Bible Reading Challenge Blog

We find a number of really interesting nuggets in I Thessalonians. A little background. It is a church that Paul founded and he really longed to get back to see them and to encourage them but he was tied up so he sent Timothy. He was afraid that the people of the church had been tempted by Satan to abandon the faith because of the persecutions that were present within the body at the hands of both the Jews and the Romans of the day. So when Timothy comes back after a visit with a glowing report about the community, that it continues to pray for Paul and all of the saints, the believers, he is thrilled. This is one of those letters that Paul writes where it is obvious that he loves this community and can only say nice things about them.

In chapter 4 we find the often quoted verse 13 that tells us to grieve, when we do grieve, not like unbelievers, but with hope in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That’s a comforting and strong verse for me. Immediately following that we read the primary verse in all of Scripture that many point to in order to prove that the rapture, the concetp of the rapture at least, is a real thing. This whole “left behind” concept comes from 4:16-17. I have a hard time basing my theology on two verses. I prefer focusing on I Thessalonians 5:2 that reminds us that the timing of when Jesus comes back is more like a thief in the night and not something we can predict or describe ahead of time.

Philemon is Paul writing to a friend to accept a former slave, Onesimus, within the community of faith and extolling this person’s faith.

Daniel finishes up with a reminder that there actually is mention of the resurrection of the dead in the Old Testament. We find ourselves told that God will bring up from the dead His people when the end of all things are completed. And like that we finish Daniel, the last book of the Bible Chronologically, but not in the text itself.

We find in Psalm 78 an long account of what the people of God experienced in order to be liberated from Egypt and set free so that they could settle in the promised land. We are reminded that nothing can stand up to the power of the Lord, absolutely nothing and no one. As a result we find this promise that God will constantly be by our side quite convincing. But in our modern era we can easily be dissuaded from this truth by seeing what is happening around us and wondering what God is actually up to. If we but trust in him, then we could stand with him all of our days.

There is a transition in these chapters from a story about Daniel to Daniel telling the story, except for chapter 6 which is the most famous of the Daniel stories. Remember that Daniel is one of the highest ranking officials in the kings court. He was about to be placed over all the others and they didn’t like it. So, they decided to find a way to bring him down. He wasn’t corrupt, so that didn’t work, his work was perfect and he was efficient and hard working. So, the only way to bring him down was to bring him down because of the God that he worshipped. It worked and he was thrown into the lion’s den, really against the king’s wishes. But once he survives his enemies, the children of his enemies, and the wives of his enemies were all thrown into the lion’s den and were consumed, bones and all. Pretty brutal, but you don’t mess with God’s servants.

The story then takes on the first person with Daniel telling us what he experienced and what he saw. It is all end time stuff with meanings that had significance when this was written but takes a lot of interpretation and guess work to understand who the horn is and who the beasts are and who this large man is. But what we can’t forget is that God is in charge and will always rescue His workers. That’s kinda nice to know.

Daniel can be considered pretty much the Old Testament version of Revelation. Except, and I had forgotten this, it is a story of an individual who serves a number of kings. Here is something else that I hadn’t totally picked up on before I read this. Daniel was absolutely in the upper class of the Israelite society. So, remember, Israel and Judah are in exile and the king asks for some of the best and the brightest from that nation who could advise him and give him insight into how the world is working and what is happening around him. He chooses Daniel and some others whom Daniel knows. They feed them the best food and provide the best arrangements for them because they were, after all, serving the king.

But the problem with the meat that Daniel refuses, I hope you caught that in chapter 1, is that it was sacrificed to idols and probably, or absolutely not kosher. So, Daniel refuses to eat the meat and becomes a vegetarian. This book of the Bible is the story of a servant of God, Daniel, who works in a society and a culture that is completely opposed to what God wants in a society and culture. The continual question is how does one work in the world but not be of it. Daniel demonstrates that by not bowing down to the golden image and so being thrown into the fire. But God protects him. Not even one genetration passes and they completely forget what God had done through Daniel. But we end with him serving a second king and one person did remember, one of the wives of the kings, and Daniel is able to interpret correctly, unfortunately for the king, what his disturbing dreams meant. Let’s continue along and follow his life.

The last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, has a familiar theme for the returning Israelites after the exile. Keep in mind, while it is the last book of the Bible in the order of the Old Testament, it is not the last book chronologically. That would be Daniel. Daniel is thought to be the last one written down, which makes sense when you read it, it is very different. But not Malachi, it follows the themes that we have been seeing all along. The returning Israelites are reminded of how they have turned their back on God and how God is desiring them to return to Him.

