Guest Post by Ann. Ann has a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and recently earned a second one in Accounting. Contrary to what some people told her, she has been able to use the degrees while raising her four children.
Here we are. Halfway through this year of studying the Old Testament at a breakneck pace.
Do you feel like you’ve gained a deeper understanding of the Old Testament with the new Come Follow Me Curriculum? Or does this feel like the same sprint we do every four years?
For me it feels the same as always. We spent a disproportionately long time on the Creation and the Garden of Eden stories, and we’ve been zipping through the rest of the content. This curriculum feels like I’m on a pogo stick- jumping from book to book and chapter to chapter. Never stopping long enough to really get to see where I am, but just keep jumping, jumping, jumping. After all, we have a lot of material to cover.
I’ve often wished that we could slow down our study of the Old Testament. Perhaps split the book over two years instead of one. I think our study of our other books of Scripture would benefit from a deeper understanding of the Old Testament. After all, New Testament authors constantly refer back to the Old Testament. Jesus himself quotes extensively from it. The Book of Mormon narrative arises in the Old Testament. And Joseph Smith was obviously inspired by the Old Testament as he organized the church.
It’s a shame we spend such a proportionally small amount of time there.
Last year I joined a women’s Bible Study group with a local nondenominational church. (Studying the Doctrine and Covenants was not giving me the spiritual nourishment I craved.) My friends in this study group have impressed me with their knowledge of the whole Bible. They don’t talk in the vague platitudes that you often hear in LDS Sunday School or Relief Society classes. They quote actual scriptures. They’ll talk about Psalms that have touched them recently or bring up something Jesus said. I’ve been impressed by their knowledge.
Over the last year the women in my Bible Study group have provided me with resources to better understand the Bible. I’ve incorporated them into my study of the Old Testament with wonderful results. I feel like I’m actually learning things about the Old Testament.
I’ve compiled a list of four resources I’ve found most helpful. I’d like to share these with you in case you are also looking for additional resources as you study the Old Testament this year. These resources aren’t meant to replace the Come Follow Me Curriculum, but to help enhance your study. There will be times that these resources don’t line up with LDS teachings. You are spiritually mature enough to work out your own understanding when the differences arise.
ESV Translation of the Bible – The first new resource I added was a copy of an English Standard Version of the Bible. Reading the Bible in the King James Version is hard for me even though I went to seminary in High School and I have two bachelor’s degrees. I really struggle with all those Thees, Thous, and Thines. It takes me so long to figure out what the scriptures are even saying that I never move on to figuring out what they mean. So switching to primarily reading an ESV Translation has helped immensely. As an added bonus, the Student Study Version is full of helpful footnotes.
I bought my copy from Christianbook.com. I was amazed at all the options for layout and cover designs available. I’m so used to the limited cover options at the Distribution Center that picking out a sky blue leather cover with cute details seemed liberating.
Women of the Word by Jen Wilken. This little book was loaned to me by my friend and later I bought my own copy. It is full of helpful advice for how to study scripture. Most of my scripture study habits were developed when I was a busy teenager. I found this book helpful in showing me what scripture study could look like for a grown woman. You can find a copy at christianbook.com or Amazon.
Bible Talk Podcast – If you are craving a deep dive into the Old Testament, this is the podcast for you. Hosted by three Baptist pastors, each episode covers just a few chapters from the Bible. This is the exact opposite of the Come Follow Me race to the finish line. This is a long journey where you stop every two minutes to examine cool things you find along the way. The hosts have been doing this show since 2020 and are only just finishing Deuteronomy.
I especially recommend the seven episodes on Leviticus. If you only listen to one episode it should be Episode 42 on Leviticus 26-27. This episode ties the Old and New Testament together in ways I’d never known before. You can listen to Episodes on 9Marks.com or wherever you find your podcasts.
Bible Project YouTube Channel. This YouTube Channel has put together brief overviews of every book of the Bible. The episodes are about 7 minutes long. They have a narrator drawing pictures that show the major themes and events of each book. My friend introduced me to these in March, and they’ve become an integral part of my family’s scripture study routine. Each episode is full of great insight. Recently, my family found the Overview of Ezra-Nehemiah to be especially helpful for explaining the themes of these often overlooked books.
These extra resources have helped me gain a deeper understanding of the Old Testament as I’ve tried to keep up with the Come Follow Me Curriculum. I hope they are helpful to you as well. I’m always looking for more resources so I’d love to hear about the resources that have enhanced your study of the Old Testament.
