, even those Muslims, I believe that there is only One God, and that He has interacted with mankind throughout our history to bring us into relationship with Him.  I am puzzled by Michener's lack of focus on anything related directly to Jesus Christ.  While I consider his presentation of the church's actions throughout the story accurate to their times and circumstances, I think it's unfortunate that Christianity is solely represented by the historical Catholicism that made a mockery of the true gospel, strove to exterminate the Jews throughout the world, and often joined itself to Islam and godless paganism in order to accomplish those purposes.  In the end, he reveals a legalistic Judaism that is unmerciful and completely lacking in compassion upon which the modern state of Israel was built, a Judaism that could have and should have found its fulfillment in the love of their long-awaited and ultimately-rejected Messiah Jesus Christ.  But he also revealed the hatred heaped upon the Jews as God's Chosen People, hatred at the hands of those who ought to love.

For me, the most personal and deeply moving moment of the book came toward the end, when a confrontation between orthodox Rabbinical Judaism and modern Zionist nationalism explodes in the accidental relationship of Rebbe Itzik of Vodzhe and Ilana Hacohen the Jewish sabra.  The old man wants a Judaism governed by the Law without the encumbrances of a national homeland; the young woman wants a free Jewish state without the restrictions of a religion she no longer adheres to.  In the heat of their debate, she strikes a wig from the Rabbi's wife, revealing a baldness that is imposed by a centuries' old tradition, symbolizing what she considers the invalidity of the Jewish religion.  But after the apologies are made and the girl starts to leave, the old rabbi and his wife draw her to their Passover table and demonstrate the true heart of their religion and their personal devotion to the God they serve.  That she dies in the Israeli fight for Independence and the old rabbi survives to see all of his fears of a Jewish state come true serves in contrast to make the message even more poignant.  Faith is about your personal relationship with God, not your adherence to a religious structure.

All in all, The Source is a terrific tale of the first rate, informational, inspirational, and incredible story-telling at its finest.  And one day in a decade or so, I may read it again.