KIMBERLY WILCOX | senior staff writer

A non-believer spent a year living the rules of the bible and couldn't help but be affected.

After spending a year reading the Encyclopedia Britannica from A to Z, author A.J. Jacobs decided to spend a year following more than 700 rules from the Bible. He writes about this experience in his soon to be released book, “The Year of Living Biblically.”

In an interview with MSNBC reporter Jennie Yabroff, Jacobs discussed his experience writing the book. My question is: to what purpose and end did this man suddenly decide he wanted to try to live a “holy life?”

In the interview, Jacobs describes himself as a man who never had a real religious upbringing. In an excerpt from his book, he describes how this was a chance for him to try to discover what the Bible is all about.

So where does a man like this get the gumption to go out and follow all the rules in the Bible in the most literal sense possible? He was curious.

This is my favorite part of his whole experiment. Jacobs wasn’t trying to start a revolution, or change a way of life. He was just curious.

If only we could all be more curious. He didn’t blaspheme and he didn’t go around acting “holier than thou.” Instead, he took what he had learned from reading the Bible and followed it. Granted, he took too many implied rules a bit too literally, but he has never had an Exodus/Deuteronomy class. So really, can we blame him?

In the interview, Jacobs talked about the Bible being like a cafeteria. He says many will not agree with the idea, but he does think there are things in the Bible worth sticking to and some that are not so important.

I am incredibly surprised at his reverence for the Bible. Jacobs says he still follows some of the rules. He enjoyed taking the Sabbath to have a day of rest. However there were also rules that Jacobs was not so happy about.

He said his wife had a hard time with the passage in the Bible that tells man to build a hut. In his literal translation of this, Jacobs built a hut inside his living room.

Jacobs also said his wife did not kiss him for two months because of the beard he was growing, as commanded by the Bible.

Overall though, Jacobs came to believe religion offers a sense of structure that many people find comforting. He said having an anchor was nice when overwhelmed by all the choices society has to offer.

Has he converted to a religion?

“I started the year as an agnostic, and now I am a reverent agnostic. Whether or not there is a God, I believe in sacredness,” Jacobs told reporter Yabroff.

According to the excerpt, Jacobs in no way did this experiment to mock religion. In fact, Jacobs told the reporter he rarely met people who thought he was mocking religion. Jacobs was genuinely curious, so he pursued the topic with passion.

Where is that passion in our own lives? Perhaps we need to participate in an experiment like this in order to become truly passionate about God’s laws. Can we take something away from Jacobs’ experience?

This may be an extreme way to realize how passionate we need to be about following God, because it came from the least likely source --- a man who in no way would have called himself religious.

Jacobs sought religious teachers in order to understand the laws and historical settings of the Bible so he could be as accurate as possible. He read the from Bible cover to cover. How many of us have done that?

And he stuck with it, even when the experiment strained his marriage. That is dedication and passion. If I have learned anything from Jacobs it is that I really want to have that kind of enthusiasm. I shouldn’t have to wear a religious label to be passionate. Just being human should be reason enough. I should have a curiosity to know and wonder, and a passion to follow and take risks.