Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

1 Chronicles 1-17 - yawn

The readings - Days 120-126 - 1 Chronicles 1-17

Step two in the overly long process of catching up from wayyyyy behind...

Welcome to Chronicles.

It's funny - before doing this, and having already read Chronicles (or, at least, most of it), I would have answered the question "what's the single most tedious book in the Bible?" with either Numbers or Leviticus, having never read either of them.

I would have been wrong. This book, in a nutshell, is boring.

The first nine chapters are entirely composed of genealogies.

Nine. Chapters.

Of names.

Yes, it's that boring.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Ruth - A breath of fresh air

The readings - Day 85 - Ruth (all four chapters)

Well we're finally out of the book of Judges. Sweet.

The relationship between Judges and Ruth is interesting to me. In Judges, we got a very macro-level view of the goings-on in Israel, and for the most part, they were appalling. Covenants broken, punishments doled out left, right and centre, and generally terrible people doing terrible things. There were glimmers of hope, etc, to be sure, but few and far between. I don't think anyone would try to argue that Judges is an optimistic book.

That's why reading Ruth immediately afterwards is such a refreshing experience. After the bloodshed, idolatry, treachery and violence of the nation as a whole, we get zoomed in to an intimate series of snapshots in the life of a single family. Make no mistake, there's still tragedy here, and not all is rosy, but the story as a whole just can't help but be uplifting.