Tag Archives: Read the Bible in a year

Daily Bible Study

March 2, 2024 Bible Study — What Does the Lord Your God Ask of You?

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 8-10.

Moses tells the Israelites that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word which comes from the mouth of God.  When Moses says this he is not just referring to food.  He means that material things do not bring us full satisfaction, that if we wish to live fulfilled lives we need to listen to the word of God.  Then he warns us against allowing ourselves to forget God when He gives us good things and our lives are going well.  Moses goes on talking about the importance of listening to God’s commands until he asks the question, “What does the Lord your God ask of you?”  Then Moses answers that question.  God asks us to fear Him (because His power and glory is so great that if we truly know Him we cannot help but fear Him).  God asks us to love Him (and we cannot love Him if we do not know Him).  God asks us to serve Him our of that love.  And finally God asks us to obey the commands and decrees which He has given us because they are for our own good.  The heavens and all the earth belong to God, yet from all of that He has chosen us.  Is it too much of Him to ask us to love and obey Him in return?  Especially when the things He commands us are for our own good?

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

Daily Bible Study

March 1, 2024 Bible Study — Impress God’s Commands Upon Our Hearts

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 5-7.

Moses recounts the Ten Commandments and makes some commentary on them.  He tells the Israelites that the purpose of God’s commands was so that it would go well for those who obeyed them.  Moses then tells them that they should have God’s commandments on their hearts and should impress them on their children.  We should strive to do the same thing.  Moses even told us how we can do that.  We do it by talking about God’s decrees and commands when we are at home, and when we travel; by talking about them when we get up and when we lie down; by putting reminders of them on our hands, our foreheads, and on our house, and in our houses.  We should strive to bring up God’s laws whenever and wherever we can.  We should carry things and have things in our houses which lead our children, our guests, and the strangers we meet ask us about God’s laws and what they mean to us.

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

Daily Bible Study

February 29, 2024 Bible Study — Those Who Victimize Us Are Our Neighbors

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 10:25-37.

Usually when I hear people talk, or read what they have written, about this passage, it seems to be interpreted from the perspective of the man who was beaten by robbers.  I think this results from the fact that Jesus asks the teacher of the law who was the neighbor to the man who was beaten.   There is nothing wrong with that, but I think we miss the main point when we do that.  Jesus told this story in order to answer the question of who is my neighbor in the context of whom should I love as I love myself.  The story was designed to illustrate who had obeyed the command to love their neighbor as themselves.  It was the Samaritan in this passage who obeyed the command.  The Samaritan chose to show love to someone who held him in contempt.  The Samaritan chose to show love to someone whom he had reason to consider his oppressor.  The Samaritan, the one whose example Jesus tells us to follow, showed compassion for someone whom society considered better than him.  When we read this passage we tend to take the lesson that we, as the “Jew” in this story, should show love to the “Samaritans” in our lives.  We should show love to those below us in this world’s social orders.  But that gets the message backwards.  We should view ourselves as the “Samaritan” in this story and show love to those this world views as above us in social standing.  If you think some group of people victimizes you, show love to members of that group just as the Samaritan in this story showed love to the man beaten by robbers.

I normally use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading, but since this is a Leap Year, today is an extra day and I chose a passage I will be leading a Bible Study on next week.

Daily Bible Study

February 28, 2024 Bible Study — Moses Paid a Price for Allowing Himself to Be Provoked

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 3-4.

Every year when I read this I am struck by the fact that Moses says that God refused to allow him to cross the Jordan into the Promised Land because of the rest of the Israelites.  I am struck by this because in Numbers 20, God told Moses that he would not enter the Promised Land because he struck the rock when God had told him to speak to it.  What Moses says here is not exactly wrong, because he struck the rock, rather than just speak to it, because of his frustration with the Israelite complaining.  I wasn’t sure where I was going with this as I wrote it, but I realized what an important lesson it is about controlling our anger.  Moses allowed his anger at the people to get the better of him, and he suffered the consequences.  Moses failed to faithfully follow God’s command, which meant that he was never able to enter the land of Canaan.  No matter how much we feel that we have been provoked, God will hold us accountable to faithfully follow His instructions.

