Month: January 2024

Week 5  Exodus 19

A kind of awkward and indirect line-of-communication shows up in this chapter and Moses is the middle man – the intervenor – between the people and the Lord.
The Lord called out to Moses and said “Give this message to the Israelites”
Moses told the people what the Lord had said
They all responded
Moses brought the people’s answer back to the Lord
The Lord said to Moses…
So Moses went down to the people…
The pattern is: the Lord > Moses > the people > Moses > the Lord.
It looks to me like the one and only time that the Lord spoke directly and audibly to the people was when he gave the Ten Commandments (the first verse of chapter 20 seems to confirm that and so does the twenty-second verse). After having to go back-and-forth through Moses I’d think direct & immediate communication with the Lord would be a nice change for people. But it wasn’t. The people were petrified with fear. They told Moses: You tell us what God says, and we will listen. But don’t let God speak directly to us. If he does, we will die.
So by the end of chapter 20 it’s back to the old pattern: the people > Moses > the Lord > Moses > the people. The people stood in the distance while Moses entered into the deep darkness where God was. And the people seemed to be happy with that arrangement.

Note: quotes from Exodus 19:3-6 7 8 9 14 19 21 (NLT). Month-end report: 121-chapters. 10% of the bible read in 8.33% of the year.

Week 4  Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall lack nothing.
I think about what David means by saying I shall lack nothing. I take it to mean that “I shall lack nothing of real importance” (not “I shall lack absolutely nothing”).
David goes on to talk about things like soul-restoration & righteousness & fearlessness & comfort & goodness & love. Those are some of the elements where he won’t  be lacking for anything. He doesn’t say anything about other “lacks”. Nothing about a bigger house. A better job. Better health. More money in the bank. Nothing like that.
I think David is focusing on only one of the Two Worlds where he lived.
He definitely lived in the in-your-face rock-solid Material World.
At the same time he was trying to manage a semi-independent parallel life in the Non-Material World. And it was in that Non-Material World where he wasn’t troubled by material needs. He lacked nothing.
One of the delicate problems with life in Two Worlds is that at the exact same instant that David lacked nothing in the one he might be feeling some anxiety about – let’s say – paying the rent in the other. It’s a bit of a tightrope. Lacking nothing and lacking some things at the same time.
David was living his life here in the Lower World. At the same time he was living a different sphere of his life in the Upper World…and in it he had what he needed.

Note: quote from psalm 23:1 (NLT)

Week 4  Exodus 3

There was a yellow sticky note in my bible that blocked out the first three verses of Exodus 3. It was a reminder from last April 15 about a verse in psalm 103 that said the Lord had ‘revealed his character to Moses’ (NLT). My post-it note told me ‘the next 135 chapters are about the Lord revealing his character to Moses’. It was a half-baked synopsis of Exodus-to-Deuteronomy. But a reminder of something to look out for.
As I get started on Exodus the psalm’s tip-off is: “now you’re going to read material that describes what the Lord is like”. So I’ll hope for some clarity (even though Moses’ last four books don’t exactly jump out at me as a Making-Things-More-Clear section).
I was talking to someone a couple of days ago about reading the chapters that came after Exodus 20. She didn’t know how things would go. Wondered if she’d get stalled. I knew the feeling. Knew that halfway through Exodus I’m starting into an uphill grind.
Which means that the prompt from 103 is pretty helpful. I normally think the big focus in Exodus Leviticus Numbers & Deuteronomy is on laws & regulations. But the psalm says that – in addition to that – the Lord is revealing his character to Moses.
So I’ll have to be on the lookout for that. Maybe there’s more character revelation than meets the eye. Maybe I’ve been selling Moses’ last four books short.

