Tag Archives: Read the Bible in a year

Daily Bible Study

October 27, 2020 Bible Study Read the Parable of the Good Samaritan From the Perspective of the Samaritan

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 10-11

I was struck by something in the Parable of the Good Samaritan today.  I have always heard people interpret it by saying that we should love those whom our society teaches us to despise the way the Jews of Jesus’ time were taught to despise the Samaritans.  Now, while this is not wrong, I realized that was not what Jesus was teaching here.  Rather, He was saying that we should love, and do good for, those who despise us the way that the Jews of His time despised the Samaritans.  I am not sure why this comes as a revelation to me today, because I know full well that Jesus also taught that we should not view anyone, any member of any group, the way that the Jews of His time viewed the Samaritans. Yet, despite the fact that I have often heard that we should seek to do as the Samaritan in this story did, I have also heard people tell me to put myself in the position of the man beaten by robbers.  However, we should evaluate this situation from the perspective of the Samaritan.  He could have thought, “This man does not really want help from someone like me.  This is a well traveled road, surely someone he would rather have help from will be along shortly to help him.”  But the Samaritan did not do that.  He could not know that those whom the man would have expected to help him had already passed by and chosen not the help.  He just saw someone in need and helped them.  We should do likewise.

Daily Bible Study

October 26, 2020 Bible Study

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 9

Once again we have a passage where the connection between Jesus and John the Baptist is highlighted.  In this passage there are two separate connections made between Jesus’ teachings and what John the Baptist had taught.   First, we have Herod Antipas wondering who Jesus was because he had already beheaded John the Baptist.  Then, when Jesus asked His disciples who people thought He was, they replied that some people thought He was John the Baptist raised from the dead.  Once again, I am convinced that Luke believed that his readers were aware of John the Baptist as being part of a larger movement, a movement which I believe was viewed as the most genuine iteration of Judaism at that time.  Further, I believe that Luke made this connection because Christianity was starting to be viewed as a new religion rather than as a sect of Judaism.  I believe that Luke was trying to show that Christianity was firmly rooted in Judaism.

 

Daily Bible Study

October 25, 2020 Bible Study Focusing Our Efforts To Spread God’s Word To Those Who Are Receptive, While Recognizing That We Can’t Always Tell The Difference

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 8

Usually when I read the parable of the sower I spend some time worrying about what kind of soil, and, if I write in this blog about it, suggesting that my readers think about themselves in that light.  However, today when I read it I thought about what it means for us sharing God’s word with others.  Now the simple answer would be that we should seek to share the word of God with those who fit into the fertile soil category.  That simple answer is not wrong.  However, the parable implies that the seed gets distributed on all of these soils and that the farmer does not really know whether the soil is fertile ground or shallow ground.  So, while the farmer surely chose how he scattered the seed to minimize how much went on to the path and how much fell among thorns, he realized that, in order to get seed to all of the fertile soil, he had to allow some of it to fall in those locations.  Now comes the important thing, some of that hard soil might have gotten broken up, and someone might come along and pull out the thorns.  Also, we should not assume that we can tell shallow soil from good soil.  So, while we should focus our efforts for spreading God’s word to those who are fertile soil, we should also remember that we cannot necessarily tell which soil is not fertile.

Daily Bible Study

October 24, 2020 Bible Study Love Your Enemies, Do Good To Those Who Would See You Harmed

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 6-7

When I began reading today’s passage, I was feeling like it would be a passage I would have trouble commenting on.  Then I came to verse 6:27, “But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you.”   I think that we as Christians spend too little time talking about what this verse and those which follow mean about how we should live our lives.  It is in the context of the above statement that Luke records Jesus giving us the Golden Rule, “Do to others as you would like them to do to you.”  And it is worth noting that we cannot take Jesus’ statement of the Golden Rule as a transition into the next thing He talks about because a few verse later He repeats “Love your enemies.”  Right here Jesus spells out what it takes to truly be His follower.  I want to note that He talked about loving our enemies just a few verses after He said in 6:22-23, “What blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of Man.  When that happens, be happy! Yes, leap for joy! ”  If we truly want to follow Christ, we need to do good things to and for those who abuse us.  And we need to expect that they will abuse us.  This passage is the basis for Chapter XII of “Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo.  While it is not quite true as the Bishop says that we can buy someone’s soul from evil by this sort of action, after all, Jesus has already purchased their soul with His death, we can perhaps show people that their souls have been purchased by such action.

