Devotion Time - Reading the Old Testament

Everybody's devotional time is a little different so I can only give you some general ideas of what to do during devotional time.

Ultimately the best devotions will have you spend time with God by reading or listening to God's Word (the Bible) and praying.

THE BIBLE

The Bible is divided into 2 sections - the Old Testament and the New Testament.

The Old Testament can be best understood if one knows the history behind it. Briefly the history of the Old Testament can be summarized as follows (Some of the earlier dates are not exact):

GENESIS
?? - Creation and fall of humanity
1800 - Israel's beginning - the story of Abraham and his family

EXODUS - DEUTERONOMY
1300 - Israel is freed from slavery and travels in the desert for 40 years
1220 - God gives the Law to Moses

JOSHUA - 2 SAMUEL
1180 - Israel takes land as 12 different tribes
Israel is led by warriors who are called Judges

1 KINGS - MALACHI
1000 - Israel is led by 1st two kings as all 12 tribes unite to become one country
900 - Israel divides into North kingdom (called Israel) and South kingdom (called Judah)
800 - Prophets warn the North and South of impending judgment mostly due to idolatry and economic injustice
721 - Israel (the South Kingdom) falls to the hands of the Assyrians
586 - Judah (the North Kingdom) falls to the hands of the Babylonians
Babylon takes the people to Babylon
536 - Judah returns from Babylon and rebuilds Jerusalem

The Old Testament recounts the story of Israel becoming a nation, receiving its Laws, battles with other countries from without, battles between the North and the South, and battles with God.

The battles with outsiders were battles for survival, keeping their land or taking other people's land. Their fights were against surrounding countries such as Egypt, Assyria, Canaan, Philistia, Moab, Ammon, and Babylon.

The battles with God were mostly about idolatry and economic injustice. It was the prophets who fought with Israel in keeping one true God and who pointed out the economic injustices.

The rich got richer by taking advantage of the opportunities the poor offered them. For example, the rich lent out money to the poor and charged huge amounts of interest (like the credit card companies). But there was no bankrupcy, so when the poor got too poor, they lost their land and when they still could not pay their debts, they had to sell their children to slavery, and when they ran out of money again, they became slaves themselves or became beggers.

The Old Testament's solution to this problem was simple - every 49 or 50 years all debts were suppose to be erased, and all land was suppose to be returned to the original owner, but apart from one or two exeptions (shortly after the return from Babylon) that Law was probably ignored throughout Israel's history.