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Week 26  Jonah 1

The book of Jonah doesn’t really say much about the lives or interests or practices or customs of Iron Age sailors. But his short story shines some light on their religious sensitivities.
It’s pretty clear the sailors were already religious men before they knew about Jonah because as soon as the storm struck the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help.
But however loyal they were to their gods as soon as Jonah admitted that the Lord was the cause of the storm the crew got a bit more religiously curious (the fact he was Lord of the Sea made him especially relevant). And they ended up praying to the Lord.
The sailor’s prayer was:
O Lord…don’t make us die for this man’s sin…
Don’t hold us responsible for his death, because it isn’t our fault
You sent this storm…for your own good reasons.
It was a good first prayer. The focus was on staying alive & on not being made responsible for Jonah’s death so the sailors said exactly that. And since they’d also figured out that the Lord was behind the storm they admitted that too.
For instructions on how-to-pray I’d normally think about looking through the psalms. But these guys had no time to do anything but blurt out their life-and-death concerns and confirming that the Lord was clearly in-the-driver’s-seat.
So… Two Quick Tips on Prayer: Say something personal about myself. And say something accurate about the Lord.

Note: quotes from Jonah 1:5 14 (NLT)

Week 26  Jonah 1

When Jonah went down to the port city and bought a ticket to Tarshish none of the ship’s crew knew he was renegading against the Lord (and at first he didn’t tell them). They only found that out when they were far out in the Mediterranean: as the ship was sailing along, suddenly the Lord flung a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm that threatened to send them to the bottom.
In the modern world a marine weather forecaster looks at natural causes: wind & waves & atmospheric pressure & sea temperature – the usual meteorologically-calculable causes of ocean weather. But in Jonah’s case there was an added piece that a climate-guy wouldn’t have charted – the one about the Lord being Lord of Ocean Storms. Jonah should have known that. He would have read the psalm that said: the voice of the Lord echoes above the sea. The God of glory thunders. The Lord thunders over the mighty sea. But I guess he disregarded what he knew.
Anyway Jonah eventually admitted to the sailors: I am a Hebrew, and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land. If Jonah’s Lord was just Lord-of-the-land then…okay. But that extra bit about him superintending the ocean-deep changed things: the sailors were terrified when they heard this. “Oh, why did you do it?” they groaned .
Which when you get down to it was Jonah’s $64,000-Question.

Note: quotes from Jonah 1:4 9 10 & Psalm 29:3 (NLT)

Week 26  Jonah

I finished Proverbs yesterday and when I was done sat wondering what to read now. Technically it should be Ecclesiastes since it’s next. (And I have to keep Esther & Job in mind too since I skipped them at the beginning of the month). But I think I’ll read some of the Short Prophets for a bit of a change. I’ll see.
A couple of years ago I compared how each of the twelve Short Prophets started their books. The general rule was that in the first verse they identified themselves and said where the message was coming from (a vision or oracle or word from-the-Lord). Then in the second verse the majority of them jumped right in and started explaining the Lord’s message. But there were two exceptions to that general practice: Hosea and Jonah.
In the case of Hosea the Lord told him to go and marry a prostitute (which he did).
In the case of Jonah the Lord told him to get up and go to the great city of Nineveh (which he didn’t).
All the OT prophets seem to be strong individuals with their own qualities & gifts & styles & preferences & attitudes & convictions & temperaments. But Jonah is a real maverick. A decisive opinionated strong-willed non-conformist who took action to flat-out disobey the Lord.
Of all the stories of prophets Jonah’s is the best (from a story-reader’s viewpoint). And that’s where I started today.

Note: quotes from Hosea 1:2 & Jonah 1:2 (NLT)

Week 25  Proverbs 28

Whoever trusts in himself is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom is kept safe.
So Solomon points out a contrast here. It’s between a) trusting in myself & b) walking in wisdom.
I’m wondering especially about part a): Can I Trust Myself or Can I Not Trust Myself? The end-point of Solomon’s advice is that I need to walk-in-wisdom. But it begins as an exercise in not-trusting-myself.
The problem is that if my options are between a) relying on what I personally think & b) deferring to some outsider that disagrees with what I personally think then that means I’d have to consider the possibility that my own ideas are flawed. That I could get better information somewhere else.
That’s a hard thing to do. I already have my own ideas about things and it’s easiest to just run with them. What are the chances that I’ll start being suspicious about my own ideas?
And even if I do start having some self-doubt and I’m thinking about shifting my confidence over to some other view there’s a whole bunch of options to think about and sift through.
Solomon’s recommendation (his point b)) is to choose the Lord’s Wisdom.
But before I ever get around to hitching-my-wagon to Wisdom I have to deal with Solomon’s Step #1: Doubt Yourself. And that’s a supremely hard thing to do.

