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Week 2  Genesis 49

This is the chapter where Jacob calls his twelve boys together and gives each of them a blessing.
It seems pretty clear to me that some of the blessings are better than others and so I thought a challenging exercise would be to re-order the sons and their blessings in a descending scale. Top-to-bottom. Best-to-worst. But I soon enough realized that I didn’t have enough data or insight or time to do that. The best I could do was to rough-sort them into three big categories of ‘blessings’:
• Negative or unfriendly ones (for instance Jacob tells Reuben: you will no longer excel)
• Neutral or hard-to-decipher ones (Zebulun will get to live by the seashore)
• Positive or affirmative ones (Judah is told: your brothers will praise you (and) your hand will be on the neck of your enemies. And Joseph is promised that he’ll be blessed with blessings of the skies above (and) of the deep springs below).
But even that was too challenging. About all I had time to decide for sure was that if I had a list – Jacob’s Blessings: 1-12 – then Judah & Joseph would be on top. #1 and #2. Or maybe #1a and #1b.
If I was reading the bible for the first time I’d have trouble saying who was #1 (I’d likely suspect Joseph after reading his story). But I’ve read the OT more than once and I know it’ll gradually get clear that Judah – in the end – will reign supreme.

Note: quotes from Genesis 49:4 13 8 25 (NIV)

Week 1  Genesis 1-11

The first eleven chapters of Genesis are a block of introductory material that precedes the Main Event of the OT – Abraham & His Family.
There are 299-verses and I broke the section down into two types of content: a) short stories (~200-verses) and b) name lists (~100-verses) – a ratio of roughly 2:1.
The five short stories are the most interesting parts to read. The little story-poem of the murderous Lamech is the shortest & easiest one to pass over. Not so much the stories of Cain & Abel or the Tower of Babel. But it’s really the Creation of the World and Noah & the Flood that are the Big Stories. They make up almost 60% of the first 11-chapters.
(Thinking about those two Big Stories I wonder how the writer got away with mashing them into 177-verses. Both are gigantic events.)
I wish the Story of Creation was a bit longer – wish it had more detail & used more precise language. But it answers a huge and basic question: where did we-all come from?
Noah & the Flood also raises a huge and important question for me: why did the original creation need to be (almost) completely destroyed? I know that people had gotten to be as bad as they could possibly be. But blowing up the whole project? What-all factors played into that?
Anyway in chapter-twelve the Lord took a decisive step to start a new program. He began with Abraham. Genesis 12 is chapter one of the Abraham- Israel OT story.

Week 1  Genesis 1

Genesis introduces the project this way: in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Then the writer steps back to begin describing the pioneering stage of the process: the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep.
The version I’m reading uses the phrase: the surface of the deep. I check a few other versions. Most of them say the deep. It’s a legitimate term – a nautical term – that means the ocean. But it’s not very common and I wonder why a translator wouldn’t just say “the ocean” (a couple of versions say things like primeval ocean and watery depths. One said the abyss which can – but might not – refer to the ocean. One slangy paraphrase says: earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness (I’m not sure about bottomless emptiness because there might have been a solid subsurface core with a crust or plates or layers made up of some basic structural elements like granite & iron & nickel & carbon & sulphur that might come in handy later.)
But whatever…it looks like initially – in the period of time before the actual heavens-and-earth mentioned in verse-one appeared – God began with a very basic & primary & elemental mass of water. No shape or contours to it. Unconfigured. Empty of anything else. Dark. The fluid infrastructure of the coming world.

