PSA Bible Reading Challenge 2023-2024

We go back into time here with Moses and Aaron once again. They have just left Egypt and God commands that a census be taken of the people. He also commands that things be done decently and in order so that we know who is marching where and when. This is key in the whole picture of Israel and understanding that there was a real pecking order in regards to who was where. We also have the Levites who were set apart to serve God through the priestly responsibilities. That means that they were assigned to Aaron. I’ll speak more about Habakkuk tomorrow as we get there.

Well, I read that wrong. Instead of Numbers, which I read incorrectly, it should be Nahum. Let’s talk a minute about Nahum. It is an oracle from the prophet against Ninneveh, and it is really strongly worded. There are simply three chapters of condemnation against the Ninnevites, who were Assyrians, and so sworn enemies of the Israelite. It must have been very gratifying for an Israelite to hear this prophecy which contains only words of destrusction for those who are bitter rivals and enemies of yours. This does come to pass.

This is fairly easy reading. It allows us to fall into the reading as a spectator, but not too far lest we assume that we already know what is going to happen. Jonah is one of those stories where we assume we know it, only to find that he was swallowed up in a whale in order to go preach repentance. They repent, we know this part already. But then what we might forget is the attitude of Jonah because God saved the Ninevites. He is angry! It would have been better if you had killed me than to make me the prophet in history who saved the Ninevites. The people of God hated the Ninevites because they were cruel and a sworn enemy. Can you imagine a Jewish person who single handedly saves the Palestinians who are seeking harm againt Israel today in Gaza? How would he be viewed. This is a similar reality. I don’t want to be known in history as the one who saved these terrorists, take my life, it is better this way. God scolds him and saves the Ninevites.

Haggai is the command the encouragement to build the temple. God says basically that when you build the temple your prosperity will change. You are now struggling because you live in your own houses but the house of the Lord has been destroyed and you aren’t doing anything about it. Rebuild the temple was the command under King Zerubbabel from Judah, which we saw in Kings.

Joel tends to be a Scripture that we read only, and pretty much exclusively, on the day of Pentecost. But there is so much more to it. We find throughout the Scripture a reality check that God had abandoned his people so that every single thing in the land would be destroyed. Well, that happened pretty effectively in II Kings where the entire land was stripped of everything including the people. But then there is the promise, and this is the part that we tend to read for Pentecost, look at 2:28-29 where we read that the people of God, including the sons and the daughters, would reflect the presence of the Lord and restoration would begin to take place. This will happen, it is a promise.

Psalm 138 is one of those songs of praise that David writes up and sings. It is nice. Again, a song of restoration keeping in line with what Joel states at the end of the book.

And so we come to the end of Judah, and basically whatever remnant was left of the people of God. We see another rollercoaster of leaders from the worst of the worst: Manasseh who even sacrificed his children he was so into the other god thing. To the best of the best with Josiah who brought about the most sweeping reforms that Jerusalem had evern seen with the discovery of the law. But not even the goodness of Josiah was enough to sway the anger of the Lord. God had already said with Manasseh I’m done, no more Mr. Nice Guy. As a result once Josiah dies then we have the transition from the people of God allying themselves to Egypt, which is very short lived, to falling to the power and might of Babylone who eventually crushes them. Everyone, except the poorest in the land who needed to tend the fields, were taken away or slaughtered. That is the end of Israel as we know it for the time being. They are all dead or in exile.

Proverbs 8 is a chapter that we would be good to take note. It is an anthropomorphised wisdom who speaks about her presence and creation by God. This wisdom we see all through Scripture. Now, lest we make a mistake, it is a charicature of wisdom, and not the actual creation of an individual or a person. The presence of wisdom for Proverbs is so important that the author has made her a person. But she really is not a person. This all makes sense since we know that the author of Proverbs is Solomon who was gifted with more wisdom than anyone has ever had. Great chapter.

We get to the end of the northern tribe called Israel. The Assyrians come and destroy the land and take the northern people, the Israelites, away with them and resettle other people in their place. It is fascinating that before this happens the people of Israel had gotten to a place where they did not hesitate to worship the gods of the land wholeheartedly, including sacrificing their own children before the gods. This is what “pass through the fire” means. So God has definitively turned his back on the north and they are never to return. But the south remains, Jerusalem remains faithful.

The faithfulness of Judah is seen in the king Hezekiah who followed the Lord in all his ways including, and this is big because none of the other kings in recent memory, all the way back to David, had done this. He tore down the high places. These were the places where the people of Judah could kinda hedge their bets by making sure that if the Lord didn’t answer they could try their hand and see if the gods of the land might answer. Hezekiah took down even those places. He was faithful to the Lord.

One of my favorite places to visit when we are in Israel is Hezekiah’s tunnel. It is an absolutely incredible feat of engineering. It is a tunnel carved in the bedrock by hand from the city of Jerusalem all the way to the source of water which allowed the people of Israel to survive the siege of Assyria. The Assyrians do not conquer Jerusalem. But there is a harbinger of bad things to come. As the Assyrians back out Hezekiah welcomes the king of Babylon as a friend. The king had sent a gift while Hezekiah was sick and so he shows him all of Jerusalem. Isaiah, the prophet who was in existence at the time, warns Hezekiah that the day will come that although they managed to survive the exodus to Assyria, they will not survive the exodus to Babylon. There are two deportations that take place. The Assyrian one removes Israel from history, the Babylonian one will almost do the same to Judah. But that is yet to take place.