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

Daily Bible Study

February 27, 2024 Bible Study

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 1-2.

As the Israelites prepared to cross the Jordan River, Moses summarized what they had gone through as a people from the time they left Mt Sinai until they arrived at this place.  The first portion of this review would have been very important since those to whom Moses was speaking would have been too young to understand what was going on when these events happened.  I find it interesting that Moses here recounts how they passed Edom and Moab differently from the account in Numbers.  I don’t see these differences as being contradictory.  I see them being a more about the meaning of God’s guidance rather than about what happened.  I note with interest that Moses leaves out of this account the incident with Baal Peor, while he covers the refusal of the previous generation to enter the Promised Land.  The final piece of the passage tells us that Moses knew that Sihon would attack the Israelites before he sent the message requesting  that Sihon allow them to peacefully cross his lands.  The passage ends by recounting how the Israelites completely defeated Sihon’s people without encroaching on the land of the Ammonites, Moabites, or Edomites, who descended from Terah, Abraham’s father.

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

Daily Bible Study

February 26, 2024 Bible Study — Giving People the Benefit of the Doubt

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 34-36.

I struggled with what to write about today’s passage until the second or third time I read this verse:

Anyone who kills a person is to be put to death as a murderer only on the testimony of witnesses. But no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.

It struck me that this represents an important principle that applies to how we look at others.  The principle here is that we should not believe something negative about someone unless those telling us saw them do it.  Even then, we should not believe it if there is only one person who saw it, even if we are that one person.  We need to remember that sometimes what we see is not what happened.  Our view may have been obscured, or something relevant to events may have happened before we started looking.  Or, maybe our own bias has caused us to interpret someone’s action incorrectly.   So, we need to give people the benefit of the doubt.

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

Daily Bible Study

February 25, 2024 Bible Study — Listening to Each Other

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 32-33.

Some times when I read this, I think that there is miscommunication between Moses and the tribes which wanted to stay east of the Jordan River.  Today, I read this as the tribes of Reuben and Gad not fully understanding the implications of what they were asking.  The two tribes just saw that the land the Israelites had conquered east of the Jordan was perfect for their lifestyle and wanted to settle there.  Moses pointed out that  unwillingness to enter the Promised Land led the Israelites to wander in the wilderness for forty years.  If these two tribes were unwilling to enter the Promised Land alongside the other tribes, they would be guilty of the same sin.  So, as I read it today, the tribes of Reuben and Gad did not want to cross over the Jordan and fight because the land they wanted was already conquered.  However, when Moses put it this way, they realized that the other tribes had helped conquer this land, so they needed to help the other tribes conquer their land.  They had not asked to be excused from joining the others in crossing the Jordan because they did not want to fight beside them.  Instead, they had asked to be excused from crossing the Jordan because they thought if they did so they would have to choose land to settle on the other side, when the land they wanted to settle was here.  When Moses pointed out to them what their request looked like to others, they quickly amended it to reflect what they truly wanted.  They did not get defensive like so many of us do and argue that they shouldn’t have to risk themselves to help the other tribes.

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

Daily Bible Study

February 24, 2023 Bible Study — The Midianites, the Moabites, and the Israelites

Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 30-31.

God tells Moses that his last act as leader of the Israelites will be to take vengeance on the Midianites for what they did at Peor.  This could lead one to think that the writer of this passage mixed things up, because in chapter 25 it says that the men of Israel indulged in sexual immorality with Moabite women.  Although the entire incident ends when Phinehas killed an Israelite man who brought a Midianite woman to his tent.  In addition, in this chapter Moses tells the Israelite commanders that the Midianite women followed Balaam’s advice to entice the Israelites to be unfaithful…and Balaam had been called to the area to curse the Israelites by the king of Moab.  To further complicate matters, Moses’ father-in-law was a priest of Midian and Moses spent 40 years living with him.  However, we get an insight into the situation when we discover that Balaam was killed among the Midianites.  Finally, the passage tells us that the Israelites burned all of the towns where the Midianites had settled as well as their camps.  So, it reads as if some of the Midianites, those that followed the five kings mentioned here, had settled in part of Moab, among the Moabites.

