Week 41 John
I finished reading John’s gospel yesterday.
If I had to rank the four gospels using a Reading Complexity Scale I’d place them – from least to most complex – in this order: Mark Matthew Luke John.
It’s a personal list. There’s probably a couple of dozen possible permutations and if I asked a hundred bible readers I’d likely get every single combination. But complexity-scaling aside all of the gospels end up being collections of both manageables and unmanageables. Running into both is part of a bible reader’s week.
When I read something that’s manageable I feel pretty good and can move ahead to the next thing. If I run into something I can’t handle I have to slow down and think for a bit. Slowing down and thinking doesn’t guarantee that an unmanageable will get metamorphized into a manageable. In the end I’ll maybe have to accept that some things are unmanageable.
Unmanageability isn’t necessarily a permanent situation and I a) prefer things to be more-or-less manageable and b) try to work toward getting them into a manageable state. I tend to think and hope that eventually I’ll corral my unmanagables – even though being in a state of unmanageability has a pretty permanent feel to it.
And I guess that realistically I have to admit that in the end I either a) will end up understanding and resolving a lot of unmanageables or else b) I won’t…and some unmanagables will fossilize into rock-hard solidity.