Read the Bible

2011-09-27T12:07:00.000-07:00

Last year we challenged you to take a journey through Scripture. From September 2010 to June 2011, we journeyed from Genesis to Revelation. This year, we're taking another 270 day journey... this time, through the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs.

To access the reading plan electronically, visit our Read the Bible webpage. Or, pick up a bookmark at the information counter in the church foyer.

Questions can be directed to readthebible@grantmemorial.mb.ca.

Day 270: Revelation 15-22

2011-06-16T05:50:00.000-07:00

Day 270 is here!

By the end of this reading you will have completed your trip through the entire Bible in 9 months. Just look back at how far you’ve travelled. You started a few weeks ago in the book of beginnings – Genesis, and now just think of how far you’ve come. You read about the creation, the first sin, the tower of Babel, the flood, the call of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the story of Joseph, the Prince of Egypt. And all of that before you got out of the first book.

And then you kept on going – through the wilderness with Moses, the conquests with Joshua, the distressing days of the Judges, the rise and fall of dozens of kings and the mysterious visions of dozens of prophets; the birth, life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus, and the birth and development of the church that He promised to build.

That is an amazing journey – and you made it every step of the way. Congratulations!

As I mentioned in Wednesday’s blog, I want us to end our journey with a sermon. The talk, as I mentioned yesterday, is a message based on a text in the book of Revelation. The messages are lectures delivered by one of my favourite Bible expositors, D. A. Carson. This lecture is the 14th lecture in a series of talks he gave at the Bethlehem Baptist Church’s North Campus in Minneapolis in a series (now a book) titled, The God Who Is There.

Read the texts of the day carefully. Then click on the link and listen to Carson’s messages. It is a bit long (53 minutes) so you may want to download them and listen later. But if you do take the time, you won’t be disappointed.

Today’s talk is titled, The God Who Triumphs (http://bit.ly/jqmhkP). Enjoy!

And even after you have finished the Bible all of the way through – don’t just put it on the shelf. Keep reading !

Day 269: Revelation 5-14

2011-06-15T05:42:00.000-07:00

Here we are – the last book in the New Testament. I would imagine some of you thought you’d never arrive – and here you are! A thousand congratulations! You made it. Our 270 day journey is almost complete. The train is pulling into the station.

Now you not only know you can do it. You know the rewards of consistent reading and reflection on God’s Word.

Of course, the challenge is not quite yet over. We are, after all, in the book of Revelation. If there is a more symbol-laden and mysterious book in all of the New Testament, I do not know what it is.

So I have decided to share with you one more resource to help you through the book. It is not an outline or a commentary. It is two sermons, both based on texts in the book of Revelation. The messages are lectures delivered by one of my favorite Bible expositors, D. A. Carson. The lectures are the 13th and 14th lectures in a series of talks he gave at the Bethlehem Baptist Church’s North Campus in Minneapolis in a series (now a book) titled, The God Who Is There.

Read the texts of the day carefully. Then click on the link and listen to Carson’s messages. They are a bit long (53 minutes) so you may want to download them and listen later. But if you do take the time, you won’t be disappointed.

Today’s talk is titled, The God Who Is Very Angry (http://bit.ly/meXJbT ).

And keep reading !

Day 268: 1 John 5-Revelation 4

2011-06-14T05:35:00.000-07:00

This is our final week of "Read the Bible in 9 Months". To celebrate our journey, we've asked a few of our blog readers to write a short article on their experience. Today's post is from blog reader Gilles Lamoureux.

Michael Polanyi coined the phrase "We can know more than we can tell". It's not apparent what reading the whole Bible in just a few months might supply. Other than the discipline and developing an aptitude for a quick and intense read, it wasn’t obvious. But I realized I wasn’t alone in the task, and that made all the difference for what awaited me on the horizon.

The Israelites moved forward in strength and courage in large part because of their fearless leader Joshua and their comrades in arms. Something tough comes easy when the tough- minded get us going. There's nothing like treading along through thick and thin with your pastor. We can't all get personal all of the time, but this comes real close. Grant Memorial made perfect use of technology to get the pastor in my home daily and mentor me on through hard work. That's not an apparent benefit to expect from a Bible read.

From a recent sermon from the man who heads Faith at Home Ministries, of the top three most influential people who nurture children's faith the pastor comes in third, only after mom and dad. That's significant. And there is little doubt that leadership holds that very same significance in the lives of adults, especially men.

And the effort comes best when done jointly. The Israelites had no idea what to expect going into the Promised Land. A condensed reading of the whole Bible no less comes with reservations. But there's nothing like being on the same page, literally with other congregants under the same roof when tackling a problem. It's unusual to stay connected on the same task doing exactly the same thing daily with others you rarely if ever see. That's solidarity. It's not apparent for a Bible read; it’s not apparent in most things we do.

And the task makes the joint effort all the more momentous. Many hands were on deck every day. That wasn't apparent because participation on the blog was lean. Blogs are new for many. But readers were there, trust me. There will yet be another chance to put a blog to good use, I'm certain. There'll be more input, more questions, more integration of revelations, wisdom and anecdotes. That's something to look forward to. No task is worth the effort without getting those hands dirty. When it comes to the most vital weapon in the Christian arsenal everyone on deck needs to put their hands to the task, not just read but engage others with tough questions. Grant Memorial is no cruise ship or Good Ship Lollipop. It’s a clipper ship, making its way through rough waters and the Bible is our only lethal arsenal in the task against high seas.

The Israelites had many battles ahead of them and the view of the horizon would look bleak if it were not for their courage and strength. They had a determined leader and strength in a common destiny. And they had God’s Word, for the first time ever. For the very first time, ever, I sat at my computer every single day with dozens of other congregants with a few insights from my pastor. It’s not quite on the cusp of venturing into the Promised Land, but it sure comes close when I see how bleak the culture is and our mandate to redeem it. ~ Gilles Lamoureux

Day 267: 2 Peter 1-1 John 4

2011-06-13T07:49:00.000-07:00

This is our final week of "Read the Bible in 9 Months". To celebrate our journey, we've asked a few of our blog readers to write a short article on their experience. Today's post is from blog reader Shannon Silvestri.

Any other time I’ve committed to something for 9 months, the end result has been a baby. So as I’ve gotten closer and closer to the last week of Bible readings, the thought has crossed my mind... what is my end reward here?

Well, I have definitely learned that there are things in the Bible that God really wants us to know. And, He is willing to repeat them over and over again until we get it. Some days I wondered if I had already read some passages because they were so familiar, but then I realized that many messages were being repeated. I tried to learn to perk up my ears and pay special attention to those points.

I learned that I’m not always ready to understand something. There were days when my readings went in one ear and out the other. No amount of repeating would make it sink in. It felt wrong at first to just move on... like I was cheating somehow. But I had to trust that God is in control and that He will reveal His Word to me as He sees fit.

There were days when I did not feel happy about stories I’d read. Some parts of the Bible seem very unfair to me. Why David and not Saul? But God is sovereign and I will not understand all His choices. I have faith that He knows what He’s doing.

I felt so amazed at the magnitude of stories. So many characters... and God had a special use for each one. It makes me feel excited for God’s plan for my own life. And on that topic, I learned that God can use anyone for His glory. The stories of Samson from Sunday School leave out that he was actually an arrogant fool... but God used him anyway. So there’s hope for me too!

Maybe my most valuable reward was to learn that there is always time if you make something a priority. I would never have imagined that I’d have enough time in the day to get through this amount of reading. I am not even sure what got sacrificed so that it could happen. Obviously whatever I had been using that time for before was not that important. Maybe there have been a few more dust bunnies congregating in my house this past year, but I learned that it is possible to make God’s Word a priority and fit it in on a consistent basis.

“For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

God’s Word is big business. Important stuff! I’ve learned that I need to make it a priority every single day. ~ Shannon Silvestri

Day 264: James 3-1 Peter 5

2011-06-10T12:47:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite books to read and teach is the one that is the center of today’s section – James. I am not certain why, exactly, but I suspect that it is because James always gives me something to do – an attitude to adjust or a habit to develop. Chapter 4 in today’s selection is typical of James’ approach, but with a twist.

What’s your favourite attribute of God? There’s such a long list of them. You could choose God’s omniscience, His omnipresence, His omnipotence. He knows everything. He is everywhere at the same time. And He is all powerful. Theologians have a long list with some very impressive names to describe God’s attributes. There is immutable, meaning that God does not change. There is the asceity of God, meaning God is self-existent and depends on no one.

Think about the songs we sing in church and many of those are constructed around celebrating God’s attributes – as in, “Immortal, Invisible, God only wise.” Maybe what you choose depends on how you feel. For example, if you’re lonely you may take comfort in knowing that Jesus is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. Maybe you’ve really blown it and you’re especially thankful that God is merciful, gracious and slow to anger, compassionate, rich in love. Maybe you’re afraid and those fears cause you to really lean on God as a strong tower or a shelter or a refuge.

There are all kinds of names and attributes of God and all kinds of reasons for preferring one over the other. But when people make a list of their favourite attributes of God, there is one attribute that is conspicuously absent. It’s rare to hear it mentioned, even in church. Go to your hymnals and praise books and you will seldom ever find a mention of this attribute. There are no Christian bumper stickers with this attribute on them, no Christian greeting cards, and no banners hanging in churches. To be honest, I don’t know if it’s because we don’t understand the attribute or that we do understand it and it terrifies us. That attribute?

The jealousy of God.

In case you have forgotten, God is called ‘jealous’ for the first time in Exodus, Chapter 34 and verse 14. “Do not worship any other god, for the Lord whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” The reason we have a tough time getting our heads around that notion may be because jealousy, in our cultural context, is almost always a vice and not a virtue. It’s something to be eliminated from our character and not emulated. But there are many Bible passages which speak of the jealousy of God. One of them is in our section for today.

So as you read James chapter 4 and verses 1 to 10, ask yourself what it must mean to speak of God as a jealous being. Meditating on that question will give you plenty to think about.

Keep on reading! Only one week (five more readings) to go and our journey is complete.

Day 263: Hebrews 11-James 2

2011-06-09T15:24:00.000-07:00

Of the many versions of the New Testament that are available today, one of the more unusual and imaginative is The Cotton Patch Version. The Cotton Patch Version is the result of the creative passion of a man named Clarence Jordan who “lived out the New Testament in the soil of rural Georgia.” A visionary during the struggle for the civil rights of all God's children, he founded an inter-racial community called Koinonia and lived and worked there until he died unexpectedly on October 29, 1969, at the age of fifty-seven. Although there is a great deal of “interpretive freedom” taken with the text, you may just find The Cotton Patch Version a source of insight and an ongoing encouragement.

To see a complete version, you may visit the Cotton Patch Version online at http://rockhay.tripod.com/cottonpatch/. Here is a portion of today’s reading in James chapter one just to give you a sense of what the CPV offers.

1. Greetings from James, a slave of both God and the Lord Jesus Christ, to the whole Christian fellowship, wherever it may be scattered. Consider it a real privilege, my brothers, when you are surrounded by all kinds of difficulties, because you know that when your faith is given a good workout it builds up your determination. And let your determination have that grown-up look, so that you might be mature and well-balanced, not short on anything. If you don’t have enough understanding, ask for it from God, who gives liberally to everyone and without scolding, and it will surely be given to you. But you must ask in complete trust, without any reservations. For the man with reservations is like an ocean wave whipped and ripped by the wind. Such a fellow should not think for one minute that he’ll get anything from the Lord. He’s a fence-straddler and inconsistent in all he does.

9. Let the underprivileged brother take pride in his improved condition, and let the rich brother be proud of being one of the underprivileged, since he, too, like a fragile blossom, will pass away. For as the sun and the scorching winds bear down and wither a plant, and its blossom falls off and its lovely appearance is gone, so it is with the well-to-do man. During his pilgrimage on earth he will be dried up.

12. Fortunate indeed is the man who doesn’t yield to compromise. For when he has come through the test he’ll receive the "Trophy of Life" which God has promised to those who love him. Let no one in a compromised position say: "God put me in this dilemma," for God himself never makes any compromise with evil, and never puts anyone else in that position. The truth is that each person is dragged and pulled into compromise by his own self-interest. And self-interest, when it gets pregnant, gives birth to sin, and sin grows up and spawns death. Never forget that, my dear brothers.

17. Every good gift and every mature act of sharing is from above, streaming down from the Source of light who never flickers nor enters into an eclipse. It is his intention to bring us up on the word of Truth so that we might be sort of an example to the rest of his creatures.

19. Listen here, my dear brothers. Let every man of you be quick with his ears, slow with his tongue, and hard to get riled up, because a man s temper contributes nothing to God s cause. So scrub off every spot of filth and caked-up evil and submissively accept the transplanted word which can save your souls.

22. Become doers of the word. Don’t kid yourselves by being listeners only, because if a man listens to the word and doesn’t act on it, he is like a person looking at himself in a mirror — he looks himself over, walks away and then forgets what he looked like. But when one takes a good look at the mature idea of freedom, and hangs on through thick and thin, not being a wishy-washy hearer but a man of action, such a person will be really happy in his work.

26. If a fellow thinks he has religion, but can t keep from running off at the mouth, and if he has a dishonest heart, that man’s religion is as dead as a doornail. The religion which God the Father considers pure and clean is to look after helpless orphans and widows and to keep one’s self free from the taint of materialism.

Day 262: Hebrews 4-10

2011-06-08T08:46:00.000-07:00

Hebrews is one of the more fascinating and difficult books to manage in the New Testament. While Romans is a challenge to read because of the detailed logic that the reader is required to follow, Hebrews is a challenge because, to get a full sense of it, the reader needs an almost comprehensive understanding of the revelation of God from the previous 1600 years. The upside is, if you are a part of that faithful band of readers that started with us in September, you have read that entire 1600 years of previous revelation (the Old Testament) within the past eight months!

If we were to give a tagline to the book of Hebrews, it would be “Jesus is better.” Jesus is a better leader and deliverer, a better sacrifice, offers a better priesthood, offers a better covenant, and a better Sabbath rest. Keeping that tagline in mind will help you as you sort through some fairly heavy reading.

I have mentioned several times that a good study Bible is always a good thing to have on hand. Over the past weeks, I have recommended a few of them. A study Bible allows a person to read through the Bible and have easy access to resources that help you understand the sections you are reading. Each has its own approach to achieving that task. Some have a particular theological bias. Some concentrate on observation, some on interpreting the text as literature. Some look at historical or cultural details. Some are more helpful than others – and some are unhelpful altogether.

Here are a few of the ones I have found most helpful. Each is different. Each has strengths and weaknesses and limitations – but here are a few of my favourites (in no particular order – except that the one I have given away more than any other is at the top).

The Quest Study Bible
The ESV Study Bible
The Reformation Study Bible
The NIV Study Bible
The ESV Literary Study Bible
The Life Application Study Bible
The Chronological Study Bible

Just remember the old adage, “Books are like cloths. Not every piece fits every person.” So do your homework. Find a study Bible that you enjoy – one that answers the kinds of questions you ask. Make the investment. And keep on reading!

Day 261: 2 Timothy 3-Hebrews 3

2011-06-07T06:16:00.000-07:00

The passages in today’s section see us finishing the pastoral Epistles and moving into Hebrews. There is such diversity in the reading, I doubt that there is much I can say to provide greater incentive to keep on reading than the text itself will provide. That said, I have a friend that has a deep appreciation for brevity. He is a “let’s get straight to the point” kind of guy. The other day he challenged me to summarize a study that had taken months in “a hundred words or less.” Even though I protested a bit (wasting about 15 of my 100 words) – I did it. I summarized months of work in less than 100 words.

Seems to me that this is also a good Bible Study discipline. If I read and comprehend a passage well enough to accurately summarize it, that is likely a sign that I have been paying attention.

So, how would I summarize Paul’s instruction in our selections for today? Here’s my first attempt. Enjoy – and keep on reading!

Be faithful. Times will get tough and people won’t always like you just because you speak on God’s behalf. In fact, that may be the reason that times will get tough. Live well. Be careful to do the right thing. In this way, you best represent the gospel and the God who entrusted it to you. Remember to treat others with grace – even those (especially those) who have wronged you. Because, after all, that’s the way you’ve been treated. And - never forget that, no matter what you are tempted to become distracted by, Jesus is better.

Day 260: 1 Timothy 1 - 2 Timothy 2

2011-06-06T15:03:00.000-07:00

Today's post is from guest blogger Joe Welty. Joe is the Director of Spiritual Formation & Young Adults at Grant Memorial.

For some time now my devotional life has been marked by spending days and even weeks camped out in one book or section of the Bible, reading and rereading it. I don’t know where or how I picked up this habit, but it has become an important part of what my regular practice looks like. I sometimes joke that it is because I’m not a very good listener so God has to keep repeating the same lesson to me. Honestly, it is probably not far from the truth.

The past little while has seen me camped out in 2 Timothy. The Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) have long been some of my favourite sections of Scripture. It is a chance to listen in on a conversation between Paul, the seasoned preacher, teacher and church leader, and Timothy, a young Christian leader who now finds himself leading a congregation without his mentor Paul. Every time I read it I am struck by both what Paul tells Timothy and how he tells him about the task at hand.

   I love what Paul tells Timothy. Paul calls Timothy to boldness and perseverance in the task of holding to the truth of the Gospel in the face of opposition and hardship. He calls him to remember Christ and to faithfully preach Him while avoiding the twin temptations of cultural irrelevance or hyper-relevance – the temptations to get caught up in meaningless, obscure arguments or to change the message to make it more acceptable in the ears of his listeners. He calls Timothy to take seriously both the duties of a Christian leader and the way in which he carries these duties out. He is not to be argumentative or resentful or puffed up by the position of leadership, but a model of the redemptive sort of love that is gentle and hopeful even when giving correction. I love how these glimpses of what it means to be a Christian leader and minister remind me to be concerned for the right things.

   But I also love how Paul tells Timothy about the task at hand. Somewhere along the way I developed a picture of Paul in my head that looks something like this: Paul is this bold, brash, argumentative, task-oriented personality whose writings would be in all caps if he were writing today. But the more I read the Pastoral Epistles, the more convinced I am that this is a distorted picture of Paul, more like a caricature of the Apostle than a photograph. The more I read the Pastoral Epistles, the more I am struck by Paul’s warmth and deep love and concern for Timothy and the other believers he serves with. Paul does not speak to Timothy as a general speaking to one of his officers, but as a father speaking to his son. And it is this same patient, gentle, hopeful and, at times, correcting sort of love that we are to show one another.

   Now, here is hoping that what is taught and modeled in this letter sinks in a little deeper each time I read. ~ Joe

Day 257: Colossians 4-2 Thessalonians 3

2011-06-03T06:02:00.000-07:00

We are working our way to the last 10 readings of our 270 day journey through the Bible. One of the many things I have enjoyed about the reading the Bible these past months is the challenge of writing this blog along the way. When I started writing these short articles, it was to simply help people understand what they are reading - or at least encourage them to keep going. What I didn't expect was the way that in my research, I would stumble across some delightful resources I hadn't known about before.

Many of them have had a "commentary" or "editorial flavour. The one I want you to look at today is a website filled with interesting little video vignettes of people sharing their stories - many of those around the subject, "What the Bible has meant to me." Take a minute or two to listen and then - keep on reading.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ShareYourStory#p/search/6/m5y9OeYrusI

http://www.youtube.com/user/ShareYourStory#p/search/19/TUVNn46nC3Q

Day 256: Philippians 2-Colossians 3

2011-06-02T06:54:00.000-07:00

Of the Bible Study tools I have recommended, one of the more helpful is paraphrasing – saying what you understand the text to say “in your own words”. Although this is likely an oversimplification - that is what most preaching is – or at least, where most preaching begins. This morning, I want to introduce you to a close relative of that paraphrasing tool – poetry.

I realize that at the best of times, reading poetry is not exactly at the top of most people’s to-do list. Writing poetry falls to the bottom with a resonant thud. But if you are ever going to give it a try, the book of Philippians might just be the book to inspire you. Some scholars see Philippians as Paul’s most “stylized and poetic”. Regardless of what Paul intended, the book has at least inspired a few poets along the way.

Ruth Harms Calkin grew up a “preacher’s kid” in an old-fashioned parsonage with oversized rooms, heavy sliding doors, and screened-in porches. Almost every Sunday her parents entertained guests: visiting missionaries, young married couples, new Christians – and she sat on many Sundays “listening to the ongoing conversations around the large oak table.”

When she was very young, Ruth’s father encouraged her to keep a journal. “Listen to God’s secrets,” he counseled, “and record what you think God may be whispering.” As it turns out, that was the perfect advice to give a little girl who wanted with all her heart to hear God…a little girl who loved secrets! Ruth soon became a bit of a poet, reading the scripture and putting the thoughts that those scriptures inspired into the lines of her poems.

Few know the name Ruth Harms Calkin, but people who know the Veggie Tales know her poem turned song, “My God is So Big”. Here are a few of her poems inspired by scripture. After you have read them – read today’s selection, grab a pencil and paper and try a few of your own.

No Further
O God
So many things occur in my life
That are far, far beyond
My childlike comprehension.
My spirit is often bruised.
My thoughts are scattered.
I am left floundering and faltering.
There are shattering disappointments.
There are conflicts and doubts.
There are hours of emotional weariness.
And yet, the very thought
Of attempting to manage life without You
Brings more desolation
Than all other agonies packaged together.
I would rather endure the gigantic assaults
In Your presence, dear God
Than live a single day
Without Your hand of protection.
For Your words to the Enemy of my soul
Are as powerful for me
As they were for Job:
"This far you may go, but no further."

I Wonder

You know, Lord, how I serve You
With great emotional fervor
In the limelight.
You know how eagerly I speak for You
At a women’s club.
You know how I effervesce when I promote
A fellowship group.
You know my genuine enthusiasm
At a Bible study.

But how would I react, I wonder,
If You pointed to a basin of water
And asked me to wash the callused feet
Of a bent and wrinkled old woman
Day after day,
Month after month,
In a room where nobody saw
And nobody knew?

As You Have Forgiven Me
Lord, all week long
I have struggled painfully
With the agony of unforgiveness.
In clinging to my hidden resentment
My spirit has been consumed.
Channels of creativity have been clogged.
I have been brittle, evasive, unyielding.
I've winced and wallowed in self-pity.
My health has been affected.
To pray has been a heavy burden.
I am starkly aware that I cannot afford
The luxury of an unforgiving heart
Unless I need no forgiveness from You.
There is no more room in my heart
For the twisting torment of this past week.
I am willing to drop the offense.
Now, dear Lord, please cleanse me.
Release me, purify me
And empower me to forgive
As freely as You have forgiven me.

Day 255: Ephesians 2-Philippians 1

2011-06-01T10:41:00.000-07:00

The book of Ephesians takes up most of our reading today. I may as well tell you that I like Ephesians. To be completely candid, it may have as much to do with my personal experience with the book as it does with the content of the book itself.

Why we like the things we do is a science all in itself. Buttermilk, for example. I began liking buttermilk when I was about 6 years old. It all happened one sunny afternoon when I had been working with my Grandfather. We were hot and came into the kitchen to get something to drink. I grabbed a glass and filled it with water. He went to the fridge and pulled out a big bottle (that was a long time ago) and poured a cold glass of buttermilk. As he began to drink it down, my sister and her friends expressed their disgust that anyone could drink such a horrible looking and tasting beverage. I decided right then and there, before I had ever had my first taste, that I was going to love buttermilk – just like my Grampa (especially since it got such a reaction). I asked for a glass and had my first taste of buttermilk – gulping it down until there was only the cloudy film on the sides of the glass. It was awful! But when I took the glass away from my mouth, I sat it on the counter, smiled at my sister under my buttermilk moustache and said, “Pour me another one!” I have liked a good glass of buttermilk ever since.

I think I may like Ephesians for a similar reason.

When I was in my last year of university, I had nicely completed my courses in N.T. Greek, Hermeneutics, Systematic Theology, Biblical Exegesis, and The Bible as Literature. I was given a writing assignment in my N.T. Readings course that required all of the tools that had just recently been put into my toolbox – and the assignment was to concentrate on a section of Ephesians. The passage was Ephesians, chapter 1, verses 3-10 .

I remember diving into that passage – thinking that this would be a fairly simple and straightforward task. What I soon learned, is that attempting to understand and answer all of the questions that this single passage raised was much more than I could have imagined. It was hard work. It was frustrating work. I read until my eyes were dry. I wrote until I had calluses on my writing hand. It took ten times longer than I expected. And I absolutely loved it.

There is much more to this story – but there will be other opportunities to tell it. For today, dive into Ephesians, head first – with all you are and have. I promise, it’s deep enough that you won’t bump your head on the bottom.

Day 254: Galatians 2-Ephesians 1

2011-05-31T06:05:00.000-07:00

In yesterdays blog, we introduced part one of an article available at www.gotquestions.org answering the question, Why Read the Bible? Here is part two of that article.

Question: "Why should we read the Bible?" (part two)

Answer: We should read and study the Bible because there is so much false teaching. The Bible gives us the measuring stick by which we can distinguish truth from error. It tells us what God is like. To have a wrong impression of God is to worship an idol or false god. We are worshiping something that He is not. The Bible tells us how one truly gets to heaven, and it is not by being good or by being baptized or by anything else we do (John 14:6; Ephesians 2:1-10; Isaiah 53:6; Romans 3:10-18, 5:8, 6:23, 10:9-13). Along this line, God's Word shows us just how much God loves us (Romans 5:6-8; John 3:16). And it is in learning this that we are drawn to love Him in return (1 John 4:19).

The Bible equips us to serve God (2 Timothy 3:17; Ephesians 6:17; Hebrews 4:12). It helps us know how to be saved from our sin and its ultimate consequence (2 Timothy 3:15). Meditating on God’s Word and obeying its teachings will bring success in life (Joshua 1:8; James 1:25). God’s Word helps us see sin in our lives and helps us get rid of it (Psalm 119:9, 11). It gives us guidance in life, making us wiser than our teachers (Psalm 32:8, 119:99; Proverbs 1:6). The Bible keeps us from wasting years of our lives on that which does not matter and will not last (Matthew 7:24-27).

Reading and studying the Bible helps us see beyond the attractive "bait" to the painful "hook" in sinful temptations, so that we can learn from others' mistakes rather than making them ourselves. Experience is a great teacher, but when it comes to learning from sin, it is a terribly hard teacher. It is so much better to learn from others' mistakes. There are so many Bible characters to learn from, some of whom can serve as both positive and negative role models at different times in their lives. For example, David, in his defeat of Goliath, teaches us that God is greater than anything He asks us to face (1 Samuel 17), while his giving in to the temptation to commit adultery with Bathsheba reveals just how long-lasting and terrible the consequences of a moment's sinful pleasure can be (2 Samuel 11).

The Bible is a book that is not merely for reading. It is a book for studying so that it can be applied. Otherwise, it is like swallowing food without chewing and then spitting it back out again—no nutritional value is gained by it. The Bible is God's Word. As such, it is as binding as the laws of nature. We can ignore it, but we do so to our own detriment, just as we would if we ignored the law of gravity. It cannot be emphasized strongly enough just how important the Bible is to our lives. Studying the Bible can be compared to mining for gold. If we make little effort and merely "sift through the pebbles in a stream," we will only find a little gold dust. But the more we make an effort to really dig into it, the more reward we will gain for our effort.

Day 253: 2 Corinthians 8-Galatians 1

2011-05-30T07:31:00.000-07:00

One of the ways we have used this blog space is to introduce you to additional resources that help you with your reading and understanding of scripture. Of those resources, one of the more interesting is a website named Got Questions? ( www.gotquestions.org ). This theologically conservative website list dozens of questions and answers that, even if they don’t completely satisfy your curiosity, will get you started in a good direction. For today and tomorrow, we will take a peek at the answer to a pertinent question for Bible readers:

Question: "Why should we read the Bible?"

Answer: We should read and study the Bible because it is God's Word to us. The Bible is literally "God-breathed" (2 Timothy 3:16). In other words, it is God's very words to us. There are so many questions that philosophers have asked that God answers for us in Scripture. What is the purpose to life? Where did I come from? Is there life after death? How do I get to heaven? Why is the world full of evil? Why do I struggle to do good? In addition to these "big" questions, the Bible gives much practical advice in areas such as: What do I look for in a mate? How can I have a successful marriage? How can I be a good friend? How can I be a good parent? What is success and how do I achieve it? How can I change? What really matters in life? How can I live so that I do not look back with regret? How can I handle the unfair circumstances and bad events of life victoriously?

We should read and study the Bible because it is totally reliable and without error. The Bible is unique among so-called "holy" books in that it does not merely give moral teaching and say, "Trust me." Rather, we have the ability to test it by checking the hundreds of detailed prophecies that it makes, by checking the historical accounts it records, and by checking the scientific facts it relates. Those who say the Bible has errors have their ears closed to the truth. Jesus once asked which is easier to say, "Your sins are forgiven you," or "Rise, take up your bed and walk." Then He proved He had the ability to forgive sins (something we cannot see with our eyes) by healing the paralytic (something those around Him could test with their eyes). Similarly, we are given assurance that God's Word is true when it discusses spiritual areas that we cannot test with our senses by showing itself true in those areas that we can test, such as historical accuracy, scientific accuracy, and prophetic accuracy.

We should read and study the Bible because God does not change and because mankind's nature does not change; it is as relevant for us as it was when it was written. While technology changes, mankind's nature and desires do not change. We find, as we read the pages of biblical history, that whether we are talking about one-on-one relationships or societies, "there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9). And while mankind as a whole continues to seek love and satisfaction in all of the wrong places, God—our good and gracious Creator—tells us what will bring us lasting joy. His revealed Word, the Bible, is so important that Jesus said of it, "Man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4). In other words, if we want to live life to the fullest, as God intended, we must listen to and heed God's written Word.

Day 250: 1 Corinthians 16-2 Corinthians 7

2011-05-27T06:33:00.000-07:00

By my count, we have written 170 blog entries since we began our Bible reading journey in early September (that’s more than 100,000 words). We have taken such a variety of approaches to this daily writing task that it would be hard to assign a single voice to the blog – except to say that the consistent tone of each entry was simply trying to say, “Keep on reading!”

We have explained a dozen or so Bible Study methods along the way and introduced about the same number of tools, commentaries, and study Bibles. What I discovered as I was walking through the entries is one glaring omission. Although we have encouraged you to use outlining as a study tool and commended study Bibles that contain outlines of each book, we have rarely, if ever, included a book outline as one of our blog entries. Today we correct that oversight.

What follows is an outline of 2 Corinthians – the book where today’s reading finds us. The letter was written by Paul as a follow-up to the first (and likely a second) letter he had sent to address serious ethical and theological breeches in the church community. This is one of Paul’s more personal and biographical letters and, as some have observed, one of his most personally transparent. This outline comes from the ESV Study Bible published in 2001 and the links in the outline take you to readings in that translation. Enjoy ~ and keep reading!

Outline: 2 Corinthians

I. Paul's Defense of His Legitimacy as an Apostle (1:1–7:16)
     A. Salutation (1:1–2)
     B. Introduction to the letter (1:3–11)
     C. Paul's boast (1:12–2:17)
          1. The content of Paul's boast (1:12–14)
          2. The reason for Paul's first change of plans (1:15–22)
          3. The reason for Paul's second change of plans (1:23–2:4)
          4. The application of Paul's example to the Corinthians (2:5–11)
          5. Paul's visit to Troas and Macedonia (2:12–17)
     D. Paul's ministry of the new covenant as a ministry of the Spirit (3:1–18)
          1. The reality of the Spirit in Paul's ministry (3:1–6)
          2. Paul's interpretation of Exodus 32–34 (3:7–11)
          3. Paul's application of Exodus 32–34 to his own situation (3:12–18)
     E. Paul's encouragement in his ministry (4:1–6:13)
          1. The new covenant dawning of the new creation (4:1–6)
          2. The new covenant power of the resurrection (4:7–18)
          3. The new covenant motivation for the life of faith (5:1–10)
          4. The new covenant ministry of reconciliation (5:11–6:2)
          5. The new covenant support for the legitimacy of Paul's ministry (6:3–13)
     F. Paul's call for church discipline as an expression of repentance (6:14–7:1)
     G. Paul's joy over the repentant Corinthians (7:2–16)

II. Paul's Appeal to the Repentant Church in Corinth Regarding the Collection (8:1–9:15)
     A. The collection as the grace of God (8:1–15)
     B. The commendation of Titus and the brothers (8:16–9:5)
     C. Generosity, joy, and the glory of God (9:6–15)

III. Paul's Appeal to the Rebellious Minority in Corinth (10:1–13:10)
     A. Paul's defense of his humility as an apostle (10:1–11)
     B. Paul's defense of his authority as an apostle (10:12–18)
     C. Paul's defense of his boasting like a fool (11:1–21a)
     D. Paul's boast in his service and suffering (11:21b–33)
     E. Paul's boast in his heavenly vision and subsequent weakness (12:1–13)
     F. Paul's final defense and appeal to the rebellious (12:14–13:10)

IV. Closing Greetings (13:11–14)

Day 249: 1 Corinthians 11-15

2011-05-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

The church is always, this side of the return of Jesus, a work in progress. Few books in the New Testament illustrate this better than 1 Corinthians. Here was a church with multiple problems – some of which were downright shameful, but Paul never tosses them aside. He tenaciously pursues them and calls them away from the detours they have taken, out of the ditches into which they have fallen, back to the way of holiness. There is great variety in the language he uses to make his appeals. At times, it is with an incredulous tone (Paul’s “what-is-wrong-with-you-knuckle-heads” voice). At others, it is with gentle and passionate pleas of a broken-hearted parent. Always it is a call out of foolishness and folly, to a saner, safer path.

The section we are reading today takes a didactic tone (Paul’s, “listen-up-while-I-teach-you-a-few-things” voice). Here he discusses spiritual gifts, etiquette at the Lord’s Table, congregational unity, orderly worship, and the theology of the resurrection. In the midst of those explanatory texts is a most eloquent piece of literature – poetry of a sort. Paul’s Love Chapter, 1 Corinthians 13.

In other places in this blog I have suggested that one way to get a good handle on a text is to attempt to paraphrase a section or “put the text in your own words.” This is a great chapter to do that with. Before you try it on your own, here is one expanded paraphrase written a number of years ago by Jonathan Jordan.

Although I may be a gifted speaker and can pray in seven languages anytime, anywhere, and yet I don’t love others, I am only making noise without substance. And though I seem to have an answer for everything and people come to me for my opinions, and I am a dynamo of spiritual power with many spiritual victories, and yet I have no love, I am a zero. And though my generosity is well known, and I have sacrificed all for God with wounds and scars to prove it, yet I have no love, God hasn’t profited from me at all.

So, how can you tell whether or not you have real love? See for yourself how love behaves by the following list:

Love smiles through the pain of being hurt, criticized, misunderstood and ignored without constantly complaining. Love never confronts anyone unless it is with a kind, well-considered word without blasting them out of the room. Love doesn’t judge or want what others have—-clothes, car, job, wife, husband, money, personality or even spiritual gifts. It doesn’t go around talking about God being unfair or people being uncaring when the real problem is envy and jealousy. It shuns the limelight and recognition. It doesn’t have “I” problems.

Love declines to make a scene about everything and won’t make mountains out of molehills. It will not choose inappropriate and disruptive ways to make a point. It doesn’t have to be right all the time and it is slow to get stirred up about every tale spread through the ever-active grapevine. Love doesn’t wear its feelings on its sleeves, and it doesn’t assume that others are thinking, doing and intending the worst. It gives people the benefit of the doubt.

Love suffers when someone fails or when tragedy strikes. It takes no pleasure in sin or wrongdoing of any kind. It is most interested in the truth winning out, even when the truth hurts. Love lends its shoulder to bear the burdens of others and never breaks their confidence. It believes the best in people and tries hard to trust them. Even when love feels someone is wrong, lying, or making a huge mistake, it still hopes for the best possible outcome. And when love is disappointed and crushed by bearing, believing and hoping, it endures the hurt and embarrassment with cheer and restraint, always continuing to be itself—love.

Three great forces motivate the church: faith, hope and love. These powerful attributes are the basis for everything the church is doing in the world today. But even when you narrow it all down to these three, at the top of the list you’ll find love.

Day 248: 1 Corinthians 4-10

2011-05-25T06:18:00.000-07:00

Through the past months of reading, I have recommended resources to help us understand the Bible. One of those I have encouraged readers to return to often is the ESV Literary Study Bible. If you are looking for a study resource to take away all of the honest work required in understanding a passage in scripture, this isn’t it. Rather than commenting verse-by-verse, the LSB helps the reader see how a section of the text fits into the context of the book and ultimately of the entire Bible. It is very much an overview study Bible, helping to explain the author’s intent in writing and seeing each book as a piece of literature and not a bunch of separate verses. Since we are spending the next few days in the Paul’s first letter to Corinth, take a look at how this helpful resource introduces the book.

The book at a glance.

16 chapters, 433 verses. First Corinthians is a pastoral letter to a spiritually troubled church. Paul had founded the Corinthian church on his second missionary journey (Acts 18). He wrote this letter in response to a report of problems that were threatening to divide the church. He also answers questions that had been posed by church members. The relevance of this letter to our own day is high. Some of the issues involve the relationship between Christians and their surrounding pagan culture. Others are issues within the church, such as divisiveness expressed in church practices such as the Lord’s Supper and spiritual gifts. Still other issues concern personal morality, such as sex, marriage, celibacy, and the virtues (especially love).

Special features.

1 Corinthians has a flavor all its own, and its distinguishing features include the following: (1) The author has received extensive information from a church with which he is on intimate terms, with the result that he writes with impassioned fervor on a wide range of topics. (2) Because Paul regards the Corinthian Christians as being out of line in a number of areas, the letter possesses a strong corrective tone. (3) First Corinthians is perhaps the most famous NT repository of information on a number of key subjects: sex, marriage, and celibacy (chapter 7); the institution of the Lord’s Supper (11:23–29); church unity amid diversity of gifts, illuminated by the analogy between the church and the human body (chapter 12); the supremacy of love (chapter 13); spiritual gifts (chapter 14); the bodily resurrection of both Christ and the Christian (chapter 15). (4) The pagan context that keeps surfacing in the book is very similar to the modern world, so that the contemporary relevance of the book is high.

Inferred literary intentions.

The book is designed to achieve the following literary purposes:
• express moral and spiritual truth on a range of subjects by means of the conventions of an occasional epistle
• make the truth forceful by rhetorical techniques such as contrast, repetition, and analogy
• draw sharp contrasts between truth and error and between moral good and evil
• show how broad ranging the issues in the Christian life are, from sexual behavior to protocol in public worship to the doctrine of the resurrection

Theological themes.

(1) Ethics: much of the content of the book relates to the conduct of the moral life, especially as regards the physical body. (2) The church: by means of Paul’s response to specific issues in a single ancient church, this letter becomes a main NT repository of teaching about how church life should be conducted. (3) The resurrection: the long fifteenth chapter is a classic NT passage on the doctrine of the resurrection. (4) Spirituality: not only the chapter on spiritual gifts but also many other chapters (such as those on control of the body and the need for love) paint a portrait of what it means to live the spiritual life.

1 Corinthians as a chapter in the master story of the Bible.

In the OT, the story of God’s demands for how his followers were to live focused on the covenant nation of Israel. In the NT, the corresponding focus is the body of believers known as the church. First Corinthians is an expanded manual for how Christians who make up the church must conduct their individual and corporate lives.

Enjoy today’s reading. There are only 17 more to go.

Day 247: Romans 13-1 Corinthians 3

2011-05-24T06:28:00.000-07:00

The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Romans 13:9, 10.

I woke up rather early this morning and decided to take a second look at the selection for today. The reading covers the final section of Paul’s letter to Romans and the introductory section in Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth. Finding unifying themes will become increasingly challenging as we move forward, simply because each of the letters that make up the remainder of the New Testament contain multiple themes themselves – and we will often be moving from one book to the next rather quickly until we are finished.

Today’s section is an example of a “multiple-themed” reading selection. Paul is completing his instruction to the church at Rome and greeting, then climbing into a stout rebuke of the church at Corinth. The theme changes are fast-paced and dramatic ~ and yet there are threads of a few larger themes being woven into the whole (as there always seem to be in the New Testament letters).

In those early hours of this morning, I also received an email containing one of those devotional readings I subscribe to from Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. The writer for today, Margaret Manning is a member of the RZIM speaking and writing team in Seattle, Washington. As soon as I had read both our reading for today and her offering for today, I decided to scrap my blog idea and share her thoughts (slightly edited for space). I hope you enjoy them when you read them as much as I did at 4 a.m.

Lovers of Legality

Some time ago, I attended a conference in which a well-known speaker related the cultural and value differences between his current home in the Pacific Northwest of the United States and his childhood home in a small town in the Southwest United States. These cultural and value differences found their expression in a set of rules. These were rules that could not be violated. To do so would not only invite censure from the community, but he was also warned that it would put his eternal standing with Almighty God in jeopardy.

As it sometimes happens with this kind of upbringing, the conference speaker moved as far away from his hometown rigidity as he could. He escaped to the Pacific Northwest—a part of the United States known for its laidback attitude and freethinking ways. The speaker believed that he had finally found a community that would be free from the constricting rules and legalisms of his childhood. He was in for quite a surprise. While he had indeed moved far away from the many rules of his childhood town, he discovered that the rules of his new neighborhood involved minute intricacies relating to garbage, the banning of plastic bags at the grocery store, and skateboarders or musicians in the common areas of his upscale townhome complex. The wrath of God may not have been invoked in the threats of punishment, but the speaker suffered the self-righteous censure of this community just as bound by legalism as the one in which he grew up. In both communities, oddly, he found that the rules seemed more beloved than the people they were meant to shape.

In listening to the speaker relating this story, I was embarrassed at the sting of self-recognition, finding myself within the details of his story. I might have easily looked down on one set of rules, while perhaps elevating the rules of the other. Yet, I grimaced at the irony of my own self-righteous response. Regardless of the community rules involved, human beings seem to be lovers of legalities. Why is it that human beings become legalists regardless of the rules involved? The desire to have clear boundaries, and a concern for decency and order to guide communities, is both necessary and prudent. Yet somehow rules meant to offer shape for community living often grow into gods we come to worship—gods who serve as judge and jury for all who fall short of their dictates. Legalism prompts one to declare her "virtue" as the clearly superior standard.

Perhaps humans find it easier to love legalities because it is easier than loving people. People are inconsistent and imperfect, and are easily controlled and confined by rules. Jesus, in his life and ministry, frequently shattered these easy definitions put in place by those lovers of legality in his day. He upended expectations and eluded the tightly drawn categories of those who sought to control him. He often kept company with those deemed unrighteous—prostitutes, tax collectors, and others called sinners—and he earned the label of "glutton and a drunkard" by those whose laws drew clear boundaries around appropriate company. And for those who wanted a "rebel" Jesus, wholly antinomian and defying every convention, he answered by challenging his followers towards a righteousness that exceeded that of the most religious-of-the-religious in his day
Yet, far from being a measure for establishing self-righteousness or from creating a new legalism for his followers, Jesus fulfilled the law by revealing its true intention. Fulfilling the law, he restored relationships and opened the door for transformation; he reconciled persons to one another and to God.

Indeed, when he was questioned about the greatest commandment Jesus replied, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. And a second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets." Jesus understood that the ground of the law was a love for God and a love for persons. To replace the love of persons with a love of the rules missed the point.
(1) Matthew 22:34-40; Mark 12:28-34; Luke 10:25-28.

Day 246: Romans 8-12

2011-05-23T07:51:00.000-07:00

Our section today contains a passage (Romans 8:28) that is as bewildering as it is comforting. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” It is bewildering because it declares (in the context) that God is sovereign in a world where not everything is good. Bad things happen (nakedness, peril, famine, sword). And, God is in control.

Those truths standing side-by-side are one of the great mysteries that we must come to terms with as we make our way through a life filled with the occasional (or, some might say, perpetual) unpleasant surprise. And yet, there they stand in Romans 8. God is in control. Bad things happen. God is good. How we make sense of it is a bit of a challenge – and readers of church history understand that it always has been. Our best hope of reconciling these truths may be a storybook rather than a text on systematic theology.

One of my early childhood memories revolves around my grandmother’s kitchen. A wonderful cook, among her specialties were breakfast biscuits and cinnamon raisin muffins - light, moist – with a” melt in your mouth” quality. As I remember it (a memory that is now over 50 years old), she would gather all of the ingredients and place them along the counter in small, porcelain bowls. Flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, butter, sugar, buttermilk, nutmeg, eggs, cinnamon – all in a row waiting for her. I loved the food. It was the waiting I didn’t care much for.

Inevitably, I would tiptoe into the kitchen and reach up to the counter just over my head to snatch a taste of something while running for cover. Sometimes, I would get a handful of raisins or a pinch of cinnamon. Other times left me with a taste of baking soda or a slimy aftertaste of raw egg. Not all of the ingredients were good in and of themselves. Some were bitter. But, when my grandmother mixed them together in just the right amounts, added heat and waited just long enough – the results were something special.

My life thus far has been a recipe of odd, beautiful, shameful, splendid, painful and delightful moments. Some of them have been extremely dark and excruciating while others have been glorious, “let’s do that again” moments. In all, God has been in control – AND He has been working in and through them – using them to make something of me and of the world where I live that will work out for good and for His glory.

On those long days when I feel as if I have a mouth full of baking soda, I try to remember my grandmother’s muffins. With enough time, in the skillful hands and under the watchful care of someone who loves me – someday I will sit down at a meal where it will all make sense.

I still don’t care much for the waiting.

Day 243: Romans 2-7

2011-05-19T16:31:00.000-07:00

Today we come to the book of Romans, the first (as the canon orders them) of Paul’s letters. To say that this is Paul’s most influential letter is up for debate. To say that Romans has influenced modern church history (since the Reformation) more than any other of his letters is rarely debated.

Since our goal is to read Romans on our way to completing the entire Bible, I won’t spend too much time going into the details. I believe that, even though Romans is dense with content, it is quite understandable with careful reading. But, I can’t pass up an opportunity to let you read some of the most historically significant comments on the book ~ Martin Luther’s Preface to the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans (1545). His original comments are more extensive than what you find here (the original essay was 6400 words in English translation). This selection will give you a sense of the central place the Epistle of Romans had in Luther’s thinking. Because it shaped Luther’s thinking, it became the formative text for the Reformation.

This letter is truly the most important piece in the New Testament. It is purest Gospel. It is well worth a Christian's while not only to memorize it word for word but also to occupy himself with it daily, as though it were the daily bread of the soul. It is impossible to read or to meditate on this letter too much or too well. The more one deals with it, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes. Therefore I want to carry out my service and, with this preface, provide an introduction to the letter, insofar as God gives me the ability, so that everyone can gain the fullest possible understanding of it.

(Luther’s 6,000 word introduction follows; then this conclusion).

We find in this letter, then, the richest possible teaching about what a Christian should know: the meaning of law, Gospel, sin, punishment, grace, faith, justice, Christ, God, good works, love, hope and the cross. We learn how we are to act toward everyone, toward the virtuous and sinful, toward the strong and the weak, friend and foe, and toward ourselves. Paul bases everything firmly on Scripture and proves his points with examples from his own experience and from the Prophets, so that nothing more could be desired. Therefore it seems that St. Paul, in writing this letter, wanted to compose a summary of the whole of Christian and evangelical teaching which would also be an introduction to the whole Old Testament. Without doubt, whoever takes this letter to heart possesses the light and power of the Old Testament. Therefore each and every Christian should make this letter the habitual and constant object of his study. God grant us his grace to do so. Amen.

If you would like to read the entire preface, visit http://bit.ly/mCImLD online.

Day 242: Acts 25-Romans 1

2011-05-19T06:09:00.000-07:00

The section today brings us to the conclusion of the book of Acts. What we read in these stories of bold messages and narrow escapes is the ongoing growth and development of the ministry of the Apostles, Paul in particular. I hope you have noticed that, for the Apostles, the success of the gospel was not simply measured in new converts ~ but new churches planted.

As church planting is one of our strategic objectives, I thought this might be an opportune time (as we read the passages that describe the growth of the church) to give a partial answer to the question, Why plant churches? Although it was the pattern modeled in Acts, we may never have stopped to think about the answer.

Here is a brief excerpt from a much longer paper written by Tim Keller on the topic.