Note: quote from psalm 103:7 (NLT)

Week 3  Psalm 20

In the first half of this psalm David prays for an unknown person. His pattern is may-the-Lord do x for you… May-the-Lord do y for you… May-the-Lord do z for you.
His requests go like this: I pray that the Lord will…
• Answer you when you’re in distress
• Protect you
• Help you
• Support you
• Remember your sacrifices
• Accept your offerings
• Give you the desire of your heart
• Make your plans successful
• Grant all your requests
While I’m reading the psalms I look for examples of prayers. I look for psalms that model good prayers. I look for psalm-prayers that are worth imitating. And this is one of them.
I don’t know how many prayers there are in the psalms where the writer prays for himself. A lot I guess. It’s not hard to find a Self-Interested Prayer. I think that a Self-Interested Prayer might be the most common (and totally understandable) prayer since I know that my own top-priority interest is myself. No one’s more concerned about me than me. Which means that Self-Interested Prayers are a big component of praying. So psalm 20 is a good reminder that Prayers For Me aren’t the only ones. There’s also Prayers For the Other Guy.

Note: see Psalm 20:1-5. I paraphrased the requests.

Week 3  Genesis 37

A long time ago I heard a public sermon about the young Joseph (the Joseph of the first half of Genesis 37). The main idea was that Joseph was a spoiled & immature youth and that he only ‘grew-up’ because of his long and troubled years of adversity.
So then not too much later I heard another sermon about the young Joseph. The main idea was that Joseph had always been a responsible & mature-beyond-his-years kid and that his later life was an extension & proof of his quality.
I agreed with one of those sermons. At the same time I could see the other side as well. Which means that if it came right down to it – if a guy said “you have to choose” – then my answer would be: “I don’t know for sure”. Since the debate could go either way I’d decide to go neither way. I’d just admit that I’m uncertain.
This isn’t the only bible story where I could go one way or the other. And there are times when I prefer my way. And I figure that choosing to go in one direction and not the other is likely okay…as long as I remind myself that choosing A over B doesn’t make A right and B wrong. I have to remember that basically I’m just guessing that A is right.
I figure I’m on safer ground when I’m only certain about the things that are certain.

Week 3  Psalm 13

David begins: Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? The answer he gets is that anyone who practiced the following 11 Qualities qualified to live on the Lord’s holy hill. (The list of 11 Qualities is in 5:2-5 and it’s a pretty interesting list that covers a lot of real life activities. Functional ethics.)
Anyway the psalm ends by saying that if a guy does these 11 Qualities then he will never be shaken. I already know from the first verse that if I do the 11 Qualities then I qualify to dwell in the Lord’s sanctuary. But at the very end I see that if I do the 11 Qualities then I’ll also never be shaken.
So it’s Both-And. If I do the 11 Qualities then I qualify to dwell in the Lord’s sanctuary AND then I will also never be shaken. Both-And.
Getting the double-barreled outcome is pretty nice. But I wondered for a second: if this was an Either-Or statement which would I pick? If I do the 11 Qualities then I’ll qualify to either a) dwell in the Lord’s sanctuary or b) never be shaken. Dwelling in the Lord’s sanctuary is pretty desirable for sure. On the other hand I like the idea of not getting shaken up by things.
But I don’t spend much time thinking about it. I figure that a) it’s an irrelevant exercise and that b) my bigger concern is trying to practice the 11 Qualities.

Note: quotes from Psalm 15:1 5 (NIV)

Week 2  Psalm 13

This psalm got more interesting for me when I realized it was giving me a prototype of Where Do I Land When Things Are Terrible?
David’s situation in the first four verses is this: BAD.
Q: what is his reaction-response to that bad situation?
A: But I trust in God’s unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me.
I read this and my concern is: how does David get from verses 1-2-3-4 to verses 5-6? It’s a huge jump. I’m perplexed by it. My big wish is that David would have added a footnote…something like: And This Is How I Made This Difficult Transition! But he doesn’t.
His point here is not: How You Can Get from verses 1-2-3-4 to verses 5-6. David’s more basic point is: You Need To Go from verses 1-2-3-4 to verses 5-6.
Which I suppose is useful too. When a guy gets into a very seriously bad jam – a psalm 13-type jam – his immediate reaction might – for instance – be: God stinks. I hate God. Where is God? God is the devil. He’s a worthless useless apathetic terrible screw-around God. Like that. But David’s reaction – the Lord has been good to me – is completely counter-intuitive.
His simple advisory is: if you find yourself in Bad Situation X then the terminal point has to be Trusting-the-Lord Situation Y. (Exactly how you get there is a question for another day.)