Note: quote from Genesis 1:1-2 (NASB and The Amplified Bible CSB NABRE & The Message)

Week 52  Revelation 22

I finished reading the book of Revelation a couple of days ago (so there was no New Year’s Eve scramble-to-finish).
As usual I tried pretty hard to understand what John was talking about. However…if I had a Revelation-Comprehension Test Scale that numerically evaluated how much I actually understood then I’d grade out at a pretty low number. Raw score? Scaled score? Standard deviations? They wouldn’t make difference for me. For the most part Revelation is still a mystery.
At the very end of the book John gives a sober warning to his readers: if anyone adds to them (John’s words), God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book…God will take away his share of the tree of life and the holy city.
So there are three possible ways to read the Revelation of John:
1. Read the content of the book
2. Read the book (but add some of my own extra content)
3. Read the book (but remove some of John’s content).
John endorses #1. No additions. No subtractions.
I think it’s a good general rule for all bible books. But Revelation – with its visionary & apocalyptic & mystical elusiveness – is a standout example of a book that puts pressure on a reader to add & embellish (or else suppress & dismiss & downplay). Two seriously tempting options. Both of which will take me where I don’t want to be.

Note: quote from Revelation 22:18-19 (CSB)

Week 52  1 John 

People self-evaluate differently so I can’t speak for them. But I do know that I have doubts & uncertainties about the quality of my faith.
I wonder if John senses that second-guessing element of faith. He says:
• This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commands…
• Whoever keeps his word…in him the love of God is made complete
• The one who says he remains in him should walk just as he walked.
John is talking about three questions / concerns:
• How can I be sure that I know the Lord?
• How will the love of God be polished-up in me to first-class status?
• How can I remain loyal to the Lord?
And his answers are pretty solid & practical:
• Keep the Lord’s commands
• Keep the Lord’s word
• Walk the way Jesus walked.
I think John’s answers are three different ways of saying more-or-less the same thing. But for me the third one – walking-like-Jesus-walked – is the most understandable & the least abstract idea (not of course saying that walking-like-Jesus-walked is easy).
Last year I taped a verse onto my desk calendar as a reminder: let’s not get tired of doing what is good…We will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. Which sounds like Paul’s way of saying what John was driving at: you saw how Jesus lived his life. That’s how you should live.

Note: quotes from 1 John 2:3 5-6 (CSB) & Galatians 6:9 (NLT)

 

Week 52  2 Peter 3

In chapter three Peter started talking about Jesus coming back to earth. The reason was that people (who he described as mockers) were saying that Jesus wasn’t returning. He hadn’t come back already therefore he wouldn’t be coming back.
So Peter said hold-on-a-second…there’s one major problem: don’t overlook this one fact: With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.
At first this seems like a good tip-off about the Lord’s calendar: 1000 years = 1 day. And 1 day = 1000 years. So one 24-hour human day = (roughly) 365000 Lord Days. Unfortunately the reason I can’t plug-in this value is because Peter said one human-day was – to the Lord – like a thousand years. I checked about four dozen other bible versions and they all said that one human day – in the Lord’s view – was like (or as) a thousand years.
So one day is not equal to 1000 years.
One day is like a thousand years.
I guess Peter could have said that one human day was like 10000 or 1000000 years to the Lord. His point being that the Lord operates on a different timetable than people (technically it’d be a non-timetable).
It’s possible that when God created the material world he also created time. And in just the same way that he can operate in the material world (even though he isn’t material) he can operate in time (even though his normal jurisdiction is a time-free zone).

Note: quote from 2 Peter 3:8 (CSB)

Week 51  2 Peter 3

Closing out his letter Peter talks about people who lampoon the return of Christ: scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing…They will say, “Where is the promise of (Christ’s) coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation”. So whatever-all other ideas that scoffers will scoff about they will definitely mock the idea that the Lord will be returning to earth.
There are three building blocks in the Scoffer Argument. First: Jesus said he would come back. Second: but he hasn’t come back. Third: therefore he won’t be coming back.
The Scoffer Argument would be rock-solid if it just had the first two ideas. The nagging little problem is the third idea where scoffers dip into prediction.
I agree that there’s a kind of homespun intelligibility to the Scoffer Argument. I look back at a bunch of historical repetitiveness and – using that known information – project a best guess. It’s a simplified probability approach. It’s like I see the sun came up every day for the last 10,000 years so I’m willing to bet that it’ll come up tomorrow.
The rule works pretty well for repetitive occurrences. Not so well for unique one-off events. Saying that the Lord will not return because he hasn’t returned yet is skating-on-pretty-thin-ice.

