40 Old Testament Stories every Christian should know

Last June we finished a two year cycle of reading through the whole Bible.

I thought we would try something different for our independent Bible reading this year.

So I went through the Old Testament and wrote down the stories that a lot of our theology and history depends on.  It turns out there are 40 of them.

So I have assigned them in order, one each week for the next 40 weeks. Some of them are short, some are long, but if you read one story a week, by June 19 you will have a basic understanding of the major stories of the Old Testament.

I'll be posting some thoughts about each week's story on Thursdays.

The first story, you'll not be surprised to know, is the story of Creation.  Actually it is the two stories of creation.

There are two slightly different versions of the story (or maybe just a retelling of the story with a different focus).

Most Christians are basically aware of the Creation story.  "In the beginning, when God was creating the heavens and the earth ..." Everything was created in six days and on the seventh day God rested.

I want to point out three things about the story that you may have skimmed over (or forgotten)
1. Everything God created was good.  Every day of creation ends with "and God saw that it was good."  Creation (including us) are good at its beginning.  God saw that creation was good.
2. We are made in the image of God - to quote from the NRSV - "And God made humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male & female he created them."  This is a pretty good translation from the Hebrew. We are made in the image of God - male & female, black & white, all of us, are made in the image and likeness of God.
3. God says a strange thing in talking about humanity, again from the NRSV - "and God said, "let us make humankind in our image."  Did you catch that - God is talking to God and talks about himself in the plural.  Our image - not my image, that is a good translation from the Hebrew too - so, what do you think that says about God?