Bible Reading Challenge Blog

I need to tell  you that I am partial to Jeremiah as a servant of God.  He lived in what many considered the golden age of Josiah where Israel’s influence and peace and safety were unparalleled.  But then with the fall of Josiah so came the fall of Israel, and it came hard, and Jeremiah was there for that as well.  He experienced his people deported into captivity in Babylon.  So as a prophet he was able to experience the super highs of ministry with a successful king and a God who seemed to be listening and responding and blessing, as well as being on the end of a silence that was deafening.  This is where we pick up in chapter 1 as king Josiah reigns and begins his reforms which were based upon the discovery of the Word of God.

The first chapter is pretty much a timeline which gives us the dates that we need to understand when the ministry of Jeremiah took place.  He served under Josiah who was king from 640-609BC, then under Shallum who only served for one year in 609, then for Jehoiakim who served from 608-598, and then for Jehoiachin who served in 597 and Jerusalem was sieged that year by Babylon.  He then served under Zedekiah from 597-586 which is when Jerusalem actually fell and the people were sent packing to Babylon.

I don’t know where you stand on the topic of abortion but I have always seen vs.5 as an indication for me of the potential that people have which is in them even before they are born.  This verse is used universal by the camp which is opposed to abortion to make the case that the unborn life has potential and it is a potential which is instilled by God.  This is true also from a reformed perspective where we believe that God has called all people to be God’s people and than even from before we were born and able to respond to God, God chose us as His children.

Jeremiah objects to God calling him to serve him because he self identifies as a “boy”.  The call to Jeremiah is found in vs.5 where he is to be a “prophet to the nations”.  God touches his mouth and as a result gives him the words that he is to speak.  That should sound a bit like the calling of Isaiah, except Isaiah had a burning coal put to his mouth in order to cleanse him for the ministry.  

But like Isaiah, he gives Jeremiah a message that would  probably want him to say: How long!?  God tells him to gird up his loins and stand tall and do not break down before them, or else I will break you personally.  Go get em champ!  What we will see is that the messages that Jeremiah is told to pronounce are very, very difficult messages for the people of Israel to hear and will only promote anger in the people against the messenger.  This is one of the reasons why Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet.

Dear FPC family and friends,

            We are getting closer and closer to finishing our series on the challenge of reading through the entire Scripture.  These two books of the Bible that we are addressing now contain statements from prophets who are speaking to the people of Israel in the midst of a time when the nation of Israel is in a mess.  Jeremiah and Ezekiel are both prophets who speak about the desires of God to the people of God in a time when the people of God are going through really, really difficult times.  It should be fairly appropriate as we find ourselves as the people of God in really, really difficult times as well.  I would hate to compare the pandemic that we are suffering to captivity and slavery in a foreign land, but we make as many linear connections as we are able.

            These books of the Bible combine to make up 100 days, which is why we are entitling this study the 100 day challenge.  I hope that as you face these next 100 days you are able to hear the words of God come to us through these prophets who were constantly trying to redirect the people to a closer walk with the Lord and to follow God’s commandments.  I leave you with an image of Jeremiah depicted by Michelangelo found in the Sistine Chapel in Rome.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Bob

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We are going to focus on verses that I use often during weddings.  Look at vs.6-8 and you will see verses that are some of my favorites for when I join a man and a woman as a husband and wife.  Look at vs.6 and the NRSV, that is the translation that I use, speaks of passion fierce as the grave.  Some translations use the word jealousy which is not at all accurate to what the Hebrew states.  The passion that we ought to have for our spouse ought to be as fierce as the grave.  

Vs. 7 is even more powerful for that setting as it speaks of the power of love which cannot be quenched no matter how hard we try.  Or if we do try, then we would be utterly scorned.  You cannot buy love, which I guess is something for which I need supporting evidence.  Find it below.

I guess this is a bit of a mic drop.  Nothing like ending our time together with the Beatles.  Looking forward to our next Challenge!

Now we begin to get a little more graphic about the details that the man lays out about the woman and how beautiful she is and specifically which body parts he finds beautiful.  In this day and age it is not scandalous or shocking and it is simply a beautiful poem describing the allure of human sexuality where procreation is not mentioned at all.  Do you notice  that?  Throughout Scripture, beginning especially in Genesis where God tells Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, there is the assumption that human sexuality and sexual interaction had as its goal procreation.  Here children are not mentioned at all, just the beauty of the man and the women’s body and how they were made for each other.

There could potentially be a misunderstanding of Scripture that some might point to thinking that it only speaks about sexuality in regards to the production of children.  So any sexual encounters in marriage which are not for the purpose of creating children, some might say, are not God’s desire.  I would categorically dispute that and say that this is a false interpretation.  God’s desire is that man and woman would enjoy each other in marriage in all facets of their life together.  There is no presumption that sexual interaction be for the sole purpose of procreation.  That should be a liberating thought for husbands and wives as we understand that God has created us to enjoy each other not with an agenda, but simply because he wants us to take pleasure in each other.  

