Read the Bible fans, Tuesday was a long and busy day. Numbers 22 shares a well-known story of Balaam and a beast of burden given a voice to speak. Many of us know that one detail but the entire chapter can be a little confusing. It’s 41 verses long and I want to do it right. Give me another day and I will try to have it up Thursday morning.
Stay thirsty – for living water – my friends!
100 Days Streak – There was a time I lived in envy of the guys that posted every day. For years it was something I did not think I could ever do. There was also a time I could not preach a series of sermons but now those are my favorites. I spent nine months preaching through Romans. Maybe it’s the difference between being 35 and 50. Of course it’s all because of the Read the Bible series and some days it’s not easy. You can hear fireworks in the background as I recorded Leviticus 5 last night. I was able to edit out most of it out. What got cut sounds like I’m embedded with a sniper team somewhere taking fire.
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We missed a post last week. That happens sometimes. When last we met, efforts to launch the Read the Bible series as a podcast were underway. We have been on Spotify since June 1st and more recently Amazon Music, Audible and iHeart Radio. Apple is being… difficult. It’s not that they won’t host my podcast, I’ve had no luck so far creating an Apple Account (previously called Apple ID).
Here are links to Read the Bible on the various podcast platforms. If you are already listening to the show, thank you. But if a few of my friends, IRL or blog friends, wanted to go to each of these links and like, subscribe or follow, that would be fantastic.
We finished reading Exodus yesterday. We read one chapter per day of Genesis (50 chapters) and immediately started Exodus (40 chapters) and did the same thing. It has been three months since the first Read the Bible post. We are going to take a break from the Old Testament and begin The Gospel According to Matthew tomorrow. We’re gonna go ahead and give you a new open Bible and cup of coffee image for the occasion.
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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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Sunrise Service – Jeremy Noffsanger preached at the Calhoun City Park as part of a 7 a.m. worship service on Easter morning. I preached at the same service last year, in a public place where a handful of churches meet together for a few songs, prayers and a short message. I may know a little bit about a lot things but my personal experience with Christian worship is limited to the southeast United States. I grew up with sunrise service being a regular part of the Easter experience but I wondered if it was the same everywhere. According to History.com some churches during the Protestant Reformation retained the Christian calendar while others rejected Easter celebrations. It was not until the late 19th or early 20th century that some Protestants, such as Baptists, started to reclaim the sunrise service traditions.
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When the Old Testament of the Bible was written, there were no books, paper had not been invented, the Hebrew language had no characters for vowels and the text was not divided into chapters and verses. The Bibles we have today are modern forms of ancient documents. God gave us his Word because he meant for us to have it. The scripture has been not only translated into new languages that did not exist in antiquity but God’s message has been preserved through the ages.
Chapter and verse divisions are a recent innovation, when we think about the whole timeline of human history. The archbishop of Canterbury added chapter division in the 13th Century (there were still no verses for another 300 years). If it were up to me, the first three verses of Genesis 2 might have appeared at the end of chapter 1. No one asked me. God finished his creation work and rested on the seventh day. Beginning at Gen. 2:4, we are given a more detailed description of the creation of man and woman.
This is the first post in a new series, an ambitious project to read one chapter of the Bible each day for the next 1,189 days. Realistically we will probably miss a day here or there. Some chapters are incredibly long; so we may add a few days by splitting them up but it would also be possible to read more than one of the shorter chapters to make that time up. It will take a little over three years in either case. The point is, we are not in a hurry.
Before starting the player I recommend opening a Bible to Genesis 1 and following along. Bible Gateway is an excellent resource online offering several English translations. Youversion is a popular Bible app or, hear me out, maybe open an actual Bible. What version will I be reading? Well… for the purposes of publishing this blog/podcast I need to read something in the public domain, such as the KJV or ASV. The Bible says what the Bible says but I am basically reading from the KJV text while updating a bit of archaic language. Thee and thine becomes you and your. In Genesis 1, most modern translations use expanse rather than firmament. If there is ever an issue where the translations offer a different meaning, we will discuss the differences and the thought process that led to divergent texts.
Let’s get to it. After the first couple of posts there will be less introduction and explanation. The Bible was written with a purpose. Our goal is simple: to read the Bible and see what God has to say.
This is the final update on Read the Bible before we launch into it which is to say, it’s happening! I invite anyone reading this now or in the future to join us on a journey through he scriptures from beginning to end (although not necessarily in order). I have recorded the first two podcasts – let’s call them podcasts for lack of a better term – and hope to get a couple more in the can before Saturday morning. It was on Saturday, February 1st, that I heard someone say he was reading one chapter of the Bible per day and that was the inspiration to begin this project. I did the math, mulled it over, researched publishers and their copyrights, posted a couple of times and eventually got to it in earnest.
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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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The Master's Table 