Call me a nerd. I won’t protest.
I’m a homeschooler and a musician, and proud of it. What can I say?
As my nerdiness will certainly never be cured, I’ve taken up a new, unusual, and fantastic habit: Maps, and the sketching and coloring thereof.
Why do I think you should adopt my sensational new hobby?
Because there are dozens of dozens of sections of places . . . cities, towns, temples, mountains, bodies of water, battlegrounds, etc . . . in the Bible which you {and I} have forever only skimmed over, or more likely, completely ignored.
Why do you ignore them? Because they’re boring.
Why are they boring? Because they mean nothing.
Why do they mean nothing? Because you don’t know where these places are. You’ve never seen them. You know nothing about them. They are completely foreign to you. And who wants to think about something they know nothing about?
Ready for the shocker? Those details have been preserved for us for a reason.
Every word of God is true. Every word will last forever. And we’ve been given the gift of every word.
Ok, so you don’t have to become a map nerd me.
But, here’s a simple suggestion.
Go to bibback.com and spend $12.25 {plus shipping and handling} for the “Regional Study Maps.” Grab your dollar-store colored pencils, and you’re set for some fascinating, true, and powerful stories to come to life. Trust me, it’s a blast.
And I’m gonna prove it to you.
I’ve got some sketching and coloring to do first.
But, hey, don’t wait for me. Maps, colored pencils, and some of that Old Testament tricky stuff, and you’re on the road to the Holy Land. You wanted to know what it’s like, right? Mileage, terrain, military borders, routes. It’s all there.
Just use a little imagination, and those nerdy maps will take you to places you’ve never been before. Like all the places you skipped over when you were reading your Bible. Because they were boring.
[image credit: journeyoftheword.com]
Journey of the Word 
“Every word of God is true. Every word will last forever. And we’ve been given the gift of every word.”
Amen, and I generally like to apply this to the genealogies given in Scripture as well 🙂
One of these days I would like to have a fantastic collection of Bible maps with all sorts of Old Testament notes and stuff. That would be awesome. I also would like to have a missions map showing where various missionaries are working all over the world… hmmm *ponders*
By the way, I didn’t see this one posted on HSA. Did I actually just read it here first before you got the chance lol?
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Yes, the genealogies, too!
Right, I hadn’t had a chance to post to HSA yet. I schedule the blog posts, but I was out of town when this one posted, and I hadn’t had convenient access to social media or HSA. Just now getting around to that and all the replies.
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Love Bible maps! They make perfect sense of confusing stories, add tons of helpful extra information that’s fun to know, cause you to make connections between stories that happened in the same location, just enhance understanding in so many different ways, and give you a real feel for the story as a true historical event. Most definitely a worthwhile endeavor!
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Great description, Laura. I think you should be writing these posts. 🙂
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I think maps are important to give context too. Plus I think it helps a lot to understand biblical and church history in context of what else was going on the world too. I homeschool my kids and love the Mystery of History curriculum which I think does a fantastic job of helping the kids (and me!) understand how one society affects and influences what happened in another. Fascinating to me!
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Interesting! I’ve never heard of the “Mystery of History” curriculum. I’ll have to keep that in mind.
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