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?

1st and 2nd Kings

The Bible records bad king after bad king after bad king, especially in Israel, rather than in southern Judah. Yet it seems that most of the famous prophets were most active in Israel. What's this about? And furthermore it seems that after each bad king is mentioned his worst sin--worshipping idols and encouraging the people to do the same. Why does the author of kings record that seemingly harmless practice (it's not like genocide or communist rule, right?) as the worst of their sins?

2nd Samuel

God promised David he'd be king one day, and David lets God take care of making it happen. He has many opportunities to assert his power and even assassinate the current king, but he refuses to harm or even insult "the Lord's annointed". David's son Absalom, however, is alwasy taking matters into his own hands--taking revenge on his brother, manipulating his father to get what he wants, staging a coup. Why the two different attitudes/life views? Which person do you admire more? Why?

1st Samuel 21

David's father-in-law has it in for him and is chasing him around with an army trying to kill him. So David runs to safety with a neighboring king. But the neighboring king has heard that David is next in line for the throne back home and is a strong warrior, so he's a little worried to be harboring this fellow. So David pretends to be insane, scratching on doors and drooling down his beard. The king says to his men, "Must you bring me a madman? We already have enough of them around here! Why should I let someone like this be my guest?"