The question arises in chapter 3 how they can fully return to God. The answer might be surprising, unless you were in church last Sunday. The answer is: tithe. When you tithe then you tangibly display your devotion and dedication to God. Not an answer you would want to give to a new member who is just trying to figure you out, but a correct answer regardless of the person. Both Psalms follow the same theme of God being disgusted with the transgressions of Israel so he is calling them back to faithfulness. A good theme for us as well.

Ezekiel ends with more of a whimper than a bang. But the Psalms do provide us with some verses that we can look at and recognize that they are used in a variety of different places that are families. Look at Psalm 67:1 and it should sound familiar because it is very similar to the priestly blessing or benediction which we find in Numbers 6:24-26. Here we see God blessing the people of Israel through Moses in the same way that the Psalmist recounts that God has blessed the people of Israel continuously.

We also see in 69:9 the verse that the Gospel writers use to describe what happens when Jesus enters Jerusalem and clears out the temple. Zeal for the house of his father shall consume him. Jesus’ zeal drives him to kick the people out of the temple. Ezekiel is all about the rebuilding of the temple which makes sense that we would have a Scripture which descrives the zeal we should have for the house of the Lord, which in turn is really zeal for the Lord in general.

Ezekiel gives us Scripture that may be hard to read and probably hard to understand. Keep in mind that we do not serve a legalistic God, meaning, we don’t have a set of rules that we have to follow and then all is okay. At a certain level we do have to ask would it be nice to know exactly what it is that God wants of us in a specificity that never leaves us guessing. We have the two laws that God says if we follow then we have fulfilled all of God’s commandments. So if we love God and love our neighbor then we have fulfilled all the commandments.

Well, in the day of Ezekiel it wasn’t that general. I’m not going to say easy, because I’m thinking that it might be easier to have a set of rules laid out for your clearly, than try to figure out exactly what does it mean to love God and to love neighbor? If you are told exactly what to do then you choose either to follow or not to follow. We are able to fool ourselves easier today by thinking that maybe what I am doing is loving God and neighbor without being completely sure because we don’t have a set of rules. It would be easier to follow rules, but then we sacrifice freedom for rules. I think I would take freedom anytime.

We go from the very generic prophecies that speak against the people of Israel, to speaking against the surrounding nations, to speaking against the leaders of the people of Israel, specifically the religious leaders, to words of hope in these passages today. We find Scriptures that should be familiar. We see in 36 the promise of a new covenant and a new heart instilled within each one of us. Look at 36:26ff where we see a clear renewal of the nation of Israel. It is a renewal which has at its core the Spirit of the Lord.

Speaking of the Spirit of the Lord we see in chapter 37 the valley of the dry bones where God manifests clearly the ability to transform the dead of Israel, those who have gone into captivity, those who have no hope because of generations, actually 70 years so multiple generations, of bondage and exile, to a renewal and a revival of the people of Israel from bones to living beings. This life is given as a result of the Spirit of the Lord breathed into each of the bones and each of the lives that are present in that valley. As we wind ourselves through Ezekiel we see this flow that eventually takes us back to the promise of the Lord that in spite of our unfaithfulness He will never leave us or forsake us or abandon us forever. That’s something to count on.

We continue to transition in themes. For most of the prophecy of Ezekiel it is against the people of God. Then we picked up the theme of the prophet speaking out against the nations that are surrounding the people of God, even though they are carrying out God’s purposes, they still are spoken out against. Now, we see that God speaks out specifically against the leaders of the people. He calls them shepherds, but evil shepherds whose only care is to ensure that they themselves are fed and that their own needs are met. This results in overlooking and disregarding the needs of the sheep, which would be the people of Israel.

The easiest parallel to today would be that the shepherds are the pastors of the church who disregard Scripture and the needs that are put before them for their people. Instead the pastors of the church are focusing on their own needs and how to meet them, as opposed to emphasizing and prioritizing the needs of their own people. I do see this where pastors should know what they signed up for. Our position and our responsibilities are not comporable to what corporate American provides or expects of its workers. We are pastors, we are shepherds, and the sheep, the people of God in this 21st century iteration, are our responsibility.

There is a clear transition from the previous chapters where Israel and Judah were clearly pointed out as people who had rebelled against God and who were going to be punished as a result of their sin and their unfaithfulness. That was then, but now we see prophecies that speak out against the surrounding nations of Israel and Judah and how God is going to come and execute judgment against them. We see a judgment against Tyre and then also against Egypt and Ethiopia and other nations that historically were enemies of the people of God.

Not only are these chapters prophecies against the other nations but we also see promises that God will rebuild His people and His land. So for chapter after chapter we see how unfaithful we have been, we now see that even in our unfaithfulness we are not forgotten and God will never turn His back on us. Psalm 63 provides us with continued relief in knowing that God will remain faithful to us, even while we were still sinners.