No 😀 – Hibernia Gospel

Daily writing prompt

Have you ever regretted reading a book — which one and why?

If I got bored with a book, I’d just stop reading it. Maybe I stuck with some boring books out to the end, but I can’t remember regretting that I read a book. Nowadays, I find all books tough going, so I’d like to get back to the discipline of reading instead of stopping every five minutes and looking something mentioned up on YouTube 😀.

I suppose I do remember people being enchanted by books and lending them to me – and reading to please them. Maybe I did the same thing with others. I remember back in 1982, loving a modern version of Pilgrim’s Progress, which included Bible references. I lent it to my best friend, and he didn’t see the appeal of it. And maybe people lent me books and I read them just to be polite. But even these – I think it’s no harm to have the discipline to read or listen to all points of views. But maybe if I missed out on something else because a book was time consuming, I’d regret it.

Even within the Bible, sometimes I read an long Old Testament book thinking that it should give me the same spiritual help that a New Testament book does. And it didn’t. Maybe God intended some of the Old Testament more as references relating to the law and history of Israel and as a background and preparation for the coming of Jesus. It does contain uplifting passages, but maybe my time would be better spent in the New Testament, though I think it’s good to read through the whole Bible at least once. But it shouldn’t surprise us that there’s much richer revelation in the New Testament – and it’ll be better again in heaven:

1 Corinthians 13:12
⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹²For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

I think of Leviticus as the toughest book in the Bible. Nowadays, AI is a great help. Maybe some Christians are afraid or skeptical about AI. I wouldn’t want to trust it completely, no more than I would trust a preacher or a Christian book other than the Bible completely.

But here’s what I asked Micosoft Copilot:

Are any verses in Leviticus used for hymns or devotional purposes?

I won’t repeat what it says, but if you’re interested, try it yourself. And a good answer often provokes me to ask more questions, such as list that key points from a book or chapter. And of course, I enjoy overview videos on YouTube too – there are particularly useful for the books that make tedious reading. We don’t like to seem negative about God’s word, but much of the Old Testament wase much more relevant to the Hebrews than to us – though it’s all God’s word, and I believe it all: