Week 25: Psalms 78 - 111

This week we'll continue in the book of Psalms:

• Weekend: Psalms 78 - 82
• Monday: Psalms 83 - 89
• Tuesday: Psalms 90 - 97
• Wednesday: Psalms 98 - 103
• Thursday: Psalms 104 - 106
• Friday: Psalms 107 - 111

Over time, certain Psalms can become very personal and bring back strong memories. For me (Dick), Psalm 90 is such an example. When I grew up, every year on New Year's Eve we would gather with family and play games and eat Dutch dumplings all evening. But five minutes before midnight, we would stop all festivities. My uncle, the oldest brother on my mom's side, would get out his Bible and read this Psalm with his low voice. Then we would pray, usually interrupted by the fireworks that would burst out at 12a.m. Psalm 90 is one of those Psalms that shows the 'transitoriness' of mankind, his weakness and mortality. But it also shows his dependence on an eternal, immortal God.

Psalm 92 is another one of those memorable Psalms for me. On Sunday morning before church, we would all have breakfast together as a family. After breakfast, my dad would get out his Bible and read either Psalm 92 or Psalm 122. Both are Psalms of worship that exalt God and tell us how good it is to worship God in his temple. Very appropriate to read that before you go to church. As kids, we'd sometimes jokingly recite the whole Psalm to imitate my dad -- that's how familiar it had become to us.

Psalm 103 is a beautiful psalm about God's mercy and forgiveness. Jesus' work on the cross almost jumps off the pages if you read that. In the church I grew up in, we used to read that every single time after we had communion. Parts of Psalm 105 were read when we had baptisms as it talks about God's faithfulness with his people.

I encourage you to make the Psalms your own. They are expressions of all kinds of emotions, but most of all, they are expressions of worship of our great and awesome God. He is worthy of all our praise.

Dick

Week 24: Psalms 42-77

Welcome to week 24...just two weeks shy of the year's halfway mark, which means that we've read almost half the Bible!

If you've missed some reading, don't despair.  Jump right in here and resolve to finish the balance of the year on a strong note.  God has a way of speaking to us in timely ways whenever we open his word.

Here's our reading schedule for the week:

Weekend: Psalms 42-47
Monday: Psalms 48-53
Tuesday: Psalms 54-59
Wednesday: Psalms 60-66
Thursday: Psalms 67-72
Friday: Psalms 73-77

Students of Scripture call the Book of Psalms the "most New-Testament Old Testament book."  The Psalms are prayers, praises, petitions, reflections, and even complaints...voiced by people who are trying to sort out life in relationship with Yahweh, the God of Israel.

Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann, says that the writers of the Psalms alternate between periods of "orientation," "disorientation," and "new orientation" (see his superb commentary, The Message of the Psalms).

This is our spiritual journey.  There are times in our lives when all is right with the world.  Songs and praises flow easily.  There are other times, however, in which dark clouds darken our days.  We are in a state of disorientation.  The Psalms help us through these periods by giving us vocabulary by which to articulate praise and thanksgiving during times of "orientation," and examples of how to express dismay, confusion, and even anger amid the periods of "disorientation."

The silver lining that the Book of Psalms reflects is that periods of disorientation are followed by seasons of "new orientation."  God will never leave or forsake us.  "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging."  God says, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth" (Psalm 46:1-2, 10).

Week 23: Psalms 7 - 41

Happy Monday!  Hope you all are enjoying the Spring as much as possible!  Since the rain is keeping us a little more indoors these days, hopefully you are able to keep up on the reading plan a little better...

Here is the plan for this week:

*  Weekend:  Psalms 7-12
*  Monday:  Psalms 13-18
*  Tuesday:  Psalms 19-24
*  Wednesday:  Psalms 25-30
*  Thursday:  Psalms 31-36
*  Friday:  Psalms 37-41

Tuesday we will read the 23rd Psalm, probably the most known passage in the entire Bible.  How does this Psalm apply to your life?  Please post your thoughts if you would like and maybe even post how this reading plan has been a catalyst in your life (we hope it has been!).

