Month: February 2024

Week 9

While I’m reading-through from year-to-year other things are going on. I see things I didn’t see before. Or an old idea develops new connections. Or I get new questions.
Annual re-reads seem to be developmental. Evolutionary. Cumulative. And a lot of my bible content falls into three big groupings:
First are the things I’ve put in the category of Fundamentally & Elementally Rock-Solid Ideas (for instance the Lord has tremendous power. Each year I get reminders of the Lord’s phenomenal and electrifying potency. I just accept it. Mentally reaffirm it.)
Second are things I don’t really understand. They’re ideas I have trouble making good sense of (for instance the Lord’s timing and scheduling of things. If there’s some logic to it I don’t ever seem to get-it. And maybe I never will.)
Third are things I didn’t used to understand but the idea gradually begins to make some better sense. Might sharpen into focus (for instance the linkage between the Lord performing his operations and me doing things. Putting the two together has been slow and things are still fuzzy. Progress at a snail’s-pace. But progress.)
So each year there’s these three things happening on the reader-reception front:
Things I’m pretty sure about and don’t adjust
Things I’m not pretty sure about
Things that seem to be mutating over time.

Note: End of February reading review. Genesis 1 to Deuteronomy 8 + 60 psalms = 221 chapters. That’s ~19% of the bible read in ~17% of the year. So I’m staying on-track.

Week 9  Psalm 51

David says something pretty definitive about the Lord: …you are justified when you judge.
I think that’s a good bible reader’s reminder. It’s (especially) handy when I’m reading some of the judgment-heavy stories of the OT. For instance I just read the story of Korah and Dathan & Abiram. It’s hard to read a terrible & frightening story like that without feeling bad for those guys.
On the other hand if I have it in mind that the Lord is ‘justified when he judges’ then I’m working with the idea that the consequences – bad as they were for KD&A – were legitimate. The outcome is pretty grim. But if I know in advance that the judgment is justified then I’ve got an important key to the story.
Two readers read a bible story.
Reader #1 reads the story > he responds / reacts to the story > then he makes his own personal judgment call about it.
Reader #2 reads the bible story > he responds & reacts to the story > then he mentally doubles-back to re-evaluate his reaction > then he checks what the bible says about its own story > then he makes his decision about the story.
Reader #1 really just has the one option. What he thinks.
Reader #2 has a choice of two. What he thinks or what he thinks + any related inputs.
Question is: a) do I just live with my own response? Or b) do I look for bible clues to tune-up  my own thinking?

Note: quote from Psalm 51:4b (NIV)

Week 9  Psalm 51

Toward the end of the chapter David talks about sacrifices: you (the Lord) would not be pleased with sacrifices, or I would bring them. If I brought you a burnt offering, you would not accept it. At first it looks like sacrifices are being devalued. But then David ends up saying that the Lord will be pleased with worthy sacrifices.
I try to think through this not-quite-discrepant comment:
A sacrifice – as a stand-alone item – is not necessarily either ‘worthy’ or ‘unworthy’
A sacrifice attains worthiness by being sacrificed by a penitent sacrifice-offerer.
There’s the intrinsic value – the market value – of a sacrifice. Then there’s the added value – it’s worth – which is the supplemental value that gets attached because of the repentant heart of the sacrifice-offerer.
A sacrifice won’t lose its monetary value. In the marketplace it might be bought or sold for $1000. It retains its asset value. But there’ll be no added worth attached to it.
So a sacrifice can be valuable…but at the same time lack worth. Every sacrifice is conditioned to some degree by the heart of the person giving it.
I tried mapping out a couple of sacrificing combinations:
An evil sacrifice-offerer + a good sacrifice = a worth-less sacrifice
A neutral sacrifice-offerer + a good sacrifice = a worth-less sacrifice
A penitent sacrifice-offerer + a good sacrifice = a worthy sacrifice
There’s other variables so this is a rough guide. But I’ll keep it in mind for when I hear someone dismissing sacrifices.

