Up until several weeks ago, I had never made my way completely through the Bible from beginning to end. In truth, I technically still haven’t “read” the entire Bible, but in early-mid 2019 I started listening to an audio Bible when I went to bed. Over the years I’ve taken advantage of various sales at christianaudio.com and picked up a variety of audio Bibles, so started through the NIV Audio Bible (with limited dramatization), and finally finished Revelation in January of this year. (I found most of the dramatization to be a bit hokey, but it served its purpose of getting me through all 66 books of the Bible). I’d generally cue up around 5 chapters, and then the next night I’d repeat the last 2 (since I was generally beginning to doze off by then) and add 3 more, repeating that process each night.

In addition to getting a much better understanding of Old Testament history, I found it to be really helpful in tying Old Testament and New Testament scripture together. I got a better sense of the grand arc of a holy God extending love and redemption to sinful and rebellious humans.

After I finished Revelation, I spent a few days thinking about what to fall asleep to now….some other audio book? Some classical music?

After a while I thought, why not go through the Bible again, only using a different translation? So I started an audio version of Eugene Peterson’s ‘The Message’ paraphrase of the Bible. It’s not dramatized – just a straight reading of the text, with some book introductions. I’m already noticing parts of the story that I hadn’t fully picked up the first time through.

I just started Leviticus again, and have been reminded again of the stark and graphic sacrificial system God set up for the Israelites – which really jumped out at me during last year’s listen. It’s pretty gruesome and bloody, and a little uncomfortable to ponder. But then – as the greater context helped me understand more fully last year – so was Jesus’ sacrificial death on a bloody cross.

Still, as I’m listening again, I’m finding that I want to understand better. So I’m pulling off the shelf one of the commentaries I’ve picked up – in used condition – as part of my project to gradually flesh out my theological library. I’ve been getting a mix of books from different commentary series, but I do really like the NIV Application Commentary series. For each section of scripture, the commentary is broken down into 3 areas: Original Meaning, Bridging Contexts, and Contemporary Significance. So it does a good job of taking the original context and making it applicable to our lives today.

So here’s to gaining some additional appreciation and insight…