Have a great week!!!

Mike

Week 22: Job 29 to Psalm 6

This week's reading entails:

• Weekend: Job 29 - 31
• Monday: Job 32 - 34
• Tuesday: Job 35 - 37
• Wednesday: Job 38 - 39
• Thursday: Job 40 - 42
• Friday: Psalm 1 - 6

This week we'll end the book of Job. We read Job's last words to his friends. He maintains his innocence before them and before God. For some reason, this attitude keeps infuriating his friends. They cannot understand why he maintains his innocence before God. To them it is very clear: God's curse is upon Job, so that must be a consequence of his sin. Sometimes it is... but we can never take the position of The Judge when it comes to things like this. Job's youngest friend, Elihu, most definitely takes this stand in chapters 32 to 37. Then in Chapters 38 to 41 we have a couple remarkable chapters where God Himself speaks. He speaks of all the miracles in creation and His mighty deeds. When Job hears all this, all he can say is "I'm unworthy, how can I reply to you? I spoke once, but I have no answer, twice but I will say no more." Job's attitude is one we can learn from ... a lot! It's no wonder that God loved him so much. He was a remarkable man with a remarkable faith in the Almighty. God blesses him after all this, and the end of Job's life is even better than how it started. God is faithful.

After finishing the book of Job, we will make a start with the book of Psalms on Friday. Psalm 1 is a wonderful praise to the upright person, who meditate on God's law. You, who have committed to reading the Bible in 1 year, are such a person. You are blessed, and you are like "a tree planted by streams of water".

Have a great week.
Dick

Week 21: Job 11—28

Reading schedule for this week:
·      Weekend: Job 11-14
·      Monday: Job 15-17
·      Tuesday: Job 18-19
·      Wednesday: Job 20-21
·      Thursday: Job 22-24
·      Friday: Job 25-28

This week continues our reading of the book of Job.  This is one of the oldest biblical books in Scripture…and it can be a bit confusing to first-time readers.  Therefore it might help to stop and take a birds-eye view to get a feel for how the book is structured:
·      The Prolog (chapters 1-2), tracks Job’s upright character, his blessings, the divine-demonic drama that gives rise to Job’s sufferings, and an accounting of Job’s losses and state of suffering in isolation from all that he held near and dear. 
·      The section of Dialog and Dispute, encompasses the largest single section of the book (Chapters 3-31).  It starts with Job’s lamenting his state of suffering (ch. 3).  This is followed by three cycles of dialog between Job and his friends, Eliphas, Bildad, and Zophar (chs. 4-31) – all of whom were convinced (wrongly) that the reason behind Job’s suffering was some secret, unconfessed sin. 
The cycles follow the same pattern for the most part.  Each one starts with Eliphaz’s comments (chs. 4-5, 15, 22), followed by Job’s reply (chs 6-7, 16-17, and 26), followed by Bildad’s interjections (chs 8, 18, 25), then Job’s reply to Bildad (chs. 9-10, 19, and 26-31), and Zophar’s comments, which appear in only the first two cycles (apparently Job wore him out!) (chs. 11, 20), and Job’s reply to Zophar (chs 12-14 and 21).
·      The next section features, Elihu, a person who had been a silent observer to the dialog between Job and his friends to that point.  His speech encompasses chapters 32-37.
·      At that point, God shows up to speak directly to Job (chs. 38:1 – 42:6).
·      The book concludes with an Epilog (42:7-17), which gives us the final account of Job’s (restored) life.

As you read this week, you will be completing the conversations of the first cycle of dialog , all of the second cycle, and most of the third.  Bear in mind that the main mistake that Job’s friends made along the way was trying to speak for God in explaining why Job was going through his suffering. 

We too can end up making a similar mistake whenever we try to “comfort” someone by offering up the “reason why God allowed” a terrible thing to occur in one’s life.  Only God is qualified to speak for himself on such matters.  Our job as friends is to sit alongside our suffering companions, put our arm around them, and say, “I am here for you.”