There is a certain playfulness here that elicits  the playfulness that is found in the flirting of a man and woman who are together.  The question which begins this chapter, where is my love, is one that is answered so that they are able to be together.  The man once again extols the beauty of his wife and gives a parallel between her beauty and the splendor of the armies as they go into battle.  Not sure that would be evocative for the woman, but at least he tried.

It is interesting that in many of these Scriptures we come across verses which are simply untranslatable.  Look at vs.12 and we simply do not have the manuscript evidence or body to be able to translate what it says.  What we find in our Bibles is a total guess as to what it would mean simply because we do not have the fragments necessary to translate it appropriately.  Does that bother you?  I hope not because remember we are able to be guided and given direction by the Holy Spirit.  If your faith impinges upon every word being correct within Scripture then you are going to have problems in other places that may seem more  important than in Song of Solomon.

Enjoy these lovely Scriptures which set the stage for the love story of a man and a woman.

We do have an interplay with dialogue for both the man and the woman.  We begin the chapter with the man in verse 1 warning his beloved that he is making his way to the garden, where the woman is found.  At the end of this verse you almost have the crowd telling the two of them to eat and drink and be drunk with love.  They are encouraging the two of them to come together.

Then the woman gives another long speech about her beloved.  She describes him in physical detail much like he had described her earlier.  You can almost palpably feel the yearning that she has to be with her beloved.  It is a passionate physical yearning which all wives should have for their husbands, which all husbands should have for their wives. 

The end of the chapter is almost a proclamation where the woman exclaims: “This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.”  Notice throughout these Scriptures the man uses the term “sister” to describe his beloved and here she uses the term “friend” to describer her beloved.  So along with the somewhat erotic imagery and descriptions and titles that are very sensual, there is also an undercurrent of a fraternal relationship that should not be discounted.  The presence of a love that is sexual is important, but so is a relationship that is based on respect and a love that is fraternal.  Couples would do well to remember both sides of this coin.

For some reason this song made me think of this chapter of Scripture.  

The man speaks and he describes the beauty of his bride.  If you look at vs.7 this is where I see a parallel to this song which describes the beauty of the act that the Lord took in sending His Son to die for us.  This description from the man is very detailed and allows the woman to hear how much he loves her.  We shouldn’t be critical that he only addresses her physical attributes, because she does the same.  There is a consistency in describing that which is pleasing which is sensual.  The word sensual comes from the senses and here the sense of touch, the sense of seeing, the sense of taste, the sense of smell, all of them are addressed in a most marvelous way.

There is a description of the beloved which touches upon all of the senses.  This is a great way to think of those that we love in this way, all of our senses ought to be inflamed with passion for the one that we love.  All of our senses ought to be aroused when we are with our love.  Okay, that is probably enough for today, but this Scripture absolutely takes us to this place.

We find Solomon mentioned here and it is because of this that it is thought that he is the author of this book of the Bible.  Once again we have the warning of not stirring up love until you are ready which is found in vs.5 with the identical words that we saw in the previous chapter.  

During the end of the last chapter and the entire chapter here we have the woman speaking about her love whom she searches.  She finds him in the person of King Solomon.  We find described a search in the city streets for him, and he was not to be found.  But when he was found he was brought into the chambers of the woman’s family.  We see an image of him coming in a spectacle with a chair and fragrance and a typical wedding day which was laid out for Solomon.  We find the woman describing her marriage, basically, to Solomon.  We will transition next to the man’s words to the woman in the next chapter.

This is a total blast from the past.  A group that I used to absolutely love, yes, they are a Christian group.  I saw them a number of times, once even at Creation where I got to meet the lead singer, Mylon Lefevre.  The beginning of this Scripture contains the words: Rose of Sharon and it is in this song as well.  Okay, that is the only point of contact, let’s look at this chapter.

As you read through this I want you to look at vs.7 where you see the counsel from the woman (it could apply to the man as well) to “not stir up or awaken love until it is ready.”  I guess there is a truth that says you can’t really control when you stir or awaken love.  When it awakes, it awakes.  What we are able to control is what we do when it is stirred up.  Paul gives us some insight when he speaks about marriage.  Look at I Corinthians 7:9 where we read: “For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.”  Now, Paul does not in any way exclude love as a reason for marriage, but he does address passion as a reason to marry so that it does not overtake our decision making.  

What a great message to all of us to remember that outside of the covenant of marriage our passions are still stirring, and so if we are not married we should consider that before we take any actions which would conflict with the life that God would want us  to live.  We live in an age where sexuality is relative and the degree to which we live out our sexuality seems to be unhinged and without limit.  God says something different here.  God tells us that within the covenant of marriage there is no barrier to how we can express our love to each other.  Outside of that covenant, we need to be careful with our passions.  It is a good lesson for today.