The Year of Living Biblically

I have been reading The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. Jacobs is a secular Jew who tackles his lack of knowledge and experience of spiritual things, as well as his desire to find out if he's missing something, by devoting himself to living the bible literally for a year. Included in this memoir is:

• avoiding sitting anywhere that a menstruating women has sat
• wearing white all the time
• observing the Sabbath
• getting a slave
• stoning an adulterer

He devotes 2/3 of the year to focus mainly on the OT and 1/3 mainly on the NT.

I was fascinated. I am totally different than Jacobs. He's a Jew, I'm a Mennonite. He lives in New York City. I am a rural girl at heart. He grew up without any religion, I was steeped in evangelicalism from day one. Yet I find myself in complete sync with so many of his observations, like we started out in different parts of a city, started walking and met up downtown.

I always wanted to follow the Bible the right way. I was once convinced there was a right way, and became more worried and confused as I realized that there was no easy answer for what that right way is. Then I put the thoughts out of my mind for a long time. Jacob's book forced them out again.

Jacobs makes it obvious, in trying to follow the Bible literally, that even people who say they follow it literally, don't. Everybody takes an interpretation to it. Everyone picks things to follow and things to ignore as "cultural" or "for that time". I find that freeing, because if there is a right way, even amongst those who take the title Christian there are so many differences that it is almost a sure thing that we are all getting some things wrong on a regular basis. Thus the need for, and the supply of, grace.

Jacobs came to like observing Sabbath during his year, and it got me thinking of how I have freely taken on Romans 14:5 but wondering if I have lost something in the process.

Jacobs also talks about how he realized just how much he lies, gossips and swears (he also find that he likes the new more clean-talking self, and it shows in his other articles - there's a significant difference pre- and post - Living Biblically). It made me do some self-reflection. When someone asks me something that I don't want them to know, have I indulged in some white lies and dismissed them as tact? When I communicated that tidbit to my coworker about my thoughts on a supervisor, was I gossiping? And it seems like the words that get substituted with #%&!*% slip out of my mouth often enough. The difference between Jacobs and myself is that I've fallen into doing what is comfortable and have found ways to justify it with my faith whereas he took the road of setting a standard and trying to live it.

The way I've become have often been about rejecting legalism which is not a bad thing. Reading this book, however, has made me more thoughtful about the choices I make, how they line up with the Bible and how they impact my life and the lives of those around me.