Lessons from Reading the Old Testament

Elena LaVictoire shares four lessons she and her husband have learned about the Bible as they follow along with the Bible in a Year podcast.

My husband and I are checking one item off our bucket list this year—we are reading the entire Bible, cover to cover, with the help of the Bible in a Year podcast. It’s not that we hadn’t read the Bible before. In fact, there are many books that we are extremely familiar with. But there are others that just bogged us down … you know the ones. Any book with extensive and repetitive sacrifice rituals, lots of unfamiliar geographical names and regions, but especially the long genealogies and lists of family members with almost unpronounceable Hebrew names.

As a teenager, I gotta admit, I’d skip right over those verses to get to any chapter that would advance the story line. But now as an older woman, I’ve been trying to soak it all in as Father Mike Schmitz tackles the hard stuff—like pronouncing all of that without stumbling or stalling! He does a wonderful job too, for which I am very grateful.

As we’re working our way through the Book of Chronicles, with its many extensive lists of sons and family members, I find my mind wandering. A quick look over at my spouse and I can see his eyes getting heavy and a regular breathing pattern emerge. It’s still hard getting through these parts of Scripture, even when someone else is doing all of the heavy lifting!

Every day, Father Mike says we’re living life through the lens of Scripture. As I’ve thought about these difficult Old Testament books my personal lens has focused on a few things that seem to be especially important to God. 

Family and relationships

The entire first part of the Bible is all about genealogy: sons and fathers, brothers and sisters, wives and daughters, and friendships besides. It’s when those relationships are torn apart by sin that trouble follows.

God is a god of order and detail

I was struck by how precise the instructions for different things were in the book of Leviticus, from how much and how many to exact colors for things. Maybe I noticed this more because I am not a detail person—I’m a big-ideas kind of gal. Even when my husband and I paint a wall, I use the roller and he uses the brush to do all of the cutting in! Both are important, but it’s the attention to the detail that really makes the whole thing work!

Focus on Family and Lineage

I recently heard a report that most young Americans don’t know who their great grandparents are! That’s eight people who lived within the last 100 years and made a significant impact on our families and family culture—and yet we don’t keep their stories, their memories, or their names! Yet the Scriptures go into great detail of not only the direct genealogy to Jesus, but of the other families as well. Passing that information has a priority in Scripture—maybe it should be a priority in our families as well.

Timeless Lessons about Rebellion

It seems throughout the Scriptures that the people of God are always rebelling, forgetting, and falling into sin. Every generation forgets what has happened before and try to go their own way without seeking God’s way. Of course, we see that even in our time, which to me is another reminder that we have to always teach our children and God children the faith, and pass on all of the lessons we have learned. At least then if they fall away, they have a place to return home to.

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Reading through difficult Old Testament books, I've focused on a few things that seem to be especially important to God. #catholicmom

So how about you? Anyone else reading through the Bible this year? What has been your takeaway so far in reading the Old Testament?

Copyright 2022 Elena LaVictoire
Images: Canva