Observations on the B-I-B-L-E

For the past year or so, I've been trying to spend time reading the Bible without an agenda. That is, reading stuff that I'm not preparing to preach or teach a lesson on, but can just sit and dwell with and enjoy and pay attention to in a totally different way. It's just 15 minutes a day - that way if it's a really sloggy passage, my eyes don't glaze over because I know I only have to face so much of it at a time. Conversely, if it's a really engrossing passage, I don't throw my whole day's schedule off because I just couldn't put the Bible down.

A few things I've noticed as a result of this practice: I pay attention a lot differently reading this way, making myself an open book to the open book; I feel my overall Biblical knowledge (and my ability to find specific stories or verses without the aid of a reference tool) has improved; this may sound cheesy, but I actually feel better starting my day out this way (I usually try to read while I'm eating breakfast).

But I digress - this summer I've been working my way through the Deuteronomistic Histories - I'm up to 2 Chronicles. And I know I've read through this before, both in college and in seminary, but it never occurred to me until this past week how differently the same history is presented in 1 Samuel-2 Kings compared to 1-2 Chronicles. The Chronicles read more like the Wall Street Journal, with lots of genealogies and lists, things you might otherwise call "just the facts." There are some stories tucked in there, but conspicuously absent is all the glorious dysfunction of the house of David: no shenanigans with Bathsheba, no incestuous treachery by Amnon, no rebellion of Absalom, no siblings squabbling over the succession of the throne. David does get in serious trouble with the Lord, but it's over an improperly taken census (which seems like an awfully silly thing to provoke God's wrath), not the premeditated abandonment of Uriah on the battlefield (definitely schmucky enough to provoke God's wrath). I've got to say, 1 Samuel-2 Kings is starting to feel like a saucy tabloid next to the dry, "factual," rather sanitized Chronicles.

In any case, it's got me thinking about the (most likely) guy who wrote the Chronicles - why did he leave all that stuff out? What was he afraid of? That it would make the royal family look bad? That it would distract from the "real" or "important" things they did, or somehow detract from the glory of God? Kind of funny when you consider most of the Bible is full of the stories of the screw-ups that God called and used for God's purposes. Our having feet made of clay is kind of the point - actually gives greater glory to God for finding a way to work with us in spite of ourselves.

But the fastidious Chronicles inclusion in the Bible, and their location right next to the randy Samuels and Kings, is also a good reminder - that the Bible, the world, and even God, is big enough to hold all kinds. No one's story (nor chosen manner of relating it) is invalidated or unwelcome. Now if only we clay-footers lived that out as well as the good book does. . .

Peace,
C.

PS - What was with that big hairy deal over the prayer of Jabez a few years ago? It's like, one verse that shows up, very randomly, in the middle of a genealogy! Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.