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Introduction

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Life keeps changing. I remember a time without cell phones. Now, they are everywhere and an essential part of our lives. When I was young, I would hold a thumb to my ear and pinky to my lips when pretending I was on the phone. Now, children hold their palm against their face. Children do not recognize the “roll your window down” signal because all the windows are powered. We no longer memorize phone numbers.

 

None of these are bad or wrong. They highlight the change of culture and how we communicate. If we want to communicate clearly, we have to update our language, analogies, metaphors, and styles to match our audience. 

 

In the introduction to Hearing the Old Testament, the authors share, “In the West we live amid growing biblical illiteracy, so that the content of the Old Testament is increasingly unknown, and in the academy far too few of the endless publications seem to provide a “spoon” to allow us to tuck into the feast that awaits.” 1 (click to go to footnote)

 

This series is designed to give you a spoon. It is not a replacement for Bible study. Its purpose is to provide current cultural touchpoints for Americans to assist your Bible study. When we have these handholds, the Bible transforms from something strange and confusing that is hard to understand into a brilliant piece of literature where I can know Jesus like an old friend.

 

The Bible is not written like modern works for many reasons! Like many topics, we are not going to discuss “why” here. If you want to delve into the “why” of a particular subject, see the bibliography for resources and Appendix A for suggestions on getting started. This series is meant to provide the structure of the biblical story, not an exhaustive or even deep study of any topic.

 

Because the Bible is written differently than modern media, we often miss things unless we are looking for them. This is not reading into the Bible, but understanding how the author was communicating with his audience. It is essential to understand what God is teaching us! If we are not intentional about doing this, we read our culture into the text, which may not lead us to the correct understanding.

 

Several tools are included to highlight these.

 

THEME: God is the source of all

 

You will see this line when a repeated theme is being highlighted or connected to the current text. It will include a page reference to the initial discussion of the theme if you need a refresher.

 

CULTURE: Most people are farmers, never knowing if the current crop will get them to the next harvest. 

 

You will see this box when a cultural detail packed with meaning is used. It will include a reference to Appendix B for more detail and further study.

 

The order we walk through the Bible may cause some confusion. The Old Testament was rearranged! Blasphemy! Not at all. It was done by well meaning Christians in an attempt to be helpful (Here is the first reference to Appendix B! Go there for more info on the “why”). The Isralites had it in the form called the  Tanakh. This is a Hebrew acronym for Torah (law) the Nebiim (prophets), and Kethubim (writings). We are going to walk through the Bible in that order because it is how the story was originally told. This is not chronological or topical! Studying the Bible that way is very helpful and useful and should be done but is beyond the scope of this work.