Romans

Many people find Paul's writing difficult to understand. He was an incredible intellect, and he could just lay out all kinds of ideas and doctrine in a simple letter to a group of friends. Others of us might need more than a cursory read-through to get what he's saying. Does Romans make sense to you? Do you need to study it bit by bit to understand it, or do big things just jump out at you? Any insight?

Minor Prophets

Amos, Habbakuk, Haggai, Hosea, Joel, Jonah, Malachi, Micah, Nahum, Obadiah, Zechariah, Zephaniah. Christians refer to them as the Minor Prophets. Jews compile them into one book and call them The Twelve. The Major Prophets consist of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel to both Christians and Jews, and Christians also put Daniel in the that category. (Jews put Daniel in the Writings category.) Were the messages of the Minor Prophets less important to the Israelites? Did they just publish less material? Is there a reason to call them Minor other than the fact that their books are much shorter? What do we do with the many prophets of God mentioned in the Bible who never published a thing?

Isaiah and Matthew

Some scholars have seen a link between Isaiah and Matthew. Matthew certainly quotes Isaiah a lot. Does reading these two books back to back, one Old Testament and one New Testament give you a different perspective?

Isaiah

There are some pretty famous passages of Isaiah, including many thought to be prophetic of a Messiah in ancient times as well as more recent times. Some of those famous passages are mixed in with passages which are for the most part unfamiliar. If some of these passages were already familiar to you, what was your reaction to reading them in context? Were you surprised? How does that affect how you understand those spots?