History Comes Alive
I’m a bit of a dork. Lately I’ve spent sometime watching the History Channel. They have had some really interesting specials on this past month; from ancient Israeli battles to the terrible disasters of God. They were amazing! Vivid! Filled with colorful displays of biblical stories, the flood became real and alive.
It got me to thinking, if the world is interested in the Bible, why am I not as ‘into it’? Sometimes, I must admit, I kind of zone out during my daily Bible reading. Especially, the Old Testament. It can be as dry as a bone to me. I mean, I went to Bible college. I know all the stories. I know God’s the hero. So what can I do to change things up? To make it come alive? I thought of these tv shows and came to this idea: What about visualizing? Get out Bible maps for the Old Testament books. Keep track of where the characters are. Understanding the layout of the land will bring the story out even more. Hey, we all have maps in the back of our Bibles don’t we?
Photo by eye2eye
Before Christmas, our pastor read through Matthew 1, the genealogy of Jesus. Wow, what a long list! After the service, Daniel and I were discussing the wives of King David. (As Solomon is mentioned in the lineage) So, I thought David had three wives; Sauls daughter Michal, Abigail, Bethsheba. But when I went to the Bible (Chronicles) I found he had EIGHT, plus concubines! This intrigued both of us. I think, we might do a study of David and his life (not just his wives!). Studying something out together, is something I’m looking forward to!
How else can we visualize the Bible? I know picturing the stories help me to remember the details. I like to ‘daydream’ a lot when I read. I try to get into the character’s head. as you can see from my VotW from Christmas. What was Mary thinking? What about Herod- was he really that big of a jerk? After that, I try to think about them as people. What did Joshua look like? Was Samson really a huge hulking man, or was he just a normal guy, with extrodinary strength? Was he like Brett imagines as a BA Barracus with visible muscles or maybe my own thoughts of him as the Superman type, kinda geeky and then whammo-super strength? Either way, visualizing definately made the story more interesting!
The Bible has stories that are better than the movies, all it takes is a little waking up of the imagination. Trust me, 1 Samuel is far juicier than ‘the Hills’. Try it, you might like it!
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A couple of weeks ago, Andy Stanley did a five week series on the genealogy of Jesus leading up to the Christmas story. One of the biggest things that got my attention during the series was how so many people in Jesus' life were absolutely messed up – one of whom was David.
I feel like he's so often presented to us as this hero that we should aspire to be like, when in reality he did some pretty bad things. Obviously, God saved 'em and used 'em for good stuff.
This isn't to knock David at all. It's just to say that there's a lot of things I don't get out of the Bible when I read it on my own, but I do when someone obviously more educated than I does their job well. It also helps to bring history into something more applicable.
My recent post Old Threads for a New Haiti
I know what you mean Tom! I have romanticized quite a few bibl charactors, thinking they were perfect, even when the Bible clearly tells the dirty truth, its almost as if we turn a blind eye and just gloss over the bad stuff, even when God does. 2things to think about: Everyone sins, no one can be perfect outside of God. God can use us inspite of the good(my own efforts), the bad(our failures) the ugly(the sin)
Great point, Trae. I, too, get much more out of the Bible when i visualize it. It's amazing to watch the tv made movies and see it become real before your eyes. You are right…the Bible has stories that are way more interesting than movies….and the cool thing is they are true!