Why Plant Churches?

Jesus' essential call was to plant churches. Virtually all the great evangelistic challenges of the New Testament are basically calls to plant churches, not simply to share the faith. The 'Great Commission' (Matt.28: 18-20) is not just a call to 'make disciples' but to 'baptize'. In Acts and elsewhere, it is clear that baptism means incorporation into a worshipping community with accountability and boundaries (cf. Acts 2:41-47). The only way to be truly sure you are increasing the number of Christians in a town is to increase the number of churches. Why? Only a person who is being 'evangelized' in the context of an on-going worshipping and shepherding community can be sure of finally coming home into vital, saving faith. This is why C.Peter Wagner can say, "Planting new churches is the most effective evangelistic methodology known under heaven."

Paul's whole strategy was to plant urban churches. The greatest missionary in history, St.Paul, had a rather simple, two-fold strategy. First, he went into the largest city of the region (cf. Acts 16:9,12), and second, he planted churches in each city (cf. Titus 1:5- "appoint elders in every town"). Once Paul had done that, he could say that he had 'fully preached' the gospel in a region and that he had 'no more work' to do there (cf. Romans 15:19,23). This means Paul had two controlling assumptions: a) that the way to most permanently influence a country was through its chief cities, and b) the way to most permanently influence a city was to plant churches in it. Once he had accomplished this in a city, he moved on. He knew that the rest that needed to happen would follow.

New churches best reach the unchurched--period. Dozens of denominational studies have confirmed that the average new church gains most of its new members (60-80%) from the ranks of people who are not attending any worshipping body, while churches over 10- 15 years of age gain 80-90% of new members by transfer from other congregations. This means that the average new congregation will bring 6-8 times more new people into the life of the Body of Christ than an older congregation of the same size.

So though established congregations provide many things that newer churches often cannot, older churches in general will never be able to match the effectiveness of new bodies in reaching people for the kingdom.

To read the entire article, look at the website at http://bit.ly/mehgPS. Tomorrow, we take our first look at the book of Romans ~ so keep on reading!

Day 241: Acts 20-24

2011-05-18T12:36:00.000-07:00

I have, from time to time, used this space to recommend good resources for your ongoing reading of the scripture. One publication that I have used to great benefit is D. A. Carson’s devotional book entitled, For the Love of God. Here are his comments on one of the chapters in today’s selection ~ Acts 22.

Genesis 23; Matthew 22; Nehemiah 12; Acts 22
Reading Paul’s impromptu defense to the crowd (Acts 22), one is struck by the sparse simplicity of the narrative. But two details urge reflection here:

First, we must ask why the crowd turns nasty when it does. When Paul starts to address the people in their mother tongue, Aramaic, initially “they became very quiet” (22:2). They listen to the entire account of his conversion and call to ministry without breaking out in anger. But when Paul says that the Lord himself told Paul, “Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles” (22:21), the unleashed malice of the mob will be satisfied with nothing less than his death. Why?

Inevitably, the answers are complex. Some of the pressures Jews felt to remain distinctive from the Gentiles were doubtless sociological: their self-identity was bound up with kosher food laws, Sabbath observance, circumcision, and the like, and a man like Paul, who was perceived to be reducing those barriers, was threatening their self-identity. But the heat of their passion cannot be explained by merely horizontal analysis. At least two other factors must be acknowledged. (1) For devout, conservative, Jerusalemite Jews, what was at issue was the Law of God, the exclusive primacy of the temple, their understanding of Scripture. From their perspective, Paul was destroying what God himself had set up. He was entangling the people of God in compromises with pagans. Not only was he jeopardizing their identity, he was blaspheming the Almighty, whose people they were and whose revelation they were appointed to obey and preserve. (2) At the same time, it is hard to miss the element of ownership: these people were acting as though God was so exclusively the property of ancestral Jews that Gentiles could not get a look in. From Paul’s perspective, this entailed a profoundly mistaken and even perverse reading of the Old Testament, and a sadly tribal vision of a domesticated God. Of course, their error is often repeated today, with less justification, by those who so tie their culture to their understanding of Christian religion that the Bible itself becomes domesticated and the missionary impulse frozen.

Second, we must ask why Paul stand on his Roman citizenship here, avoiding a flogging, while on occasion he simply takes the beating. At least one of the reasons is that he tends to appeal to his legal status when doing so is likely to establish a precedent that will help to protect Christians. One of Luke’s arguments in these chapters is that Christianity is not politically dangerous; rather, it is repeatedly legally vindicated. Paul, thinking of his brothers and sisters, acts, as usual, for their benefit.

Day 240: Acts 16-19

2011-05-17T06:34:00.000-07:00

Acts 12:24 “…the word of God continued to increase and spread.”

If you were to ask Luke why he selected these particular events and episodes to include in his book, he would likely have a variety of answers. The readings of the past few days could illustrate the point. In these sections we hear stories about how the church resolved conflict, how the church responded to persecution, and how particular individuals responded to the message of the resurrected Christ – some accepting and some rejecting. Ignoring any of these themes would be a mistake, as the Spirit, through Luke, included each detail to be noticed and attended to. But some people who read the book closely also see the details as parts of larger and repeated themes. One of those themes, especially in the second half of the book, is the “increase and spread” of the Word of God. Here, Luke is compiling story after story of the spread of God's Word and the impact of that Word, through the Apostles and their direct descendants. The story of Lydia is one of those.

You can read the particulars of that story in today’s section, but let me point out one detail you shouldn’t miss. It is found in verse fourteen of chapter sixteen where Luke says, “The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.” Luke is committed to helping us see that it is God at work in this world and that the Apostles are (to borrow a line from The Blues Brothers) on a mission from God.

There are a number of lessons for us in that short phrase, but one of them is something that Paul will tease out in greater detail as we get into his letters. It is that no one understands the Word of God without prior help from God to do so. How this applies to the work of evangelism is likely the primary notion that Luke had in mind, but that principle is also helpful for people trying to read through the Bible (people like us). Our best hope (in fact, our only hope) of receiving the life-changing Word from this exercise of consecutive Bible reading is that the Lord would “open our hearts” to experience it as “the Word of God”.

There is more theology here than we have room to unpack in this short blog. What we do have space to point out is that, if you hear God’s voice in these pages, it doesn’t just require acute reading skill – it requires a miracle. And it is that miracle for which we should pray every time we open this book, which is why the Psalmist taught us to pray: Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law (Psalm 119:18).

Day 239: Acts 12-15

2011-05-16T06:07:00.000-07:00

You have likely noticed that after the first chapters built around the church in Jerusalem, Luke concentrates on particular events in the life of Simon Peter. Except for the conversion of Saul in chapter 9, Acts has (what scholars describe as) a “Petrine” focus. In the section we are reading today, you will start to sense a shift to an attentiveness that is more “Pauline”. Since much of our reading for the next month will be in the writing of Paul, perhaps this is a good time to make certain we are familiar with who he is and how God would use him to influence the church and form the New Testament. There are many places to find reliable sketches of Paul's life. Here is a short one (made much shorter by my edits) by an Australian named Daniel Glynn.

     The Apostle Paul was born in Tarsus to Jewish parents who held Roman Citizenship, and was named "Saul". He must have been a gifted student, as he was accepted and trained by the well-respected Rabbi Gameliel. We meet Paul in Acts as a strict Pharisee - a "Hebrew of Hebrews" (Phil. 3:5) - who was outstanding in his orthodox beliefs and hatred of Christians, as evidenced by his presence at the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7-8). Such an opponent of Christ did Christ choose to serve and glorify Him!
     Paul's conversion is one of the best-known and most miraculous: on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians, the Lord Jesus appeared to him on the road. (Read more of his conversion in Acts 9:1-22, 22:4-16, 26:9-18; 1 Cor. 9:1, 15:7-8, Gal. 1:12-17.) After a few days in Damascus and a few more extraordinary events, he began to preach publicly that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. But, his teaching was not well received by all and due to some Jews in the city he had to flee by being let down the city wall in a basket. After staying for a time in Arabia (3 years according to Gal.1:17-18), he travelled to Jerusalem where he was befriended by Barnabas and introduced to Peter. However, he soon received more threats from the Jews and travelled to Tarsus, where he stayed for about ten years.
     After this ten year period, Barnabas summoned him to 'the work' and he visited Jerusalem again, taking a collection for the poor, and discussing the mission to the Gentiles with Peter. From here his missionary journeys begin.
     The First Missionary Journey of Paul (either 46-49 or 47-50 AD, Acts 13-14) saw him travel to Cyprus, Perga, Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe with Barnabas and John-Mark, founding a number of churches. On his return, he had a disagreement with Peter concerning the extent to which the Gentiles had to accept Jewish customs when they became Christians. This was settled soon after at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15).
     The Second Missionary Journey of Paul (51-54 AD, Acts 15-18) was with Silas, through Phyrgia, Galatia, Mysia and Troas, where he received instruction from the Holy Spirit to go to Macedonia, so they immediately travelled to Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens and Corinth, then back through Ephesus to Jerusalem and eventually again to Antioch, with the more successful missionary work in Macedonia, Corinth and Ephesus.
     The Third Missionary Journey of Paul (54-58 AD, Acts 18-21) was with Timothy. Leaving Antioch, they travelled all over Galatia and Phyrgia, and arrived in Ephesus where he stayed for about three years. From Ephesus, Paul may have made another trip to Corinth (as he mentions three trips to Corinth in 2 Cor. 12:14 & 13:1), but certainly travelled through Macedonia (probably Thessalonica, Philippi and Berea) and maybe Illyricum. From there he travelled to Greece (Athens and Corinth), then headed back to Jerusalem for the last time, through Troas, Miletus, Tyre and Caeserea.
     In Jerusalem, Paul was seized by Jews but kept in protective custody by order of the Roman Governor Felix. However, when Felix's successor Festus suggested that Paul be sent back for a hearing in Jerusalem, Paul used his right as a Roman citizen to appeal to the Roman Emperor. Consequently he was taken under Roman escort to Rome, surviving a shipwreck along the way at Malta. After two years in Rome, Paul was probably released and spent further time in missionary work before being martyred on a second visit to Rome during Nero's persecution of Christians anywhere between 64 and 68 AD.

Thirteen epistles of the New Testament bear Paul's name: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon (the former nine being written to churches and the latter four being written to individuals). Many in the early Church also attributed Hebrews to Paul as well. In each of his books, if we listen to them carefully, we will learn more about this remarkable man ~ so keep on reading. Only 31 days to go (23 reading days)!

Day 236: Acts 8-11

2011-05-13T11:08:00.001-07:00

“…so that he could hear what you have to say.” Acts 10:22b

Depending on the Christian circles you travel in, you hear a great deal about the book of Acts that concentrates on the miraculous events. You certainly cannot read the book well or rightly and miss the healings, the message dreams, the raising of the dead, the angelic jailbreaks ~ the extraordinary interventions of God in the early church. Yet, at the same time, concentrating only on those things may be an even greater exercise in missing the point. Acts is about the spreading of the church through the ministry of Spirit-empowered Apostles. That apostolic ministry was focused on and was propagated through ~ words.

Apostolic ministry is the ministry of a message, received through language, framed in words, spoken from one person to the next. It can be argued that those miraculous events were simply the side-kicks of the message and the messengers. The miracles affirmed that the messengers were from God, that the message was from God, and that each new group of people that embraced the message had accurately understood the words and truly believed them.

A portion of our reading today’s is a case-in-point. In chapter 10 we read the fascinating story of Cornelius. This man was a military man and a Gentile and apparently a devout follower of Judaism. God speaks to him in a dream and tells him to have his men bring Peter to his house. We aren’t told why until a few verses later.

While Cornelius’ gang is traveling across the desert, God gives Peter a vision as well. As Peter is trying to figure out what the vision means, there is a knock at his door. He is told that there are some soldiers looking for him. Given Peter’s recent experiences, this could have been bad news, but God assures him that He has sent them. When Peter hears their story, they fill in the blanks. They came to get Peter because God told their boss that he needed to bring Peter to Caesarea “…so that he could hear what you have to say.” A dream, a journey across the desert, a second vision, another journey (50 km one way) just so someone can hear some words.

When Peter arrives, he sees a rather impressive gathering. So, he asks the inevitable clarifying question (verse 29). “May I ask why you sent for me?” To that, Cornelius answers, “…it was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.” The miracles and the miles were all about bringing words – God’s life-changing, soul-shaping words.

So, as you read the book of Acts, it is appropriate to keep a heads-up for the miracles. But, as you mark the miracles – don’t forget the words. The most transformative thing in the book of Acts is still the most transformative thing today ~ the message of the good news about Jesus.

Day 235: Acts 3-7

2011-05-13T11:06:00.000-07:00

Sorry folks! BLOGGER has been experiencing technical difficulties over the past couple of days. So, this entry for Day 235 is listed as Friday's post (May 13). However, it truly is the post for Thursday, May 12.

Acts 2: 42-47 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Acts chapter 2, verses 42 to 47 has been called, by some who study the book of Acts carefully, the summary and introduction to the theology of the church. While I think that claim is a bit more ambitious than Luke intended, these verses certainly do show us what that first church in Jerusalem was about and, perhaps, gives us a model of what the developing church was meant to be.

Remember that the church began at a place in history and in a specific geographic location. The “founders” of the church (humanly speaking) were those Spirit-enabled disciples who had been hand-selected and personally mentored by Jesus. Becoming a functioning community of believers would take time. Even in today’s selection you see them facing challenges and coming to terms with how to deal with them. They had to learn how to relate to one another, how to relate to the culture, and how to organize themselves to take care of the administrative needs that presented themselves. Luke provides us with the opportunity to look and listen in on their decision-making process and see this church grow – in that culture, in that context, at that moment in history.

It is good to remember that, especially when we look at the developing church around the world and as we consider planting new churches of our own. People who do some traveling have likely already observed that the church in Asia looks quite different from the church in Africa or the church in Latin America. That is also true of the church in tribal areas from the church in larger urban areas. I know a few people who study missions and missionary activities (missiologists) who can attend a service and predict with a high degree of certainty where the missionaries came from who influenced the founding of the church by the way the worship service is conducted or the way the church organizes itself. (The opening scene of the Katherine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart movie, African Queen is a case in point.)

The point (at least for this blog entry) is that, what we are reading is Luke’s record of the historical development of the early church. As we read, remember that, although Luke selected the material to tell us something specific, the elements in the book are primarily descriptive rather than prescriptive. Acts is as much a “this is what happened” as it is a “this is the way you ought to do it” book. As you read the book, keep that in mind and it is likely that you will be able to tell the difference.

Having said all that, before you finish today’s reading, return to Acts 2:42-47 and see if you can list a few of the elements that made the first expression of the church what it was. Then see if you can come up with a few of the principle elements that are supra-cultural – things that show us what every church ought to be and be becoming.

Day 234: John 19-Acts 2

2011-05-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

When we set off on this journey to read the Bible together in 270 days, we built our schedule around simple pragmatics. How many reading days are there if we read 5 days a week for 9 months? Divide the number of chapters into the number of days and there you have it ~ a schedule. As it turns out, this schedule has had some surprisingly helpful features. One, as many of you noted, was the arrival of the gospel reading on the passion and resurrection right at Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Today’s reading is another of those pleasant and helpful surprises. By the end of the day, we will have finished John’s account of the passion and resurrection AND gotten a good start into the book of Acts. I especially like that because, in fact, that is the way it was. Let me explain.

Luke opens the book of Acts with these words... “In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.” When you read the rest of this book and come back to this opening statement, you can see what Luke is inferring by those opening lines. In that the first letter (the Gospel of Luke) I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach. In this letter, I write about all that Jesus continued to do and to teach ~ by the Holy Spirit, through His apostles. For Luke, this is just more of that.

From Luke’s perspective, Jesus did not ascend to an undisclosed location for a little R&R until He comes back to set up the Kingdom. Jesus is actively at work to (if I can borrow a phrase from Matthew’s gospel) “build his church”, by the Spirit, with the gospel, through His disciples. The activity of the book of Acts is simply the continuing activity of Jesus through the Spirit in and through His people made possible by the cross and resurrection ~ which today’s reading selection helpfully illustrates.

John finishes his book with the account of a breakfast with Jesus. But, in one sense, he doesn’t end it there. Because, as we all know (and Luke will point out) breakfast was only the beginning.

Day 233: John 14-18

2011-05-10T08:02:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, my wife and I were driving near the Grand Canyon. As we traveled along the roads that bordered the canyon, there were frequent signs along the way with the words, “Reduce speed. Scenic view ahead.” We soon learned to slow down a bit, because those signs were not exaggerating. Almost every spot we slowed to see was a “Wow!” There are several places in John’s gospel where such a sign would be fitting, and our reading for today is certainly one of them.

Since we haven’t talked much about the theology of John’s gospel, this might be a good time to point out that today’s reading has been called the most “Trinitarian” section of John’s gospel. There are more references to the relationship of the Father, Son and Spirit in this section than almost anywhere else in the New Testament. This section also serves as an illustration of the fact that the Gospel of John has more to say about the Holy Spirit than any of the other gospels.

You may recall from our readings through the prophets that the Old Testament predicts (Jeremiah 31:31–33 and Ezekiel 36:25–28) the coming of the new covenant age that would be marked by a more prominent work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit would be poured out in a greater way, the hearts of the people would be changed, and they would return to God in true worship and obedience. This would result in Israel returning to God in covenant obedience (see Deuteronomy 30:6; Jeremiah 31:31–33; Ezekiel 36:24–27). This “outpouring of the Spirit” would come about through the ministry of the Messiah (e.g., Isaiah 11:1–5; 44:1–5; and 55:1–4), through the work of the Spirit-filled suffering Servant (e.g., Isaiah 42:1–7; 49:1–6; 61:1–4). John’s Gospel points to Jesus as being that Servant-Messiah.

There is so much in this section about the Holy Spirit that, even though our objective is to read and keep reading, today ~ read slowly. As you do, you’ll learn that: the Spirit proceeds from God the Father; is sent by Jesus; would dwell within the disciples (John 14:17; 15:26); would abide with the disciples forever (John 14:16); would be their Helper; would mediate the presence of the Father and the Son to them (John 14:21, 23); would guide them into all truth (John 16:13); would remind them of Jesus’ teaching (John 14:26); would glorify Jesus (John 15:26; 16:13–15).

Yes, that is a lot to remember. I don’t expect that you will retain every detail, but it wouldn’t be good to head into today’s reading without a sign to inform you of the opportunity that presents itself in these theologically-rich chapters.

Day 232: John 11-13

2011-05-09T06:40:00.000-07:00

John 11: 45-48 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.
“What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

Our selection today covers what many students of John’s gospel call a transition. John’s look at the ministry of Jesus has been rather brief – covering three years in 11 chapters. Now he will spend the rest of the book on the last days (chapter 12) or better, last hours (chapters 13 to 19) of Jesus’ life.

I have always found these sections both fascinating and a bit puzzling. What would a person have to do to prove he is God in human form? I can’t imagine you would need to do much more than Jesus did. Today’s reading includes the extended story of Jesus’ final miracle (as John records them), raising his friend Lazarus from the dead. Consider all seven of Jesus’ miracles that John records and it is quite an impressive package. He takes water and decides it will be wine – and it was. He decides a paralyzed man should walk and a sick boy should get well – and they do. He decides a snack should be just about enough food to feed several thousand people – and it did. He decides to take a short-cut around a big lake by walking on the water, heals a blind man, and raises a dead man back to life. Forget about the incredible stories, divine insight, and prophetic words and ways – these miracles should be enough to convince us that – when Jesus decides something, it happens. Only God can do that.

But around the time they are unwrapping Lazarus and ought to be standing in awe, the religious leaders decide, “That’s enough of this. It’s time for this man to die – and we know just the people to make that happen.” It is incredible when you think about it. Or, is it predictable?

If Jesus is God, that means that we ~ aren’t. And, just like those Pharisees and sinners in Jesus’ day, we rather like being in the God business. If, as I suggested, being God means you decide and it happens, what you say, goes ~ I want some of that! I want to be my own boss. I am tired of people telling me what to do. I empathize with the boy in Sunday School who wheels on his teacher and says, “You’re not the boss of me!” I would rather be in control. I want to decide what is best for me. I want to make my own rules. I want to sit on the throne of my own life and I don’t want anyone to come and “take my place”.

If Jesus’ is God, that means He calls the shots. And that is why, in my experience, most people don’t come to Jesus. It is not so much an issue of doubt. It is an issue of control.

Day 229: John 8-10

2011-05-06T06:26:00.000-07:00

In his classic tale The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis writes a scene in which Lucy is speaking with Mr. Beaver and she is getting her first description of the Christ-figure in the tale, Aslan the Lion.

“Is he a man?” asked Lucy.
“Aslan a man!” said Mr Beaver sternly. Certainly not. I tell you he is King of the wood and the son of the great emperor-beyond-the-sea. Don’t you know who is the King of the Beasts? Aslan is a lion – the Lion, the great lion.”
“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver. “If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver, “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

We looked at this quote from C. S. Lewis a few months back to illustrate a different aspect of the character of God in one of the prophetic passages we were studying. I thought I might remind you of it today as we look at a section that John uses to highlight Jesus’ clear and spirited approach to the Pharisees and others who opposed Him. Remember that John uses only a small portion of his book to cover the first three years of Jesus’ life and ministry. That portion of Jesus’ life, John arranges around what many Bible students describe as the signs of Jesus’ deity, the seven miracles he records:

Water to wine (2:1-12)
Healing of the official’s son (4:43-54)
Healing a paralyzed man (5:1-15)
Feeding 5000 (6:1-15)
Walking on water (6:16-24)
Healing a man born blind (9:1-12)
Raising Lazarus from the dead (11:1-44)

By the time we reach chapter 12, we find the remaining chapters dedicated to details of the final eight days of Jesus’ life. So, since John is so sparse and evidently selective about the material he chose, why would he include so much material on Jesus’ difficult and somewhat argumentative encounters with the religious officials who opposed Him? I don’t know the answer to that question, but the inclusion of that material does provide an effective antidote to a common misconception of Jesus. It is well illustrated in portions of a hymn by Charles Wesley from 1742.

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
Look upon a little child;
Loving Jesus, gentle Lamb,
In Thy gracious hands I am

Now before I swing the pendulum too far, let me say that Wesley was absolutely right – in one sense. Jesus character is consistently portrayed in two different ways. Both in the gospel accounts and in prophetic allusions to His character, Jesus was kind, tender, and relationally composed. Isaiah describes the Messiah in those terms. “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out” (Isaiah 42:3). But the last portion of that same text declares, “In faithfulness he will bring forth justice. He will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth.”

When we read the life of Jesus, we will (every one of us) have a tendency to embrace portions of Jesus “personality” that are more to our liking than others. Our own personalities tend to lead us in those directions. Because of that tendency, we need to read with that awareness. As I have said in other blogs, Jesus is a rather complicated person. Let’s make certain, as we read, we allow ourselves to see all of who He is. Let’s not read an either/or where John intends us to see both/and.

Wesley understood the both/ands, which is why he would describe our gentle Jesus in warrior language so often as well. The man who spoke words that would bring comfort to a tender child – with words, would also strike fear into the hearts of men.

Day 228: John 5-7

2011-05-05T06:16:00.000-07:00

Why do you follow Jesus?

The answer may seem obvious to most, but you might be surprised at the responses people give. “Church is a great place to contact potential clients.” “I am settling in a new community and I want my kids to have wholesome friends – so I became a Christian.” “I heard Jesus can fix a marriage and mine’s a mess.” “I don’t know anything else, and if I left the faith it would deeply disappoint my mother.”

I wish I were just imagining these answers, but through the years I have heard all of these and many more. My question for today is, “What do you do when you get an answer like that?” How do we manage people who have managed to find themselves “following Jesus” for reasons that are less than ideal?

People answer that question in a number of ways. “The fact that people have sympathies for Jesus is a good thing. If we just give a gentle nudge along the way (not enough to offend them – mind you), they may just take the hint that truly following Jesus goes a bit deeper than measuring the social and relational benefits of embracing the lifestyle.”

