PSA Bible Reading Challenge 2023-2024

We now begin the cycle of a split kingdom and the kings who fall short of God’s desire for their reing.  David was a king after God’s heart, but Solomon, while being blessed with the gift of wisdom, pursued the wives of foreign nations and that caused the inevitable, apostasy.  God told the people of Israel a long time ago not to marry those from other religions because they would cause you to backslide and move away from him as the one and only God.  Solomon did not listen to the tune of marrying 700 foreign wives and having 300 foreign concubines.  You would think that this amount of influence would inevitably lead him down the wrong path, and it did.

He began accepting sacrifices and other signs of foreign gods in the land of Israel that God had established.  As a result God told Solomon that his reign would be taken out of his family’s hands, but not in the time of Solomon.  In fact, once Solomon dies then his son rules but the kingdom is divided with him only having one of the 12 families of Israel under his reign, and that would be in Jerusalem.  

So that begins the cycle of one ruler after another turning their back on God and God giving the land over to those who do not follow him.  This will all eventually culminate in both the Norther Kingdom (Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (Jerusalem or Judah) being taken over and driven to a foreign land, like Babylon and Assyria.   But that happens a bit later.

In Proverbs 3 we have the well known verse 5: “Trut in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”

The detail and the description of the building of the temple is esquisite.  You can’t read these chapters in Solomon without recognizing the wealth that was poured into the temple for the sake of the Lord.  This is something that a lot of people struggle with.  Why pour money into the temple when you can easily use that money for the poor, for programs that reach out to children an youth, for widows and other pastoral ministries?  That is a question that hits to the core of many decisions that are made at the session level.  How do you discern what is to be spent for the Lord’s work and what is exactly the Lord’s work?  

Not to compare material things to what Solomon is doing, like the organ or some other improvement made to our buildings, but there is a sense that what is done by Solomon is important work which is required of the Lord.  I know that I can say personally no more important work have I done than when I was in a setting where we did not own our own buildings but rather used all of our resources for the work of the kingdom of God which did not go into any physical plant.  But that is not where we find ourselves today.

I did think it was interesting that after the temple is built and Solomon asks the Lord to remember his people he does not say that the Lord resides in the temple, but rather look at 8:49 where Solomon describes the dwelling place of God as “heaven”.  He asks God that when the people come to the temple to pray that God, from heaven, would hear their prayer.  The temple serves not as the home for God, but rather as a gathering place for the people of God in order to do one thing in common, seek the Lord, call upon his name.  Of course, you can do that in other places and by yourself, but Solomon’s temple, and I would say church for that matter, is a place that is set apart specifically for that purpose and that purpose alone.

In Proverbs you see the moral benefits of wisdom which the king lays out very clearly.  Oh, one more thing I wanted to say about I Kings.  Not very often in Scripture do we find the reference to the wife of the king of Israel.  But here we see that Solomon marries the wife of a Pharaoh.  Now while this might be a problem historically, in the Scripture it provides a very clear path to peace with Egypt and also a clear path to Solomon’s wealth and influence in the land.  It also reminds us that clearly there were Jewish men and women of color since the very beginning.

The smooth and peaceful transition of power from David to his son Solomon takes place even though there is another son who tries to take the throne from David by calling his people together and setting up a rival group of people who would put him on the throne.  But David speaks and clears up whatever confusion there might be by clearly telling the people that it is Solomon who has been chosen and no one else should pretend that they are the ruler simply because they want to be the ruler and say that they are the ruler loud enough.  David chose, the system worked, and Solomon is placed in power.  

As a result Solomon does a bit of a purge of his father’s enemies after waiting a little bit.  He also receives from God a wisdom that far surpasses anything the people of that day had seen before.  He marries the daughter of Pharaoh, which is smart because that then keeps the peace with Egypt.  He asks one of his neighbors if they could provide wood for the building of the temple and skilled craftsmen to build the temple, which is smart because in return he would give them food that would provide them with stability.  In general, there is peace in the land and the people are happy and do not have to worry about war, which had been, up to now, a daily concern.

The rule of Solomon begins well and he makes some pretty important decisions at the beginning of his reign that will prove to help him out in the future.  In Proverbs, which again is attributed to Solomon, the verse that we ought to pay attention to is vs.21-22: “For the upright will live in the land, and the blameless will remain in it; but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the unfaithful will be torn from it.”

We come to the end of the Gospel of Matthew.  It feels to me like Matthew inclues more historicity than most of the other Gospels and is more interested in the details so that if people were to go back and check they would see support for the events as they are told.  I see this not just because of the inordinately long chapters (26 has 75 verses and 27 has 66!).  The explanation at the resurrection of Jesus is unique to Matthew, where you have the chief priests paying off the Roman guards to tell people that they fell asleep and while they were sleeping the disciples took Jesus’ body is a detail that you would think would backfire and get them fired if not killed.

The presence of the Trinitarian formula in Matthew 28:19 is a cornerstone of our theological belief in who God is and how God makes Himself known.  This Great Commission that Jesus gives his disciples is centered on the command to make disciples.  We are not commanded to go and make churches or to make programs or to make whatever else most of us do in churches, but rather to make disciples.  What are we doing as a church to make disciples, to make people followers of Jesus Christ and not just people who can associate with a particular church in a particular time and place?  Disciples of Jesus Christ are solely aligned to Jesus, all the other loyalties that we face have to be secondary.  This is crucial to our lives.