Note: quote from Proverbs 28:26 (NIV)

Week 25  Proverbs 14

Solomon said: faithless people will be fully repaid for their ways, and the good person rewarded for his.
This idea has cropped up before in Proverbs. The idea that what I do now has an effect on what happens to me later. The idea of getting reimbursed for what I’ve done.
It’s Solomon’s Compensation Rule: I do something…I get something back in return. The rule works in all kinds of ways. A simple example is if I find someone’s wallet and return it the person will be happy (and I might get a reward).
But Solomon is talking about indemnification on a bigger scale too. A couple of chapters ago he said: the truly righteous person attains life, but the person who pursues evil goes to his death. So the Compensation Rule is scaled all the way from a lost-wallet right up to the question about “what’s going to happen when I’m dead?”
Solomon figures something is going to happen. I check a cross-reference that says the Lord is watching and he will judge all people according to what they have done.
I feel a bit concerned thinking about a perpetual but undetectable compensatory dynamic that’s in operation. But in the last couple of years I’ve been tracking the idea more carefully and Solomon isn’t the only one talking about it. When I’m reading through the bible it seems like some component of this day-of-reckoning idea keeps coming up again-and-again.

Note: quotes from Proverbs 14:14 11:19 (NIV) 24:12 (NLT)

Week 24  Proverbs 11

This is a two-phrase proverb:
1) God rescues the godly from danger
2) God lets the wicked fall into trouble.
What’s similar in both phrases is the ‘danger’ or ‘trouble’ that two people are headed into. The big difference is the people…
Person #1 is a godly person who’s facing danger
Person #2 is a wicked person headed for trouble.
The question the proverb is asking is: ‘what does the Lord do about it?’
And the Answer is: ‘it all depends’. These are two very different people and that makes a big difference:
The Lord rescues Person #1
But he lets Person #2 fall.
With Person #1 the Lord takes preventive action – he intervenes. But with Person #2 he does nothing. No intervention. No preemptive action. He lets gravity take the falling guy where he wants to fall.
I like this proverb because it’s almost perfectly balanced (with some two-phrase proverbs the two phrases don’t really connect very well). But not this one.
And I like it because it’s a nice tidy generalization about how things tend to work. I don’t think it’s an Absolute & Ironclad Law. There are times when a person who reveres the Lord might end up deep in the Danger Zone. And there are times when a piratical brute lives a trouble-free life. But in general the Lord looks out for his people. And the others he lets fall.

Note: quote from Proverbs 11:8 (NLT). Added note: Proverbs 13:5 & 19:22 are examples of a couple of what I think are not-so-well-balanced proverbs.

Week 24  Proverbs 2

I normally think of Proverbs as a book of Short Sayings (for instance: a prudent person foresees the danger ahead and takes precaution). But the Short Sayings Section of the book doesn’t really get started until chapter 10.
The first nine chapters are written in paragraphs that I wouldn’t necessarily call ‘proverbs’ (unless I called them Long Proverbs). Here’s a good example: my child, listen to me and treasure my instruction. Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding. Cry out for insight and understanding. Search for them as you would for lost money or hidden treasure. This doesn’t sound like a proverb to me. It’s more like a Proverbs Reader’s Advisory.
But whatever-all it is it’s a good how-to alert. A bible-reader’s basic job is to read the words. But it looks like the writer is thinking about a related – but different – question: what am I reading the words for? What’s the point of reading? And his answer seems to be that by submerging myself in the reading then I will understand what it means to fear the Lord, and I will gain knowledge of God.
On the one hand I can read the bible and grab some content – a kind of Fact Accumulation Exercise. But I can also potentially push through into the knowing-the-Lord domain. Which makes the basic task of reading a bit more than basic.

