This is the two-hundred-twenty-first lesson in author and pastor Mel Lawrenz’ How to Live the Bible series. If you know someone or a group who would like to follow along on this journey through Scripture, they can get more info and sign up to receive these essays via email here.
I shudder to think how close I came to giving up on the Bible. Like many people, I tried for years to read Scripture in ways that were doomed to fail. My way of reading made the Bible hard to understand, and it made me think this book was perhaps too inscrutable or too out of date for me to pay attention to it.
Yes, it was convenient when other people picked out the good bits and made juicy quotes just perfect for a bumper sticker:
- “The LORD is my shepherd” (Ps. 23:1)
- “Do not worry about tomorrow” (Matt. 6:34)
- “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37:4).
And then there is, “God helps those who help themselves.” Oops! That’s not…
