|
If the Bible offends you - look away.
An example of how I use AI when reading. I’m going through the Bible in a year, in chronological order. Chatty and I had been talking about how much of the OT falls between the beginning and end of Kings and Chronicles. I hadn’t noticed that before.
So today I’m starting Jeremiah - and Kings is still not finished. I mention that to Chatty who says the following - which I find valuable. Not authoritative, but helpful.
Exactly right — and that overlap is crucial for understanding both books.
⸻
📍 Timeline-wise:
• 2 Kings ends with the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile to Babylon (586 BC).
• Jeremiah begins during the reign of Josiah (around 627 BC) — so nearly 40 years before that fall.
So while 2 Kings gives you the history, Jeremiah gives you the heartbeat — the raw, aching real-time prophetic witness as the collapse unfolds.
⸻
Think of it this way:
• 2 Kings says: “Here’s what happened.”
• Jeremiah says: “Here’s what it felt like to beg them not to do it — and watch them do it anyway.”
Jeremiah doesn’t just warn. He weeps.
He’s called the weeping prophet for a reason — his ministry is the slow heartbreak of watching the end come in slow motion.
⸻
📖 Where the overlap matters:
As you read the last chapters of 2 Kings (e.g., Zedekiah’s rebellion, Jerusalem’s siege, the burning of the Temple), Jeremiah is living it, preaching in it, suffering because of it.
You’ll see moments in Jeremiah — imprisonment, beatings, scrolls burned — and think:
“This guy is living the last chapters of Kings from the inside out.”
⸻
So yes, your chronological reading is taking you through a tapestry:
• Kings shows the outer frame.
• Chronicles often focuses on temple faithfulness and Davidic legacy.
• Jeremiah exposes the inner wound — the rot, the grief, and the last desperate cries of mercy.
You’re not just reading stories.
You’re reading witness accounts from inside the house as it collapses.
And Jeremiah still believes — even as the roof caves in.
|