Understanding Your Bible The Battle of Jericho Johnson One day, bang!
Jericho Johnson's teen-age daughter Joshanna suddenly announced she had become a Christian. "That's nice, sweetie," Jericho said, and resumed reading
his newspaper. As time passed,
Joshanna became increasingly involved in church activities, to the point that Jericho worried that his daughter
was becoming what people referred to as a "Jesus
freak." So Friday morning after breakfast, he sat Joshanna
down for a father-daughter talk. "A little religion never hurt anybody," Jericho began.
"Just don't get carried away with it. There's
more to life than Bibles and hymn books."
Column 2 Within a few more minutes, Jericho realized he had gotten himself
into a conversation for which he was totally unprepared. Rather than discouraging her, he had filled his daughter
with missionary zeal. Good grief, the girl was trying to CONVERT him! Her face glowing with excitement, Joshanna told Jericho more about the Bible
and God in five minutes than he had heard before in all his life. Mercifully, the hall clock struck the half-hour. As he hurried out the door, he heard Joshanna say, "I'll be
praying for you, daddy."
Column 3 Pray for him indeed! They would talk again, Jericho vowed, and
next time he'd be ready. No way was he going to let his little girl get sucked in by some bunch of Bible-thumpers! That very evening, he went up to the attic and searched out the
Bible his Mother had given him on his eighth birthday. Returning to his study, Jericho began reading. Jericho read fast and, being a computer specialist, had a trained
analytical mind. Piece of cake! He would quickly learn a bit of Bible then dazzle his daughter with his mastery
of scripture. She'd soon get her religion in a
proper perspective, of that he was certain. Jericho enjoyed reading Genesis -- a bunch of myths, naturally,
but interesting nevertheless. Exodus was fun! Made him remember "The Ten Commandments" movie with Charlton
Heston -- a darn good flick, as he recalled.
Column 4 And then came Leviticus. Sacrificing animals. Dietary laws. Priests
and rituals. Jericho stiffled a yawn. What did
this stuff have to do with anything? Not giving up, he plowed
through it, trying to keep from nodding off. Minutes later, Jericho's wife Louise found her husband sleeping
at his desk, the Bible open to chapter two of the book of Numbers. The next morning Joshanna cornered Jericho after breakfast and
said, "Are you ready to finish our little talk, daddy? It's Saturday so we'll have plenty of time." "Some other day, sugar plum," Jericho replied. "I...
uh... have to paint the fence." Joshanna smiled brightly, a glint in her eyes. "Shouldn't
let a silly old fence stand in our way, should we, pops? I'll help you paint. We can talk while we work." (End)
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"Oh-oh, it's 7:30," Jericho said, quickly getting to his feet. "Gotta go to work. We'll finish our
talk another day."
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Introduction to Understanding Your Bible In the tale told above, Jericho Johnson was a fellow with above average intelligence and education. Yet his first experience in reading God's Holy Bible probably left him with the feeling that it was a hard book to understand. Perhaps you have had an experience something like Jericho's. Maybe you, too, have tried reading God's word and come away thinking, "I just don't understand the Bible. Why did God make it so complicated?" The purpose of this essay is to help make the Bible so easy to read and understand that you will LOVE spending time with God in His word. |
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