Psalm 139 is my favorite one to read while I am visiting in the hospital. The omniscience of God is clear in these verses from the time that we are born to the time that He calls us to him. Powerful…

There is so much back and forth between who is reigning in Judah, the south where Jerusalem is, and who is reigning in the Israel, the north where Samaria is. This back and forth continues to show a continuity. Did you notice that in the south not only is the king identified but also the mother of the king. I thought that was fascinating and I wished I had a reason for why that is. The only similarity that I can find is I know is that whether a person can actually self-define as Jewish or not depends on the mother and not on the father. If the mother is Jewish then the son or daughter can define as Jewish, but not vice-versa. Again, I don’t know the historical or religious reasons behind that, but it seems to carry out in our reading as well.

We see a mention of Jonah as well as Elisha in these verses which describe the many convoluted passing downs of the reign from one king to another. So much blood and violence is involved in all of these stories it is no wonder that people are confused as to the nature of God. We also see Joash and Joahash mentione both in the north and the south so there is a period of time where the two seem interchangeable and yet they are clearly two separate people even while they are reigning at the same time.

It is easy to get a bit lost in which king is which. The way to keep track of it all is again to hear who is the king of Israel, which would be the north, and who is the king of Judah, which is the south. Remember Samaria is the capital of Israel, but we did hear about the golden calves that still existed in Bethel and Dan which used to be the two capitals before Samaria was appointed capital of the north. In these Scriptures we see a bit of an alliance between the North and the South, so much so that both of their kings, Joram of Israel and Ahaziah of Judah, were killed on the same battlefield by Jehu who then became king of Israel.

We also see the death of Jezebel who is thrown down from her window by two of her servants. It was a pretty brutal death. The sheer violence of all that happens in this chapter remind us of a different time when things were done quite differently. That is, at least, what we would like to think. The sheer violence that we see in Gaza, the sheer violence that we see Ukraine, the sheer violence that we see promulgated by our policies and institutions which keep the poor poor is not foreign to what we see in the Old Testament. Lest we find ourselves feeling better by calling others savages, it is fairly important to see our own savage tendencies which may be hidden, but exist nevertheless.

We continue along with the story of Elisha the prophet and all of the things that he was able to do, both miracles and deeds that were clearly from God. But before we enter into the life of Elisha fully, we see the final acts of Elijah including his ascending into heaven in a chariot of fire. It does remind me of the movie with the same title, although I don’t clearly see the parallel. The literal passing on of the mantel from Elijah to Elisha, see where this concept came from?, this literal passing is seen in chapter 2 where Elisha literally picks up the mantel of Elijah that he leaves behind. From then on he is seen as the prophet of the Lord.

The healing of Naaman is one of the more well known stories of Elisha and reminds us of the power of God. But we see this same power as Elisha is able to increase the oil in the widows jar, and heal the Shunamite widow’s son, and other stories that remind us that the power of God was upon Elisha just as powerfully, if not more, than on any other prophet of his day. You also see in the story of Gehazi that it is really hard to find good help.

Proverbs continues to warn against thinking that the grass is always greener on the other side, especially in light of relationships and marriage. There is an interesting, and somewhat disturbing line, about the preference of a prostitute over adultery. Let’s not go down that path, let’s just remain faithful in all counts.

We continue along with the story of Ahab, the king of the North, and his military exploits and how, even in his unfaithfulness, the Lord still accompanies him into victory in battle. That is until he decides that he is going to spare a king and not kill him, against the will of God. Then we find this interesting alliance between the North and the South, and Ahab is able to convince the southern king, Jehoshaphat, to wear the king’s robes so that he would be an obvious sitting duck in the middle of the battle field. I’m always curious as to why Jehoshaphat agrees to this, but he does, and it actually ends up sparing his life. Ahab then dies in battle.

In the meantime we do see an interesting humbling of Ahab as he asks for forgiveness for taking the vineyard from Naboth, even though it was basically his wife trying to cheer him up who does it. The Proverbs Scriptures all begin with a reference to “my son” or “my child”. The author is obviously writing to someone whom he considers a mentee and gives him life directions on how to live as a child of God. There are many admonitions to stay on the right path especially in regards to not straying from the love of your youth to pursue someone who might entice you in the moment. Pretty powerful stuff whose insight has made it through the ages.

Keep in mind that we are now looking at the Northern Kingdom all the while in the South Asa is reigning over Judah. We are now fully in what is called the divided kingdom with emphasis on the north and all that is happening there. We are introduced to the prophet Elijah who was a prophet in the North and all the atrocities and the apostasy which was present in that region. Ahab is seen as the worst with him following Baal whole heartedly. He was also the one responsible for making the capital of the North Samaria.

The encounter between the prophets of Ahab and Jezebel is legendary with Elijah conquering and killing the prophets once he wins. What is also legendary is the still small voice which manifests itself as the presence of the Lord over the wind, earthquake, fire, and all the other natural elements that one would think would be the presence of God. This is a great section with a lot of stories, the widow and her son for example, that are keepers and remind us of what we can do if we were just to have the faith of a mustard seed.

James also mentions Elijah as on who had the prayer of faith and was able to stop the rain for 3 and a half years and bring down the rain after that. I found this to be a meaningful section.