Category Archives: Bible

Reading Leviticus

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Plenty of well meaning individuals have tried to read through the Bible by starting at Genesis 1 and going straight through. These attempts often correspond to New Year’s Resolutions, you know “new year, new you” kind of turning over new leaves. Many times, I can’t say always, but more often than not that person gets through Genesis and Exodus because those books are narrative. That’s the kind of story we are used to reading; there are characters and a plot. Sometime in the middle of February, about halfway through the book of Leviticus, plans to read through the Bible this year and this time I mean it fall by the wayside. Hopefully your Bible doesn’t get pushed up against the wall and covered with laundry like that new treadmill you bought – I mean, somebody bought – after Christmas.

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Coming Soon

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Have you ever started a new year with the goal of reading the Bible straight through, Genesis to Revelation, and finish by December 31st? I know people that do, my dad was one of them. In addition to preaching and studying texts for teaching Sunday School, he made it a point to read straight through each year and did that like 30 times. We should read the Bible and that’s one way to do it. But many people have tried and failed and sometimes instead of trying something else they just quit.

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Read the Bible: Genesis 5

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Genesis 5 looks like genealogy, and it is, but there are three interesting things we will note in this chapter; and only two of them are in the list of genealogy.

*Note: in the audio recording I claim that Noah only lived to be 950 years old. That is wrong; Noah only lived 930 years. I made the recording without my laptop. That’s where the music file is saved and where I had taken a few notes. I hope I have learned my lesson.

**Note: I apologize for all of the noises, the sliding around, bumping, etc. I was looking for a more controlled environment than my house full of family members and pets. This was recorded at church, at the same podium I preach from on Sunday morning. I was standing instead of sitting and apparently cannot keep my hands still. I need to do three things: Obtain a decent podcast mic, sit at my desk or dinning room table and at the very least use a basic editing software. Let’s see how long it takes knowing better to turn into doing better.

Read the Bible: Genesis 4

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The Bible will not answer all our questions, and that is never more obvious than when looking at the first few chapters of Genesis. The Bible gives us a huge amount of information; some people set ambitious goals of reading through the entire Bible in one year. Many fail while others have never even tried. Our goal is to see what the Bible is saying to us and trust that it is enough. We have what God means for us to have.

It is still hard to read a selection such as Genesis 4 and wonder “Who told they guys to build altars? Why are they sacrificing anything?” We know there were occasions that God spoke to human beings. Presumably everything he said did not get written down. He could have easily communicated instructions that are not recorded. We have a certain understanding of what the historical record should be based on Western Civilization from around the time of Philip and his son Alexander, circa 300 B.C. or so. That is the beginning of the modern era; ancient historians, of Eastern civilizations at that, did not think about creating a complete historical record the way we do.

Let’s look at what scripture tells us of Cain and Abel. The ancient text may not stand up to our modern literary criticism but there is nothing we can do about that.

Read the Bible, Update

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So two or three weeks ago I speculated about a new project that might be on the horizon. In Read the Bible I proposed that reading one chapter of the Bible per day would let you get through the entire Bible in a little over three years. I considered posting a series of audio files in which I would read one chapter and offer brief commentary and post those at a rate of one per day. It would be ambitious for sure but if I had started one chapter a day when I started blogging in 2008 I would have been through the Bible five times already.

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Read the Bible

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There’s more than one way to read the Bible, what matters is that you are reading it. I have read the Bible through in a single year but I don’t push that on people. If there are books in the Old Testament you have never read then you need to sooner or later; even though I would agree that the New Testament speaks more directly to Christians. “All scripture is good” but all scripture is not equally useful to our daily walk.

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Look at Jesus (pt 2)

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Read the first comment.

If you stare at an object for several seconds, particularly one that is brightly colored, when you look away you may see a residual image but in the opposite color. It doesn’t last long and the image fades away but for a moment whatever you see is affected by the thing you were looking at before. Sometimes perspectives change with age. Things that used to be punishments – staying at home, not going to a party, heading to bed early – are things you look forward to later in life. That happens to all (or most) of us as time goes by. Then there are dramatic life-changing events; a near death experience, a car accident or a long hospital stay that forces us to reconsider what is important. Ice cream may taste sweeter or the embrace of a loved one may be incredibly significant whereas before those things were just ordinary. Some events in life, for better or worse, profoundly change us.

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Look at Jesus

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In Matthew 14 Jesus came to the disciples walking on water. Peter said “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Jesus told him to come on and Peter got out of the boat and was walking to Jesus on the water. Then Peter began to notice some other things. Matthew says that when he saw the wind, he began to sink. He cried out for Jesus to save him, which he did, and they got into the boat together.

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Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth

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A few years ago I wrote a series of posts on what I consider academic discussions. The discussion and debate over Calvinism is, ultimately, academic. It is hotly debated only by people that are already saved. No one shares the gospel by saying “if you are of the elect then God has chosen you and will give you the faith to be saved.” Only after being saved do we debate whether we chose God or God chose us, and to what degree we had anything to do with it. The unsaved need to hear the gospel and ideally they would not hear Christians argue over Calvinism or any other doctrine. That needs to be an internal discussion. Another example is the age of the earth. I refuse to argue this issue because ultimately there is no way to know who is right and wrong and it doesn’t make any difference. If Jim believes the earth is 6,000 years old and Amy believes the earth is 4.5 billion years old, all that really matters is whether they believe Jesus was dead and made alive again for our justification. We could host a debate, make the respective cases and even have a panel of judges determine who wins. But the outcome of the debate would have no bearing on when or how God created the world. There would be no impact on how I love my wife, raise our child or treat my neighbor. There is no meaningful application.

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But Who is Wrong?

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I have written before on the fact that denominations exist and suggested that Luke 9:49-50 may apply. The church exists all over the world and without being worldly minded people are products of their culture. There are many different flavors of Christianity and what one must believe to be saved is that Jesus is the Son of God, died for our sins and God raised him from the dead. Everything else is details; there may be important details but the facts listed in the previous sentence is what all Christians must agree on.

So the question has been raised regarding different positions on theology. There are Calvinists, Arminians, and those that claim neither position but believe all we need is the Bible. There are Christians that believe we should worship on the Sabbath and others that gather on what they call the Lord’s Day. There are three basic positions on when the rapture will take place, other sub-divisions, and those who do not believe there will be a rapture. There is so much disagreement that one must either conclude there Is no God or that he offers us much grace otherwise no one gets credit for doing everything correctly. Who is right, who is wrong, and more importantly how can we know?

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