So What Now? Day 11...

Okay Mike...We get it. You haven't even taken the time to read your Bible all the way through and yet you've come to a conclusion about what the Bible has to say about the last days...Something that is CLEARLY a HUGE part of the story we see in the Bible.

Does anyone else see a problem with this picture?

I would like to suggest that this is the same story that most Christians would tell. How many people in the world today that call themselves Christians can honestly say that they have read the Bible from cover to cover at least ONE time? Much less taken the time to actually sit down and actually strap on the sandals of a first century Jew and walk the walk that they would have before Jesus came down from Galilee to the river Jordan? A better question might be...Can someone that has never even read the Bible from cover to cover even come to a conclusion about what it says?

I once heard...And it escapes me at this time where...That a Jewish boy in the first century would have been allowed to be a child until the time they were five years of age. At that point they would begin their studies. And that by the time they were nine years of age they would have had to have memorized the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures. Or what some would refer to as "The Law." And then over the next few years they would have had to memorize the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures. That is what Christians would call the "Old Testament."

So...By the time a Jewish boy in the first century would have reached their thirteenth birthday they would have had what we as Christians refer to as the "Old Testament," which mind you is something like three quarters of the Bible that we carry around in our car and to church on Sunday's IN THEIR HEAD. Not in their hand...Not on the floor of their car...But in their innermost parts.

Kind of makes your head spin, doesn't it. 8)

Now IF I remember correctly....If a first century Jewish boy had been diligent in their studies and were able to handle the Hebrew scriptures well, they would then be asked, by a Rabbi to, "Come...Follow me." That is...That they would then be able to, in modern day vernacular, go to grad school. Those that didn't do so well would go back to whatever it was that their family did for a living. Tanning, stone masonry, fishing or whatever.

So do you get my point? What right did I have to come to a conclusion about what the Bible said about the last days when I hadn't even read through the Bible, much less memorized it like a first century Jew? But yet there I was...Beginning a two year theological journey down a path that would result in me carrying on the tradition that had been handed down to me by my fathers that had come before me...