{"id":875,"date":"2009-09-02T17:55:59","date_gmt":"2009-09-02T22:55:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/2009\/09\/02\/meditating-on-the-ot\/"},"modified":"2009-09-02T17:55:59","modified_gmt":"2009-09-02T22:55:59","slug":"meditating-on-the-ot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/02\/meditating-on-the-ot\/","title":{"rendered":"Meditating on the OT"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I resonate with several things in the start of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ligonier.org\/tabletalk\/2009\/9\/1190_Meditating_on_Scripture\">this article<\/a> by Bruce Waltke, published in Ligonier&#8217;s Tabletalk.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;Better than a bronze sculpture by Cellini, or a marble one by Bernini, or even a Beethoven symphony,&#8221; I was saying to my colleagues, while our waitress with tray in hand waited attentively for my climatic closure, &#8220;I enjoy a great sermon,&#8221; whereupon the waitress dropped the whole tray of drinks. But even better than a great sermon, I enjoy meditating on the Old Testament.<\/p>\n<p>People ask me commonly: &#8220;What is your favorite book of the Old Testament?&#8221; I reply, &#8220;Whatever book I am studying at the time.&#8221; A secretary once asked me: &#8220;How do you stay fresh teaching the same course year after year.&#8221; I replied, &#8220;By having a bad memory.&#8221; More seriously, I read new commentaries each year. This month I am refreshing myself in the book of Kings, and for the past two weeks I have been meditating on the Elisha miracle stories. In response to the request by the editors of <i>Tabletalk<\/i> to write an article on the joy of meditating on the Old Testament, let me share my joy as I reflect on these thrilling stories as collected and arranged in 2 Kings 2:1\u20138:6.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The entire article is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ligonier.org\/tabletalk\/2009\/9\/1190_Meditating_on_Scripture\">here<\/a> and it focuses on comparing Elijah and Elisha to Christ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I resonate with several things in the start of this article by Bruce Waltke, published in Ligonier&#8217;s Tabletalk. &#8220;Better than a bronze sculpture by Cellini, or a marble one by Bernini, or even a Beethoven symphony,&#8221; I was saying to my colleagues, while our waitress with tray in hand waited attentively for my climatic closure,\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/02\/meditating-on-the-ot\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ancient-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}