Week 20: Esther 3 - Job 10

Reading schedule for this week:

• Weekend: Esther 3 - 4
• Monday: Esther 5 - 7
• Tuesday: Esther 8 - 10
• Wednesday: Job 1- 3
• Thursday: Job 4- 7
• Friday: Job 8 - 10

We're about 1/3 of the way through the reading calendar and we hope you are still energized and making time to read on a daily basis.  Even if you may be behind, no worries- please stick with the daily reading the best that you can and sneak in some extra reading time during lunches or breaks if you can to get a little caught up.  And as always, please take the time to post on here any questions or comments you may have regarding the reading- your thoughts are very important and we do listen!

This week we complete the book of Esther and begin the book of Job.  Both are stories of courage- the courage to stand up against a foreign regent when a massive injustice is to take place as we read in Esther, and the courage to remain faithful to God even when it appears God has turned His back on you.

Before there was Hitler, before there was Nero, there was Haman.  Haman was so insulted by one Jew refusing to honor him that he set out to destroy the entire captive Jewish population.  It was a planned extermination, to be carried out on a single day.  As the story unfolds, it comes down to one woman, Esther, to save the Jewish people...

"Why does God allow people to suffer?"  This is one of the toughest questions that people ask and in times of crisis it can be even tougher to understand the answer.  The book of Job is a story that revolves around this theme.  The main character, Job, is made to suffer unimaginable loss and personal tragedy- all tests of his character and integrity and his faith in the goodness of God.  Job's wife and buddies seek to comfort him, but also harbor doubt and anger and uncertainty about why such disasters should come upon such a noble and faithful man of God.  When pressed by such pressure, Job summons the courage to remain faithful to God, even if he does not understand whay God would allow such things to happen.

The answer to the tough question:  "Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?"  (Ch.2 v.10)

God bless you this week in your reading!

-Mike

Week 19: Nehemiah - Esther 2

Reading schedule for this week:

• Weekend: Nehemiah 1 - 2
• Monday: Nehemiah 3 - 4
• Tuesday: Nehemiah 5 - 7
• Wednesday: Nehemiah 8 - 10
• Thursday: Nehemiah 11 - 13
• Friday: Esther 1 - 2

This week the reading continues with the book of Nehemiah. The books of Ezrah and Nehemiah really are 1 book - split in two - that deals with the return of the remnant of Israel to Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity. The book of Nehemiah consists of 3 parts. Chapters 1-7 covers Nehemiah's activities as governor. He gets approval from the Persian king Artaxerxes to return to Jerusalem and rebuild it. Despite opposition, he is able to rebuild Jerusalem's city walls in a stunning 52 days! Nehemiah also implements rules against social injustice (Chapter 5). What I love about the book of Nehemiah is that he wrote down his inner thoughts, which gives us a great picture of how he interacted with God, see for example the little prayers in 2:4 and 4:4.

Chapters 8-10 focuses on the renewing of the remnants spiritual/church life. The priest Ezra reads from the law of Moses, and the people understand and respond. Note the parallel between Nehemiah 8:12 and the book Acts 2:43-45. When a church understands the true meaning of God's word, beautiful things happen in the way the church body interacts with each other.

The last part 11-13 consists of lists of people who return, as well as a description of the consecration of the temple and some reform measures.

Finally, we'll make a start with the book of Esther this week, which is written in between Ezrah and Nehemiah, and tells the story of the exiled Jewish girl who became Queen to the King of Persia. More on that next week.

We're hoping you're still enjoying reading through the Bible. It isn't always easy to make time, but it certainly is rewarding to continue. An pdf file of the complete reading schedule is now available. It is a one page that you can keep in your Bible with a summary that allows you to mark off each day when you finish it. Make sure you get one at the church or send an e-mail to wccbible@gmail.com. Keep up the hard work!

Dick