When I started writing this today, I thought writing about this would lead me to some spiritual insight about the passage, but that did not happen.  However, I still feel like I gained something of value from this exercise, even if I did not find a lesson to apply to my life today.

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

Daily Bible Study

February 23, 2024 Bible Study — Accepting God’s Call to Lead God’s People So That They Will Not Be Like Sheep Without a Shepherd

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 27-29.

When God told Moses that his days were coming to an end, Moses asked God to appoint someone over the community so that “the Lord’s people will not be like sheep without a shepherd.”  As I read that today I was reminded of what Matthew wrote about Jesus in chapter 9 verse 36

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Which is entirely appropriate, since Jesus is the Greek transliteration for Joshua, and it was Joshua whom God appointed over the community.  Matthew wrote that after Jesus saw the people as being like sheep without a shepherd, He told His disciples that the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few, so they should ask the Lord of the harvest to send more workers.  Here Moses asked God to send someone to go out and come in before His people, someone to lead them out and bring them in.  God told Moses to give authority to Joshua before the people.  Jesus told His disciples, and through them us, to lead His people and to seek out those whom God had sent to do likewise.  Moses had been teaching Joshua how to lead God’s people for many years at this point.  Or, to put it another way, Moses had discipled Joshua.  In the same way, Jesus sent His disciples out to disciple people of all nations.  Moses laid his hands on Joshua and commissioned him to lead God’s people.  In the same way, we should accept whatever leadership role God has called us to, and then we should lay our hands on those God brings to us and commission them.

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

Daily Bible Study

February 22, 2024 Bible Study — Acting Decisively

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 25-26.

After the failure of Balak’s plan to have Balaam curse the Israelites, the Moabite women began seducing the Israelite men.  It is not clear if the men took part in the worship of Baal of Peor because it involved sexual activity, or if they took part in illicit sexual affairs with Moabite women and then joined them in worship of Baal afterwards.  I lean towards the former, but can see an argument for the latter.  In any case, those Israelite men who were conducting these sexual liaisons in blatant violation of the sexual laws already laid down became so brazen that one of them brought a woman to his tent past the assembly of the people who had met to decide how to address the issue.  The whole incident ended when Phinehas, Aaron’s grandson, killed the man who flaunted his disobedience and disrespect before the entire community, and the woman with whom he committed these acts.  The assembly had decided that those within their midst who had yoked themselves with the Baal of Peor by having sex with women who were part of that cult.  This man decided to challenge that edict.  Phinehas did not hesitate to act.  By doing so, he ended a plague which took the lives of 24,000 Israelites (probably a sexually transmitted disease).  Phinehas acted decisively.  When the Church has reached a decision on an issue, we should act with similar decisiveness (although I do not think the Church should be making decisions to take people’s lives).

I want to make one other point about this story.  This story clearly identifies the Israelite man whom Phinehas killed, and the woman who was killed along with him.  It gives both of their names, and their lineage.  Typically, when a story like this is made up, the people involved, other than the “hero” of the story, are only vaguely identified: “an Israelite man”, or “a Midianite woman”.  The story starts off that way and one might start to think, “Oh, this story was just made up”, even though the specific individuals who m Phinehas killed is not important to the story.  Then, when the story is complete, the writer goes, “Oh, by the way, it was these two specific people.”  The fact that the name and lineage of each of the people killed was given provides evidence that this account was not just a story made up to explain something.  It actually happened and the people who first told the story actually knew the people involved.

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