The passage in the middle of today’s reading is one approach Jesus took. John chapter 6 is one of those “extended stories” that are unique to John’s gospel. Yes, we have heard part of this story from the other gospels, but John extends the narrative and adds Jesus' “follow up” sermon to the crowds who witnessed His miracles. You would think that seeing a crowd gathered would have been a great opportunity to “draw the net” and gain popularity for Himself and His message. Instead, by the time He is finished, the crowd goes home offended and even the disciples are wondering what they have gotten themselves into.

It is possible to conclude that following Jesus for all the wrong reasons is better than not following Him at all. Read John 6 carefully, however, and you just might conclude that ~ following Jesus for all the wrong reasons is not following him at all.

This passage always requires a “heart search” every time I read it.

Day 227: John 1-4

2011-05-04T05:54:00.000-07:00

Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. John 20: 30-31

Over the past three weeks, we have completed three separate accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus. Matthew, Mark and Luke's use of the teachings and events in Jesus' life and the way they weave the stories makes each gospel sound and feel (style, voice, texture) quite different – just as you would expect when three people, who agree on the details, describe an event from their own perspective and engage in the story with their whole hearts. But these three gospels share enough similarities in their approach to the story that they are referred to as the Synoptic Gospels. When Bible students refer the gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark and Luke as the “synoptics”, they mean that these gospels generally “see things together” – “they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes exactly the same wording.” Today we come to John’s gospel and it will not take you long to discover that John has a very different way of telling the story.

What are some of the differences? Here are four.

1. John leaves out many of the stories that the other gospels include.
2. John adds stories that the other gospels do not cover. (Today’s reading is an example. All the material in John 2-4 about Jesus’ early Galilean ministry is not found in the synoptics.)
3. The synoptics are primarily descriptive while John’s gospel is more reflective. (John tells the stories not “as he saw them when they happened but as he now sees them. We understand more of the significance of the events described from the position the writer now holds than an eyewitness could have understood at the time the events took place”.)
4. John uses more extended dialogue while the others tend to use shorter stories and “proverbial sayings.” (There are few stories in the other gospels that compare to the extended conversations Jesus has with the woman at the well and with Nicodemus in today’s reading).

There are many reasons for those differences, but at least one of them is that John’s is the last of the gospels to be written. That means all of the other gospels and many of the letters of Paul would have been in circulation among the churches already. Although we don’t know whether John had copies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke “on his shelf” as he wrote his gospel (that is unlikely), he would have been aware of the other accounts and the material they included. John may have chosen the stories he did to supplement the others. That said, even if he had no access to those other writings, he makes it clear that he is an eyewitness to what he wrote and that he had more than enough material available to account for his unique telling of the story (John 21:25).

We will chat more about John and his particular point of view in later blogs, but for now, pick up the gospel and read. And as you read, ask the Holy Spirit to help you to experience John's gospel exactly as John hoped his readers would when they first read it.

Day 226: Luke 22-24

2011-05-03T05:29:00.000-07:00

One of the passion hymns that I find incredibly stirring is a hymn we have titled: O Sacred Head. The words to the hymn are attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux in 1153. This French monk was a man of such remarkable piety that the great reformer Martin Luther would 400 years later, call him, “the best monk that ever lived, whom I admire beyond all the rest put together.” The words made their way from Latin to German and later to English in 1830. The music was written by Hans Hassler in 1601 and a later harmony added by Johann. S. Bach in 1729. As you read Luke’s account of the passion of Christ, my hope is that this hymn can guide you to embrace it, as the hymn writer did ~ as the story of “the body of Christ broken for you.”

O Sacred Head

O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown;
O sacred Head, what glory, what bliss till now was Thine!
Yet, though despised and gory, I joy to call Thee mine.

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

Men mock and taunt and jeer Thee, Thou noble countenance,
Though mighty worlds shall fear Thee and flee before Thy glance.
How art thou pale with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn!
How doth Thy visage languish that once was bright as morn!

Now from Thy cheeks has vanished their color once so fair;
From Thy red lips is banished the splendor that was there.
Grim death, with cruel rigor, hath robbed Thee of Thy life;
Thus Thou hast lost Thy vigor, Thy strength in this sad strife.

My burden in Thy Passion, Lord, Thou hast borne for me,
For it was my transgression which brought this woe on Thee.
I cast me down before Thee, wrath were my rightful lot;
Have mercy, I implore Thee; Redeemer, spurn me not!

What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest friend,
For this Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever, and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee.

Day 225: Luke 18-21

2011-05-02T07:32:00.000-07:00

Today’s reading moves us toward the last chapters of Luke’s gospel – a series of stories and encounters in Jesus’ ministry on the way to Jerusalem and the “Triumphal Entry.” Looking back on these blog entries, it occurs to me that, although we have chatted about various Bible Study Methods along the way, we have not said much about that topic for a while. Since we have picked up a few new readers since we started the New Testament portion of our journey, today might be a good day to mention the method that I always find most helpful ~ “asking questions”.

If you type “asking good questions” into your computer’s search engine, you’ll find that good questions are vital to science, language acquisition, business, human relationships, and even pet training. Questions seem to be a part of what it means to be human. Leo Tolstoy, the Russian novelist once said, “Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them.” “A prudent question is one-half of wisdom”, said British statesman Sir Francis Bacon.

Here are three categories of questions that might help you understand the Bible better: Observation Questions (what does it say), Interpretation Questions (what does it mean), and Application Questions (how do I respond). Because our goal is to READ, you might not take the time to explore all of these questions for the entire passage in today’s selection. But you could choose one story from Luke 18-21 (the widow’s offering maybe) and a few questions and give it a try.

Observation: questions to help you see what is there (the basic facts).

•Who is writing or speaking and to whom?

•What is the passage about?

•When does this take place?

•Where does this take place?

•What problems were the recipients facing?

•How does this passage fit in with the context (what goes before and after)?

Observation: questions to help you clarify what is there (additional facts).

•What are the commands?

•What are the promises?

•What are the cause/effect relationships?

•What are the repeated words and ideas?

•What are the contrasts, lists, comparisons?

Interpretation: questions to help you interpret what is there.

•What are the meanings of the words?

•What does the immediate context suggest?

•What does the broader context suggest?

•What do cross-references suggest?

•What is the cultural meaning? (What did it mean to those to whom it was originally addressed?)

Application: questions to help you apply what is there.The goal of all application is to glorify God by becoming more like Jesus. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness...” (2 Timothy 3:16).

•Teaching. What did I learn? About God? About Jesus? About the Holy Spirit? About myself (or mankind)?

•Reproof. Where do I fall short? Why do I fall short? Are there sins to confess? Actions to correct? New habits to cultivate?

•Correction. What will I do about it?

•Training in righteousness. How can I make this principle a consistent part of my life?

Day 222: Luke 13-17

2011-04-29T06:13:00.000-07:00

This week the posts that you read are from guest blogger Angi McCarty. Angi is the Communications Coordinator for Grant Memorial.

We began our week of readings in the book of Luke with the birth of Jesus – “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord” (2:11). We conclude our week in chapter 17 in a passage about the Kingdom in which Jesus foretells His coming death…”But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.” Next week we will take a journey to the cross where Jesus, despised and rejected by men, is wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.

What follows is a summary of where we’ve been this week from an online resource we have recommended in previous posts. It is an edited excerpt and chart on the gospel of Luke from The ESV Literary Study Bible (http://www.esvliterarystudybible.org/).

The Gospel of Luke finds its fundamental unity in the person of Jesus Christ and his mission to seek and to save the lost. From the first announcement of his coming to his ascension into heaven, Jesus is at the center of everything: the songs are for his praise, the miracles are by his power, the teaching is from his wisdom, the conflict is over his claims, and the cross is the burden that only he could bear. Luke gives his account further literary unity by intertwining the stories of Jesus and John the Baptist; by beginning and ending his story at the temple; by presenting the life of Jesus as a journey toward Jerusalem; and by following the progress of the disciples as they learn to count the cost of discipleship. The unity of the gospel is also expressed in the climactic pronouncement that Jesus makes to Zacchaeus: “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (19:10). After coming to earth at the first Christmas (chapters 1–3), throughout most of the Gospel Jesus spends his time seeking people who are lost in all kinds of ways (chapters 4–21), before finally giving his life as the atonement for their sins (chapters 22–24). Other recurring motifs include the cost of discipleship; the importance of prayer; the call to faithful stewardship; the finding of what is lost; the growing opposition to Jesus and his kingdom work; and the special love that godly women had for Jesus.

Day 221: Luke 10-12

2011-04-28T04:04:00.000-07:00

This week the posts that you read are from guest blogger Angi McCarty. Angi is the Communications Coordinator for Grant Memorial.

To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest I speak in parables, that ‘Seeing they may not see and hearing they may not understand’ (Luke 8: 9 -10).

Over the next two days we’ll be reading through a number of parables – short stories that are rich in imagery and illustrate a point. One commentator said that “many of the parables are given to teach, refute, or to answer a question directed at Jesus by the disciples, the crowd, or the Pharisees and teachers of the law” (Luke 15:1-7).

In the April 13 blog post, Tom Castor explained why Jesus used parables to illustrate truth: “… Jesus most often used parables to help clarify things – to help honest seekers understand the truth. But He also employed some of His stories to cover the truth – to hide it from those whose only interest was to critique His words and who never intended to submit to them (or Him) in the first place.” (You can read the complete blog entry by clicking here.)

In The Parables of Jesus, James Boice separates the parables into five different categories based on their main application: parables of the Kingdom, parables of salvation, parables of wisdom and folly, parables of the Christian life, and parables of judgment.

In commenting on the parables, Boice states, ”Some sections of the Bible give us grand theology. Some move us to grateful responses to God. But the parables break through mere words and make us ask whether there has indeed been any real difference in our lives.”

In the book of Luke there are eleven parables that are not found in the other gospels. As you read through them over the next two days, see if you can discover which category each falls into.

•      Two Debtors (Luke 7:41-43)
•      Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37)
•      Persistent Friend (Luke 11:5-8)
•      Rich Fool (Luke 12:16-21)
•      Barren Fig-tree (Luke 13:6-9)
•      Lost Piece of Silver (Luke 15:8-10)
•      Lost Son (Luke 15:11-32)
•      Shrewd Manager (Luke 16:1-9)
•      Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31)
•      Unjust Judge (Luke 18:1-8)
•      Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14)

For a devotional on The Purpose of the Parables, click this link to the Ligonier Ministries website: http://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/purpose-parables/

If you’re interested in reading James Boice’s, The Parables of Jesus, you can purchase the book by clicking this link: http://www.christianbook.com/parables-of-jesus-james-boice/9780802401632/pd/2401635?event=AFF&p=1011693&#curr

Day 220: Luke 7-9

2011-04-27T06:04:00.000-07:00

This week the posts that you read are from guest blogger Angi McCarty. Angi is the Communications Coordinator for Grant Memorial.

In the three chapters that we journey through today we read of Jesus’ mission and His ministry of compassion…“The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor” (Luke 7:22).

We see God the man as He demonstrates His great power, His compassionate heart and His love for the whole world – the Saviour that seeks to draw people from every race, culture and social class to Himself (from soldiers, widows, children, women, the poor and disadvantaged, to tax collectors, religious leaders and social outcasts).

As Jesus travels through cities and villages, He heals the sick, raises people from the dead, forgives repentant sinners, calms storms, casts out evil spirits, feeds the hungry, tells stories and teaches about God’s kingdom. Some people are amazed by all that He says and does; a number evidence great faith, and then there are others who are either mystified or are outright hostile.

There are those who think He is a great prophet. When Jesus heals the widow’s son, the people respond, “A great prophet has appeared among us” (7:16). Guests at a dinner party wonder who He is… “this man who even forgives sins” (7:49). Some people want nothing to do with Jesus, as witnessed in 8:37 when Jesus heals a demon-possessed man. “Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them because they were overcome with fear. So he got into the boat and left.”

But just as many follow (8:40, 9:11,37) and [Jesus] welcomes them and speaks to them about the kingdom of God. We read of great faith (7:9, 50; 8:48) in contrast to those closest to Him… who still don’t fully understand who Jesus is (8:25).

Day 219: Luke 3-6

2011-04-26T06:14:00.000-07:00

This week the posts that you read are from guest blogger Angi McCarty. Angi is the Communications Coordinator for Grant Memorial.

Chapter 3 opens with John (son of Zechariah) receiving word to prepare the way for people to receive God’s salvation in the person of Jesus Christ; to call people to turn from doing wrong things and relying on themselves and to turn to God, following and trusting Him. John begins to go “from place to place on both sides of the Jordan river, preaching that people should be baptized to show that they had turned from their sins and turned to God to be forgiven” (3:3). This salvation was to be for all people (2:31, NLT) – Jews and Gentiles.

If I were to summarize chapters 3-6, I would say: Jesus’ public ministry begins and at the outset He is tempted, faces a mob and critics, heals the sick, teaches in Synagogues and on shorelines and in boats, fields complaints and is continually questioned… and He is preaching “Good News” (4:18).

As Jesus faces His first challenge – not only is He led into the wilderness, but while there, He is tempted by the devil. Scripture says He was “tempted” in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin.” His weapon was the “sword of the Spirit”, the word of God (Ephesians 6:17). Notice a simple sentence with thunderous impact… “and the devil left him until the next opportunity came.” This would not be the only time that Jesus was tried and tempted. Hebrews 4:14-16 reminds us that we have a great High Priest who understands our weaknesses and has been tempted in every way.

Maybe it’s because we’ve just finished reading through the Old Testament (where “we the people” consistently demonstrated willful behaviour), that I was particularly aware of the “we the people” conduct in these opening chapters of Luke… first, we observe that Jesus had opposition (5:17, 21, 29-30, 33), and second, we learn that the crowds that followed Him were fickle. One moment they are astounded by His teachings and the next they’re trying to run Him off a cliff (4:28-29). Could it be any more clear that we have a natural inclination to oppose the One that can meet every human need, the One “appointed… to preach Good News to the poor… to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the downtrodden will be freed from their oppressors, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come” (4:18,19).

Today’s reading ends with something to think about: Luke 6:46-49, “…why do you call me, ‘Lord,’ when you won’t obey me?

How different we would be if only we would heed Jesus' own practices...

Jesus prayed. In fact, Scripture says He often withdrew to pray. (3:21; 5:16; 6:12)

Jesus worshipped. “On the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom” (Luke 4:16). It seems regular worship was His practice.

Jesus valued the Scriptures. In temptation (three times He is challenged by the enemy and each time He does not yield (4:3-12); His weapon is the sword of the Spirit, the word of God) and in the everyday moments of life (4:14, 16, 31, 44; 5:1, 17), Jesus lives and breathes the Scriptures.

Day 218: Mark 16-Luke 2

2011-04-25T06:37:00.000-07:00

This week the posts that you read are from guest blogger Angi McCarty. Angi is the Communications Coordinator for Grant Memorial.

He is risen! He is risen indeed. This day after Easter Sunday we read of Jesus’ resurrection in Mark 16 and are given the Great Commission. It seems a perfect time to begin our readings in Luke and remind ourselves of “the works and teachings of Jesus that are important for understanding the way of salvation”, of how this God-man lived among us and loved us so much that He was willing to die on a cross to give us life. One commentator describes the book of Luke as “the Gospel of Knowing for Sure.”

Luke is the third of the synoptic gospels. While similar to Matthew and Mark in that it records the life of Jesus, this book is more narrative in its framework and includes material not found in the two previous books. Its author was a close companion of Paul. Commentators tell us that he was well-educated, a writer, historian, missionary, pastor and physician. Although not named, it is widely accepted that the author is Luke.

This account is unique in that it is based on eyewitness testimony rather than Luke’s experiences. Think of him as a first-century journalist – a good, old-fashioned beat reporter with keen observation skills and interviewing technique. “… since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning” (1:3). Like all good journalists, Luke’s prose is succinct, clear and his sketch of Jesus’ life is meticulous in its accounting.

The recipient of the letter is Theophilus. Not much is known about this man; what is clear is that Luke wants him to “have certainty concerning the things [he has] been taught” (1:4). If Theophilus had any doubts or questions about Jesus’ death and resurrection, Luke’s account should have given him certainty to its truth.

Pay special attention to Luke’s artistry as a writer. Of all the gospel writers, he is the only one to include songs (which have been adopted by the church as modern day hymns): the Magnificat, Mary’s Song (1:46-55), the Benedictus, Zechariah's hymn of praise (1:67-79), and Gloria in Excelsis (2:14).

Other unique features are the birth of John the Baptist (not mentioned in either Matthew or Mark), and the telling of the story of Jesus’ birth from the viewpoint of Mary (Matthew’s account comes from the viewpoint of Joseph). What caught my attention in today’s reading (in just two short chapters!) was the introduction of a host of characters (Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary, John the Baptist, Simeon, Anna) with detailed storylines, and a timeline that walks us through the birth and early years of Jesus’ life, right up to his public ministry.

We end today’s reading with these words… “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (2:52). As we know, and will read of in the days ahead, this God-man was not unacquainted with grief – He experienced temptations just like we do – as well as grief and betrayal and loneliness. In Luke’s account, Jesus’ human suffering is stressed – which will have great significance as we move into succeeding chapters.

Where do you see yourself in today’s reading? Are you like Theophilus, looking for certainty concerning what you have been taught? Or maybe you’re more like Luke – in a position or place in life where you are now called to tell others, to “testify” to the truth.

Day 215: Mark 13-15

2011-04-22T04:21:00.000-07:00

Every morning when I wake up, I have two emails waiting for me. The first is the electronic version of the New York Times. The second is a devotional article from one of my favourite apologetics ministry organizations, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. When I read this article this morning before sunrise, I decided to save what I had written for another day. These reminders are perfect to guide our thoughts and lead us into our reading on this ~ Good Friday.

There was a body on the cross. This was the shocking revelation of a 12 year-old seeing a crucifix for the first time. I was not used to seeing Jesus there—or any body for that matter. The many crosses in my world were empty. But here, visiting a friend's church, in a denomination different from my own, was a scene I had never fully considered.
In my own Protestant circles I remember hearing the rationale. Holy Week did not end with Jesus on the cross. Good Friday is not the end of the story. Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried. And on the third day, he rose again. The story ends in the victory of Easter. The cross is empty because Christ is risen.
In fact, it is true, and as Paul notes, essential, that Christians worship a risen Christ. "[For] if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith is in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:14). Even walking through the events of Holy Week—the emotion of the Last Supper, the anguish in Gethsemane, the denials of the disciples, the interrogation of Pilate, and the lonely way to Golgotha—we are well aware that though the cross is coming, so is the empty tomb. The dark story of Good Friday will indeed be answered by the light of Easter morning.
And yet, there is scarcely a theologian I can imagine who would set aside the fathomless mystery of the crucifixion in the interest of a doctrine that "over-shadows" it. The resurrection follows the crucifixion; it does not erase it. Though the cross has indeed taken away the sting of sin and death, and Christ has truly borne our pain, and the burden of humanity is that we will follow him. Even Christ, who retained the scars of his own crucifixion, told his followers that they, too, would drink the cup from which he drank. The Christian, who considers himself "crucified with Christ," will surely "take up his cross" and follow him. The good news is that Christ goes with us, even as he went before us, fully tasting humanity in a body like yours and mine.
Thus, far from being an act that undermines the victory of the resurrection, the remembrance of Jesus' hour of suffering boldly unites us with Christ himself. For it was on the cross that Christ most intimately bound himself to humanity. It was "for this hour" that Christ himself declared that he came. Humanity is, in turn, united to him in his suffering and is near him in our own. Had there not been an actual body on the cross, such mysteries would not be substantive enough to reach us.
Author and undertaker Thomas Lynch describes a related problem as well-meaning onlookers at funerals attempt to console the grief-stricken. Lynch describes how often he hears someone tell the weeping mother or father of the child who died of leukemia or a car accident, "It's okay, that's not her, it's just a shell."(1) But the suggestion that a dead body is "just" anything, particularly in the early stages of grief, he finds more than problematic. What if, he imagines, we were to use a similar wording to describe our hope in resurrection—namely, that Christ raised "just" a body from the dead. Lynch continues, "What if, rather than crucifixion, he'd opted for suffering low self-esteem for the remission of sins? What if, rather than 'just a shell,' he'd raised his personality say, or The Idea of Himself? Do you think they'd have changed the calendar for that? [...] Easter was a body and blood thing, no symbols, no euphemisms, no half measures."(2)
On the cross, we find the one whose self-offering transformed all suffering and forever lifted the burden of sin. On this dark and Good Friday, we find the very figure of God with us, a body who cried out in a loud voice in the midst of anguish, on the brink of death, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." Precisely because the cross was not empty, the coming resurrection is so profoundly full.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) Thomas Lynch, The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade (New York: Penguin, 1997), 21. (2) Ibid. Copyright (c) 2011 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

A Slice of Infinity is aimed at reaching into the culture with words of challenge, words of truth, and words of hope. If you would enjoy receiving A Slice of Infinity in your email box each day, you can sign up on the RZIM website at www.rzim.org/Slice

Day 214: Mark 9-12

2011-04-21T06:18:00.000-07:00

When you are studying passages in the gospels in a study Bible or commentary, you might come across the term “synoptic gospels”. When Bible students refer to the “synoptics”, they mean the gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The term synoptic comes from the Greek syn, meaning "together", and optic, meaning "seen" – so the Synoptic Gospels generally see things together – “they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes exactly the same wording.” The chart I included below can be found in a number of resources – this one came from a the Wikipedia article.

The story of Peter, James, and John on the “Mount of Transfiguration” appears in all three synoptic gospels. There are so many great observations waiting to be made as you read this story and questions to be raised. Why Peter, James, and John? Why Elijah and Moses? What were they talking about? What did the voice from the cloud sound like? Reading all of the accounts together (Luke 9; Matthew 21) helps to fill in some of the details, but the event remains quite remarkable and mysterious - as high on the WOW scale as you can get.

I have always been fascinated by the sequence of events around the transfiguration because they work as a kind of metaphor for ministry. Jesus and His crew come down from the mountain (a great display of His glory) to find the disciples unable to deliver a child from an evil spirit (a great display of their weakness). When the disciples bring Jesus into the equation, the problem gets resolved. To some degree, that is just the way ministry works. Our task is to bring Jesus into the equation – to connect people and their needs with the only One who can ultimately meet them. The whole event is, in itself a bit of a ministry metaphor as well. Jesus comes down the mountain (the majesty of the transfiguration) into the mess (a family wrecked by evil). (In a sense, this is what the incarnation was all about). So, ministry can be defined as connecting the majesty with the mess. Or, to put it in a slightly different way, between the majesty and the mess is – ministry. And, of course, that doesn’t happen unless we (the ministers) are willing to walk into the mess.

Because this is Easter Week (today is Maundy Thursday), don’t miss Mark’s comment in 9:9,10.

9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. 10 They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what “rising from the dead” meant.
Jesus tells his disciples repeatedly that He will rise from the dead. It was not until days after the event that they actually started to put it all together.

Enjoy the reading. Tomorrow, we will see what makes Good Friday – good.

Day 213: Mark 5-8

2011-04-20T06:30:00.000-07:00

In today’s blog, let me introduce you to another helpful study resource. With the developing immigration patterns in our Nation and in our Province in particular, we find ourselves with unique opportunities to share our faith with people from other countries who often have limited skills in reading and comprehending the English language. One of the organizations that has built its ministry addressing that challenge is Wycliffe Associates (UK). Their work in developing simplified English translations and study materials has been a valuable asset to people all over the world.

Let me use today’s reading in the gospel of Mark to give you a taste of some of their resources. The following excerpt is from an EasyEnglish translation of a section of Mark 8 that limits itself to a vocabulary of only 1200 English words. http://www.easyenglish.info

Jesus tells His *disciples how He would die (Mark 8)

v31 Then Jesus began to teach his *disciples about the things that must happen to the *Son of Man. People would cause many troubles for him. Important people would be against him. They would include the important *priests, the leaders and the teachers of God’s rules. People would kill him. But after three days, he would become alive again. Before this time, Jesus had not told anyone so clearly what would happen to him.

v32 What Jesus said was very clear. Then Peter took Jesus away from the other *disciples. And Peter began to tell Jesus that he must not say those things.

v33 But Jesus turned round and he saw his *disciples. And he said that Peter was wrong. ‘*Satan, go away from me!’ Jesus said to Peter. ‘Your thoughts do not come from God. Instead, you are thinking like men think.’
Peter did not understand that God wanted Jesus to die for us. *Satan wanted Peter to stop Jesus, so that Jesus would not obey God. That is why Jesus called him *Satan.

v34 Then Jesus asked the crowd and his *disciples to come to him. He said to them, ‘A person who wants to be my *disciple must not think about himself. And he must not think about what he wants to do. He must decide that his own life is not important. And he must be like someone who carries his own *cross. Then he should become my *disciple.

v35 The person who wants to save his *life will die. But another person may die because of me and because of God’s good news. Even if that person dies, he will save his *life.

v36 Think about a person who gets the whole world and everything in it. If he loses his *life, he has not received anything.

v37 A man can receive nothing that is better than his *life. And all the money in the world cannot keep someone alive.

v38 People today do not obey God. They are very bad. But you must not be ashamed of me or of my words. If you are, the *Son of Man will be ashamed of you. He will be ashamed when he returns. On that day, the *Son of Man will shine because his Father is so beautiful. And God’s *holy *angels will be with him.’

