Gospel and Truth Part 1

The Bible in a Year (A series)

This is the second year of reading the Bible in a year. Another year means more has been understood, retained and connections have been made between major Biblical characters. There have been several themes which stuck out over the year, but being able to go over everything in a different light has allowed my mind to be opened to the true vastness of the Bible. 

For context, the YouVersion Bible app was used with the Bible Project Read the Bible in a Year Plan. I personally use the NIV because it is what I have used for many years and it has always been sufficient for my understanding. The videos provided at the beginning of each book puts the book into the appropriate context so that as you read through, you are almost transported into the world of the writer. I highly recommend going and checking out their material and consider starting the new year out by reading the Bible in a year. The sections which you read are very manageable and you can even have the YouVersion Bible app read the sections to you if you need that convenience. 

Without further ado, here is the first of a few lessons which I learned over the last year in the Bible.

Pentateuch (Penta meaning five and teuch meaning book or scroll)

These first five books of the Bible may be a little boring to some, but they are essential to understanding the rest of the Bible. They lay the groundwork for the overarching story that follows. After the fall of Adam and Eve, God sets forth a way of sanctification (Mosaic law, because the guy that alliterated this stuff to all of the tribes was named Moses....shocker, I know) which allows these sin filled tribes of Israel to purify themselves in order to come before God and offer Him sacrifices in order to wash away the sins they had committed. Later on in Leviticus, they would receive the Levitical law which was a lot more rules and what ultimately defined the priestly duties until Christ came.

Some might get caught up in the rituals of animal sacrifice and how this is spoken of so in depth by Numbers, but here is the one big thing you have to understand out of all of that, with sin in the world, God demands payment for the sin and the payment for sin is death (whether that be a spotless lamb, two rams, five doves....etc.). Death is the natural consequence of sin and thus as each of the twelve tribes of Israel was assigned their duties for servicing God. The job of being a priest was taken very seriously, because well....it had to be. If you were the head priest and you entered the Holy of Holy's (The innermost room in the temple, aka where God's presence literally dwelt) with any bit of sin, you would be struck dead immediately...not good. This is very important though, this showed the Israelite's that God did NOT tolerate sin in His presence...period. He is set apart (also referred to as holy. Holy means set apart). 

As you progress through these first five books, you see how God is REALLY trying to help the Israelite's time and time again. Yet, they keep turning from Him over and over. Exodus is a somewhat self-explanatory book simply because of its name. The Israelite's exiled themselves from Egypt in order to escape Pharaoh and then they whined and complained for 40 years in the dessert all while God provided manna (this weird honey tasting wafer that showed up on the ground each morning and twice as much on Saturday's so they didn't harvest it on Sunday, because no work was to be done on the Sabbath (aka our Sunday)) for them. Side note....the Bible has some REALLY weird stories that are true and really hard to believe if you are just starting to read the Bible, but at the same time these stories are amazing acts of God's promise keeping. 

As a side note throughout this series, please give me grace if I misstate something or get a timeline a little messed up. The Bible is a HUGE story that is extremely complex and has lots of names.

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