Happy New Year!

Hello!

With a New Year comes resolutions and my resolution was to write a new blog daily.

But I've already got two blogs I don't update nearly often enough, why is this one so special?

This one's special because I've challenged myself to try and make the entire Bible interesting. Come on, tell the truth, when's the last time you found that book exciting? Interesting? ...Tell me it isn't collecting dust on your shelf... *Gasp!* You haven't even bought one? Well it's been the number one best seller for several hundred, if not a couple thousand years, so you might want to follow the crowd on this one and get one. (I highly recommend the NKJV Extreme Teen Bible by Nelson Bibles. They're out of print though, so check Amazon, Ebay, or Alibris.)

My main goal here is to make it interesting for teenagers. Why do I think I can do that? What qualifies me to even attempt to make anything interesting to teenagers? Well, I'm a teenager myself, and even though I don't know a whole lot of other teens, I've got an idea of what makes us tick. I'm no fancy biblical scholar, I didn't attend classes on the subject (other than the ones at my church) and I'm not even really Christian. Or Jewish. I'm a mix! It's called Messianic, and it basically means that I observe the festivals outlined in the Bible while also believing that the Messiah already came once and is going to come again. More on that later.

How do I plan on making this particular book interesting? It was written forever ago, nothing in there is the new shiny thing that teens love so much. But wait... Ever heard of The Prince of Egypt? It's a movie that Dreamworks made a few years ago, back when everything was on VHS tapes. They made the story of Moses and the Exodus very very interesting by showing you what happened. Sure, they varied from the story now and then, but overall it was pretty darn close. What about musicians and bands? Ever heard the song "Flood" by Jars of Clay? Listen to it. It's also one of the psalms in the Bible, which I'll talk about when we get there. They've got plenty of books on the subject as well, but... They're usually not all that great. Either they're really boring or they've got vaguely biblical themes that are simply drenched in magic and other stuff that isn't biblical at all.

My goal is not to be the old professor who's lost touch with the younger crowd.
My goal is not to force feed knowledge into teenager's brains. They don't like that.
My goal is to use popular culture, things that teens love, movies and music, sometimes books, to show that the bible is in fact, very interesting.
My goal is to reinspire them. Get them thinking about what they're doing and how they can stay on that tightrope, or grab back on if they've slipped.

Also, I know religion and Bible stuff in general is a very touchy subject, so if you don't like what I'm saying, you don't have to read this.