Welcome to 2014 OT Marathon
May the Lord bless you for your desire to know him better through the Old Testament. After we read the entire Old Testament, we will read through the New Testament in 2015. After reading the OT, reading the NT will be a piece of cake.
However, reading the entire OT won’t be easy. You need to be firmly resolved and disciplined. But the reward will be great. The reward will be even greater when we read it in chronological order.
What is Chronological Reading of the Bible?
The Bible is organized according to themes or genres and not in the historical order of events. So the bible does not come to us as one coherent story. But when we read it chronologically, it will come alive to us as one big story. The historical plot of the Old Testament is told in the following books in order:
1. Genesis
2. Exodus
3. Numbers
4. Joshua
5. Judges
6. 1 & 2 Samuel
7. 1 & 2 kings
8. Ezra
9. Nehemiah
All other books of the OT fit into this historical plot.
Let’s take the book of Job for example. Most scholars say that Job existed during the Patriarchal times, meaning that Job may have been a contemporary of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or Joseph. If not, he may have existed during the time when Israel was living in Egypt for 400 hundred years. So when we read the bible chronologically, we read Job after Genesis.
Another example can be the books of the Prophets. In our bible, all the books of the prophets are lumped together in the last part of OT. But when we read it in historical order, we will read the prophets in their immediate historical context. Historically, the prophets can be divided into three periods: pre-exilic, exilic, and post-exilic.
Some of the prophets that lived before the fall of Jerusalem were Jona, Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah. Some prophets were active during the Babylonian captivity, like Daniel and Ezekiel. Then there are prophets who were active after Israel returned to her homeland: Haggai, Joel, Malachi. A prophet like Jeremiah overlaps pre-exilic and exilic.
So when we are reading about the Babylonian captivity in 2 Kings, we will read Daniel and Ezekiel. When we are reading about Nehemiah’s attempt to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem after Israel returns, we will read Haggai, Joel and Malachi. When we read the prophets in their historical context, their words come alive to us with great force.
Every two days, you will be emailed the bible passages to read. The text will be included, so that you don’t have to look up in your bible.
On a given day, you may have up to four or five different passages to read.
This is the reading schedule for the first week of January
Jan. 1 1) Genesis 1:1-3:24
2 1) Genesis 4:1-5:32 2) 1 Chronicles 1:1-4 3) Genesis 6:1-22
3 1) Genesis 7:1-10:32 2) 1 Chronicles 1:5-12
4 1) Genesis 11:1-26 2) 1 Chronicles 1:24-27
3) Genesis 11:27-14:24
5 Sunday is catch-up day !
On January 1st, please check your email to start your OT Marathon.
Joe Sohn
CCSV