Freshness in Bible Reading

I picked up a copy of The New Jerusalem Bible yesterday at the book store. I was looking for something to bring some freshness to my Bible reading. Brennan Manning recommended it in one of his books because of the phraseology. It was originally done in French, and then in English, so some of the wording and phraseology is different than in American English translations.

It also contains the Apocrypha -- books primarily found in Catholic Bibles, but not generally accepted as part of the Protestant canon. Not having read them before, I started with the book of Tobit last night just to see what it was about, and found that I could not stop reading. It's set in the time of the exile.

As I was reading, the thought crossed my mind that this is what it must be like to read the Bible for the first time to someone who has never read it before. It was fresh, appealing, and absorbing. How often we who have had a Bible to read since we were young seem to lose the sense of wonder at its contents. Which, by the way, was part of the reason I picked up a new translation yesterday -- having things phrased a little differently helps me see it freshly.

While there's a measure of comfort in reading from the NIV which has become my standard, there's a renewed excitement that comes from reading the familiar said a little differently. So if you're in a rut, I encourage you to reach out.