Links for today’s readings:
Oct 21 Read: Ezekiel 21 Listen: (5:29) Read: Colossians 4 Listen: (2:21)
Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:
This week of Readers’ Choice looks back at reflections about the Bible.
Barbara, TN — Yes, and wow, Erin! Thank you!
This post was originally published on May 13, 2026 based on readings from Habakkuk 3:5-6, 16.
Scripture Focus: Habakkuk 3:5-6, 16
5 Plague went before him;
pestilence followed his steps.
6 He stood, and shook the earth;
he looked, and made the nations tremble.
The ancient mountains crumbled
and the age-old hills collapsed—
but he marches on forever.
16 I heard and my heart pounded,
my lips quivered at the sound;
decay crept into my bones,
and my legs trembled.
Reflection: Worshipping Through Horror — Readers’ Choice
By Erin Newton
For my doctoral studies, I’ve been researching terrifying imagery in the Old Testament. This means when I’m reading books with titles like Reading the Bible with Horror in public, people are looking at me funny.
The question I get often is, “Why horror?” Most of us feel more comfortable focusing on the pleasant places in the Bible: the psalm about being a sheep snoozing in a gentle green pasture or the story of Jesus feeding the multitude. Like it or not, however, the Bible has lots of scenes that terrify us. And it appears the prophets were a little shaken too.
Habakkuk has been given a vision from God of the impending doom on the wicked nations. Despite the terrifying revelation, he responds with a hymnic prayer. How many hymns have you sung that speak of God heading out to smite the enemy while being flanked by Plague and Pestilence? This type of imagery is good for our modern cinemas, not really for the church choir.
Habakkuk takes the terrifying image of God’s power and wrath and doesn’t flee from it. He encapsulates it in song. He carves it into history through prayer. But at the same time, he’s scared. This isn’t some machismo war-song. His heart is pounding. His lips are quivering. His knees are shaking. He can feel his own fear. Why? Because the image of God’s power has overtaken him.
Brandon Grafius, in Reading the Bible with Horror, highlights the effect of horror movies and literature in our Christian lives. We are sometimes drawn to such artistic expressions because the images typically encapsulate our fears. We fear dying, so there’s a blood-sucking monster. We fear ravaging illness (or global pandemics or virus-laden cruises), so horror would make Plague a monster.
Horror (well-crafted horror) and the Bible (especially the Old Testament) have something in common: “They both experience the realities of life too deeply to tell us that everything is okay when it’s not,” says Grafius. Habakkuk gets that. He’s scared. It’s terrifying. But his prayer admits to the reality of the darker parts of life. He knows God is working, but that doesn’t make everything sunshine and daisies.
Reading the Bible with horror means not avoiding these texts or rushing to make them more pleasant. Sometimes we need to pray about the terrifying realities of our world, knowing God is in our midst.
Prayer for the week:
We are taking a break from the Divine Hours Prayers this month. Each week, we will pray a prayer from Scripture or Christian history related to the week’s theme. This week’s prayer is related to our theme of the Bible:
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and the comfort of your holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. — Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556)
Read more: No, Not Like That
We must trust God when he chooses to address evil, whether it is in our hearts, in our institutions, or in our countries.
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