The One Year Bible - Day 31

Have you noticed how many times yeast is mentioned here? It seems like God was having a yeast day, it is almost comical the number of times it is mentioned. Why? Well whatever medical reasons there might have been at the time, the metaphor relates to Jesus saying that yeast is like teaching. Teaching has a habit of permeating people in the same way that yeast permeates dough. We know that God does not like mixture and does not like human teaching interfering with His purposes and what better way to nail this home by celebrating every year that it was GOD who freed His people from Egypt with no input needed from anyone else. All the supernatural signs and miracles occurred despite Moses, not because of him!
We regularly need to remind ourselves of this fact since we spend a lot of time putting our own effort into God's work and mostly mucking it up in the process!

The One Year Bible - Day 30

One of the strongest themes in these stories is one of God's sovereignty. We might have a problem with this idea but frequently we read that "God hardened Pharaoh's heart" which although we can decide is a poetic way of saying, "Pharaoh's heart was hard and God knew that", that is only wishful thinking since elsewhere in the Bible, it is clear that an action is taken because of 'free will' rather than God.
We frequently create God in our image and in the way that we are comfortable with rather than seeking the truth. Can we honestly accept that God is proactive and that all his plans come to fruition? Can we accept that God's calling and will is predestined even though we think we have 'free will'? Do we even know what free will means and where in the Bible it comes from? It is often implied by Adam and Eve's decisions but often at the cost of the fact God knows what He is doing and He is sovereign. He had already decided to free the Israelites and somehow that worked in conjunction with people's free will AND His sovereignty!

The One Year Bible - Day 29

Don't know about you but I was always amazed at the way the Pharaohs magicians could copy lots of the 'signs' that Moses and Aaron displayed to Pharaoh. But Exodus 8 reminds us that even though the devil can counterfeit many of God's displays, he can only go so far. There is a point at which the devil no longer has the ability to affect things. From a Christian point of view, perhaps it relates to the fact that many of the so-called signs of the Spirit can be counterfeit. Whether lifting our hands in worship, praying lots, shaking around or whatever, all can be counterfeit either deliberately or under deception but certain things cannot. Character is proved by experience, the reality of the Spirit cannot be counterfeit in a persons life, even if that person is "nice" or "kind". You can tell by the discernment of the Spirit whether someone is genuine of not. I'm glad that God can do things that the devil can't it gives us hope that we know we have the Spirit.

The One Year Bible - Day 28

We see a real crisis of faith here. Moses was told by God to do something but when he did, Pharaoh gets even more brutal. Moses then doesn't question his calling, rather he questions God's methods. Not a great idea really. Moses one downfall later on is his misrepresenting God in front of the people, something that costs him the promised land. God gives him a very gentlemanly rebuke while reminding Moses of who He is (as if He really needs to). Even if things seem to go badly, we can always rely on our knowledge of God to know that it is a means to an end.
I got delayed at an airport for hours once waiting for a visa and could have easily felt inconvenienced. As it happened, the friendships I made with some of the border guards proved invaluable later when I departed having lost my immigration card and being very late due to slow customs officials - God knows what He is doing. Say it with me, "God knows what He's doing"

The One Year Bible - Day 27

We see something today that we see later on and that is God firstly saying, "I will equip you" and then after much arguing, He then says, "Go and get moving!". Moses has this extraordinary reluctance to do what he's told but eventually God has his way.
We can also take encouragement that rarely do we have to go it alone in terms of other people. Even the most extraordinary Christians had wives/partners/companions to assist them in their work. Moses had Aaron, Peter had John, Paul had Silas, Barnabas and Timothy. Let us never assume it all depends on us, it never does!

The One Year Bible - Day 26

Psalm 22:1-18 is an amazing prophetic song about Jesus on the cross. Read through it and find all of the phrases that relate directly to the New Testament accounts of Jesus. You'll find lots!

The One Year Bible - Day 25

Two things that struck me today about our passage in Genesis 50. Firstly, it is quite remarkable that Joseph brought much blessing to Egypt. We often see the Bible contrast places like Egypt representing sin or the world and the Promised Land as a relationship with Jesus. Throughout this whole story though, because of Joseph and his resolve and reflection of God in a foreign land, he brought much blessing to them and we can do likewise in otherwise dark situation that we find ourselves in. We cannot assume this will always happen but we likewise cannot assume that it will never happen.

Secondly, after Jacob dies, Joseph's brothers come to Joseph and beg him not to punish them now that their father is not around to protect them. Joseph weeps at the idea he would do this. I thought it was rather like when we have an attitude of fear before Jesus that he is looking to punish us for our sins rather than forgiving us. We have this idea that somehow we are sort of forgiven but in another way, God will punish us for any subsequent sins. How very un-Biblical. If Jesus' job is complete with regards to forgiveness then the forgiveness must apply to subsequent sins otherwise He would have to die again. We are told to approach the throne with confidence which means our attitude should have freedom and authority. We need to remember that we are never effective because of our sinlessness, something that will change over time, we are powerful because He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world!

