I looked back through my posts the other day and realized it has been over a month since I shared a Bible Study post. I was surprised by this, but then I thought about it. Yeah, it makes sense, I’ve been aimless in my Bible reading. Opting to listen to the audio version on the Bible app rather than to sit down and have quiet time with the Lord. My reading routine in the morning has become a floating plan to whenever I take a break to be still with my Bible reading. As it goes life has gotten in the way and I’ve found myself fitting in a Bible listen at the end of the day while I get a shower, do my nightly planks, or while I work out. It’s been in the background, and I’ve wondered, am I getting as much out of this?

The Book of Daniel

It’s certainly been different. I’ve noticed that I am less likely to be familiar with the text, as in where in the chapter or book of the Bible I can find the information again. I don’t take notes because of the format change which has led to a decline in journalling about it. A positive is that I’ve been invigorated by this audio form in sections of my reading that have been confusing, laborious, and even a bit strange. Yes, I said strange and I am talking about the Bible. The last half of the book of Daniel is quite strange. It is a multi-chapter section of prophecy so otherworldly that Biblical scholars cannot perceive its full meaning. It has not been revealed to us yet or maybe it is not important for us to understand it, because as a 21st-century human maybe this prophecy from 600-500 B.C. simply isn’t applicable to us in the new covenant.

Even now as I begin to mention this section of Daniel I see an important point of my audio Bible listening illustrated – when I read this prophecy section my mind gets bogged down by what I am reading. I instinctively want to understand the text for the process of reading comprehension like they trained us in school but alas, I can’t fully understand it. In this process, my mind seems to get the loading screen of doom and I tend to get overwhelmed and stuck in one section of the Bible for a long time, fruitlessly. What I discovered while listening to the final chapters of the book of Daniel while riding the bike and other cardio exercises was that I could absorb the information in its strange form and let it be absorbed without getting bogged down. The narrator read the fantastical images as they were written in the text. My mind accepted it and took it in because it acknowledged the narrative nature of the text without needing to figure everything out before I accepted it.

Now should I go back and take notes? Yes, I need to definitely go back through that section because it has some descriptions of creatures that are more bizarre than DNAmy’s Cuddle Buddies combinations. The images are like Pokemon come to life and I want to try to make sense of it again. But I learned something valuable, if there is a section I feel discouraged by because of its height of difficulty or simply the language being used, listening to it is a viable option. So I tested this again.

Paul’s Correspondence with Corinth

My hypothesis proved fruitful. Listening to confusing first-century A.D. letters from the Roman Empire can certainly become easier to understand if they are read to you. Why? I believe it is because they are written with different grammatical standards and trends due to their translation and age that make it sometimes painful for a 21st-century reader. Think about Shakespeare or the Greek Tragedies – would you rather see them performed or read them to yourself? Unless you are Rory Gilmore, I would say the performance option is going to be the popular choice. Honestly, this made a huge difference. Paul is a fantastic speaker, he also uses continual run-on sentences. But if you take the context back to a letter that was read to the congregation, well then, we don’t write the same way we speak, do we? It helped me simply understand the point of his sentences. To glean the correct information and accept the information which specifically tries my patience. I’m referring to the case of certain passages addressing the women of Corinth that are difficult to get on board for in my modern Western context because they seem to muddy the waters.

Now the Apostles did disagree on things and both points of view are recorded in the canonical Bible, but context also plays a role which makes reading these sections, like 1 & 2 Corinthians a bit of a chore. These letters were written to address specific happenings with specific people and as such because they are letters yet included in the Bible, this makes understanding whether it applies to all of us to this day or just the women of this 1st century congregation is higher than my mind works. There is a lot of reading by faith and prayer because if I don’t I just get frustrated by the confusion.

Random Acts of Audio

I would highly recommend switching between reading the Bible with your physical book and listening to audio versions. Last night, I listened to the narrator read through the Book of Joel and most of Amos, which are books that are not cheery. God is both angry and disappointed in His people and that can be hard to read at times. Not only for the prophecy of destruction but for the pain God is feeling because His people have rejected Him and rejected Him for centuries. When a relationship is disrespected and treated as less than over and over again, there is acute pain. Studying the Bible has a transformative power in which you begin to see things through God’s perspective and not your own. It is sad thinking about how my Heavenly Father was betrayed by his children and yet is bound by His righteousness and justice to cast out evil. It reminds me that relationships, done badly are filled with pain for both parties. I’m not sure if I would have understood all the meaning contained within Joel and Amos’ words if I had read them instead of hearing them being read. There was repetition to their narrative structure that was evident as they were being spoken, as the prophets Joel and Amos would have done in the 5th and 7th centuries B.C. Interesting stuff, right?