Thanks for sharing these resources! I have also been frustrated by the pacing of the Old Testament Come Follow Me curriculum. So much time spent on Genesis and Exodus, and now a race to the finish line with way too much crammed into the end. Tomorrow I am teaching the whole book of Job. It’s 42 chapters! And my next assigned lesson is all of Proverbs and all of Ecclesiastes combined! Two whole books! On the other hand, there is a whole lot of questionable and even gruesome content in the Old Testament which does not strike me as inspired and maybe is better skipped? So I don’t know what the right pacing is.
I’m glad to hear you also have pacing concerns. I never realized how fast the LDS church flew through curriculum until I joined my Bible study group. We took over 6 months to study Titus. Titus only has 3 chapters! We’d meet for 90 minutes every two weeks and only cover 3-5 verses. I was amazed at how much the instructor could pull out of 3 verses.
As for the questionable and gruesome parts of the Old Testament, I think we would be better served as students if we had a curriculum that looked at those parts head on. Many people have been wrestling with those parts of the Bible, and written well researched commentaries as a result. We should have access to those resources.
Some of the most interesting episodes of Bible Talk are when they examine some of the disturbing parts of the Torah. I found the discussion enlightening as they showed how the fallibility of man compares to the goodness of God.
I’ve also appreciated the Bible Project Videos for their acknowledgement of gruesome parts. The videos about Joshua and Judges didn’t just highlight the “good stuff.” They look at how the disturbing things fit the narrative of the book, and what we can learn from that.
All that being said, the Old Testament is so large we probably could skip all the questionable content and still have years worth of lesson plans.
Love this! Thank you. Can I put in a plug for The Bible for Normal People- podcast, TikTok, and they’ve got several books too all awesome resources.
I’ve added The Bible for Normal People to my podcast que. Thanks for the suggestion.
Ann, how’d you go about finding a group to study with? You’d inspired me and I’d like to find something in my area (Southeast Michigan) to join.
Good question Laura.
Honestly, I feel it was divine intervention. I went to a block party that happened to be hosted by the family of the assistant pastor for a new church in my city.
The first person I talked to was the Women’s Ministry leader and I told her I’d been looking for a bible study group. Her group met at a time that was convient for me. I literally went the next day. She and the other women quickly became dear friends.
You could start by googling non-denominational churches or women’s ministry in your area. Other churches are really great about putting their info online.
If you have young children you could try to find a MOPS (mothers of pre-schoolers) group. I participated in that when I was in Texas and they have branches all over the country.
That’s amazing! Thank you for the great suggestions.
The four year cycle makes sense for children and seminary, but I would love to have adult classes that slow the pace down enough that it’s reasonable to actually read all the material. Why revere it as scripture if we never actually engage with it at church?
I am a nerd and I’m not intimidated by challenging, dense text. When I was in high school, I read Shakespeare for fun. Reading a modern translation of the bible is *so* *much* *easier* for me to get through. And the notes in my NRSV bible are amazing!
I completely agree with you when you say, “Why revere it as scripture if we never actually engage with it at church?”
The four year cycle works for seminary, and lengthening the OT to 2 years would mean that we only get the NT every 5 years, which is unacceptable. I think the solution is to not try to cover “all” of the OT in a year. We (the correlation department) has divided the OT into “good parts” and “skip these parts”, and every 4 years we rush through as many of the “good parts” as we can. I’d rather we spend 3 weeks with Job this year and completely skip Proverbs and Psalms, but then in 4 years when we get back to the OT we can skip Job and cover Proverbs/Psalms in more depth. Maybe there are some parts of the OT that need to be covered each time we go through the OT, but I’d much rather do a good job of covering material every 8 years than a rushed job every 4 years.
(While we’re at it, maybe the D&C year can be shortened to 9 months?)
I’m intrigued by the idea of going over different material every time we go through the Old Testament. You would have to do a good job of communicating the plan to everyone though. Because I’m sure a lot of people would wonder, “Why aren’t we studying Proverbs this year?”
However, I still think our overall view of scripture would benefit from a deeper look at the Old Testament. Perhaps the seminary students and high school students could stay on the 4 year track while the adults have a different paced Sunday School curriculum. Its only been recently that we all locked into studying the same books of scripture in Seminary and Sunday School.
Or maybe the solution is to build more Old Testament resources into the lesson plans when studying other books of scripture. For instance really look at Deuteronomy when studying Jesus’ Reponses to the temptations of Satan. Every single response is from Deuteronomy and shows that Jesus is the true King. Or take time to study Jeramiah while talking about Lehi in the Book of Mormon.
My point isn’t to come up with the way it should be done, but rather to point out that there are many other ways to study the Old Testament other than racing through it every 4 years.