Note: quotes from Proverbs 22:3 2:1-4 5-6 (NLT)

Week 24  Proverbs 1

When I arrive in the book of Proverbs I get a feeling of something like relief. My comfort-level is slightly elevated. There’s a little less pressure and I can breathe a bit easier.
For one thing the writer talks to young or inexperienced or immature people quite a bit. About a dozen times in the early going it’s a lot of “my-child-this” or “my-son-that”. Like it’s advice for kids. And what’s not to like about a straightforward proverb like: lazy people are soon poor; hard workers get rich. Pretty cut-and-dried. Manageable. Common-sensical. Something a young guy can understand.
But then the writer also says: let those who are wise listen to these proverbs and become even wiser. And let those who understand receive guidance by exploring the depth of meaning in these proverbs, parables, wise sayings, and riddles.
So it looks like even if the proverbs are something like A Beginner’s Book of Successful Living they’re not only that. They’re also something like Heart-and-Soul Truths About Life. Ideas for mature people.
Proverbs – more than most bible books – has lots of easy access points for a young reader.  A kid can read-and-understand. But they have depth too. A non-kid can explore the depth.
Complexity disguised in simplicity. Layers getting peeled back as I keep moving forward.
Proverbs are for kids. But I read them too. I don’t want to miss out.

Note: quotes from Proverbs 10:4 1:5-6 (NLT)

Week 23  Nehemiah 7

When the walls of Jerusalem were finally rebuilt Nehemiah appointed two men to work as his city governors. One of them was Hanani (Nehemiah’s own brother) and the other was Hananiah. Nehemiah says that Hananiah was a faithful man who feared God more than most.
I checked a bible dictionary. There are 9 other Hananiahs. Nehemiah’s Hananiah is only mentioned this one time.
Nehemiah doesn’t describe his brother at all. And as far as that goes he doesn’t say much about Hananiah either. But he does say that Hananiah was already the commander of the fortress. So he might have had transferable organizational & military & leadership skills. He was maybe fearless & cool-under-fire & authoritative & respected. But whatever else he was Nehemiah only says that: a) he was a faithful man and that b) he feared God more than most.
Being a faithful man might have included being loyal devoted conscientious trustworthy reliable. But whatever all it was it looks like Hananiah was dependable. Nehemiah could count on him.
Being a man who feared God didn’t mean he was terrified. But he revered the Lord. He had a pretty clear-eyed sense of what his position & rank was before the Lord.
A person might be dependable without being devoted to the Lord. Or he might revere the Lord without being very reliable. Nehemiah wanted someone who was both. And it looks like Hananiah fit-the-bill.

Note: quote from Nehemiah 7:2 (NLT)

Week 22  Ezra 1-6

The first six chapters of Ezra – apart from the list in chapter two – is a pretty interesting story. The seventy-year captivity in Babylon is finished. Cyrus of Persia frees-up captive Israel. And a smallish group of Jews in Babylon decide to return to Israel.
The impetus for this release from captivity is spelled out at the start: the Lord fulfilled Jeremiah’s prophecy by stirring up the heart of Cyrus to let
the people of Israel return to the land. The Lord also stirred the hearts of the…tribes of Judah and Benjamin to return to Jerusalem. The Lord prompted the Releaser and the Releasees.
But after the Lord’s initial prompt the story is mostly about what people did. It’s about Jeshua & Zerubbabel & the temple-building project & Rehum and Shimshai (two opponents) & Tattenai and Shetharbozenai (two more adversaries) & the letters going back-and-forth from Israel to Babylon & bureaucratic tie-ups. Ezra 1-6 is mostly about people.
But not totally. Toward the end of the story the writer added that things moved forward as they did because their God was watching over Israel.
It’s a subtle reminder. 99% of the section is people doing the things they’re doing. Meanwhile God was watching over them.
It’d be easy to think that in Ezra 1-6 the Lord was just lying in the weeds. But I get this reminder that no matter how low a profile he keeps it’d be a mistake to say he’s not engaged.

Note: quotes from Ezra 1:1 5 5:5 (NLT)