Daily Bible Study

October 23, 2020 Bible Study Our Way Is Not God’s Way

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 4-5

Every time I read the account of the temptations which Jesus faced in the wilderness I see them as representing the temptations by which everyone who sees the wrong in this world is tempted.  One of those temptations is the temptation to think that if we could just solve everyone’s material needs, all would be well.  Another temptation is the belief that if we just had the right people in positions of political power, they could fix what is wrong with our world.  The last temptation is in some ways the most insidious.  We are tempted to think that all we need to do is to get people to worship God correctly, all of their other problems would go away.

Each of these temptations fall short of what God wants from us.  Each of these temptations represent real problems in the world.  At different times to different people it will seem like the solution to these problems is just to work at whichever one most touches our soul.  Ultimately, none of these problems exists in isolation and, more importantly, we cannot fix them on our own.  We find in Jesus’ answers that the key to solving these problems is to realize that we cannot solve them.  And this is where I find trouble expressing the meaning this passage conveys to me.  So, let me give you Jesus’ answer to each of these temptations”

  • “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word which comes from the mouth of God.”
  • “You must worship the Lord your God and serve only Him.”
  • “You must not test the Lord your God.”

Do you see what each of them has in common?  That’s right.  When we seek to solve this world’s problems our first step needs to be to turn to God, and to point others to Him as well.  We want one-size-fits-all answers, and there is only one of those.  That answer is that of Jesus on the Cross.  Jesus was victorious because He was willing to die to get His message across.  We cannot make people serve God, they have to want to serve Him.  We can’t make people experience what is best for them, they have to accept God’s word for it.

Daily Bible Study

October 22, 2020 Bible Study To Whom Did the Proud Father (God) Announce the Birth of His Son?

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 2-3

There is a reason that the Luke account of Jesus’ birth is the “standard” used by most Christians at Christmas.  Every time I read this passage I am struck by who the angels were sent to make an announcement of Christ’s birth.  I want to review the various people whom the Gospel accounts tell us received a message regarding Christ’s birth.  Mary and Joseph each received a visit from an angel.  They were both intimately involved in this pending birth (Mary more so than Joseph and the nature of the message they received reflects this fact).  Elizabeth received word by the Holy Spirit and her son leaping in her womb. The wise men discovered the announcement by their study of the stars; Herod and others among the high and mighty received word by way of the wise men.  However, the shepherds, among the lowest of the low, received the message by way of a host of angels on the occasion of Jesus’ birth.  When God chose to announce the birth of His Son, He sent His messengers to those who mattered, but they were not those whom we, as humans, would have thought mattered.  He “called” the shepherds, the “common man”, and gave them the message right away.  He let the wise men find out by “reading the sign” that the father put up when the baby went “home from the hospital”, and he let the big wigs and important people find out from them.

Daily Bible Study

October 21, 2020 Bible Study Jesus, John the Baptist, and the Essenes

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 1

I find it interesting that both Zechariah and Mary question the angel who brings them the message about the impending birth they will be involved in.  I think that many people make too much of the idea that what happened to Zechariah was a punishment for lack of faith.  Yes, to a degree it was a punishment, but it was also an answer to his request.  Zechariah asked how he could be sure that the angel’s words were true.  Gabriel’s answer was to give him the sign that he would be unable to speak until John was born.  On the other hand, when Mary questioned the message, she was given an explanation.  However, Zechariah asked for a sign in a way that suggested disbelief, while Mary was genuinely confused as to how it would happen.

Luke begins his story here for the same reason the other Gospel writers talk about John the Baptist at the beginning of his account of Jesus’ ministry.  We often interpret it as John the Baptist introducing Jesus and fulfilling the prophecy concerning Elijah appearing before the Messiah does.  While that view is not wrong, it is not the whole reason.  As we have learned more about the Essenes, the Jewish sect which was responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls, we realize that John the Baptist was connected with them in some way.  By writing about the connection between John the Baptists and Jesus the Gospel writers were connecting Jesus to the sect of Judaism which was noted for its faithfulness to what it preached.  I am not quite sure why, despite being aware of the connection between John the Baptist and the Essenes for many years now, this year I find it significant as I read the Gospels.

