Month: April 2023

Week 14  Psalm 93

One of the topics I try to track while I’m reading-through is What-the-Lord-Is-Like. I don’t know if finding out what the Lord is like is the most important topic. But it’s near the top of my Important Topics List.
The bible is quite a bit like other books when it comes to me finding out about a character. I look for A) what the book says about the character and then B) what the character does and then C) what the character says. The last verse of psalm 93 is in the A) category (it says something about the Lord): the nature of your reign, O Lord, is holiness forever.
Saying that the nature of how the Lord oversees everything is holy is pretty definitive. The way things are run – their essential-quality & foundation & norm & inherent-tendency & baseline & standard – is along the lines of holiness. Holiness is fundamental. This is a useful idea to have in mind as I read…the reason being that when I read something about the Lord that looks-like or sounds-like or feels-like he is Not Holy then I’ve got something else to come back to.
There’s a totally different way to read the bible where I’m free to make my own judgment-calls about whether the Lord is holy. I get to say what the text means. It’s my call.
But I prefer the option of trying to figure out what the text says about itself.

Note: quote from Psalm 93:5 (NLT)

Week 14  Psalm 91

When it comes to bible-reading a bible-reader’s Objective #1 is to just read-through the bible. For some readers there’s also a supplementary objective – Objective #1b – something like ‘I want to understanding the bible better’.
Psalm 91 reminded me that there’s another type of bible reader with a different objective. Midway through the psalm the writer says that God: orders his angels to protect you wherever you go. They will hold you with their hands to keep you from striking your foot on a stone. It’s a familiar verse. A good verse. But it’s a verse the devil used to try to goad Jesus into jumping off the temple roof. After all: (God) orders his angels to protect you. And they will hold you with their hands to keep you from striking your foot on a stone.
So the Lord’s reply was: the Scriptures also say: “do not test the Lord your God”. The Lord was quoting Moses’ words: do not test the Lord your God as you did when you complained at Massah (at Massah Israel complained about being thirsty and Moses asked them: why are you testing the Lord?)
Anyway…in this case the devil’s objective in reading the bible was to use it to try to test-the-Lord with a crazy assistance-in-dying suggestion.
So my take-away is that there are legitimate reasons for reading the bible.  Any others I’d best avoid.

Note: quotes from Psalm 91:11-12 Matthew 4:6 4:7 Deuteronomy 6:16 Exodus 17:4 (NLT)

Week 13  Psalm 86

I was out of town yesterday so didn’t do my regular end-of-the-month reading review (it’s important to keep track so I’ll do that today).
I read Ruth yesterday. (After reading Judges for eight days in-a-row it was a big relief to read Ruth! I like to think that Ruth is a bible-reader’s reward for slogging through the undignified goo of the judges.) So anyway if someone who’d never read any stories in the OT said they wanted a recommendation for one nice OT story to read I’d suggest Ruth. It’s really almost a perfect story. There are other good OT stories. But none are nicer than Ruth.
Yesterday I also read this: teach me your ways, O Lord, that I may live according to your truth! That meant I got an end-of-month reminder about what I’m doing as I’m reading-through. I know that first of all I’m reading to read-through so that by December 31 I’ve gotten to page-396 of my NT. But then secondly I’m also (almost by default) picking up some clues about the ways-of-the-Lord. The Lord has his own particular ways of doing things and while I’m reading I’m puzzling my way through some of them. I think it’d be easier to figure the ways-of-the-Lord if his operations were uncluttered by the complications of human activity. But they aren’t.

Note: quote from Psalm 86:11 (NLT). End-of-the-month reading: Genesis-to-Ruth (236 chapter) + 86 psalms = 322. The Bible has 1189 chapters. I’ve read 27% in 25% of the year.