Opus 2024-017: Even Fill Has Purpose

I don’t know how much time you might spend reading the parts of the Bible that you don’t hear every Sunday, but there are long passages where I just kind of scratch my head and ask, “Why is this here?”  I think of the book of Numbers.  It is pretty much just that, it is a book of numbers.  It talks about population, about how many warriors they have, and so forth.  It’s not exactly inspiring reading as a whole.  There are a few spots that speak to me, but mostly, it’s just, numbers.  Of course if you are a statistic geek it might just be your recipe.

I think about the times where the text will repeat itself.  Sometimes that’s just a matter of writing the same thing down in the next chapter or a few versus later.  Then you have the parallel accounts of books like Kings and Chronicles.  Often they tell the same story, but slightly different details.

And of course, one of my big bugaboos would be the book of Revelation.  For the life of me I can’t understand why people spend so much time studying it and trying to figure it out.  It’s prophecy.  Prophecy is supposed to be cloudy and dubious and confusing.  What makes you think you will have better insight than 2,000 years of scholars?

So why is it there?  And being there, how has it endured for so long?

One reason I believe is to remind us that the God of the Bible is rooted in history.  He’s not some impersonal force that will eventually absorb all of our nuances, and make us just part of a big soupy flow of something/everything.  He is a person.  He created us in His image.  We live in history.  He has existed in history and His whole plan is rooted in history.  History can be boring when you get down to all the details.  But history is the root of who we are.  It gives us a foundation.  It’s supplies the context.  In spite of what modern school children feel, history is important.

You don’t need to know every detail of the Congressional Record to understand American history.  You also don’t need to memorize the book of Numbers or Leviticus in order to understand what God wants you to know about life.

Be happy the foundation is there.  Rejoice that you don’t have to memorize all of it.  Work with what you have.

homo unius libri