Tag Bible

Bible in a Year: Week of March 25 – 31

Todd R Leave a comment

Fellow travelers:

Below are the chapters to read this week if you’re following along in my Bible in a year schedule, divided into morning and evening readings.  Follow along any way you want: just do the evening reading, flip the morning and evening, read it all.  Whatever works for you and your schedule!  It doesn’t have to be Bible in a Year for everyone.

This week, we finish another book (Exodus), and begin Leviticus on Easter Sunday.  Leviticus, a guide for the priests and Levites of ancient Israel, mentions holiness more times than any book in the Bible, and continually reminds us of how high God’s standards are, even though with the events of Easter we no longer need to follow most of those Levitical practices.

Monday, March 25
Morning: Psalm 85, 1 Chronicles 7
Evening: Exodus 35

Tuesday, March 26
Morning: Psalm 86, 1 Chronicles 8
Evening: Exodus 36

Wednesday, March 27
Morning: Psalm 87, 1 Chronicles 9
Evening: Exodus 37

Thursday, March 28
Morning: Psalm 88, 1 Chronicles 10
Evening: Exodus 38

Friday, March 29
Morning: Psalm 89, 1 Chronicles 11
Evening: Exodus 39

Saturday, March 30
Morning: Psalm 90, 1 Chronicles 12-13
Evening: Exodus 40

Sunday, March 31
Morning: Psalm 91, 1 Chronicles 14-15
Evening: Leviticus 1

What Wisdom Means to Me

Todd R 1 Comment

I’ve had some sort of working definition of “wisdom” for most of my life.  I think most of us have.  As a teenager, I remember joking that it was the ability to learn from other people’s mistakes.  It sounded teenager-wise, but how do I know what’s a mistake?  Later, I read somewhere about wisdom being something like “skill at living life”.  Also sounds useful, but perhaps vague and worldly feeling.  Even later in life, I started thinking of it as “being able to make decisions based on facts, instead of based on wishful thinking.”  This has been even more useful, but which facts do you follow?  How do you choose between two “true” options?  What if you don’t have all the needed facts?

I think my current definition is better: Wisdom is the ability to choose between the path of righteousness and the path of the wicked.  In the Psalms and the Biblical wisdom literature like Proverbs, there is a contrast between these two paths, and the idea that moral decisions are like choosing a route between places.  You can be on one path or the other, and with wisdom, “you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path”[1]

Moving down a path is an action, and therefore, wisdom is about taking the right action, not about what we know, believe, or say.  It’s not about accumulating facts.  Facts matter, but they aren’t wisdom all by themselves.  Adding the context of the Great Commandments[2], wisdom is what tells us how to love God and others actively, and in a way based on obedience that leaves the results to God.  For example, in the book of Acts, Ananias didn’t minister to Saul, the notorious persecutor of Christians, because Ananias thought it would end up well for himself[3], he did it because God told him to, and God knew that future Saul was Paul, the author of much of the New Testament.  Ananias didn’t decide based on the facts as he knew them, but he adjusted the facts in light of revelation from God.  Also, wisdom might sometimes tell you the best action is to do nothing, to not to do something specific.  Sometimes wisdom flashes a red light while others are flashing green.  “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” – Pr. 14:12 and 16:25.

Photo by Alex Shute on Unsplash

This way of thinking about wisdom explains why the Way, the Truth and the Life must be a Person, not a set of rules or a philosophy.  Truly, only each of us, in our individual relationships with God through the Holy Spirit, can learn wisdom.  Only in a relationship with this Person can we figure out what our purpose and identity in the body of Christ is.  This wisdom is proactive and specific to each of us.  Nobody else’s situation is your situation, and nobody else has the same relationships, abilities, and resources.  Books, advice, and experience can be helpful, but we each need to “taste and see”[4] the Holy Spirit in us, working at our very core where only He can reach, and directing us down the right paths at the right times.

True wisdom will put us on a path that provides us, and this world, a taste of heaven through us.  It is informed by a justice and righteousness – God’s law and Christ’s character – that is not of this world.  With wisdom we can build and create new things on the cornerstone of Christ.  The world might not like it, but the world is not your Creator who is all wise.  Therefore, pray for and seek God’s wisdom as the immensely valuable treasure that it is!

[1] Proverbs 2:9
[2] Matthew 22:37-39.  In short, love God and love your neighbor.
[3] Acts 9:13
[4] Psalm 34:8

Profit in Reading Genealogies

Todd R 3 Comments

Some parts of the Bible are harder to read than others.  Some things seem repetitive or pointless, but we know that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness”. (2 Timothy 3:16). For me, it can be very hard to concentrate while reading the many long genealogies, mostly of people I know nothing about.  But maybe the point is that God does know all those people.

Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash

I’ve heard a story that may or may not be true, but I’m sure it’s at least possible, and an example of how God can use long genealogies in a profitable way.  The story goes like this: a Christian who attended church regularly invited a non-Christian friend to church, and they accepted.  They had been having some discussions and the friend was curious, so the Christian was hopeful.  However, the pastor on that day decided to preach on one of the long genealogies in the Old Testament.  The Christian sat there disappointed because they were hoping their friend would hear the gospel.  In a complete surprise to the Christian, the friend said soon after the service that they had decided to follow Christ.  When asked why, the friend said something like: “I never was close with my family, but the idea that God cared about each and every one of the people listed in those genealogies convinced me that God cares about me.  He didn’t leave them out of His book.  He cares about me and wants me to be part of His family.”

Like I said, I’m not sure that this is a true story, but the point that mattered to the friend in the story remains: God cared enough about every person in those genealogies to have them recorded in the Bible.  He thought of every one of them.

God has another book full of names in addition to the Bible and its genealogies: His book of life[1] which has the name of every one of His people listed in it.  If you are a Christian, your name is in that book and God loves you as His adopted family.  Like the genealogies, this book tells us that every person is precious to God and He knows each one personally and intimately. I’ve been posting a Bible in a Year schedule, and it’s now starting 1 Chronicles which begins with many genealogies.  If you find those hard to read, maybe as you read each name, remember that God loves that person, and loves you as well.  Nobody is irrelevant to God, and that’s a key part of the good news of the gospel!

[1] Philippians 4:3, Revelation 3:5, 13:8

Popular Orthodoxy: A Quint of Quotes

Todd R 2 Comments

Fellow travelers,

Here is another “Quint of Quotes” from my collection.  These five somewhat related sayings suggest the particular time and place we live in may not be very different from every other time and place.  I hope you find them interesting and thought-provoking.

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.  He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?…the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.” – Genesis 3:1,4

“Every age has some ostentatious system to excuse the havoc it commits. Conquest, honour, chivalry, religion, balance of power, commerce, no matter what, mankind must bleed, and take a term for a reason” – Horace Walpole, British politician, in 1762

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” – Proverbs 14:12, 16:25

“At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas of which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it… Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the high-brow periodicals”. – George Orwell, in the 1945 introduction to ‘Animal Farm.’

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.  As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” – 2 Timothy 4:3-5

Lessons from an Unlikely Idol

Todd R 1 Comment

The history of the kings of Judah can read like a back-and-forth between construction of idols by bad kings and the destruction of idols by good kings.  Hezekiah was one of the few good kings, and one reason is recorded in 2 Kings 18:4, which says:

“[Hezekiah] removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).”

Judah was meant to have only one God, the true God Yahweh, and to destroy anything that would lead them to idolatry.  Unfortunately, worshipping other gods in high places was not uncommon, and neither was worship of Asherah.  What’s interesting about this verse is the mention of this “Nehushtan.”  The origin of this bronze snake that Moses made comes from a story in the book of Numbers.

Photo by Michael Jerrard on Unsplash

As often happened while they wandered the wilderness, the people of Israel complained to God and Moses that they would have been better off if still in Egypt.  They hated the food God was providing and accused Him of leading them into the wilderness to die.  As discipline for this grumbling, “the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.”[1]  The people repented and asked for the serpents to be removed, and Moses prayed for them.

The answer was that “Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.”[2]  This serpent being lifted up was later identified in John 3:14 as a prelude to Jesus being lifted up on the cross, but in Hezekiah’s day it had become an idol, an object that took people away from worship of the true God and the then-future Christ.  Instead of being a symbol of salvation, the bronze serpent became a symbol of idolatry, which leads to damnation.

The story of the serpents ends there, and there is no mention that God told the people to keep this bronze serpent, or that God told them to give it a name.  This was probably the beginning of the problem, that Israel added to God’s intentions for it.

So, what are the lessons for us?

Nehushtan, the bronze serpent, was created at God’s command to be an aid to worship, a device for reminding His people of His provision for them, from above.  Instead, it became an idol.  What this tells us is that anything, even something once (or currently) used in worship, can become an idol.  Even things like private Bible study or public singing of hymns can be idols if we use them as ends in themselves and not as a way to worship our only God.  A thing can be an idol not because of what it is, but because of our attitude toward it.

Also, something that is an idol to one person might not be an idol to another.  The bronze serpent was not an idol to Moses, but it was to people in Hezekiah’s time.  So, if we know that something tempts us, that thing might not be a temptation for others, and vice versa.  Therefore, we should not be quick to judge others for doing things that bother us, but may not be a problem for them, and are not specifically prohibited in the Bible.

When Christ was raised up on the cross like the bronze serpent and was raised from the dead like those who survived the bites of serpents, He identified Himself as the only God and the only one worthy of our worship, but He also identified Himself as the merciful one who desires that we be merciful to each other.

Like ancient Israel, we all have Nehushtans in our lives that corrupt our worship, and like the good king Hezekiah, we must remove them from our lives to reform our worship.

[1] Numbers 21:6
[2] Numbers 21:9