A few thoughts...

{NOTE: I wrote this post a while ago, and it never got published. I figured I mind as well hit that button now rather than forget about it again...}

Mark 1:1 " The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God."

At an English Bible study, we began going through the book of Mark. Mark is my second favourite Gospel; it comes in right behind the book of Luke. Bible scholars believe it was written by this guy name John who was called Mark(hence the name). We hear a little about him in Acts 12:12, 25, 15:37. We also hear about him in church history just enough. And when you Google "who was Mark Bible" address of the first search results starts with "atheism". His account is not of first hand experiences but was his arrangement of the stories given to him by Peter. It would be like if I wrote down all of my grandmothers stories of the preacher J.C. Bailey and the published a book. Only even more accurate.* Now, you should know the different styles of the Gospels. That's also important to this thought. Matthew was written to the Jews who needed to know how the Gospel fit in with their ways. Luke was written by a doctor in a history book style for believers ** and scholarly people. John was written with air pointed towards those who already believe. And Mark was written for the Romans and Americans(surely!) I doesn't go into the drowse of genealogies or back stories or nativity scenes but goes right for the action. It almost skips over most of John the Baptist, it just shows us the cool stuff. It's just plain written for action-oriented people like Roman soldiers and modern man. It runs a little bit like the movies even. It's got the hard to understand beginning: you here an ancient voice reading prophecy. The screen shows a man wearing camel hair clothing and a leather belt. He walks into an ancient town and begins announcing to the people, yelling loudly and maybe wakes a couple babies. With mixed reactions the people listen he raves on about some man that is to come. The screen darkens and plot opens with all of Jesus's whirlwind adventures.

Anyhoo, I think if I were to reorder the books for someone who had never read the Bible and didn't know the stories I'd have them start with Mark. And then after Mark, I'd send them back to Genesis and have them read the whole thing through chronologically excluding the Psalms, Proverbs and Song of Songs. By then, I feel like my subject would have a good base of bible history and then they could be moved onto real meat, theological things! I think that would be pretty awesome.

A few more thoughts:

• God is the King of Kings, and his Bible is literally the Book of Books!
• What if God were one of us? Can he really understand what it means to be human? Oh wait, he's done that already... This thought consoles me a lot...
• What would happen if you wrote each of the proverbs individually on note cards

*Which is quite scary to be because she actually knew J.C. Bailey and after growing up hearing the stories I read a biography of his and she was completely accurate! (If you don't know who J.C. Bailey was what a shame. You've got some more reading to do! Here's a good place to start.

**Much like books you would use to study church history. Not necessarily to convert but to ground your own faith in sure facts. Like reading a scientifically written book or article on a subject you may or may not know just to go over the facts and make sure you haven't mixed anything up.