Camp was really good

Having some time in breathable air with the back drop of beautiful trees, good friends, cool students and a chance to shoot people with large amounts of paint balls was great fun. I really enjoyed my time at camp and felt like I made the most of my two days up there. We were talking about the story of Sampson in our morning times with our campers. So of course I thought it would be a better idea to share the story of the whole world and then see how the story of Sampson falls into that bigger story. I find myself frustrated at times with the way I learned the Bible growing up. It was similar to what we got at camp. Look at the story of Sampson and figure out how that makes sense to me...living in Riverside, CA in 2007. We tend to read the scripture through our lens as opposed to understanding what the stories actually meant to the people at the time, and then seeing if it makes any more sense to us. So I learned a lot of isolated stories within the Bible but had a very hard time making sense of how they all fit together. Yeah Sampson had long hair and his wife jacked him and he ate honey from a lion but why in the world is that story in the Bible? God allowed this judge to screw up and hook up with a Philistine (forbidden) and break every agreement of his Nazarite vow because he needed someone on the inside that could take down this great nation as God was establishing Israel as his treasured possession.
I proceeded to ask my group of 10 high school seniors (all Christians) if they had read the scriptures from end to end and none of them had. We talked about the problems with only having bits and pieces of the story and not understanding the story as a whole. I told them it's difficult to tell people you are absolutely convinced there is no better way to live than to follow Jesus when you're not even sure what all the scriptures have to say about him. I'd say it's similar to being whole heartedly behind a political candidate after watching 4 minutes of them on a youtube debate without really knowing what their history is and what they are all about. What do you think about that? Have you read the scriptures end to end?