Death is coming

The closer death creeps up upon me the less I am able to understand the reasons for life or living.

Yes I have experienced a close family member dying and unlike television it takes decades to handle such a thing. To think I am going to put my family through such a thing when I finally leave is more horrific to me than the thought of death itself.

My life was and is still a learning experience but when all said and done what am I to do with all this accumulated learning over my lifetime if I just die. There is no logic or reason to this.

Long ago I became aware that the God story that is sold to the majority is just a nice story to give mankind with a message of a basic layout of how nice life could be if everyone followed these ideas. Not many in life do and if one thinks about it the good and evil structures actually depend on each other. The good that can be experienced in life is only understood as good when there is it's opposite to compare it to. This is not rocket science only common sense in reality. I am not saying we need to experience bad but understanding in it is needed to appreciate the great things many of us can have in our lives. From birth to death there are many ways mankind helps his fellow man. How many ways can you help?


Saturday, January 25, 2014

One Story With Chronological Bible

By Eliza Mendoza


Biblical study is confusing especially when you have to peruse through different books. Christians have a chance to understand how the events occurred by reading the chronological bible. This is a book that has compiled all the events in both testament and arranged them the way they happened. All recordings about prophets and the salvation story in the New Testament are written in an orderly manner.

Other options of reading the scripture include from the first book of genesis to the end, historically and reading the new and the old testaments separately. When reading historically, you will begin with the book that was written the earliest and finish with the last to be written. These kinds of reading present a different reality and experience and make it easier to understand the message.

Each publisher has offered a different version even if the order is the same. In no specific order of priority, the common ones are King James, Good News, New Standard Version and New International Version. There are other editions available in multiple languages. This has made the scripture accessible to larger populations. The presentation and language make it easier to understand for the target population.

Reading the books in order of events has seen some of the books split into phases depending on events. Most of these dates are approximated with the assistance of historians. An example is where the events in the book of Samuel are interjected by the writing of Psalms. Chronicles, Samuel and Kings are said to have been written in the same year. That means that a person following this order will be required to jump from one book to the other.

The online platform makes it easy to access the books because they are already ordered or easy to order. It is not like when reading from paper back where you have to flip back and forth. Finding this order has taken incredible resources in times of time and money to sift through tones of information. The order is guided by history that runs alongside the details provided in the scripture.

Exhausting the books requires dedication and a detailed plan on how to complete it. The plan allows you to cover each section at a time. You could read chapter by chapter or each book at a time. You have a personal time frame to complete both testaments. This could take you several weeks, months or years. You will avoid repetition or skipping some of the pages or chapters.

There are paper back books that have arranged all the writings of the bible in a chronological order. They are available in online stores and contain details about every chapter and verse of the new and old testaments. Others have included the apocalypse books as part of the collection. The prices for these ordered bibles depend on the publisher and shipping details.

The narrative on creation makes more sense when you follow the specific order given in the chronological bible. A reader is able to understand since the flow is self explanatory. The addition of comments from the publisher or author explains some of the events that might be difficult to place in context.




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