If you would like to know more about Wycliffe Associates (UK) or access other of their resources, pay them a visit at http://www.easyenglish.info/.

Day 212: Mark 1-4

2011-04-19T05:51:00.000-07:00

Before we open the text for today's reading, there are just a couple of things that need attention. The first is that, once again, although we did not consciously plan it this way, the selection of readings for this week is incredibly fitting. We started the week by taking in the last days of Jesus' life and passion from Matthew's gospel, and the remainder of Holy Week covers the entire gospel of Mark - ending with the crucifixion account on Good Friday. What an unexpected gift this is.

The second brief note is to remind ourselves about the unique role of Mark's gospel among the others. Most careful students agree that Mark's is the earliest gospel (conservative scholars place the completion and circulation of Mark around 55-60AD - thirty years after the events it describes and within the lifetime of those who witnessed the original events). We already noted the connections between Matthew's gospel and Mark's account (90 percent of Mark appears in Matthew). Mark is the "briefest" of the gospel accounts and moves quite rapidly. You should also listen for the way Mark uses "the crowd" in this gospel - which functions at times like a separate reappearing character in the plot.

Our reading today includes one of the more dramatic moments in the accounts of Jesus. I like to call it "the perfect storm." Jesus tells His disciples to ‘hop aboard’ for a ride to the other side of the lake. In the middle of the trip, a storm so terrible arises that seasoned fishermen are afraid that they will not survive it. Jesus (who is “asleep” in the stern) is awakened and He speaks to the wind and the waves and they obey His voice – the sea is calmed – and the disciples are “terrified.” (Mark 6:50; Luke 2:9). Can’t you just imagine that scene – the disciples standing there, wringing wet, water still dripping from their beards with this astonished look on their faces? Remember that reading the text carefully is important – but care for the details of the text should not limit our imagination; the details should stimulate us to “put ourselves on the scene.” The gospel of Mark is ideal for engaging the imagination. Give it a try as you work through today’s reading.

Day 211: Matthew 26-28

2011-04-18T06:36:00.000-07:00

I mentioned on Friday that reading the Bible aloud is a good discipline for the student of scripture. Reading aloud requires us to engage with the text in subtle ways that express (or interpret) the passage as we read. The discipline has strong support in the Bile itself. When Paul instructed Timothy, Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching (I Timothy 4:13), the presentation of the text as read aloud was given a place of priority. Since many in the first century lacked basic literacy skills and others who could read had little access to the text, reading the scriptures aloud in public was the only access many would have had to this Word from God.

Today's selection is an especially good place to apply this idea. The passion narrative is filled with many subtle details and dramatic moments. Try to catch the tone of what is being said. Read the dialogue attempting to reproduce the voices of the original participants. When you do this thoughtfully and carefully, it will help bring home the emotional realities that those present must have experienced.

Because this way of reading requires additional thought and needs added time, today’s blog is a bit shorter than normal. So, open the text and – listen.

Day 208: Matthew 22-25

2011-04-15T06:36:00.000-07:00

Back when we started this venture of asking people to read the Bible through in 9 months, we didn’t intentionally plan the readings that would prepare us for Holy Week, but – as it turns out – it looks as though we did. With Palm Sunday just a few days away, the final sections of Matthew are perfect preparation. The Triumphal Entry is chronicled here in Matthew 21.

In our selection today, we also come across some of Jesus’ clearest statements about His impending death and His most “prophet-like” words of rebuke. You can almost hear the collective voices of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea in the words of Christ in Matthew 23.

As you know, we have been using this blog to suggest a few Bible study helps along the way. The one I want to recommend today is READING ALOUD. I will talk a bit more about this in Monday’s blog, but for today (to keep the blog short – as it takes longer to read aloud than to read silently), just give it a try. Read this section aloud, as if you were reading it to someone who was just hearing it for the first time. Then listen as you do – remembering always, that there is a voice behind the text.

Day 207: Matthew 17-21

2011-04-14T06:40:00.000-07:00

The story of the trip Jesus made with three of his disciples to the top of a local mountain becomes a turning point in Matthew’s narrative of Jesus’ life and ministry. We don’t know the name of this mountain, but it has become known as “the mount of transfiguration” because of the remarkable event that took place that day. What we shouldn’t miss is that Matthew follows this story with another that is just as amazing, perhaps mostly because of the contrast it presents. Don’t miss it as you move through today’s reading.

One of the Bible study tools we have been recommending through our readings is “a good Bible commentary.” As we have said before, there are many commentaries out there that are not-so-good. So, along the way we have recommended a few. Here is a brief excerpt from a commentator that the evangelical world has trusted for more than 50 years. His name is Warren Wiersbe. I learned to love Pastor Wiersbe when he was a frequent chapel speaker at the university I attended and then pastor of the Moody Church in Chicago. He was one of the people who whetted my appetite for clear biblical exposition. For that, I will always owe him a debt of gratitude. Through the years, I have recommended his commentaries and books to many new believers – and I admit that, although I find him very readable, others have to acquire a taste for this pastorally caring teacher. So – to give you a taste of Warren W. Wiersbe, here is a section from his commentary on a portion of today’s reading in Matthew 17.

The King in His Power (Matt. 17:14–21)
We move from the mountain of glory to the valley of need. The sudden appearance of Jesus and the three disciples startled the multitudes (Mark 9:15). The distraught father had brought his demonized son to the nine disciples, begging them to deliver him; but they could not. The scribes had noticed their failure and were using it as a reason for argument. And while the disciples were defending themselves, and the scribes were accusing them, the demon was all but killing the helpless boy.

When we compare the Gospel accounts of this dramatic scene, we discover that this only son was indeed in great trouble and danger. Matthew recorded that the boy was an epileptic (lunatic), very ill, and suicidal, falling into the fire and the water. Mark described him as a mute, who often fell to the ground foaming at the mouth and grinding his teeth. After this display, the boy would go into a kind of rigor mortis. Dr. Luke said that the boy was an only son and that he would scream as he went into these convulsions. While some of these symptoms can have natural causes, this boy was at the mercy of a demon. The disciples had been helpless to do anything. No wonder the father rushed to Jesus’ feet.

Our Lord’s first response was one of sorrow. As He beheld the embarrassed disciples, the arguing scribes, and the needy father and son, He groaned inwardly and said, “How long shall I be with you, and put up with you?” (Luke 9:41, NASB) Their unbelief and spiritual perversity were a burden to Him. What must our Lord feel as He looks at powerless believers today?

Jesus delivered the boy and commanded the spirit never to return to him (Mark 9:25). The demon tried “one last throw” (as Spurgeon put it) so that the crowd thought the boy was dead (Mark 9:26). But Jesus raised the lad up and gave him to his father, while the crowds marveled and gave glory to God (Luke 9:43).

Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Mt 16:21–17:22). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books.

Day 206: Matthew 13-16

2011-04-13T06:50:00.000-07:00

When he became a traveling rabbi in Galilee, Jesus became famous for His parables – mostly because they helped people make sense of some extremely complicated truth. In Matthew, however, Jesus’ parables were just as likely to confuse as to enlighten.

The reading today includes some exceptionally vivid miracles (Jesus walking on water, feeding 4000 people with a handful of fish and bread, casting out a demon from a little girl, and again feeding 5000 people with a small lunch), and a few of Jesus’ more mystifying stories. It’s not surprising that they seem complicated to us. We are outsiders to the world Jesus inhabited. These stories were targeted to “insiders” – Jews that shared Jesus’ heritage and background. They knew all of the Old Testament stories and were already familiar with most of the terminology that Jesus was using. So when we find them hard to understand, it’s no wonder. But, oddly enough, we aren’t the only ones to have a tough time untangling these stories. Even the insiders found them a bit of a puzzle (15:15-16; 16:7-9).

One of the reasons for the confusion seems to be that Jesus chose to speak, at least in this section of Matthew, largely in parables. Although most of the time Jesus used parables to explain or shed light on what He was teaching, there were times that He used these stories to keep some people in the dark – to hide the truth from those who had been rejecting God’s messages for centuries. While the Parable of the Sower isn’t all that hard to understand (when we pursue God’s words with open ears and hearts and we embrace the word we hear, our lives will add up to something) – Jesus explains His dual purpose for using parables right in the middle of it.

13:10 The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”
11 He replied, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12 Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. 13 This is why I speak to them in parables:
“Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand.

Yes, Jesus most often used parables to help clarify things – to help honest seekers understand the truth. But He also employed some of His stories to cover the truth – to hide it from those whose only interest was to critique His words and who never intended to submit to them (or Him) in the first place.

Yes, that is a bit of a head-scratcher. But then, Jesus was a fairly complicated person.

Enjoy today’s reading!

Day 205: Matthew 9-12

2011-04-12T06:41:00.000-07:00

By this morning’s reading, we have a good running start into the Gospel of Matthew. Remember, Matthew, like the other writers of the gospels, is putting together this narrative history of Jesus to solidify the truth of the life, acts, and teaching of Jesus for the new and ever expanding church. Each of them write what they saw and heard – making this and the other gospels historical documents. But we must also remember that they are histories with a purpose. The gospel writers present the material they use in order to accomplish a specific literary purpose and they address a particular audience – an audience with a particular set of needs (doubts, misunderstandings, skepticism, hopes). The way Matthew is structured, it seems clear that his target audience is the Jewish people – those who are yet to believe and those who have already embraced Jesus as Messiah.

There are a number of places where this specific attentiveness to the “Jewish” audience is evident. For example, although Matthew covers much of the material covered by Mark’s gospel, the parts that are unique to Matthew have a particularly Jewish bent.

Matthew 5:17-20: Sayings relating to Jesus’ view of the Law in relation to the Kingdom of Heaven
Matthew 5:33-37: Jesus’ teaching about the taking of oaths
Matthew 6:1-4: Jesus’ teaching about almsgiving
Matthew 6:16-18: Jesus’ teaching about fasting
Matthew 22:1-14: Jesus’ parable speaking to Israel’s status upon its rejection of Jesus
Matthew 23: An extended version of Jesus’ evaluation of the Pharisees.

Not only this, but Matthew explicitly points to Old Testament messianic prophecies and says that they have been fulfilled by Jesus. You will find illustrations of this in Matthew 1-3 in particular: Matthew 1:23 = Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 2:6 = Micah 5:2; Matthew 2:15 = Hosea 11:1; Matthew 2:18 = Jeremiah 31:15.

Some scholars actually believe that Matthew’s gospel may have originally been written in Hebrew, and it is likely (because of his target audience – Palestinian Jews) that several early versions (translations) of Matthew's gospel may have been in circulation at the same time, in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek,

I mentioned earlier that Matthew covers the same material in the gospel of Mark. That may be an understatement. Depending on who is counting, 90 percent of Mark’s gospel is contained in Matthew. Although Matthew adds to Mark, he follows much of the same chronological pattern that Mark used in constructing his account. But to say that these gospels are “the same” would be a misstatement. Matthew’s use of the teachings and events in Jesus' life and the way he weaves the stories makes Matthew’s gospel sound and feel (style, voice, texture) quite different – just as you would expect when two people, who agree on the details, describe an event from their own perspective and engage in the story with their whole hearts.

So – dive in. Today’s section covers some interesting episodes. Pay particular attention to the way Jesus deals with so many different kinds of people. As you likely have already noticed, Matthew is loaded with those sayings of Jesus that we have all heard many times, but perhaps weren’t quite sure where to find them – like the last verse in our selection for today.

Matthew 12:50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.

Day 204: Matthew 4-8

2011-04-11T08:03:00.000-07:00

Good morning readers! Before we dive into the book of Matthew, let me say a few words of congratulations and a word of welcome.

To those who started with us and made it this far, congratulations! As far as we can tell through our surveys, that is nearly 300 of you. You joined in Genesis 1 and last Friday you completed the Old Testament. Way to go! For some of you, this is the very first time you have tried. For others, though you’ve tried before, this is the first time you’ve gotten this far. You have covered several thousand years of history. You’ve gotten to know a boatload of characters (in the case of Noah – literally). You’ve followed the history of the world and salvation through the lives of Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets, and now – today – you get the first clear glimpse of the Saviour Himself. I couldn’t be more proud of you.

The word of welcome is for those who are just joining us. Maybe you had other reading systems in play when we got started several months ago. Or maybe you got a slow start and couldn’t catch up. Or maybe you just heard about this reading challenge. It doesn’t matter what happened, we are just so thankful you are joining us and beginning this journey. Before you know it, you will be through the gospels and deep into Romans. In a few more days, you’ll be working your way through all of those fascinating letters by Paul, Peter, James, and John – until you turn the page and you’ll enter the final and most mysterious of all of the New Testament books – The Revelation of John.

For those who are just joining us, let me say something about these blog entries. Every reading day, we try to write a short piece (seldom over 600 words) to help you know more about the section you are reading – but mostly just to encourage you to “keep going”. Since this piece is already nearly 350 words, let me wait to introduce Matthew’s gospel until tomorrow. Today I will simply point out that Matthew wrote his gospel with a Jewish audience in mind. He will take special care to connect the Old Testament writings to this good news that he is writing about. The geneology in the first section is one of the ways he does that.

For those of you who are just getting started today, there are a few of our earlier blogs that might help you along the way. Below are the links to find them.

Blog Post 1: "Look in this book"
Blog Post 2: "So, are you ready to begin?"

Day 201: Zechariah 12-Matthew 3

2011-04-08T07:03:00.000-07:00

This week the posts that you read are from guest blogger Joe Welty. Joe is the Director of Spiritual Formation & Young Adults at Grant Memorial.

You made it. After 200 days we have finally crossed the major milestone of completing the Old Testament. Well done. You are three quarters of the way through. Keep it up!

I appreciate the way the books of the Bible have been organized in English versions. The decision to close the Old Testament with the Book of Malachi sets the stage for what is to come. Did you notice it in today’s reading?

The prophet Malachi looks ahead to a coming messenger who would prepare the way for the Lord and His coming to the Temple (3:1). He will be (like) the prophet Elijah who will prepare the people to respond to him (4:5-6). And then, in Matthew 3, he appears. We read of John the Baptist’s ministry in the desert – a ministry of voluntary, public confession and baptism for sin to prepare for the coming of the kingdom of heaven.

Almost 400 years passed in the time it took you to turn over the page that separates the Old and New Testaments. That is 400 years of hopes and dreams and disappointments … and silence. When Matthew opens his Gospel you can sense his excitement that the Messiah, the Promised One, the One that Scripture kept telling us would come has finally appeared. After spending 200 days reading through the Old Testament, I am sure you can understand the excitement.

Day 200: Zechariah 1-11

2011-04-07T06:04:00.000-07:00

This week the posts that you read are from guest blogger Joe Welty. Joe is the Director of Spiritual Formation & Young Adults at Grant Memorial.

I just have one question: “Huh?”

Sometimes, when listening to an especially heavy or wordy communicator, I find myself daydreaming about raising my hand and asking this question. It is not that I just have one or two points that I want clarity on, but rather I feel like I am completely lost trying to figure out what the person is saying.

The Book of Zechariah can feel a little like this. The book is written in vivid, image-rich language that is constantly moving and changing. I remember the first number of times I read it. I felt like my brain was spinning just trying to remember the details of the opening eight visions, never mind understand their significance. I later read that the church father Jerome once referred to the book as the “obscurest” of the Minor Prophets which at the very least reassured me that I wasn’t alone.
I kept at trying to understand Zechariah and slowly the book began to open up for me. I love Zechariah’s vision of God’s promise to deliver and restore His people though this would also come with periods of great difficulty. I love his call for people to pursue justice by showing kindness and mercy to one another regardless of how powerful or powerless they may be. I love the picture of the future age when all trace of sin has been eradicated to the point that everything from the bells on a horse’s bridle to the simplest pot sitting in a person’s kitchen could be considered as pure and holy as the vessels used in the Temple.

But most of all I love the glimpses of Christ that shine through in Zechariah. Zechariah has some of the clearest pictures of Christ that we find in the Old Testament. There is the vision of the High Priest Joshua (Hebrew “Yeshua) ” with its promise of the coming servant, the Davidic “Branch” or “heir” at which time God “will remove the sin of this land in a single day” (3:9). There is the picture of the coming of the Messianic King who comes in humility, riding on a donkey not a chariot or mighty charger (9:9). And there is the picture of a coming time when God will pour out “a spirit of grace” on all who “look on him who they have pierced” and are moved to mourning and repentance (12:10-13:1). It is little wonder that Zechariah was a favorite book for the New Testament writers.

So a challenging book? Yes. A difficult one to understand? Absolutely. But one that is very worth taking the time to get to know.

Day 199: Nahum 3- Haggai 2

2011-04-06T06:07:00.000-07:00

This week the posts that you read are from guest blogger Joe Welty. Joe is the Director of Spiritual Formation & Young Adults at Grant Memorial.

Why does God allow His people to suffer? Why does He not always save us from hardship? How can He, a holy and just God, allow wicked people and regimes to prosper when many of the people they are abusing are His own people? These are the questions Habakkuk is wrestling with, and really much of the modern world with him.

Writing roughly 100 years after the fall of the Northern Kingdom, Habakkuk saw the brutality inflicted on the people by the Assyrians and he has been given a glimpse of the coming judgment that the Southern Kingdom would experience a few decades later at the hands of the Babylonians. This troubles him as he wrestles with God’s justice in choosing to use a nation more wicked than Israel was to punish His people. So, he complains to God.

And God’s response? How does He answer Habakkuk’s complaint? His answer is that ultimately God will hold all peoples and nations to account for their actions. He reminds Habakkuk that the day is coming when the wicked will not just devour those around them because the whole earth will know the glory of the LORD “as the water covers the sea” and their raging will be silenced before Him as a guilty person is silent before their judge. He looks to the future and our hope in our sovereign God’s promise to one day bring about completely the peace and justice we so desperately long for now. It is this “faith” in the just and sovereign God that the “righteous will live by” (2:4).

Does this remove the difficulty of suffering? Does this give the sort of justification for God’s actions that removes all complaints? No. But it does give us a real hope in the midst of them. Habakkuk’s prayer in chapter 3 is an example of what this looks like. He remembers God’s mighty deeds in the past and asks Him to again bring about these dramatic acts of deliverance in his day. And if He doesn’t act in the way Habakkuk hopes He will? Habakkuk still trusts in Him. He closes his prayer with one of my favourite passages in Scripture.

17 Though the fig tree does not bud
   and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
   and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
   and no cattle in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
   I will be joyful in God my Savior.

Day 198: Jonah 3-Nahum 2

2011-04-05T08:24:00.000-07:00

This week the posts that you read are from guest blogger Joe Welty. Joe is the Director of Spiritual Formation & Young Adults at Grant Memorial.

“A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside and enigma.” That is how Winston Churchill famously described Russia’s intentions in the early days of World War II. This description could also be fittingly applied to the prophet Jonah.

Like most Sunday school kids, I grew up thinking I had a pretty good grasp on who Jonah was. After all, Jonah was one of those standard, go-to-Sunday-school stories that was regularly played out on classroom flannelgraphs. Jonah was a prophet of God, a hero of the Old Testament who initially stumbled but ultimately proved to be faithful to God.
But as I began to read the book for myself, the less this picture seemed to fit. Here you have Jonah, a prophet of God doing all the wrong things in contrast to the Gentiles he comes into contact with. Jonah hears God’s voice and runs in the opposite direction. God miraculously saves Jonah from drowning and, rather than praying a prayer of repentance, Jonah strings together some pious words about returning to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices – not committing to go to Nineveh as God had first ask him to do. He finally, begrudgingly, goes to Nineveh and the city responds in an extraordinary way. The whole city repents and rather than making Jonah happy, it makes him so angry he asks God to take his life. Nowhere does Jonah show signs of change. Nowhere does he repent of his rebellion toward God or his hatred of the Assyrians.

This is very odd behaviour for a prophet and Old Testament “hero.” This behaviour is so odd, in fact, that a small number of Old Testament scholars conclude that Jonah must have been a false prophet, a religious pretender that God surprises by conscripting into His service.

The more I read the Book of Jonah, the less comfortable I am with any attempts at a simple answer to the riddle of who Jonah ultimately is: hero or false prophet. Unfortunately I know all too well the potential that each of us have to run the other way from God. Rather than reading Jonah to celebrate the greatness of the prophet’s faith, I am encouraged by God’s relentless faithfulness to Jonah and to those who need His aid.

Day 197: Amos 3-Jonah 2

2011-04-04T06:12:00.000-07:00

This week the posts that you read are from guest blogger Joe Welty. Joe is the Director of Spiritual Formation & Young Adults at Grant Memorial.

I think the message of Amos could be summarized as, “Be careful what you wish for – you might actually get it.”

Buried in the middle of the prophets and overshadowed by the much larger prophetic works of Isaiah and Jeremiah, Amos was actually the first of the writing or classical prophets to emerge. Amos was not a religious professional, but a shepherd and orchard worker from Tekoa, a rural area in the Bethlehem region (7:14-15). But then God got hold of him and sent him to King Jeroboam II, the king of the Northern Kingdom, with a message that he and the people would rather not hear.

This was a time of relative peace and security for both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms with their political boundaries stretching almost as far as they did during the golden age of David and Solomon. The ruling class was experiencing tremendous wealth and prosperity, especially in the Northern Kingdom. The rulers interpreted their material success as a sign of the LORD’s pleasure and blessing on them and their opulent religious ceremonies, and looked ahead to the promised Day of the Lord which they thought would usher in an era of even greater wealth and prosperity.

But this wasn’t the case. Amos is given the undesirable task of telling the rulers that the opposite is true. Rather than being a sign of blessing, their wealth, gained through corruption and their mistreatment of their fellow Israelites, is really a sign of their coming judgment. Rather than being a time of great celebration, the coming Day of the Lord will be a time of great suffering for those who have turned God’s covenant into something else.

Amos 5:18-24 is the heart of his message:

¹⁸ Woe to you who long
   for the day of the LORD!
Why do you long for the day of the LORD?
   That day will be darkness, not light.
¹⁹ It will be as though a man fled from a lion
   only to meet a bear,
as though he entered his house
   and rested his hand on the wall
   only to have a snake bite him.
²⁰ Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not light—
   pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?

²¹ “I hate, I despise your religious feasts;
   I cannot stand your assemblies.
²² Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
   I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
   I will have no regard for them.
²³ Away with the noise of your songs!
   I will not listen to the music of your harps.
²⁴ But let justice roll on like a river,
   righteousness like a never-failing stream!

The Day of the Lord did come, and it wasn’t what the ruling class was hoping for. They thought their wealth and religious ceremony would save them. In thirty short years Amos’ prophecy would come true with the Northern Kingdom going from a significant power to being essentially wiped out as a people and a nation. It is a cautionary tale that we do well to listen to today.

Day 194: Hosea 11-Amos 2

2011-04-01T05:50:00.000-07:00

The last time I went to an NHL hockey game, I made sure that before I took my seat, I bought a program. I wasn't that familiar with the teams and my seats weren't that good, so I knew I would need a bit of help getting everything out of the experience. As it turned out, it really helped! I should have been surprised. After all, as they often say, "you can't tell the players without a program."

The Minor Prophets can be a bit that way too. Because they don't appear in chronological order or come with tidy introductions attached, it can be hard to sort out who's who, who they were talking about, and who they were talking too. So, for that reason, what follows is a bit of a "program" to use that may help.