We find in these chapters in Matthew many of the parables dealing with the coming of the kingdom of God and the need for each one of us to be ready when that kingdom comes.  Probably my favorite parable in the entire Bible is the one of the workers in the vineyard because it displays a truth that plays itself out consistently in life.  People look at others to gauge whether they are being treated fairly or not, as opposed to looking at how they are actually treated.  We gauge the empirical value of fairness not based upon what we recieve, but rather on what others receive and we compare it.  That is not how God works.  God is unfair, we get what we don’t deserve, thanks be to God!  If we got what we deserved we would all be in trouble.

Jesus enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and then enters the temple and clear it out of money changers and those performing business in a house of prayer.  We move on to the greatest commandment which while not taking up a lot of verses, is one that is probably the most important commandment in all of Scripture.  This is the law according to Jesus, love God, and love your neighbor.  It is that simple.  

Jesus then goes off on the religious leaders in a way that is incredibly convicting to anyone who might be a leader in the church even today.  We are reminded in the next chapter to not put your trust in trying to discern whent he end times might be, God chooses and every time that we try to predict we get it wrong.  We then launch into parables of when Jesus comes back again and we are demanded to be ready.  Being ready, according to Matthew 25, entails doing the work of the king.  That work is defined in vs. 35-36.  That should be our purpose here on earth, this is what defines a disciple.  One who does these things.

We finish up the prophet Isaiah and we have to recognize the parallel of his words and the actions and the life of our Savior.  In 65 we see the promise of a new heaven and a new earth and verses that are very familiar in vs.19 which is a direct parallel to Revelation 21:4 which give us a celebratory depiction of what earth will look like when Jesus comes back again.  There is also the promise to the people of Israel that their name will endure forever.

We then move to the psalms and David asking God to help him watch what he says.  Look at vs.3 of Psalm 141 where David asks: “Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips.”  What a great way to ask God to help us ensure that what we say aligns with whom we are, a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Finally Proverbs provides us with some wisdom that would be good not to forget.  Much of Proverbs, including these chapters, provide a dichotomy between what the righteous person does and what the evil person does, what the wise person does and what the fool does.  It goes without saying, but I’m going to say it, that we are called to follow the way of the righteous and the wise.

We find ourselves totally immersed in Isaiah for this reading.  The end of 59 reminds us of the covenant that God has made with us, it is one where the Spirit of God has been placed within us and that Spirit is passed down through the generations.  We see the glory of Zion in chapter 60 and the verses of a familiar hymn that we sing: Arise, your light has come…

When we get to chapter 61 we see the words that Jesus spoke in his home synagogue in Nazareth and the words that we are called to emulate: “the Lord has annointed me to preach good news to the poor…”  We can’t make it through this reading without highlighting 64:8 where we read: “We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.”  That is our lot, that is our state, we are the clay in the hands of the potter looking to be shaped and molded for the sake of his kingdom

As we make our way to the end of Isaiah we move away from the promise of destruction for the nations that are foes of Israel to what seems like a more personalized description of the good and the wicked.  The prophet moves away from a description of nations to the description of individuals.  He sets up a dichotomy between the righteous and the wicked.  

The most powerful verses in this section has to be vss. 5-12.  Isaiah redefines what fasting is, from a personal abstaining from food the a communal reaching out with justice, feeding the hungry, reconciling with others, clothing the naked, providing shelter.  It is a good reminder to us that God requires us to do these things, they are not options, they are part and parcel of who we are as disciples.

In Matthew we get a major event and then a series of teachings that allow us to read it without getting tired.  We begin with the transfiguration where Jesus is revealed to the core disciples as being in league with Moses and Elijah.  The parable of the lost sheep is tucked away in statements about children and their importance in the kingdom of God and the need to have the type of faith that children have in order to obtain the kingdom of God.  It is described fundamentally as a humble faith.

We then have statements on divorce and the need to store up treasures in heaven which makes a rich young man very sad.  

This felt like a short and manageable Scripture.  Isn’t that something when you read 5 chapters and it feels that way.  It could be that they are somewhat familiar Scriptures so you find yourself in a comfort zone and it feels better as you read it.  Chapter 52 contains the Scripture that we see used in the New Testament to describe John the Baptist especially in vs.7

Chapter 53 is entirely about the suffering servant and a section that is good to read especially during Lent as we see his suffering spelled out.  Chapter 55 contains verses that remind me of this song.  

Then we find ourselves in Matthew 16 which is where Peter declares that Jesus is the Messiah and that statement is the foundation of the church.  The Lordship of Jesus is the most important part of who we are as disciples.

From focusing on Babylon the prophet now speaks to Israel about Israel and her need to return to the Lord and abandon her stubborness.  It is definitely a message that could be directly to each one of us as we look to our own individualism to save us from whatever situation we might find ourselves.  We then find another couple of chapters, 49 and 50 that address the servant of the Lord and what the servant will look like.  If you look at 50:6 and following you see the servant described as: “I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard.”  We see this description clearly as what Jesus suffered.

In Matthew we find another explanation by Jesus of a parable, which again is unusual.  This time he explains it begrudgingly calling his disciples “dull”.  That is in chapter 15, but in 14 we see Jesus feed the five thousand, to be followed the next chapter by the feeding of the 4,000, now wonder people wanted to be around him, free lunch!  Jesus walks on water and Peter’s faith and then doubt is revealed.