Babylonians, or mourning customs in ancient Israel, or the precise geography of the Holy Land, or the routes of St Paul’s second missionary journey. That information is certainly there, but it is the backdrop to something far more important, which is so easily missed: that we need to read Scripture with the expectation that we will encounter, and be refreshed by, God. We need to pause and savour each verse, drinking in its significance as if it were a precious vintage. We need to think ourselves