Note: quotes from Psalm 51:16 19 (NLT)

Week 8  Psalm 18

I was dropping off a couple of books at the second-hand book store. Before I went in I flipped through the books (looking to see if I’d left any $50 bills). What I found was a plain black-&-white bookmark. It said “God’s Way Is Perfect”. The four words were in a hollow-outline font surrounded by a simple floral border. God’s Way Is Perfect.
Last Sunday during church service we (repeatedly) sang the line “you are perfect in all of your ways” (the “you” and “your” were referring to the “good father” and so – assuming the “good father” was the Lord – the songwriter agreed with the bookmark guy).
Under the words God’s Way Is Perfect the bookmark said: Psalm 18:30.
That verse in my bible says: as for God, his way is perfect. I checked a couple of other versions and none of them said God’s Way Is Perfect. Bookmark guy might have used another version or maybe paraphrased the line. But either way it comes down to the Lord being perfect. Unparalleled. Transcendent. The Paragon.
A couple of days ago I read the story of Korah: a guy who collided catastrophically with the God who’s way is perfect.
There’s a hundred more stories of guys like Korah. Where imperfect eventually plows into perfect.
A big part of the bible is stories of what exactly happens when people whose ways pretty deliberately aren’t perfect run into the God Who’s Way Is.

Note: quote from Psalm 18:30 (NLT)

Week 8  Psalm 49

When you’re rich there’s a double-congratulation happening: a) rich people will consider themselves fortunate. And then b) the world loudly applauds their success. That’s on the one side. And there’s more to it: people who boast of their wealth don’t understand that they will die like the animals. If I’m enjoying my wealth but don’t understand how seriously limited it is then I’m basically like an animal.
If “A” but “B” then “C”.
I think about the A & B & C that the psalm lays out. I accept that it’s the case. And I also think three other ideas spin-off the main idea. Related – but unstated – principles. They are:
If a poor guy wishes he was rich and doesn’t care how undependable money  actually is then he’ll die like an animal.
If a rich guy knows for-a-fact that his wealth isn’t reliable then he won’t die like an animal
If a poor guy isn’t scrabbling for cash because realizes that wealth is deceptively over-valued then he won’t die like an animal.
I can rely on the first idea. And I think the other three ‘principles’ that I doped out are probably legitimate too. But psalm 49 only actually says the first.
When I land on a verse that emphatically says something definite then I accept that definite something. (But I’m not so confident about implied somethings. Even if they look good. Better to put them on the back-burner for now.)

Note: quotes from Psalm 49:18a 18b 20 (NLT)

Week 7  Numbers 10

A couple of years ago while I was reading Numbers I noticed that during the second year after Israel’s departure from Egypt…the Israelites set out from the wilderness of Sinai and travelled on.
I made a note of it then because it surprised me. I knew that Israel arrived at Mount Sinai in the Sinai wilderness back in Exodus 19: the Israelites arrived in the wilderness of Sinai exactly two months after they left Egypt. Did that mean that the 22-chapters left in Exodus + all of Leviticus + the first 10-chapters of Numbers took place at Sinai? All 59-chapters in the one location?
I figured that this year I’d try tracking it a bit more carefully. I jotted it down on a list every time Sinai was mentioned between Exodus 19 and Numbers 10 (and since I know from experience how easy it is to fall into a reader’s trance I ended up double-checking my list in a word book ).
I found half a dozen Sinai-mentions in Exodus. Plus four in Leviticus. And seven in Numbers 1-9 (the last verse of Leviticus and the first verse of Numbers agreed on the location – still in Sinai).
So I’m pretty sure that out of the 187 chapters in the five books of Moses 59 of them – almost 32% – took place in the Sinai wilderness.
I realize this doesn’t really qualify as Critical Information to Know. But it answered a question that had me curious.

Note: quotes from Numbers 10:11-12 Exodus 19:1 (NLT)

Week 7  Psalm 42+43

If somebody said I could only have 149 psalms I think my solution would be to combine 42 & 43. Presto! 149 psalms (but with the contents of all 150). It’s really not even that big a cheat. If the bible didn’t have a white-space and say “Psalm 43” then 42 & 43 would fit back-to-back seamlessly. Hand-in-glove.
A couple of days ago when I was reading 42 the idea of Hope really jumped-out as the big idea. Korah was distressed by his Absentee Lord. But in spite of that he instinctively sensed that he had to keep hoping – he couldn’t roll-over into despair. It was pretty impressive. But reading 42 & 43 together I see he was figuring out other things too:
1. He recalled his past (good) experiences of faith
2. He prayed a Question Prayer: why have you forsaken me? (a kind of what’s-happening reflection)
3. He asked the Lord for help Right-Now against his opponents
4. Unexpectedly he also decided to praise the Lord (he couldn’t afford to let current circumstances be the prime determiners)
5. He wanted to get back home: send your light and your truth; let them guide me to the place where you live
6. Surprisingly he seemed pretty confident of better days ahead.
The list is in the order I found them. But thinking about them in order of Ease-of-Doing I think #2 & #3 would come first for me. Then #5.
#1 #4 & #6 have a higher-degree of difficulty. Which isn’t a big surprise since I don’t figure Korah was featuring only simple solutions.

Note: quotes from Psalm 42:9 43:3 (NLT) (“Korah” = “the descendants of Korah”)

Week 7  Psalm 42

A couple of ‘opposing’ questions get asked in the psalm. In fact they get asked twice:
Q#1 the writer asks: where can I go to meet with God?
Q#2 some unidentified ‘men’ ask: where is your God?
Seven verses later a couple of very similar questions are asked:
Q#1 the writer asks: why have you (God) forgotten me?
Q#2 ‘foes’ ask: where is your God?
The two pairs of questions reinforce each other:
On his side the writer wonders where God is. Wonders about God’s disappearance.
The ‘men’ (now also called enemies) ask: Where is your God? But they’re  just jeering at the writer.
The weird thing is that the writer and the ‘men’ are asking similar questions: Where is God?
But the difference is that as far as the ‘men’ are concerned they couldn’t care less about God while on the other hand the writer is very concerned – it’s a question he’s dead-serious about.
But with no answer in sight he changes lanes. Asks another question: why are you downcast, O my soul? And he floats the best response / resolution he can think of: put your hope in God. It isn’t an answer. But that doesn’t seem to matter to him right now.
He’ll let the anonymous ‘men’ taunt him. But he’s taking the view that the Lord’s absence isn’t the decisive issue. Put your hope in God. That’s what he needs to do. The Lord will show up eventually.

Note: quotes from Psalm 42:2-3 9-10 5 & 11 (NIV)

Week 6  Leviticus 19

The Lord says you must be holy because I the Lord your God, am holy.
I’m thinking a couple of things: a) this sounds like I’m supposed to imitate the Lord but b) I know that I can’t realistically be like God in being holy and c) what I’m likely aiming for is being as much like him as I can (so…Be-Like-Me means try to be kind of like me).
Anyway the key question is: how do I be like the Lord?
Fortunately the chapter explains what ‘being holy’ is in fairly concrete terms. For instance a couple of scalable actions are posted right away: a) give reverence to your parents and b) honour the Sabbath and c) don’t worship idols.
I realize that those are things I can actually do. And if I do them it looks like I’m on the way to being holy.
This puts a slightly different spin on why I’m following the law:
Law-Keeping Does Not Mean: I do what the Lord says because he said to.
Law-Keeping Does Mean: I do what the Lord says so I become more like him.
Which means that the key question isn’t: do I want to follow the law? It’s more like: do I want to be like the Lord?
If I do want to be more like him I do the things he says.
If I don’t then I can just disregard the law.

Note: quotes from Leviticus 19:2 and see 2-3 (NLT)

Week 6  Psalm 37

The psalm begins with a counter-intuitive phrase: don’t worry about the wicked. I start thinking about that because fretting over evil actors is as natural as breathing. I sift through the passage wondering what I can make of it…
First of all I realize that it’s a good reminder: “worrying doesn’t do you any good”. None whatsoever. And even if that advice isn’t really an actionable-step it might be a pre-action necessity.
Next (and practically speaking) I think that if evil people doing evil activities worries me then I can help myself by reducing my daily exposure to Fret Promoters (for instance media). Sure…this might be a head-in-the-sand approach. But if selectively having my head-in-the-sand produces a net-benefit then I won’t worry.
Third…I need to realize and accept that evil-doing might be a long game. David said that eventually the evil that’s going around will come around: like grass (evil people) soon fade away…they soon whither (of course David’s ‘soon’ might not seem to be soon enough for me).
Fourth…I maybe have to recalibrate my whole normal reaction to evil-doing. I think I slide into assuming that corrupt & evil & violating actions are not how-things-should-be. But then what if I realize that in reality that’s how they actually are? What if in an evil world evil action is the norm? It doesn’t really help much to fret over reality.
Anyway…when push-comes-to-shove maybe my goal is patience while I wait for a renovated world.

Note: quote from Psalm 37:1 2 (NLT)