Note: quote from 2 Peter 3:3-4 (ESV). In 3:5-7 Peter makes a different argument. But a person has to believe the OT. Which might be a hard-sell for a scoffer.

 

Week 51  2 Peter 1

Let’s say I start out as a guy who dislikes Jesus. Distains him. Disregards him. But then I start changing my mind. Eventually I decide to follow him. It’s a big crossroad for me. What happens now?
On a very simple & non-specific level the answer is that there are two main developmental categories. There are visible & observable things. And there are more covert internal things.
The external level of obvious & seeable things might for instance be that I start going to church.
But Peter isn’t talking here about the visible things. He says:
God has given us his very great and precious promises,
so that through them you may participate in the divine nature,
having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
When I start following the Lord I get promises. Guarantees. Peter doesn’t say how many and he doesn’t specify what they are. But what he does do is mention two invisible follow-ups – internal things.
Invisible Follow-Up #1: I get to share in the Lord’s nature. Before I started following the Lord I had my own nature and it’s what I made-do with. But now I get a boost by sharing in a better nature.
Invisible Follow-Up #2: I get a chance to escape from the world’s corruption. Prior to believing I’m locked-down in my own sorry & corrupted world. It’s all I’ve got. No Exit Visa. But with Christ I can start to expand my horizon.
So…two pretty important invisible developments.

Note: quote from 2 Peter 1:4 (NIV)

Week 50  James 5

I tend to focus on things that interest me in my bible reading. I have a sort-of built- in Personal Attentiveness Modulator that – for-better-or-worse – influences my degree of concentration. So for instance when I come to a passage related to church leadership I’m less absorbed.
But Peter’s comment about leaders & influencers caught my attention. People at the head-of-the-pack should be exercising oversight not under compulsion, but willingly…not for shameful gain, but eagerly…not domineering those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.
So three things in this short list (each one with a negative followed by a positive):
• Not under compulsion…but willing
• Not for monetary gain…but eagerly
• Not by being a boss…but by being an example.
The first two would be tough calls for an outside observer to make definitively (the leader himself would be the best judge of those). On the other hand the third one would be publicly identifiable. A top-down leader’s true colours show up soon enough. Leadership by domination. He knows what he wants…and people can get on-board.
I don’t think Peter is arguing for one kind of management style or organizational set-up. Good leadership is the point. Peter’s saying that a leader should be an exemplar. A role-model.
A good church leader is someone who is personally developing good success at living less like himself and more like Christ. And people can see it.

Note: quote from 1 Peter 5:2-4 (ESV)

Week 50  James 5

We count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about.
The bible is pretty solid on the idea that if I follow the Lord then things will improve and work-out for me.
But James adds this critical reminder of there being gaps as well. It’s like this. Let’s say there’s a Point-In-Time-A (where things are working out okay). Then a bit later there’s Point-In-Time-B (where things are working out okay). But in between those two points there’s a GAP. Like this:
Point-In-Time-A — GAP — Point-In-Time-B.
The GAP is the interval where lots of things can (and do) happen. And since the environment where those things happen is our material world – where dark & sinister & corrosive & awful things happen –  those are the features of life in the GAP. James isn’t thinking about the upbeat times. He’s thinking about GAPS. thinking back to Job – who experienced just about the worst GAP experience in the world.
In Job’s case Point-In-Time-A was very good. But then there was the GAP where things were horrendous. Fortunately for Job Point-In-Time-B arrived and things turned around for him.
Anyway…James’ simple lesson is that Job endured the GAP. He persevered.
But it makes me wonder: what did Job do during Point-In-Time-A that conditioned him for the GAP? How did he prepare?

Note: quote from James 5:11 (NIV)