The Great Themes of Scripture Old Testament

In this short volume, Rohr and Martos introduce us to the Bible and discuss it briefly within the context of Hebrew culture. They focus on clarifying themes that are key to understanding the Bible and relating the scriptures to our lives. They organize the themes into six chapters: The call - Introduction to the Word; Exodus - the Journey of Faith; Joshua to Kings - the Ordinary becomes Extraordinary; the Prophets - Radical Traditionalists; Genesis and Job - God and Humankind, good and evil; and Salvation history - Faith in evolution. In their discussion the authors discuss numerous themes that flow through the Old Testament. I will present a few themes I see as relevant to our lives and pervasive in the Bible . One theme, which partially reflects on the manna in the desert, is that each day the Lord will give me something new. We must come to the Lord expecting His love and care. We must learn to expect, as not expecting is essentially not believing in God's love. Some of the Israelites, wandering in the desert for forty years, did not trust the Lord to provide. And even when the Lord gave them "daily bread" they complained. The authors suggest that, like the Israelites, we should learn to expect God's love. Having expectations of God's love leads to a second theme - humans should know they are sacred. Rohr and Martos, suggest that the scriptures reveal that we are loved - God created us in His image. Each one of us is unique and we are free. Another theme the authors see as a promise. The Word will blossom in you as it did in Israel. We, however, must listen. As with Elijah, the Lord does not come to us in a loud or bombastic manner. God is gentle and loving. Mostly, God comes to us in silence. But, we must be open to the Lord's grace and message. Rohr and Martos say that trust in God summarizes the heart of Biblical faith. The authors claim that we humans want to be independent and don't like being dependant. When confronted with decisions we want to decide for ourselves. When faced with a problem or opportunity we want to work it our own way, with our own plan. We trust ourselves despite the fact that we continually fail to meet our goals or have our lives meet our expectations. The Lord wants us to trust Him. He wants us to surrender to his will, to His way. Surrender to the Lord completely and God will sustain you and fill your heart with love. This is an excellent book to help one become comfortable with the Old Testament. Armed with the analysis in this text, the reader will discover insights not realized before. I recommend it for anyone wanting to become closer to the Bible.

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Building upon a series of lectures given in the early seventies, Rohr and Martos expand on the ideas to look at the books of the Old Testament from a more macro view. From this stepped back view, the authors show how the books fit together, and how the parts of books such as Exodus build a contextual history of the times and how people are brought together with God. Rohr rejects fundamentalist or biblical literalist readings of the Old Testament, choosing to look at what the stories of the bible meant to those who originally wrote and shared the stories, and how they interact with our relationship with God today. This is one of the best series to lay out a good basis for studying the Old Testament and to understand what the bible is trying to tell us. A succinct volume that can be read again and again, it continues to bringing us into a greater understanding of faith and the Bible.

This book presents an overview of the great themes which are common in many Old Testament books. The book is easy to read yet inspires the reader to see in these ancient writings deep truths which are still relevant today. Most powerfully the authors site multitudinous examples of God's abounding love for mankind. It is very inspirational.