A mate just sent me a link to this video and I found it both fascinating and funny. AJ Jacobs is an agnostic journalist who decided to live for a year obeying every one of the hundreds of commands in the Bible. In this TED video he tells a little of his story and what he took away from it. I admire him - pretty hard core!
It made me think further about my attitude to the Bible. Do I take the Bible literally? Or to phrase it another way, do I believe the Bible is literal? The answer is... I don't really know. Ummm no I don't think all of it is meant to be read literally (Is Job a play? Should that affect how we understand it?) The more I read of this fascinating book of God's word (I'm a twelfth of the way through this year's read through) the more I realise there's so much to it I'm yet to grasp. There is much I will spend my life time discovering about context, intention, style, purpose, depth, reference and so forth and then there is that undefinable edification and enthusing I ingest from reading it. The Holy Spirit is at work in me as my eyes move across the page and my mind interprets the black shapes into words and my consciousness assigns them meaning and my heart responds...
If there are two things I feel certain about regarding the Bible it is that I will spend my life reading it's pages and discovering new things, and if I live to be a hundred years old I will never grasp even half of what God has to give through it.
Do I believe that every law written in the Pentateuch is applicable to me - a non-jewish woman living in 21st century England - no. I'm grateful for the church fathers who in the book of Acts, chapter 15, decided that gentiles, like myself, did not first have to become Jewish (or maybe it's more accurate to say, follow the Jewish tradition in it's fullest) to be saved. That was a pretty big deal. Equally, I don't want to write off the law, as I know there is much to learn from it. As I re-read God's interaction with Moses on Sinai (Exodus 19 onward) I'm struck by how the heart and purpose of the laws they were given pointed to compassion, mercy, justice, freedom, purity and dignity for the former hereditary slaves who now find themselves a free people. I have much to learn, but with Jesus and the Holy Spirit as my guide I look forward to learning it.
I went and ordered AJ Jacob's book pretty much straight after watching his video. Should make for a rather interesting read. If you haven't read the Bible I thoroughly recommend it. It may require something of you - but it's well worth the journey.