Daily Bible Study

October 20, 2020 Bible Study Pampering Each Other

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Mark 14-16

Today’s passage starts out with Mark’s account of the woman who anointed Jesus.  Each Gospel contains such an account, but there are differences between them.  Perhaps there were two such events, or perhaps people remembered the details differently (and if there were two such events, people may have mixed up details between the two events).  However, the fact that all four Gospels contain such a story with a similar emphasis in what Jesus says about it tells is that this story contains an important message.  It seems to me that Jesus tells us here that there is a place for spending our resources on luxuries.  While we should make strong efforts to help those in greater need than ourselves, it is not only not wrong to spend some of our resources on making others feel better, we should do so from time to time.

There other part of this passage that I want to write about today is Peter’s denial of Jesus.  When Jesus predicted that all of His disciples would desert Him, Peter vehemently denied that he would ever do such a thing.  Peter insisted that he would stand by Jesus’ side even if everyone else abandoned Him.  Despite his best intentions, when push came to shove, Peter was unable to keep his promise.  One important lesson here is that we can never know how we will hold up under pressure until we experience that pressure.  However, even though Peter failed to hold up this time, we also know that later he did stand up for Jesus in the face of persecution.  I want to note also that Peter did not deny Jesus just once or twice.  He had three opportunities to stand by Jesus’ side in Jesus’ darkest hour and could not do so.  We will also sometimes fail Christ when the chips are down, but we need to repent of our failure and accept God’s forgiveness.  Our failures to stand up for God do not mean that we are forever damned.

Daily Bible Study

October 19, 2020 Bible Study Give To God That Which Bears His Image

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Mark 12-13

I am not sure where I am going to go with this today. There are several things I want to write which do not currently have any connection to each other in my mind.  First, When asked about taxation, Jesus’ answer was not just about taxation.  The coin which His questioners showed Him had Caesar’s image upon it.  This led Jesus to tell them to give to Caesar what was Caesar’s and to God what was God.  Jesus’ listeners would have realized that He was referencing Genesis 1:27 when He said this.  We are made in God’s image.  Money bears the image of the government which issued it, so that government has claim to that money.  But we bear the image of God, so God has claim to our very being.

And now I see a connection to the next thing on which I want to comment.  When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, He answered, “And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.”  Then followed that up by saying that the second most important commandment was equally important, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and that all other commandments derive from these two.  Really, the second commandment derives from the first, but we need that second commandment because without it it would be all too easy for us to pretend that we can love God without loving our neighbor.  Each of us has been made in God’s image.  Therefor, if we truly love God we will love those whom He made in His image.  In fact, loving our neighbor is part of giving to God what belongs to God.

Daily Bible Study

October 18, 2020 Bible Study Lead By Asking “What Can I Do For You? Rather Than By Asking “What Can You Do For Me?”

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Mark 10-11

In response to the question about divorce, Jesus responded that from the beginning of creation God had made people male and female.  There is so much there about many of the social issues facing our society today.  Further, He said that Moses only gave a commandment allowing divorce as a concession to humanity’s hard hearts.  So, as I read this, many of the problems we have in our society today can be directly traced to our society, and even our Churches, deciding that sometimes divorce is a good thing.  Divorce is never a good thing, but that does not mean that those who have divorced cannot be forgiven.  Divorce is never OK, but sometimes the other options seem worse.  I have two more things to say about divorce.  First, while I believe that those who are married should always seek another option other than divorce, I will not tell others what price they should pay to avoid divorce.  Second, those who are divorced cannot go back and make it so that they did not get divorced, they can only move on from where they are now in the knowledge that God will forgive us our sins.  Certainly, I have failed to be faithful to God to at least as great a degree as anyone else and have no place to consider myself better than those who have gotten divorced.

I really did not intend to spend so much time on Jesus’ comment about human sexuality.  What I really wanted to focus on today was Jesus’ reaction to annoying people.  We have two stories about people who annoyed those around Jesus, the parents who brought their children to see Him, and blind Bartimaeus.  When the parents brought their children to Jesus, the disciples considered the children to be an annoyance and scolded the parents.  When blind Bartimaeus called out to Jesus for healing, the others around Jesus considered him an annoyance and told him to be quiet.  In both cases, the “gatekeepers” thought that Jesus was too important to spend time on those seeking His attention.  Also, in both cases, Jesus was willing to make time for them.  Both of these instances provide an illustration on Jesus’ teaching about leadership.  Neither the children nor Bartimaeus were of “value” to Jesus.  They could bring nothing to Him which made His life better.  Nevertheless, He was willing to make time for them because, by doing so, He could make their life better.