Blog: Max Dawson
December 8, 2016
That was the impression I got yesterday as I was reading the newsletter eSkeptic, the official newsletter of the Skeptics Society–obviously, an atheist group. I am a subscriber to that newsletter. The articles are sometimes challenging. I want to know what atheists say in opposition to the Bible and to my personal faith.
But, as I was reading one of the online articles, there is was! Right at the bottom of the page. An advertisement for a Bible. There was even a picture of the Bible. If I clicked it, it would take me to Amazon.com where I could buy the Bible.
Does that kind of shock you? Why would an atheist website advertise Bibles?Well, what happened is really not so shocking when you understand the whole story.
First of all, eSceptic was not advertising Bibles. It was a Google ad. Google tracks all my web browsing–and yours too, unless you figure out how to turn that off. The day before the ad appeared I was on Amazon looking at Bibles. Google knew that. And so Google was just reminding me of what I looked at the day before. If I had been looking at Corvettes, a Corvette ad would have appeared. The atheist website had no control over what Google links appeared at the bottom of their page.
So, there really were no Bibles for sale on that website, though it looked that way.
By the way, if I clicked on that link to Amazon, there is the possibility that the atheist website would have received a penny or two from my click. That’s how most of those things work. So, if I had gone to Amazon and bought that Bible, the atheists would maybe have made a couple of cents from that. That might be better than the sense they don’t make. (Sorry. Don’t let me confuse you.)
THE FINAL WORD
Now, let me tell you about that Bible I was looking at on Amazon.com. It is called “The Daily Bible.” It is the Bible in chronological order, arranged in 365 daily readings. I read this Bible day by day two years ago.
Right now I am enlisting a group of Christians at the Dowlen Road church who would like to do that for 2017. I will talk about that in my Sunday evening sermon coming this weekend. I hope to get 30-40 people who will commit to the reading for the entire year. It takes approximately 15-20 minutes a day to do the reading.
In a chronological Bible the entire Bible story is arranged in the order in which the events happened. That is different than the traditional arrangement–especially in the Old Testament. Our Old Testament is arranged in four parts: 5 Books of Moses, 12 books of history, 5 poetic books, and 17 books of the prophets.
People can be confused by that arrangement. For example, in the book of Ezra the Jews have just returned from Babylonian captivity; but in the book of Habakkuk (20 books later in the traditional arrangement) they have not yet gone into captivity.
A chronological Bible avoids that confusion by placing Habakkuk in the time context of 2 Kings (prior to the Babylonian captivity). It was in the times of 2 Kings that Habakkuk served as God’s prophet. All the Bible is laid out in that way.
I hope you can see the value of a chronological Bible. And, if you are a member of the Dowlen Road church, I hope you will consider joining me on this journey in 2017. By the way, there will be a companion Bible class to our reading.
Blessings to you, my dear friends,
Max