Our reading of the Minor Prophets (so called only because they are shorter in length, not less important) will take us through next week. If you get a bit lost, just come back to today's blog and it may just help you get back on track. Notice that we left the Major Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel) in the chart to provide a better sense of where the prophets fit together. I don't know who first constructed this chart (I have changed it only slightly), but you will find it (with minor modifications) in several books and a dozen or so places online. Keep the chart handy - and keep reading. We start the New Testament in 10 days!

Day 193: Daniel 12-Hosea 10

2011-03-31T06:12:00.000-07:00

As you have already noticed, God asked the prophets to do some pretty strange things to bring His message home to the people of Israel and Judah. But of all of them, what He asks of Hosea is the most remarkable. We tend to think of the Old Testament period and the relationships we read in those pages as “so long ago and far away” that we forget that the longings of a man and a woman for intimacy were as real then as now. The point that God intends to make here would make little sense if Hosea was simply pursuing a prophetic duty.

To introduce the book, here is an edited excerpt from The ESV Literary Study Bible. As you will have noticed, this book brings us into what we have come to call the Minor Prophets. Make your way through the first section of Hosea today and we will provide a bit more introduction to the Minor Prophets tomorrow.

The Book at a Glance

14 chapters, 197 verses. The thing everyone remembers about the book of Hosea is that God tells the prophet to marry a prostitute. This is, indeed, a shocking but true premise. Throughout the entire Bible, marital and sexual imagery is regularly used as a metaphor for the relationship between God and those who believe in him. Believers who are true to God are a chaste bride; those who are apostate are an adulterous prostitute. The book of Hosea turns that metaphor into a living reality, though the reality of course is intended as a metaphor for the faithless covenant people of Israel (the northern kingdom). Although the marriage of Hosea and Gomer provides the narrative framework for the book, the forms and content of the book mainly resemble the typical prophetic genre of the OT, with its characteristic oracles, prophetic denunciations, and exhortations.

Genres

The main form of the book is prophecy, and within that rubric, most of the book consists of oracles of judgment, with only interspersed oracles of salvation. The main literary form of the book is satire, with the usual ingredients of objects of attack, a vehicle in which the exposure is embodied, a satiric norm by which the criticism is conducted, and a prevailing tone (in this case, sharp and bitter). Virtually all of the book is embodied in poetry. The overall format is that of a legal or judicial indictment, as God presents a detailed case against his covenant people.

Format and distinguishing features

The vividness of the poetry and figurative language is a striking feature of the book, as God’s people (for example) are pictured as an oven or a stubborn heifer or wild grapes. Even though the failed and restored marriage of Hosea and Gomer is present only in the first three chapters, the controlling metaphor of covenant Israel as an unfaithful wife exerts an implied presence throughout the book. Recurrent themes around which we can organize our reading of the book are as follows: (1) the unfolding list of acts and attitudes that disappoint God; (2) a picture of what people who reject God can expect to receive from him; (3) evidences of God’s love and grace toward people who do not deserve them.

Theological themes

(1) Human sinfulness: in OT Israel we can see an anatomy of the perverse human tendency to reject God and true religion. (2) The justice of God: the book presents a complete picture of how God judges human sinfulness. (3) The love of God: the book shows that God does not abandon his people but is a pursuing and persevering lover.

Day 192: Daniel 6-11

2011-03-30T06:44:00.000-07:00

Is there anyone who has ever attended Sunday school that doesn’t love the story of Daniel and the lions’ den. Here is a man whose convictions are so clear and whose loyalty to God is so deep that he will give his life rather than deny his principles and his God. This is what sets the prophets apart, and it is what Jesus called His disciples to – using the prophets as their mentor/models (Matthew 5:11-13). Again, God allows Daniel to be thrown into the den before He delivers him out of the trouble.
Persecution is not something that should surprise us, nor should the fact that some believers are called upon to die for the faith. This was what Jesus taught and the early disciples did – and are doing (missiologists estimate that there are more Christian martyrs in the first decade of the 21st century that in the previous decade). Sometimes God delivers us “from” persecution, sometimes “out of” persecution. Sometimes, in His sovereign purposes, His followers die in the midst of persecution.

Here, Daniel’s deliverance causes a pagan nation to give glory to God and is another of those great declarations that we find in Daniel.

“I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel.
   “For he is the living God
   and he endures forever;
his kingdom will not be destroyed,
   his dominion will never end.
He rescues and he saves;
   he performs signs and wonders
   in the heavens and on the earth.
He has rescued Daniel
   from the power of the lions.” Daniel 6:26, 27

But what most often catches my attention in this section is not this story or the visions and prophecies. Don’t get me wrong. They do stir my appetite to dig deeper into all of the details – but what “convicts” me most in this section is Daniel’s prayer (Daniel 9).

Daniel reads Jeremiah’s prophecy and knows what God is intending. It is that prophesy that motivates him to pray! Like other leaders before him, he owns the sins of the people and pleads for God to forgive and restore. There is no “us and them” division with Daniel. He sees the history of God’s people as his own and longs for the nation to return to purity and the national dignity that follows. But Daniel’s prayer does not simply ask that the problem be solved. His greater concern is that God’s glory has been hidden as God’s people have traveled away from Him. Daniel’s prayer puts God first – His glory, His purposes, His kingdom. The rest is important, but the glory of God is Daniel’s primary concern. What a great model for us! Come to think of it, that sounds just like the way Jesus taught His followers to pray (Matthew 6: 9-10).

Day 191: Daniel 2-5

2011-03-29T06:36:00.000-07:00

If you like stories from long ago and far away, with quirky characters and unexpected plot twists – you'll really enjoy today's section in Daniel. The early sections of the book contain a series of stories that give a glimpse of life among the exiles. We saw in chapter 1 how Daniel and his associates were selected from among the people in Judah for a trip to Babylon. Because they were well educated, among the social elite, and, in some cases, a part of the royal family –removing these young men from their homeland reduced the odds of a rebellion and gave the Babylonians access to Judah's best and brightest.

The stories that appear in this section are classic tales of God’s people put to the test and God intervening on their behalf. First, Daniel is asked to interpret a dream. What comes of that episode turns out to be a prophetic road map for the rise and fall of nations for the next many centuries, culminating with a kingdom that God Himself will establish. At the end of that episode is one of Nebuchadnezzar’s many declarations that Daniel's God is “the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries.” It is probably good to note here that, although the king made other such declarations, he likely never abandoned the Babylonian religion or the many other gods they followed. What he likely was saying was something more along the line of, “Wow! That is one amazing god you have there! Of all the gods there are – and there are many – yours is the top god of all!” Although Nebuchadnezzar made some of the most orthodox statements about Jehovah, we have no clear sense that he abandoned his old notions or submitted to the stipulations of the covenant in the first commandment.

The story of the three Hebrew children and the fiery furnace is also a classic. It shows once again that God expects faithfulness from His followers. Yes, He does deliver “from the fire”, but that also infers (and experience proved) that He allows His people to be tossed into the fire before He does so (Isaiah 43:1-3). Such was the case with these three brave young men. There's no mention of Daniel in this episode, but that only means that there is no mention of Daniel. Where he was, we do not know. To speculate (as some do) that his absence in the story implies a lapse of faith on his part is more than the text allows. Of course, the question about the fourth man in the fire begs to be asked. Was that an angel? Was that a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus? We don't really know but the person in the furnace with them was a supernatural deliverer – of that we can be certain.

The section ends with the story of Nebuchadnezzar's pride and downfall. (Ask me some day about a great costume I made of this episode for a Bible story costume party I once hosted.) Note that archaeology tells us that Nebuchadnezzar's palace included massive gardens and collections of animals. So it would have been possible to have kept his insanity a well-guarded secret, especially if the high officials were both competent and loyal. As remarkable as his demise, his restoration is even more astonishing. What he learned and the “confession” he makes has become one of the clearest declarations of God's absolute sovereignty in the entire Old Testament.

His dominion is an eternal dominion;
   his kingdom endures from generation to generation.
All the peoples of the earth
   are regarded as nothing.
He does as he pleases
   with the powers of heaven
   and the peoples of the earth.
No one can hold back his hand
   or say to him: “What have you done?”
Daniel 4:34,35

Day 190: Ezekiel 44-Daniel 1

2011-03-28T06:19:00.000-07:00

Today we begin our trek through the book of Daniel - the book that some see as the most understandable of the Major Prophets. It is true that God does step out of the pages of Daniel and allow Himself to be clearly seen in the stories here. By the time you have woven your way through the prophecies, you will see that Daniel worshipped a God who is powerful and is willing to intervene in history.

As you will read in Daniel 1, Daniel was a part of the group of young men who were taken to Babylon in 605 BC. To give you a sense of where Daniel fits historically, Isaiah and Micah began prophesying in 742 BC in Judah. Jeremiah picked up the prophetic mantle in Judah in 626 BC. He was prophesying in Judah when Daniel and his crew were taken to Babylon and for a short period, Daniel’s and Jeremiah’s ministries overlapped – Daniel prophesying in Babylon while Jeremiah remained in Judah. Ezekiel seems to have been taken to Babylon in 597 BC in the second stage of the exile. All three of these prophets were active at the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. Ezekiel and Daniel were in Babylon; Jeremiah was forced to escape from Jerusalem into Egypt.

The opening chapter is one of the things that make Daniel such an accessible book and Daniel such an endearing character. We meet a young man with integrity and wisdom who is committed to what he knows to be right, and winsome in the way he managed what could have been a very problematic situation.

This is what makes him a perfect hero and a great asset to Sunday School teachers all over the world. While I can’t remember many stories from Ezekiel or Jeremiah from my childhood days –Daniel’s stories I remember.

One other point is worthy of note before we dive too deeply into the book. While I said previously that Jeremiah sees no apparent positive success during his ministry life, the existence of people like Daniel and his young friends is likely only explained because Jeremiah had indeed made an impact. It goes to show that our task is to be faithful in doing what God has called us to do regardless of the apparent results. God is always at work. The results, when the last word has been spoken, will likely surprise us.

“So is my word that goes out of my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11).

Day 187: Ezekiel 39-43

2011-03-25T07:40:00.000-07:00

So far in our reading of Ezekiel, the prophet has been promising that judgment will come upon Jerusalem because of her unfaithfulness. But the prophet has also promised that someday God will restore the fortunes of Israel and they will be returned to the land. A portion of our reading today (chapters 38 and 39) seems to say that, between those two events, there will be a great battle in which the nations gather against Israel and God Himself comes to her defense.

I grew up reading The Scofield Reference Bible. It was the first Bible of its kind, putting interpretive notes just under the printed text of Scripture. The author of those notes, C. I. Scofield, had a particular view of the end times which saw Gog and Magog as particular nations, and Scofield’s prediction about who would be involved in these final battles was quite precise. Whether or not we can be so exact as Scofield assumes is a discussion for a later time, but what is clear is that Ezekiel prophesies that prior to the time that God will restore the fortunes of His people and build the temple (which Ezekiel speaks about beginning in chapter 40) there will be a battle of worldwide proportions in which God Himself will intervene on behalf of His people. The details of God rising up in anger in defense of helpless Israel are spelled out in Chapter 38:17-23. Chapter 39, verses 1 to 16, talk about how those invading armies will be destroyed, and the rest of the chapter speaks in some horrifying details of the devastation of the judgment of God upon the nations.

Before the chapter ends (in the last five verses) Ezekiel reminds us of things that he has said throughout his book. God will restore the fortunes of Jacob. His restoration will be so complete that they will forget their shame and God will hide His face from them no more. Not only so, but He will pour out His Spirit on the house of Israel – and though they have been unfaithful to the promises that they have made, God will be faithful to the promises that He has made.

The rest of today’s reading covers what many scholars believe to be an appendix to Ezekiel’s prophecy. Chapter 40 to the end of the book is the story of Ezekiel's vision. In this vision Ezekiel is carried to a high mountain near the holy city. He meets an angelic figure who takes him on a tour of the new temple and they measure everything with a builder’s measuring rod. Ezekiel’s depiction of the temple contains enough precise detail that you can actually reproduce the drawing of what he describes. But, there is also enough symbolic language to make us understand that this is not simply an architectural design.

The highlight in this section is the return of the glory of God to the temple in the New Jerusalem (43:1-12). That theme, the glory of God, appears in various places in association with the Temple. In 1 Kings 8:10-11, the glory of God filled the temple that Solomon had built. Here’s how the “eye-witnesses” saw it.

When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the LORD. And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled his temple.

You will likely remember that this was the sign that God was with them and His presence would sustain them (cf. Exodus 33:15). Sadly, Israel’s continued and repetitive rejection of God and His covenant results in God’s glory departing from the place where it had rested for more than five centuries. Listen to the sequence of things as Ezekiel describes them.

Then the glory of the LORD rose from above the cherubim and moved to the threshold of the temple. The cloud filled the temple, and the court was full of the radiance of the glory of the LORD (10:4). Then the glory of the LORD departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherubim. While I watched, the cherubim spread their wings and rose from the ground, and as they went, the wheels went with them. They stopped at the entrance to the east gate of the LORD’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them (10:18-19). The glory of the LORD went up from within the city and stopped above the mountain east of it (11:23).

The glory of God is removed and judgment will begin; but Ezekiel foretells of a day when the glory of God will return to this new temple he has seen, and from that day forward, His presence will remain, never to be removed.

…and I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east. His voice was like the roar of rushing waters, and the land was radiant with his glory. The glory of the LORD entered the temple through the gate facing east. Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple (43:2,4,5).

If there were no promises like these, it would have been impossible for Ezekiel and the faithful remnant to have retained any sense of hope. But because these promises fill the prophetic messages, hope is as real as the promises of God – and for the believer, those promises define our reality.

Day 186: Ezekiel 33-38

2011-03-24T06:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we took some time to examine a study Bible that has a particular theological bent. Today, let’s look at yet another.

A few years ago, I was rummaging through a stack of damaged books in a Books-a-Million bookstore and came across The Apologetics Study Bible. In the publisher’s review, here’s how the book is described:

The Apologetics Study Bible will help today's Christian better understand, defend and proclaim their beliefs in this age of increasing moral and spiritual relativism. More than one hundred key questions and articles placed throughout the volume about faith and science prompt a rewarding study experience at every reading.

As you know from my blog on The Quest Study Bible, I like the “key questions” format, and when I discovered that the articles were written by a very impressive collection of some of my favourite apologists (Lee Strobel, Josh McDowell, Ravi Zacharias, Hank Hanegraaff, Norm Geisler, and J.P. Moreland among others), I decided to buy it. Although the Bible translation in The Apologetics Study Bible is one I don’t normally use (Holman Christian Standard Bible), I think it is a good tool for those who think in questions (like I tend to do).

The article I have chosen is one that TASB includes in the pages of the text of Ezekiel (although it could have been in many other places as well). Because Ezekiel uses such powerful metaphors that speak of God as a husband and Israel as a wife (albeit, an unfaithful one), it fits. See what you think of Chad Brand’s approach to the question – and when you are finished – keep on reading…

Is God a Male?

By Chad Owen Brand

When Scripture speaks about God it invariably uses masculine imagery. God is King, not Queen. God is Father, not Mother. When Scripture uses pronouns in reference to God, it always uses male pronouns—He, Him, His. God is never “she” or “it.” Even though the NT term for the Spirit, pneuma, is a neuter noun, the writers of the NT always used masculine pronouns to refer to the Spirit. It is “ the Spirit, He,” not “it” (e.g., Jn 15:26). In addition, the church is represented as the wife or bride of Christ, who is Husband (Eph 5:22-33). This is similar to OT imagery in which Israel was the wife of God (Hs 1-3; Ezk. 16).

It is also important to recognize that this is not merely functional terminology. That is, it is not just language that is designed for us to use in our relationship to God, without reference to real conditions. God the Father actually is the Father of God the Son (Jn 17:1-5). Even in the internal relationships within God’s being, the relationship between these two persons is that of a father to a son. Furthermore, we are not intended to use the human standard of a father or husband to interpret God’s fatherliness of Christ’s husband character, but rather we are to see God as the epitome of what those ought to be and then to measure our experience by the standard of the Father and Christ.

Is this patriarchal? Yes, it is. But as Christians, we are bound to take our theology from Scripture, not from the cultural standards around us. Most of the cultures surrounding ancient Israel had goddess figures, as did the Roman culture of NT times. But the writers of Scripture always treated this as among the most heinous kinds of idolatry. If we are to be faithful to our Christian heritage, we must stick to Scripture.

Does this patriarchalism mean that the Bible holds women to be inferior? Not at all. Scripture often depicts God as treating His people in the way a caregiver would treat a child. Jesus, said, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem…How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings” (Lk 13:34-35). Further, the Bible elevates women in ways contrary to the pagan cultures of the day. They are equal partners of the grace of God given in Christ (Gal 3:28).

But Scripture still speaks of God in a masculine manner. God is Father, and we ought to be eternally grateful for the fact that He is the ultimate model of what a father ought to be. Christ is Husband, and as such He reveals what a husband ought to do for his wife. Both women and men in our time ought to be grateful for the fact that God is the perfect example of what these roles entail. This enables both men and women to know the Father and Christ in ways that are life transforming.

Chad Brand is a Professor of Christian Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Associate Dean for Biblical and Theological Studies at Boyce College.

Day 185: Ezekiel 27-32

2011-03-23T06:31:00.000-07:00

From time to time in this blog we have used the space to recommend Bible study aids that can help you on your reading journey. One of the tools that I have found helpful recently is The Reformation Study Bible. This study tool was published in 1995 under a different title and became The Reformation Study Bible in 1998. My copy was published in 2005 using the new English Standard Version translation (a translation that I am coming to like more and more). The study Bible contains “more than 20,000 study notes, 96 theological articles, contributions from 50 evangelical scholars, 19 in-text maps and 12 charts to make this one essential study Bible.” In my opinion, it is those theological articles that set the book apart.

Since Ezekiel has the glory of God as one of its major themes, take a look at an article from this study Bible on that topic that appears in the pages of the book of Ezekiel.

The Glory of God

God’s goal is His glory, but this needs careful explanation, for it is easily misunderstood. It points to a purpose, not of divine egoism, but of divine love. Certainly, God asks to be praised for His praiseworthiness and exalted for His greatness and goodness. He asks to be appreciated for what He is. But the glory that is His goal is a two-sided, two-stage relationship: on the one side He reveals His glory in acts of free generosity, and on the other, His people respond with adoration, giving Him glory with thanksgiving for what they have seen and received. Human beings were made for this reciprocal fellowship of love, and Christ’s redemption makes it possible for those who had fallen. Human nature is fulfilled through seeing God’s glory and returning praise to Him, just as God has pleasure in revealing His goodness to those who receive it (Zeph. 3:14-17).

“Glory” in the Old Testament is associated with value, riches, splendor, and dignity. When Moses asked to see God’s glory, God proclaimed to Moses His name; that is, He revealed to Moses something of His nature, character, and power (Ex. 33:18 – 47; theological note “ ‘This is My Name’: God’s Self-disclosure” at Ex. 3:15). Accompanying the proclamation was an awe-inspiring physical manifestation, a bright cloud like a burning fire (Ex. 24:17). This glory of God’s presence is often called the “Shekinah” or the “Shekinah glory.” It appeared at significant moments as a sign of God’s active presence (Ex. 33:22; 34:5; cf. 16:10; 24:17; 40:34; Lev.9:23-24; I Kin.8:10-11; Ezek.1:28; 8:4; 9:3; 10:4; 11:22-23; Matt. 17:5; Luke 2:9; cf. Acts 1:9; I Thess.4:17; Rev.1:7). New Testament writers proclaim that the glory of God is now revealed in Jesus Christ (John 1:14-18; 2 Cor.4:2-6; Heb.1:1-3).

God is glorified in the acts of salvation, because they exhibit His incomparable condescension, His inexhaustible love, and His limitless power. “Salvation belongs to the LORD” (Jon.2:9), and those He saves have contributed nothing to their salvation except their need (Is.42:8; 48:11). The praise for salvation belongs to no one except God. This is why Reformation theology was so insistent on the principle, “Glory to God alone” (soli Deo gloria), and why we need to maintain that principle with equal zeal today.

…and keep on reading…

Day 184: Ezekiel 22-26

2011-03-22T06:18:00.000-07:00

Thirty years ago, when I was in university, an evangelistic team would roll into our area with an organization called the “Open Air Campaigners.” I remember this gang of preachers for a couple of reasons, not the least of which was that they were originally from Australia and their rich accents fascinated everyone who heard them. The other reason was the nature of their ministry. They were “street preachers.” They would scope out a place in the city centre where large crowds of people tended to congregate and set up a soapbox or stand on the steps of a major building and start preaching to whomever would listen.

That was a long time ago, but even in those days, that seemed a bit weird. But, they were astonishingly successful at gathering crowds and gaining a hearing – often by clever illustrations and winsome stories. As you read the prophecy of Ezekiel, one of the things that becomes clear is that Ezekiel was a “street preacher”. No temple to minister in or church to speak from, all of his messages were in the open, on the street where every exiled Israelite could hear him. But, unlike my friends the “Campaigners”, his messages were anything but winsome.

In today’s reading, Ezekiel will walk through the streets of Babylon with a message that would likely have caused mothers to cover their children’s ears and head for cover. In an uncomfortably sexually graphic parable (chapter 23), Ezekiel describes the unfaithfulness of the two sisters (Israel and Judah) and their pursuit of other nations in hopes that these “lovers” could deliver them from their enemies. These acts of “prostitution” would turn on them; their lovers would fail them and they would be left destitute, broken, and naked in the streets and all of the nations would look on their shame. If Ezekiel could have used more graphic warnings and more urgent reasons to repent, I am not certain what they would have been.

One of the images Ezekiel uses to describe God’s judgment on Jerusalem in particular was the cup of His wrath that He would force her to drink. In using that image, he joins a long prophetic chain describing God’s wrath in this way (cf. Isa. 51:17, 22; Jer. 25:15-17, 28; Hab. 2:16; Zech. 12:2; Matt. 20:22; 26:39; Rev. 14:10). Most scholars feel that this prophetic image is what Jesus referred to as He prayed in Mark 14:36, “Abba, Father everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” (cf. Hebrews 2:9).

Today’s section also includes one of the more remarkable stories of faithfulness in all of scripture. God had asked Ezekiel to do some very difficult and self-sacrificial things (lay on his side for 430 days, shave his head, eat a scroll), but the episode in 24:15-24 is the most intense and severe. God will soon use the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem. If the people in exile have been listening to Ezekiel, they know it is coming and they know that it is an inevitable consequence of the unrepentant covenant-breaking Judah has been involved in for centuries. As much as God loved this holy city, He would show no remorse in the judgment He would pour out upon it. To illustrate this, God tells Ezekiel that his wife was about to die. That was shocking enough. But what God would require of Ezekiel is mindboggling. Regardless of the pain this would cause him, the prophet was to observe none of the customary acts of public mourning for her loss. Instead, when people asked him why he was acting so heartlessly, he was to use that opportunity to leverage God’s prophetic message.

I first hit pause on this passage decades ago and I still have a hard time imagining myself where Ezekiel must have found himself. It just seems like too much to ask. But, as we have been finding, God often required His prophets to perform painful tasks and endure extraordinary suffering (Hebrews 11:35-38). The great lesson for us is Ezekiel’s response. “So I spoke to the people in the morning, and in the evening my wife died. The next morning I did as I had been commanded” (Ezekiel 24:18).

That kind of faithfulness seems so distant for me still – which is why this passage has so often led me to introspection and a longing to understand what it means to love God the way Ezekiel did. The story exposes my own half-hearted pursuit of God like few other stories in the entire canon of scripture.

Day 183: Ezekiel 17-21

2011-03-21T07:11:00.000-07:00

Before we dive into today’s reading, let me do two things. First, thank Susan Moore for her insightful observations as last week’s guest blogger. Second, congratulate you for persevering on the journey to this point. Did you realize that we have only 90 days to go? Wow! Have we come a long way since Genesis 1!

As we have discovered already, the prophet Ezekiel prophesied under very similar circumstances to the writer of the previous book, Jeremiah. Like Jeremiah (and Zechariah, who we will hear from later), Ezekiel was a Judean priest of Yahweh as well as His prophet. There is no evidence in the book that Ezekiel ever served in the Temple in the Jerusalem, but he is familiar enough with the priestly office to have included many of those themes in his book. The last part of the book where he speaks of the glory of the Lord and the future temple yet to be built are examples.

