A. Marie Silver

A. Marie Silver

Dear Ellen: Why Does the Bible Need Four Johns?

I write letters to Ellen DeGeneres.  Why? Because I Can!

Dear Ellen,

I have a confession.  I don’t remember all the books in the Bible.  I used to know.  I was tested on them when I attended Youth Group and took Confirmation courses.  But that was a really, really long time ago…like hundreds of years before the creation of sparkly vampires.  If I think about it long enough, I can recite the books of the Old Testament all the way to 2nd Chronicles.

Silly Ellen!  Not those chronicles!  At least…I don’t think so.  I’m not really sure.  To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever read either of those books in the Bible.  In fact, I’ve never actually read the Bible, except for a few verses here and there.  I wanted to.  At one point, I was feeling really ambitious and decided I was going to read the Bible from beginning to end.  I never made it past Genesis. There were way too many names.  Or maybe that was the time I tried to read the phone book.  Nevermind.  Moving along!

I think we’ve safely established I don’t know my way around the Bible.  So, I joined a Bible study, because I figured we’d be studying the Bible and I could use this as a refresher course.  Sure enough, over the course of the evening, we cover a few verses here and there and the leader of the Bible study will ask for volunteers to read the passages.  I’m proof that God has a sense of humor and I’m willing to bet he tunes in every Bible study, watching me frantically trying to find the various books and verses in my Bible.  Since I don’t know the books of the Bible anymore, I have a method for finding certain books when I need to.  It’s called the, flip-frantically-through-the-Bible-back-and-forth-until-I-miraculously-stumble-on-the-right-book.  Last night that method failed me.

I volunteered to read a verse from 1 John – which I incorrectly assumed was the John that follows Luke.  After I read the verse, the leader of the Bible study had a confused look on her face.  That’s never good.  It turns out I read the wrong verse. I thought maybe I was in the wrong chapter but I wasn’t.  When the leader read the verse, I realized I was Hell and gone from the right part of John. My method of flipping-frantically-through-the-Bible-back-and-forth-until-I-miraculously-stumbled-on-the-right-book blew up in my face.

I returned home on a quest to find that missing verse from John. Because I didn’t want to stay up all night searching for it, I turned to the one person I knew who could help me out: Google.  Ellen, did you know that four of the books in the Bible are all named John?  What’s up with that? I mean seriously, how many books does this guy, John, need to get his point across?

Ellen, why does the Bible need four Johns?

Sincerely,

A. Marie

Leave a Reply

POPULAR POSTS
ABOUT ME
A. Marie Smith

Your short bio telling the story of why you are a writer and the things that you think are important.