Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Maylan Schurch
Sabbath, February 17, 2024
Shelley and I are lucky to live within a mile of our local branch of the King County Library system. I’ll often go there late mornings to work on my sermon. In fact, if you study what’s to the right of the bookcase display in the photo above, you’ll see the chrome legs of a stool I perch on at a wide and distraction-free counter.
The library staff, of course, are interested in providing more than serenity for its patrons. They want users to read as well. That’s why they’ve set up this cute paper-bag display. The “Blind Date” poster at the top (pink for Valentine’s month) urges kids to check out a “mystery book” (mystery in the sense that you won’t know what’s inside the bag until you check it out), read the book, fill out a survey on an enclosed bookmark where you can “rate your date,” and bring the book and the bookmark back for what they call a “sweet treat” plus the chance to win a prize.
As you can see, attached to each bag are several heart stickers, which say things like “Gothic tale,” “Victorian times” and “Magical powers,” hinting at the book’s genre and plot.
This reminds me a little bit of my personal Bible reading plan this year. Some years I read Scripture through end-to-end, and some of those years I’ve encouraged the congregation to read along with a daily plan I provide, and on a few occasions I’ve built each week’s sermon out of a chapter within that reading segment.
This year I’m using something of a “mystery bag” approach. Frankly, I don’t delve into some of the Bible books frequently enough to have a complete grip on what they’re about. So I’ll dive into Nahum, or Hosea, or Obadiah, with no Bible commentary or summary, and just read the book a few times. It’s surprising the insights which sometimes emerge from the verses.
What’s your Bible reading plan like? You need one, because as Jesus quoted Deuteronomy, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ” (Matthew 4:4, Deuteronomy 8:3)
Want to read your Bible through this year? Here’s a link to a daily plan. Just pick it up here in February and ignore what’s gone before. You can always go back and fill in the blanks later:
https://bellevueadventist.org/read-your-bible-through-in-a-year/