From what we can piece together in the book, Ezekiel began his ministry when he was 30 years old (1:1), and he gave his last prophecy when he was just past 50. That means his entire ministry took place during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon (605-562 B.C.). That makes him a contemporary of the prophet Daniel, who went into captivity in 605 B.C. Ezekiel went to Babylon as a captive during Nebuchadnezzar's second deportation of Jerusalemites in 597 B.C.

“Ten thousand captives went to Babylon then with much confiscated treasure from the temple and the royal palaces. Nebuchadnezzar also took most of the craftsmen and smiths to Babylon, and only the poorest of the people remained in the land. Jews lived in three principle locations during Ezekiel's ministry: Egypt, Judah, and Babylon. Ezekiel evidently ministered among the Babylonian community entirely; there is no evidence that he ever visited Jerusalem after the Babylonians took him captive. Life among the Jewish exiles was not a physically difficult existence, certainly not like living in a concentration camp. The exiles enjoyed considerable freedom and even traveled within Babylonia (cf. 33:21; Jer. 29) . They were able to own their own homes, to pursue their own businesses and personal interests, and to organize their own communities. Babylon was infamous for its luxurious wealth and its excessive idolatry. Life became so comfortable in Babylon that after Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to their homeland in 538 B.C. most of them chose to remain where they were.” ~ Thomas Constable

You have likely already figured out that Ezekiel has the same two-step approach to his prophetic ministry as Jeremiah (and to some extent, Isaiah) before him. He reminded the people in captivity of the sins that had excited God’s judgment and brought this exile upon them AND he also encouraged them that there would be a day ahead when God would bring them home and reestablish his glory among them. Just as the covenant God made with them promised discipline for their unfaithfulness (Lev. 26; Deut. 28), God would not cast His people off permanently no matter how far they departed from Him and His will.

“Ezekiel reminded the exiles of their covenant unfaithfulness and of the faithfulness, holiness, and glory of Yahweh, their God. The Lord would judge, cleanse, and ultimately bless His people so that they and all people might come to appreciate His uniqueness and greatness. The purpose of the Exile was to turn God's people away from their sins and back to their Sovereign. The discipline they experienced was an evidence of God's love. When it was over, a glorious future lay in store for them. A righteous ruler would eventually lead them back to a radically renovated land where they would enjoy peace, prosperity, and renewed worship.” ~ Ralph H. Alexander

In today’s section, look for a Messianic prophecy in 17:22-24 and see if you can recall where else that image is used of the future deliverer of Israel.

Day 180: Ezekiel 11-16

2011-03-18T06:56:00.000-07:00

This week the posts that you read are from guest blogger Susan Moore. Susan is the Resource Coordinator for Grant Memorial.

Plopped in the middle of the judgment of Israel’s leaders is a lovely transaction that brings hope and life: God promises to trade us our hearts of stone for hearts of flesh! A heart of stone is invincible but beats for no one, feels nothing, and while it cannot be wounded, neither can it be moved. God offers us a fleshly heart that feels joy and pain – alive to all things, responsive to God and people.

Jeremiah promised this new covenant in Chapter 31:33: “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time….I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” In the New Testament, Paul appeals to the Corinthians, reminding them that they are a letter from Christ, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

In Stuart Briscoe’s commentary on Ezekiel entitled “Dry Bones,” he says: “Sin brings judgment; independence bears the fruit of disintegration….A new heart is needed and God is in the heart-transplant business. He specializes in taking the cold, unregenerate heart and infusing into it the life of His Spirit, the reality of His love and the warmth of His presence. God also gives His cool or lukewarm children a fresh touch of His Spirit and His erring churches a fresh exposure to Himself which, if they respond positively, brings about a new glow of devotion and a fiery determination to serve Him.

Today’s reading ends with a tragic allegory of unfaithful Jerusalem, first discovered by God as a neglected infant in a “vacant lot.” God describes His tender care for the fledgling, providing so beautifully for her as she grew into a woman. She became His, in the covenant of marriage. And yet despite His tender attentions, she wanders off committing every vile act of unfaithfulness possible.

She will be punished – she must face and accept the shame of her choices. AND YET... God continues to offer His covenantal love toward her. Despite her wanton ways, God will atone for her sins, making all things right. Eugene Peterson concludes that passage by saying that God’s grace toward her would leave her speechless! I guess. God is all together “other,” not just in His omnipotence, wrath and holiness, but also in His utterly unique love, mercy and grace.

~ Susan Moore

Day 179: Ezekiel 3-10

2011-03-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

This week the posts that you read are from guest blogger Susan Moore. Susan is the Resource Coordinator for Grant Memorial.

After receiving God’s call, His very first instructions to Ezekiel are to “Eat this book.” Ezekiel says the scroll containing the Word of the Lord tastes like honey, and yet when we hear those words being proclaimed in the next few chapters, they are anything but sweet! Ezekiel is called to be the watchman who scans the horizon and warns the people of impending danger. He is the prophet that urges people to take human responsibility. We cannot just blame God for our situations, nor point our fingers at our parents or family situations that got us into our messes. Ezekiel was given the responsibility to warn both believers and non-believers about the necessity of repentance. If he refused to obey, their blood would be on his hands.

So Ezekiel is commanded to speak for God and then he is struck dumb. Huh? God decides to use rather odd methods of communication. In New Testament times, Paul explained to the Corinthians that sometimes God chooses weak things to defeat strong things, foolish things to confuse wise things (1 Cor. 1:27). This is definitely one of those times. So Ezekiel uses everything from an iron frying pan to the hair from his head to communicate God’s warnings. And in terms of punishment? Cannibalism, epidemic disease and wild animals killing children. Wow. No empty threats from God. He follows through on the most dreadful of these threats so that “they will know that I am the LORD.” He will not be ignored.

Ezekiel faithfully proclaims the harsh judgment of God. We live in a time when it is not politically correct to suggest that anything reflects or is worth the judgment of God. We prefer an impotent, kindly God who is tolerant of all evil – well, at least all MY evil (which I prefer to call “dysfunction”). Let us not presume on God’s mercy or patience. His justice will not be compromised! And His judgment will begin with the house of God (9:6; 1 Peter 4:17).

One wisp of hope – an X on the forehead of those who grieved and lamented because of the sins of the city. No matter how broad the judgment, God always “passes over” the faithful remnant that obey and trust Him for deliverance.

~ Susan Moore

Day 178: Lamentations 3-Ezekiel 2

2011-03-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

This week the posts that you read are from guest blogger Susan Moore. Susan is the Resource Coordinator for Grant Memorial.

These last chapters of Lamentations are both terrible and beautiful in their stark honesty, expressing raw perseverance in the midst of God’s stringent discipline. What strong faith it takes to express and cling to hope while experiencing pitch black darkness that just doesn’t end. Would I dare to think such feelings out loud, let alone write them down to be read by others? I might worry about how I am portraying God, but Jeremiah doesn’t seem concerned with God’s reputation as he pens his lament.

In chapter 3:21, Jeremiah turns a corner in his thinking. There are times when good theology and robust faith must speak to our feelings so that our feelings can be realigned. It always gets back to that same base question: can God be trusted? Will we trust His discipline? Do we believe that His justice serves the deeper purposes of His love?

It is good to sit alone in silence (3:28) and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord (26), trusting we are not cast off by the Lord forever (31), despite feelings to the contrary.

It reminds me of another place in Scripture (Psalm 46), where we are invited to come and see the works of the Lord, (including the desolations He has brought on the earth), and then to be still and KNOW that He is God - the God who WILL be exalted among the nations. It is that God, the LORD Almighty who is with us as we wait in the dark.

As one commentator said, “the best fruit of anyone’s mourning is his praying to God.” (Irving L. Jensen, Lamentations). And so the book ends with Jeremiah entreating God to restore his people to Himself, begging for renewed joy out of a renewed relationship.

We move from Lamentations to the book of Ezekiel where we will spend several days. Warren Wiersbe, in his commentary on Ezekiel entitled “Be Reverent,” explains that Ezekiel lived, spoke, and wrote his book while the Jewish people were captives in Babylon. He was not only a servant sent to speak to his people, but he was also a sign to the people. God asked him to do many unusual things in order to get the attention of the people so they would hear the Word of God. His spoken messages and his “sign messages” were both needed, because the people had blind eyes and hard hearts. Ezekiel was a master of metaphor and imagery….Our generation needs the message of Ezekiel, for we are a people who lack the reverence we should have for the glory of God and the name of God.” (Preface)

In the first two chapters we have a glorious picture painted that depicts the glory of God. Wouldn’t we love to see Peter Jackson who created “The Lord of the Rings” tackle this vision – the creatures with the faces of a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle; the wheels within wheels and the azure blue throne? What images are adequate to describe the glory of God? Ezekiel responds appropriately by falling facedown in awe, but God tells him to stand up and receive his commissioning without fear.

~ Susan Moore

Day 177: Jeremiah 51-Lamentations 2

2011-03-15T06:13:00.000-07:00

This week the posts that you read are from guest blogger Susan Moore. Susan is the Resource Coordinator for Grant Memorial.

While the book of Jeremiah looks ahead to the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., the book of Lamentations looks back at that same event. If Jeremiah wept over his people before judgment fell, he now writes out of deep grief as he watches the city burn and his people brutalized. Delbert Hillers writes: “Lamentations is so complete and honest and eloquent an expression of grief that even centuries after the events which inspired it, it is still able to provide those in mute despair with words to speak.” (Delbert R. Hillers, Lamentations, p. xvi)

Lamentations is one of those poetic books that I wish I could read in its original language. I understand the book to be a set of five melancholy poems using a “limping meter” where the second of two parallel parts is one beat shorter than the first. When read publicly, the chanting of the Hebrew text matched the mood of the words. The first four chapters are acrostic, each verse beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet – a masterpiece of Hebrew poetry.

If readers have been oblivious to the judgment of a holy God, these descriptions are harsh and eloquent at the same time: “Look at me! Have you ever seen anything like this? Ever seen pain like my pain, seen what he did to me, what God did to me in his rage? He struck me with lightning, skewered me from head to foot, then he set traps all around so I could hardly move. He left me with nothing—left me sick, and sick of living.” (1:12,13 The Message)

One of the saddest statements in the early chapters of Lamentations is in 1:9 when we read that Jerusalem did not consider her future destiny, therefore her collapse was astounding. Oh, may we not lose sight of that for which we were created, redeemed and equipped. Hebrews 12:28 reminds us, “Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.”

~ Susan Moore

Day 176: Jeremiah 46-50

2011-03-14T06:20:00.000-07:00

This week the posts that you read are from guest blogger Susan Moore. Susan is the Resource Coordinator for Grant Memorial.

If I am ever tempted to forget that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” these chapters are a wake-up call. Earlier in Jeremiah (25:15,16), we read God’s instruction to the prophet saying, "Take this cup filled with the wine of my wrath that I'm handing to you. Make all the nations where I send you drink it down. They'll drink it and get drunk, staggering in delirium because of the killing that I'm going to unleash among them." In today’s reading, we have detailed and gory accounts of the nations drinking down the deadly wine of God’s wrath. If I was watching these scenes on TV, I’d be all scrunched up, peeking through my fingers so I could hide from the full impact of the graphic images, rated R for violence and fear factor.

While the bulk of the material is devoted to judgment, there are single threads that offer protection to orphans and widows, and future redemption to the nations of Egypt, Moah, Ammon and Elam and to God’s “servants” – golden threads that catch my eye as they reflect the light in this dark and scratchy fabric.

Lest we think that all God’s wrath was spent in the days of the Old Testament prophets, Paul tells us how the Thessalonian believers “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead – Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.” (1 Thess. 1:9, 10)

And to the church in Rome, Paul wrote, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! (Romans 5:8,9)

R.C. Sproul was right when he said that what we need most is to be saved from God Himself – “not from kidney stones, not from hurricanes, not from military defeats. What every human being needs to be saved from is God. The last thing in the world the impenitent sinner ever wants to meet on the other side of the grave is God. But the glory of the gospel is that the One from whom we need to be saved is the very One who saves us. God in saving us saves us from Himself. Woe unto those who have no Saviour on the day of wrath.” (Saved from What?, p. 25)

~ Susan Moore

Day 173: Jeremiah 38-45

2011-03-11T07:44:00.000-08:00

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Matthew 5:10-12

Every time I read these words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount, I end up thinking of Jeremiah. Our reading today is a bit different again, in that it is Jeremiah’s chronicle of some of the details of the fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. What we see, once again, is Jeremiah’s faithfulness in the midst of persecution, misrepresentation, and physical suffering. While we will see this pattern repeated in the other prophets we encounter, Jeremiah, the “weeping prophet” seems to give us the clearest and most undeniable example of patient perseverance.

My grandfather used to tell me that reading the Bible has a tendency (as he put it) “to spoil a lot of preaching.” What he meant by that is that when people actually read the Bible for themselves, they tend to listen with greater scrutiny. That’s why today’s “prosperity gospel” doesn’t usually bear the weight of books like Jeremiah. There was no more God-focused man on the planet than Jeremiah in his day – and, few who suffered more because of it. Yes, sometimes our suffering comes because we have disregarded God’s Word and refused to listen (which is precisely what was happening to Judah). And sometimes we suffer because of the sins of others (Jeremiah faced the same trauma in the siege of Jerusalem as everyone else). But sometimes, suffering is a result of our determination to obey God. When a believer suffers in this broken world, it is NOT a sign that God has abandoned us. It may be just the opposite.

We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing. Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring. All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering.
2 Thessalonians 1:3-5

Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.
James 5:10-11

And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe. For you, brothers, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out.
2 Thessalonians 2:13-15

You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
2 Timothy 3:10-12

Day 172: Jeremiah 32-37

2011-03-10T08:16:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, I found myself on an airplane to Asia sitting by a business man from Hong Kong. His family, he told me, owned a series of factories that manufacture paper and plastic flowers for major retailers around the world. We began talking about investments and he told me a story about an American business group that recently moved out of a business deal because the major return on their investment wouldn’t be realized for at least 10 years. His company, on the other hand, had investments whose significant return would not be realized for up to 40 years – and they were investing even more in those stocks. As he talked about the difference in investment strategy, he said that people in North America have difficulty thinking long term because their nation measures its history in mere hundreds of years. China, on the other hand, measures its civilization in thousands. “An investment that will not pay off in less than 40 years doesn’t seem like such a risk when your culture is more than 4,000 years old. We know we can afford to wait.”

I thought of that story again as I was reading our section for today. The reading opens with Jeremiah in prison. The Babylonians are outside the city and have had it under siege for more than a year when God comes to Jeremiah and tells him to purchase a piece of land that is outside the city and currently occupied by soldiers. Not a great investment – unless, of course, you have been told to make the investment by someone who sees things in terms of eternity. Jeremiah buys the land and that purchase becomes an illustration of the hope that the nation will return and someday that the land will have value again. And this, of course, is the point.

Throughout this week’s readings there have been repeated prophecies of promise. God’s judgment will be satisfied. Israel’s enemies will be defeated, and the people will return to the land. Not only this, but God points to a day when the land will be renewed AND the hearts of the people will be radically changed (30:18-22; 31:18-20; 31:31-33; 32:40-42). With “insider information” like that in your pocket, a land purchase like Jeremiah is asked to make isn’t so difficult to imagine.

With the God we have come to know and the eternal promises He has given us, perhaps the investments He has asked us to make are not too much to ask as well.

Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you. You show love to thousands but bring the punishment for the fathers’ sins into the laps of their children after them. O great and powerful God, whose name is the LORD Almighty, great are your purposes and mighty are your deeds. Your eyes are open to all the ways of men; you reward everyone according to his conduct and as his deeds deserve. You performed miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt and have continued them to this day, both in Israel and among all mankind, and have gained the renown that is still yours (Jeremiah 32:17-20).

Day 171: Jeremiah 26-31

2011-03-09T10:16:00.000-08:00

Did you know that there is only one place in the Old Testament where another Old Testament text is quoted verbatim and the author is named? You’ll find that passage in today’s reading (Jeremiah 26:18; Micah 3:12).

Jeremiah records an episode in which he gives a sermon and once again, the priests are offended. This time, they are so appalled by his prophesy that they insist he be killed. Jeremiah, as one might expect, defends himself by claiming that he is required to speak (as he repeatedly does) because the Lord has sent him. What is surprising in this passage is that, for one of the only times in the entire book, a few of the elders who are observing this debate come to Jeremiah’s defense. Quoting a prophecy from Micah 3:12, the elders’ argue that other prophets have called for repentance and predicted calamity and have truly spoken for God. If that was true for other prophets in the past, then why not now for Jeremiah? The argument seems to work as Jeremiah’s life is spared. This is not to say that everyone who claims to speak for God actually does. As the next few chapters argue, false prophets do exist and must be resisted. But it is clear that Jeremiah in not one of them.

If it seems that you’ve read this story before, it’s not surprising. Episodes like this one are not rare in Jeremiah. He would experience repeated episodes when the people ignored his message and called for his execution. That has to be a tough way to make a living. So, with this passage chronicling yet another personal and prophetic disappointment, this might be a good place to ask ourselves whether or not Jeremiah’s ministry was what we might call – a success.

The evidence is not all that affirmative. His message is repeatedly ignored. He is thrown in prison (37), dumped in a well (38), dragged away to Egypt (43), and accused of treason. He ends up being abandoned by just about everyone, including family (12:6), friends (20:10), the priests (20:1,2), the kings (36:23), and eventually the general public (26:8). Not exactly the response one would hope for - and from what we can tell from the record, his ministry, measured by a convert count, was an absolute zero. Yet we come away from this book with a clear sense that Jeremiah may have been one of the most successful prophets in the entire Old Testament. What do we make of that? After all, Jeremiah spends many of his waking hours in a perpetual lament. By what measure can that be called successful?

Like other things for those who follow God, success should never be measured without an eternal standard by which to assess it. That standard, for God’s people, is faithfulness (1 Corinthians 4:2; Matthew 25:21) - and when it comes to faithfulness, Jeremiah was the poster child. The ministry God called him to required that he face pain and isolation, and for more than 40 years of ministry he did everything that God asked of him. He trusted God with his whole heart. He spoke on God’s behalf even when it would have been much easier to be silent.

Day 170: Jeremiah 19-25

2011-03-08T06:29:00.000-08:00

In his classic tale, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis writes a scene in which Lucy is speaking with Mr. Beaver and is getting her first description of the Christ-figure in the tale, Aslan the Lion.

“Is – is he a man?” asked Lucy.

“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of the Beasts? Aslan is a lion – the Lion, the great Lion.”

“Ooh!” said Susan. “I thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver, “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

I recall walking into church a number of years ago and seeing a friend of mine who had come to church a bit early, sitting reading his Bible. I said hello and asked him what he was reading. He told me that he was reading one of the major prophets. “And what are you learning?”, I asked. He gave me an answer that I’ll never forget. “Well, one thing for sure. You really don’t want to get God mad at you.”

The section for today certainly reinforces my friend’s observation. Again and again in these chapters, whether in a sermon or a prophetic declaration, we get a window into the very dangerous God we worship. No matter where you are standing, the view of His wrath is horrifying. One of the things that is so sobering is that God owns this attribute – using the personal pronoun repeatedly to tell us that this destruction is His doing.

“I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm in anger and fury and great wrath” (21:5).

Before we get out of the first ten verses of the chapter, we read, “I will ruin the plans of Judah; I will make them fall by the sword; I will give their carcasses as food to the birds of the air; I will devastate this city and make it an object of scorn.”

Whatever else is true about God’s wrath, it is an attribute that He owns as a part of His holy character and He shows no hesitation in owning it. He speaks of the exercise of His justice with no hint of shame.

While it seems rather uncivilized in our modern age to speak so of God, this was Jeremiah’s message, his warning – and it is very clear that the message was unwanted then as now. Had he only spoken of God as the false prophets did, he likely could have avoided the pain he describes in his lament (20:7-18). As hard as some of these passages are to read, we need to remember that communicating a message that claims to tell the truth about God but avoids any description of His wrath puts us in dangerous company (see Jeremiah 23:16-20).

We are forced here to deal with a God who punishes sin – whose anger is fixed with unshakable resolve against those who abandon Him. Our only hope, as sinners much like those Jeremiah describes in these passages, is mercy.

Worship, true worship, requires that we praise God, not simply for what He does, but for who He is. Our God is a God who, in perfect righteousness, is angry with the wicked and whose wrath against sin is relentless.

Jeremiah 25:38
Like a lion he will leave his lair,
and their land will become desolate
because of the sword of the oppressor
and because of the LORD’s fierce anger.

“Safe?” ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

Day 169: Jeremiah 12-18

2011-03-07T11:55:00.000-08:00

We have been saying for several weeks that the prophets have rich lessons to teach us about all matters of spiritual concern. They are at the same time theologically focused (they are about God), historically attentive (they are about real places and events), and biographically instructive. That may be said of all of the prophets, but perhaps especially about Jeremiah. Because we have two books written from his hand and one of them intensely personal (Lamentations), we know quite a bit about him. He had little hesitation in matters of the heart and expressed himself in some shockingly open ways before God.

The section we are reading today is a case in point. Chapter 12 begins with Jeremiah’s complaint about the persecution that he is facing. What makes this worse is that the pressure and criticism he feels is from his own people who (it seems as chapter 11 ends) hate his black and white preaching and want him dead. Jeremiah begins his lament/complaint to God wondering aloud why the wicked prosper and the righteous keep getting the short end of the stick. (To see what good company Jeremiah is in here, read Job 21:4-21, Habakkuk 1:12-17, or Psalm 73). God’s response is much like the one He gave Job. With bleak images God tells Jeremiah that the nation will suffer punishment for their disobedience and Jeremiah will be among those who suffer. The chapter does end with a promise of future grace, but God’s immediate response to Jeremiah seems rather harsh and unadorned.

So, Jeremiah, if you're worn out in this footrace with men,
what makes you think you can race against horses?
And if you can't keep your wits during times of calm,
what's going to happen when troubles break loose like the Jordan in flood? (Jeremiah 12:5 The Message)

In short, he tells Jeremiah that this is simply the beginning of sorrows and he will need a greater faith (and more resolve) because, before the Babylonians are finished, worse trials are inevitable. Yet, Jeremiah stays where God places him in spite of the lack of apparent “success” in bringing the nation to repentance. His heart remains fully engaged. He never loses touch with God. He never loses his compassion for his people. He never becomes disconnected with his message. (All three are dangers for people in ministry – even in the best of times). What is more, Jeremiah’s message is so intricately woven into his soul that, at times, it is impossible to tell where Jeremiah ends and his message begins. In 15:10-16:21, his life is made an object lesson, illustrating the consequence of God’s coming judgment. And through it all, Jeremiah remains loyal.

I am always humbled when I read this book. Here is a man who remains faithful to God and he does it... alone. Forbidden to marry or have children, Jeremiah’s sense of isolation must have intensified his suffering. And yet, though he cries out in one lament after another, it is God’s chest that he beats upon. What God is doing, Jeremiah often does not understand, but he trusts Him with every ounce of his being. Why? He knows God is both absolutely sovereign and absolutely good. God is the potter (chapter 18) who shapes and reshapes His people “always doing what He thinks is best.” And this is the hope upon which Jeremiah stands.

Day 166: Jeremiah 6-11

2011-03-04T07:18:00.000-08:00

I had another of those encouraging conversations this past Sunday with a person who is with us on this journey to read the entire Bible in 270 days. He said that, in all the years he has been a Christ-follower, this is the first time he has read the Bible from cover to cover this way. Then he said, “Thanks for encouraging us to do this!”

This is the first time in a while that I have used this method as well. I have been reading through the Bible regularly for quite a few years now, but often using a variety of methods. (Here is an article that lists a few different ways: http://www.backtothebible.org/index.php/Bible-Reading-Guides.html). I have also kept reading journals from time to time. But this is the first time I have written a blog as I am reading... a blog that has as its goal to keep the readers reading something else – the Bible. I’ve tried to avoid making the posts too long (usually less than 700 words), and have included lots of “keep on going” encouragements and hints that can help readers understand what they are reading.

When I add the total number of words that have been written, edited, assembled, collected and shaped to form these blog entries, they add up to nearly 70,000 words – or a 210 page book. That pales in comparison to the 780,000+ words in the Bible itself, but it has taken some attention. So, I thought I’d take a minute before we read today to thank the people who are using their own keen observation and writing skills as guest bloggers.