Note: quote from Psalm 13:5-6 (NIV)

Week 2  Genesis 32

Twenty years after leaving home Jacob was finally going back.
At one of his stops along the way angels of God came to meet him. When Jacob saw them, he exclaimed, “This is God’s camp!” So he named the place Mahanaim (the footnote said Mahanaim meant two camps). This paragraph was interesting to me because I’ve been thinking about the story of Jacob’s Ladder-Dream.
That ladder – or stairway – reached from earth to heaven
On the stairway the angels of God (were) going up and down.
It’s possible this was a purely visionary event that had nothing to do with reality. It was maybe just a dramatic visual used to catch Jacob’s attention. But I started wondering if the vision – as dreamily non-real as it was – was also a visionary tableau of something kind-of-similar that was actually going on in reality.
There’s quite a few bible references that distinguish between the earth (where we are right now) and another place (where the Lord is) – a Lower Region and an Upper Region. There’s a border between them and none of us get to go to the Upper Region. But Jacob’s Ladder shows that there’s one-way traffic from Upper to Lower. That angels had passports giving them access to our space.
So since I’d been wondering about angelic migration between Upper & Lower I noticed Jacob’s Mahanaim camp. Only one camp Jacob thought. But wait a second. The Lord’s camp is here too. Mine’s visible. His isn’t.

Note: quotes from Genesis 32:1-2 28:12 (NLT)

Week 2  Psalm 8

The psalm is a rough & ready three-item guide describing Who Fits Where? It’s pretty straightforward:
First there’s God. At the top. His glory is higher than the heavens. His name fills the earth.
Second there’s us. People. We’re rated as being only a little lower than God (and from the footnote we’re a bit lower than angels too). But even though we’re ranked below the Lord he still crowned us with glory and honor.
Finally there are all other living things in creation – birds & animals & fish. The Lord put us in charge of everything (he) made. (Last week I read where the Lord created Adam & Eve and then he said they will be masters over all life. So that’s reconfirmed here.)
(I know that not everyone necessarily likes this framework. For instance a few weeks ago I read where an environmental guy said that the life of a worm was worth more than the life of a person. So he would want to rejig the structure of psalm 8 so that it looked something more like this: God > Animals > People. The bible does make a point of contact between me & worms – both of us were made by the Lord. But while we’re similar in being creatures we’re also different because we’ve been assigned a different rank.)
So anyway this psalm’s order – God > People > Animals – is a brief and handy reminder of the basic Anatomy of Things.

Note: quotes from Psalm 8:1 5 6 Genesis 1:26 (NLT)

Week 2  Genesis 18

The story is about one of the rare times when the Lord actually visibly appeared to someone. Abraham’s tents were pitched in a grove of oak trees and the Lord just came walking down the road.
The two talked for a bit. The Lord said he’d heard that Sodom & Gomorrah (S&G) were very corrupt communities. That he was here to check-it-out. Abraham instinctively knew that trouble was brewing. He knew about S&G – the terrible twins. He figured they were marked for annihilation.
So Abraham asked the Lord: will you destroy both innocent and guilty alike? (Abraham didn’t wait for an answer): surely you wouldn’t do such a thing, destroying the innocent with the guilty. Abraham figured that if the Lord destroyed people willy-nilly then he would be treating the innocent and the guilty exactly the same. He said surely you wouldn’t do that because – after all – should not the Judge of all the earth do what is right? Abraham’s line of thinking was like this:
The world’s judge has to do what’s right
Judicial “rightness” means making distinctions between people
Innocent people are treated one way
Guilty people are treated a different way
Innocent people in S&G would be saved. It was the guilty people who’d be destroyed.
So early-on in my reading-year I get a useful tip-off about how things work in the bible:
There are two sorts of people in the world – Guilty People & Innocent People.
And they get treated differently.

Note: quotes from Genesis 18:23 25 (NLT)