In the past few weeks we have heard from Angi McCarty and Richelle Bronsdon. I so enjoyed reading their insights and personal reflections. Their posts inspired me to keep on reading and to think about the section I was reading in a way that I would not have otherwise. I am looking forward to reading entries from other guest bloggers in the days ahead.

Today’s reading is another prediction of the destruction of Judah and a call to radical repentance. Jeremiah uses a very personal style of writing in which he directly addresses those of whom and to whom he speaks. The style increases the sense of urgency as he describes invasion, devastation and doom. The question in Jeremiah is (and always is ), will God’s people listen to his warning and repent?

Day 165: Isaiah 66-Jeremiah 5

2011-03-03T05:49:00.000-08:00

The opening sections of the book of Jeremiah’s prophecy gives us a hint that this book is going to be quite different that the first of the major prophets we just finished reading (Isaiah). While Isaiah is deeply poetic in its approach, Jeremiah is much more biographical. Some have compared the structure of Jeremiah’s book to a journal as much as a series of prophetic predictions and warnings.

Because a good introduction is always helpful in preparing us for what we are about to read, today’s entry will provide one. And once again, we return to the ESV Study Bible (Literary Study Bible, or LSB) as a primary source. A few of our readers have asked me why I like this resource so much and I have tried to explain it this way. I do not feel that the LSB is the best study Bible for all occasions, but for the type of reading we are doing (completing large sections looking for the “big picture” ideas) the Literary Study Bible does a great job of describing what to look for. So, here once again is an abbreviated and edited version of the LSB introductory notes. If you want to see a more expanded version, you may visit the site online at http://www.esvliterarystudybible.org.

The book at a glance.
52 chapters, 1,364 verses. The book of Jeremiah is a prophetic tour de force that documents the spiritual decline and tragic downfall of Jerusalem, as viewed from the divinely ordained perspective of Jeremiah, the weeping prophet. The wide sweep of the book takes in nearly fifty years of salvation history—the last decades before the fall of Jerusalem and Judah’s exile to Babylon. In addition to giving words of warning to the people of God, Jeremiah prophesies judgment against many other nations. Through stories, object lessons, social commentary, and prophecies of doom, Jeremiah shows what happens to a culture that has lost its way spiritually and what suffering results when people forget their God. Yet the book also shows what comfort God has for His people in times of persecution and exile and what hope we have for the future in the promises of God. The preponderance of judgment gives the book of Jeremiah a somber tone. However, the dark backdrop of divine judgment also makes the promises of God’s saving grace and Jeremiah’s own indomitable faithfulness shine with more brilliant intensity.

Genres.
Jeremiah is an anthology or collection of writings drawn from an entire lifetime in prophetic ministry. The narrative sections scattered throughout the book are loosely structured around the main events of Jeremiah’s life in ministry, which themselves were shaped by Judah’s decline, fall, and exile in Babylon. But a majority of the material in the book is prophetic, much of it in the form of poetry. This material does not always follow a historical sequence; the logic of its arrangement is sometimes topical rather than chronological. It may be helpful to think of the book of Jeremiah as a notebook or scrapbook of things written by the prophet and about his ministry. Jeremiah includes enough “news clippings” to piece together the story of his life, but just as important are the prophetic poems he wrote to address the spiritual needs of his generation and to express the emotions of his suffering soul.

Unifying elements.
The two main unifying elements in the book are the person of Jeremiah himself and the city that he loved: Jerusalem. As we read the book of Jeremiah, we watch the prophet in action, following the broad contours of his biography in the years leading up to and following the cataclysmic fall of Jerusalem (to trace the prophet’s story line, (see especially chapters 1, 4, 7, 11–13, 18–20, 24–29, 32, 34–43). At the same time, we see through windows into the prophet’s soul and witness the grief that he suffered in watching the people he loved persist in sin and finally fall under the judgment of God. The many minor characters in the book—especially the rebellious kings, lying prophets, and unruly priests who constantly oppose the prophet’s ministry, as well as the handful of his faithful supporters—are all seen in relationship to Jeremiah. Viewed as a story, the book of Jeremiah has a unifying plot conflict: will Jeremiah’s hearers listen to God’s warnings and repent of their sin, or will they reject the message of God’s prophet and be destroyed? The city of Jerusalem also has a strong unifying presence in the book. Various neighborhoods throughout the city provide a locus for the book’s narrative action, and the fall of the city is the major event that dominates the book, which begins with Jerusalem’s destiny hanging in the balance and ends with the city meeting the doom it deserves at the hands of the Babylonians.

Day 164: Isaiah 57-65

2011-03-02T06:03:00.000-08:00

Repentance is a common theme for most all of the prophetic books. Our section in Isaiah today begins that way. Those first chapters call the people of Israel to an examination of their behaviour in light of their covenant obligations and then calls them to turn their hearts back to God. The call to repentance is always built on a two-fold motive. First, there are severe consequences for those who don’t repent. Second, there is a promise of a glorious future for the righteous. Remembering the joy and reward that is to come should make the enticements of sin pale in comparison.

Much of the rest of the reading (chapters 60-65) speaks of the day when God will judge and rule, restoring His people and fulfilling His promises. Again, these passages have given hymn writers the raw materials for some wonderfully expressive poetry that would provide the language and lyrics for God’s people to express their praise to the God who will someday come and set things right. Here are two that find their inspiration in Isaiah 63 and 64.

Plunged In A Gulf Of Dark Despair (Isaiah 63:6)
Plunged in a gulf of dark despair
We wretched sinners lay,
Without one cheerful beam of hope,
Or spark of glimmering day.
With pitying eyes the Prince of grace
Beheld our helpless grief;
He saw, and, O amazing love!
He ran to our relief.
Down from the shining seats above
With joyful haste He fled,
Entered the grave in mortal flesh,
And dwelt among the dead.
He spoiled the powers of darkness thus,
And brake our iron chains;
Jesus hath freed our captive souls
From everlasting pains.
In vain the baffled prince of hell
His cursed projects tries
We that were doomed his endless slaves
Are raised above the skies.
O for this love let rocks and hills
Their lasting silence break,
And all harmonious human tongues
The Savior’s praises speak.
Yes, we will praise Thee, dearest Lord,
Our souls are all on flame;
Hosannah round the spacious earth
To Thine adored name.
Angels, assist our mighty joys,
Strike all your harps of gold;
But when you raise your highest notes,
His love can ne’er be told.
~ Isaac Watts (1707)

The Master’s Touch (Isaiah 64:8)
In the still air the music lies unheard;
In the rough marble beauty hides unseen.
To make the music and the beauty needs
The Master’s touch, the Sculptor’s chisel keen.
Great Master, touch us with Thy skillful hands;
Let not the music that is in us die;
Great Sculptor, hew and polish us, nor let
Hidden and lost, Thy form within us lie.
Spare not the stroke; do with us what Thou wilt;
Let there be naught unfinished, broken, marred;
Complete Thy purpose that we may become
Thy perfect image—Thou our God and Lord.
~ Horatius Bonar (1868)

Day 163: Isaiah 48-56

2011-03-01T06:09:00.000-08:00

We mentioned in yesterday’s blog that the book of Isaiah has been an incredibly rich source of inspiration for composers and hymn writers. Of all of the sections in Isaiah, the one we are reading today may be the richest. According to cyberhymnal.org, there are no fewer than 75 hymns that list a passage in today’s reading as their inspirational source. Of these chapters, Isaiah 53 inspired more than 30 separate hymns. Here are the lyrics to three of them and the passages they are based on.

Hallelujah, What A Savior (Isaiah 53:2)
Man of Sorrows! what a name
For the Son of God, who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned He stood;
Sealed my pardon with His blood.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Guilty, vile, and helpless we;
Spotless Lamb of God was He;
“Full atonement!” can it be?
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Lifted up was He to die;
“It is finished!” was His cry;
Now in Heav’n exalted high.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

When He comes, our glorious King,
All His ransomed home to bring,
Then anew His song we’ll sing:
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

O Christ, What Burdens Bowed Thy Head (Isaiah 53:5)
O Christ, what burdens bowed Thy head!
Our load was laid on Thee;
Thou stoodest in the sinner’s stead,
Didst bear all ill for me.
A Victim led, Thy blood was shed;
Now there’s no load for me.

Death and the curse were in our cup:
O Christ, ’twas full for Thee;
But Thou hast drained the last dark drop,
’Tis empty now for me.
That bitter cup, love drank it up;
Now blessing’s draught for me.

Jehovah lifted up His rod;
O Christ, it fell on Thee!
Thou wast sore stricken of Thy God;
There’s not one stroke for me.
Thy tears, Thy blood, beneath it flowed;
Thy bruising healeth me.

The tempest’s awful voice was heard,
O Christ, it broke on Thee!
Thy open bosom was my ward,
It braved the storm for me.
Thy form was scarred, Thy visage marred;
Now cloudless peace for me.

Jehovah bade His sword awake;
O Christ, it woke ’gainst Thee!
Thy blood the flaming blade must slake;
Thine heart its sheath must be;
All for my sake, my peace to make;
Now sleeps that sword for me.

For me, Lord Jesus, Thou hast died,
And I have died in Thee!
Thou’rt ris’n—my hands are all untied,
And now Thou liv’st in me.
When purified, made white and tried,
Thy glory then for me!

I Was A Wandering Sheep (Isaiah 53:6)
I was a wandering sheep,
I did not love the fold;
I did not love my Shepherd’s voice,
I would not be controlled.
I was a wayward child,
I did not love my home;
I did not love my Father’s voice,
I loved afar to roam.

The Shepherd sought His sheep,
The Father sought His child;
They followed me o’er vale and hill,
O’er deserts waste and wild;
They found me nigh to death,
Famished and faint and lone;
They bound me with the bands of love,
They saved the wand’ring one.

They spoke in tender love,
They raised my drooping head,
They gently closed my bleeding wounds,
My fainting soul they fed;
They washed my filth away,
They made me clean and fair;
They brought me to my home in peace,
The long sought wanderer.

Jesus my Shepherd is:
’Twas He that loved my soul;
’Twas He that washed me in His blood,
’Twas He that made me whole.
’Twas He that sought the lost,
That found the wand’ring sheep,
’Twas He that brought me to the fold,
’Tis He that still doth keep.

No more a wandering sheep,
I love to be controlled;
I love my tender Shepherd’s voice,
I love the peaceful fold.
No more a wayward child,
I seek no more to roam;
I love my heavenly Father’s voice,
I love, I love His home!

Day 162: Isaiah 41-47

2011-02-28T09:20:00.000-08:00

As we have learned already, Isaiah was not the “typical” prophet. Because of his close and open access to the palace under the reign of a number of the kings, Isaiah seems to have had access to an extensive education. That expresses itself in a number of ways, one of which is his wide and eloquent vocabulary. While some of the other prophets are terse, blunt, and (likely intentionally) plain – Isaiah's use of the language of his day makes the book of Isaiah one of the more beautiful pieces of literature in the Hebrew language. This is likely why Isaiah has been a rich source for composers and hymn writers through the years.

As you know (and are likely tired of hearing by now), I love hymns. My childhood was filled with them and hymns have always been a rich part of my devotional life. So, when I read Isaiah, I can’t help but think of hymns inspired by the section I am reading. In today’s reading, there are several.

You’ll recall that this section marks a turn in the direction, and perhaps “mood”, in Isaiah’s prophecy (see Friday’s blog on Isaiah 33-40). That shift seems to have provided a rich soil of words from which some classic hymns grew.

Based on on the text of Isaiah 43:1-3, George A. Young penned the words of the hymn, “God Leads Us Along.” We know very little about George Young, but his hymn has been sung by people seeking comfort and assurance since he first penned it in 1903. This hymn may be familiar to some older readers as it was one of George Beverly Shea's favourites. He sang it in hundreds of Billy Graham Crusades.

The Text: Isaiah 43:1-3

But now, this is what the LORD says—
   he who created you, O Jacob,
   he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
   I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
   I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
   they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
   you will not be burned;
   the flames will not set you ablaze.
For I am the LORD, your God,
   the Holy One of Israel, your Savior...

The Hymn: God Leads Us Along
In shady, green pastures, so rich and so sweet,
God leads His dear children along;
Where the water’s cool flow bathes the weary one’s feet,
God leads His dear children along.

Refrain
Some through the waters, some through the flood,
Some through the fire, but all through the blood;
Some through great sorrow, but God gives a song,
In the night season and all the day long.

Sometimes on the mount where the sun shines so bright,
God leads His dear children along;
Sometimes in the valley, in darkest of night,
God leads His dear children along.

Refrain

Though sorrows befall us and evils oppose,

God leads His dear children along;
Through grace we can conquer, defeat all our foes,
God leads His dear children along.

Refrain

Away from the mire, and away from the clay,

God leads His dear children along;
Away up in glory, eternity’s day,
God leads His dear children along.

The second hymn from this section was written in 1884 by a remarkable woman named Lucy J. Meyer. Among other things, Lucy was a preparatory school principal, a chemistry professor at McKendree College, Illinois, and one of the founders of the Chicago Training School for City, Home and Foreign Missions, where she served as principal from 1885 to 1917.

The Text: Isaiah 44:3

For I will pour water on the thirsty land,
and streams on the dry ground;
I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring,
and my blessing on your descendants.

The Hymn: Ho! Every One That Is Thirsty
Ho! every one that is thirsty in spirit,
Ho! every one that is weary and sad;
Come to the fountain, there’s fullness in Jesus,
All that you’re longing for: come and be glad!

Refrain
I will pour water on him that is thirsty,
I will pour floods upon the dry ground;
Open your hearts for the gifts I am bringing;
While ye are seeking Me, I will be found.

Child of the world, are you tired of your bondage?
Weary of earth joys, so false, so untrue?
Thirsting for God and His fullness of blessing?
List to the promise, a message for you!

Refrain

Child of the kingdom, be filled with the Spirit

Nothing but fullness thy longing can meet;

’Tis the enduement for life and for service;
Thine is the promise, so certain, so sweet.

If you are unfamiliar with the tunes of either of these hymns, click these links (God Leads Us Along or Ho! Every One That Is Thirsty), or try looking them up online using either hymntime.com or cyberhymnal.org – and don’t be afraid to sing along!

Day 159: Isaiah 33-40

2011-02-25T05:57:00.000-08:00

This week the posts that you read are from guest blogger Richelle Bronsdon. Richelle is the Communications Associate for Grant Memorial.

We’ve reached the end of another week of reading through the Bible together. It seems somehow appropriate that “in the ongoing flow of the book of Isaiah, we are here reaching the end of the predominantly negative section of the prophecy” (ESV Literary Study Bible). With chapter 40 comes a transition in the text, from words of judgment to words of comfort. Isaiah now goes on to talk about the restoration after the exile, and speaks of the Messiah and the final deliverance from oppression, an “eschatological vision of a coming golden age” (ibid).

Since it is Friday, I thought I’d change the pace a bit and share a few of my favourite Bible-reading activities that you might want to try out on today’s passages. The first I affectionately refer to as a “scriptural scavenger hunt” (did I mention I used to work in youth ministry?). All you need is a reference Bible – the kind with a tiny column of verse listings down the middle – or a study Bible with references. Start with a word or idea that appeals to you, and follow the references throughout the Bible. For example, with the phrase “Be strong, do not fear” (35:4), I find a reference that takes me to Joshua 1:9, then on to Deuteronomy 1:21, and so on. It’s an interesting way to pull out themes within a book, or get a glimpse at how the different books of the Bible work together to tell a bigger story.

The idea for my second Bible-reading activity was, quite literally, given to me by a friend. I was flipping through a book I had borrowed from her, when an index card with a handwritten note fell out. On one side was a note: “May your pleasure in reading this be glorifying to God, and may He reveal some of Himself to you through it. Bless you!” On the back, my friend had taken a short passage from Isaiah 43 and placed my name into the text: “But now, this is what the Lord says – He who created you, O Richelle, He who formed you, O beloved: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.’” I’ve held on to that index card for nearly a decade, and each time I use it as a bookmark, I find myself flipping in my Bible to read that chapter of Isaiah again. Is there a passage you’d like to use to encourage or challenge one of your siblings in Christ?

The last activity I’ve borrowed from Susan Moore, Grant’s Resource Coordinator, who recently led us in a staff devotional time. She started by having us pair off and attempt to describe ourselves, in only a few minutes, and without saying things like “I’m a graphic designer” or “I’m a mom.” Then she read Isaiah 40 aloud, while we made note of the ways God describes himself in the chapter. Why not take a moment and try it yourself (or with a friend)? Read the passage aloud (or listen to it here) and jot down the characteristics that jump out at you. Then perhaps you’d like to spend some time in prayer, talking to God about what you read and thanking Him for revealing Himself through His Word.

Day 158: Isaiah 26-32

2011-02-24T10:36:00.000-08:00

This week the posts that you read are from guest blogger Richelle Bronsdon. Richelle is the Communications Associate for Grant Memorial.

Last January, I travelled with a gang of other young adults to Canmore for the Baptist General Conference 2020 Summit. I’m not altogether certain why I agreed to go on the trip – I really didn’t know any of my travelling companions very well, and I knew even less about the speakers or the sessions. One of my tripmates had convinced me to sign up for the session on prayer, and, to be honest, I was not looking forward to it. I was certain it would be dull – I mean, what could he really tell me about prayer that I had not heard before? But that one session (to which I was late, thanks to a lengthier-than-anticipated trip to Starbucks) made a radical impact on my life.

The speaker (whose name I can’t remember for the life of me) simply shared about his own prayer life and one of the tools he found useful. It was a tool I knew well – a prayer journal. I’d been journaling my prayers for years and I loved it. But this fellow had an additional challenge for me that did not sound appealing in the least: he wanted me to start my day in prayer. Now, anyone who knows me will tell you that I am the epitome of a night person. My snooze button gets a workout every morning. I make it my mission to sleep in as long as possible. My quiet time with God always happens at night, right before I fall asleep. But sitting in that conference room, for whatever reason, my heart was stirred, and I decided to give morning “God time” a try.

The first couple days of early morning journal entries all sounded quite similar. Something like, “God, I’m way too tired to be here. But if this is what you want, maybe you could provide me with some supernatural caffeine?” The remarkable thing was that, in my too-tired state, I found myself doing a lot more listening. While my night time prayers were full of “help me with this” and “please take care of that,” my morning journaling tended to be filled with Scripture. It was as if God had finally managed to pry my focus off of me and onto His Word. And the passages that felt like a dreadful duty to read in the evening suddenly popped off the page. I was startled. I was reading in Isaiah – the same chapters we’re looking at today – and I remember being absolutely floored when I got to chapter 30, “Woe to the Obstinate Nation.” Here are the passages that made it into my journal entry:

“Woe to the obstinate children,” declares the Lord, “to those who carry out plans that are not mine… This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it… Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him… Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying “This is the way; walk in it.” Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold… and say to them “Away with you!” (30:1,15,18, 21,22)

That particular journaling experience was very much like what I described in yesterday’s blog entry. God called me out on some of my most stubborn areas of sinfulness, and at the same time, I heard His promises for me if I would repent and trust Him again. The morning after I read chapter 30, another speaker at the conference, Lorne Meisner, talking about discerning God’s will for your life, quoted verse 21. In my personal and professional life I was feeling a great deal of uncertainty for the future; I had a lot of questions for God. But through that passage and Lorne’s words, God reminded me that He has a plan for my life – if I would only wait on Him. It took a while, but He’d finally gotten me to wake up and listen.

Day 157: Isaiah 16-25

2011-02-23T06:13:00.000-08:00

This week the posts that you read are from guest blogger Richelle Bronsdon. Richelle is the Communications Associate for Grant Memorial.

If you’ve already browsed through today’s chapters, you’ve noticed – even just by reading the headings – that things aren’t looking so good for the nations around Judah. Yesterday we read prophecies against Babylon and Assyria, today we add Moab, Damascus, Cush, Egypt, Edom, Arabia and Tyre to the list. “As the pageant of doomed nations unfolds before our gaze… the list reads like a roll call of the degraded—a list of losers. The scope of this cosmic drama is international” (ESV Literary Study Bible). As I combed through passage after passage about coming destruction and judgment, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking, “So what? Why should I care about the fate of these nations?”

So I decided to take my own advice from Monday’s entry and read past the specific historical references to make some more general observations. Isaiah makes evident God’s omnipotence and sovereign control in all circumstances. Regardless of how powerful the nation, it is powerless before God. This is both a comforting and an uncomfortable realization for me. It’s comforting when I’m facing difficult people or situations (because I am reminded that this very same, all-powerful God is ultimately working for His glory and my good); it’s uncomfortable when I realize that I’m not in control of everything (and my life is not my own – it’s not all about me).

Isaiah also paints a potent picture of God’s holiness in contrast to the sin of the nations. As God calls each nation into account for its actions, it reads like a very poetic object lesson about “what things displease God and how God deals with the things that offend his holiness” (ibid). This, for me, is a convicting realization. When I read, “You have forgotten God your Savior; and have not remembered the Rock, your fortress” (17:10), I recall times when I trust more in what I can do for myself than in what the Lord has already done for me. I’m proud like Moab (16:6) and I’ve constructed some idols in my life. And like God’s covenant people, (who, in chapter 22, join this unfortunate listing), I tend to take matters into my own hands, making my own plans and building up my own defenses and forgetting all about “the One who planned it long ago” (22:11).

Thankfully, the story doesn’t end there. The last chapter in today’s reading comes like a breath of fresh air, reminding me of God’s plan of salvation. “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation” (25:9). When I am confronted with my sin, it doesn’t feel nice. But, I can repent, be renewed and then rejoice, because the holy and sovereign God who judges all the nations of the earth has made a way for me to return to a right relationship with Him.

Day 156: Isaiah 8-15

2011-02-22T06:35:00.000-08:00

This week the posts that you read are from guest blogger Richelle Bronsdon. Richelle is the Communications Associate for Grant Memorial.

A few years back, a friend and I took the SHAPE course together. It’s a class designed to help you discover your spiritual gifts, and understand how those gifts – along with the causes that touch your heart, your abilities, personality and experiences – uniquely equip you to serve. Some of the spiritual gifts we discussed were familiar to me – things like leadership or teaching or hospitality. But when my friend and I compared the results of our quizzes, I was surprised to see “prophecy” showed up on his. My friend was some kind of prophet? What was that supposed to mean?

“A prophet is one that has great intimacy with Heaven and a great interest there, and consequently a commanding authority upon the earth” (The Matthew Henry Commentary, TMHC). You’ll remember that the position of prophet was put in place during the days of Samuel, the last of the Judges. In Isaiah’s time, a prophet served alongside the priests as God’s special representative. His or her job was to speak for God, both confronting and comforting the people, reminding them of God’s commandments and promises. Unfortunately, because the people and their leaders tended toward disobedience, the prophets were not terribly popular. Their messages were not often what their listeners wanted to hear. But, it was the role of the prophet to call the people to repentance. The first half of Isaiah (Chapters 1-39) doles out some harsh words of judgment for Israel and Judah, and predicts future destruction.

Yesterday, in chapter 6, we read about Isaiah’s “call” to ministry. He saw a powerful vision of God’s glory and holiness, and it made a lasting impression. He saw the reality of sin in his life and the lives of those around him, and it broke his heart. He experienced forgiveness – “your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for” (verse 7) – and he responded in obedience (verse 8). Ultimately, in his role as prophet, Isaiah is sharing that same message with the people: recognize your disobedience and repent, return to God and experience redemption.

In the passages we read today, Isaiah predicts great destruction for Israel, but also encourages the people of God with the knowledge of the coming defeat of their enemies, and “that if they kept up the fear of God, and kept down the fear of man, they should find God their refuge, and while others fell into despair, they should be enabled to wait on God for better times” (TMHC).

My friend with the gift of prophecy isn’t going around predicting the destruction of nations – God’s purpose for him is a bit different than His purpose for Isaiah – but there are similarities. My friend is very good at “speaking the truth in love.” He has a noticeable knack for recognizing sin and calling people back to God. And he loves to remind people of God’s promise of forgiveness and hope in Jesus Christ – that a child was born who fulfills all the Old Testament prophecies. “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light… for to us a child is born, a son is given…” (9:2,6)