The One Year Bible - Day 24

Genesis 49 and Jacob's last words to his sons. I really like what he says to Judah:

Judah was Jesus' ancestor and it was Jesus whom Jacob alludes to all these years previously "the one to whom it [the sceptre] belongs". It's amazing because this wasn't a guess or something fluffy that could be attributed to anyone like Nostradamus! Nope, this is pure, good old-fashioned prophecy.

Praise the Lion of the Tribe of Judah!

The One Year Bible - Day 23

We often think about 2 kinds of people, those who are "Christians" and those who aren't. The Bible though talks about 3 groups of people in many places, a sub-division of Christian into spirit and flesh, religion and relationship, life and lacklustre. We see this in the Pharisees, in the older brother from the parable of the lost son, even in the letters to churches in Revelation.

I think however that our angle of attack is not often Jesus-like. Sometimes, of course, Jesus butted heads with these religious people publicly and to much embarrassment, I'm sure. However, the more important attack was a "fruit attack" an attack which occurred when the fruit of his own relationship with God was so obvious that many people would simply discard any dodgy teaching from religious types. It is too easy for us to always make the verbal attack against people who don't agree with our 'theology' or whose theology we don't agree with and we don't often take the line that "wisdom is proved right by her actions". We should certainly spend more time worrying about our own planks -dealing with those and praying for others that they might have a revelation of life. God bless 'em I say!

The One Year Bible - Day 22

Genesis 45 and Joseph finally reveals his identity to his brothers with this classic, "don't be upset and don't be angry with yourselves for selling me to this place..", I was wondering whether his brothers were thinking, "never mind us, why on earth did you jail us, trick us, lie to us and make us travel hundreds of miles when you could have told us right away who you were!".

Then one of my favourite stories about feeding the 5000 in Matthew 14 (not just because I like food). I really like it because it is a clear picture that, like the talents, when we take them to Jesus, he can multiply them a thousand-fold. We are not specifically talking about numbers so much as quality and efficiency. Humanly speaking, we might think that organising 5 prayer meetings a week would naturally be better than 1, whereas in God's kingdom where things work in a different way, it might be that 1 prayer meeting with the right people in the right moods focussed on certain things allows much greater effect with less work - I believe the phrase is "work smarter, not harder"!

The One Year Bible - Day 21

Genesis 43 in the middle of this incredible story about Joseph's brothers and the way in which they are being tested and perhaps punished for previous sins. Joseph has asked to see Benjamin, something that Jacob is unwilling to do since he already believes that Joseph is dead and Benjamin is the only other son of Rachel, Jacob's first love.

Judah, who we should remember is Jesus' ancestor (not Joseph), then makes this promise to Jacob if he would send Benjamin back with them:

Judah said to his father, “Send the boy with me, and we will be on our way. Otherwise we will all die of starvation—and not only we, but you and our little ones. 9 I personally guarantee his safety. You may hold me responsible if I don’t bring him back to you. Then let me bear the blame forever. 10 If we hadn’t wasted all this time, we could have gone and returned twice by now.”

There are a couple of interesting analogies to both Jesus and our Christian life. Firstly, Judah as a reference to Jesus puts himself and his own life on the line for Benjamin since he knows that they need food. In the same way, Jesus guaranteed us with his own life since we were in need of life - we would have died likewise. He also says about bearing the blame forever, something which Jesus has also done and something we cannot begin to understand - that Jesus bears our scars forever!

Secondly, in terms of our Christian life, we read about the importance of getting things done quickly. Not dithering and worrying about things which won't make any difference but using Jesus as our guarantor of 'success' in our ministry.

The One Year Bible - Day 20

Matthew 13 today and the parable of the wheat and weeds. If there is one thing that is often misrepresented in Jesus in churches, it is the strength and the difficulty of many of the things he said. We tend to universalise the message of the gospel and are not good at distinguishing between those who are "people of the Kingdom" and those "who belong to the evil one". We often go so far trying to win people in, we start talking about journey without decision, interest without commitment. It is hard but Jesus makes very clear distinctions about those who are and who are not in His Kingdom.

The parable talks about the co-existence of both types of people, which we understand, then there is a subtle but important statement, "...they will remove from his Kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil". What is interesting is that we often picture our life followed by some sort of major re-arrangement of things followed by heaven or hell but this parable basically says the Kingdom is already set up and that all that will happen is that bad stuff will be removed and the Kingdom fully restored to its destiny. In other words, all of the aspects of the Kingdom are already present, which we may see in part or in full: healing, power, authority, miracles. I don't believe there is a limit on these things other than our own sinful nature since God is not limited and presumably has no reason to limit these things - a human notion.

For this reason, we should deny any attempt by the Devil to reduce the Kingdom to some sort of illegitimate forerunner and see if for what it really is including all the amazing things that come with it.

The One Year Bible - Day 19

Genesis 40 is a great story of suffering in a way that honours God. You don't get any sense of self-pity or hopelessness with Joseph at all, he even seems to be enjoying his work in the prison. This surely encourages us to do the same - to live out our best in all situations.

There is then this remarkable section about interpreting the cup-bearers dream and asking him to put in a good word to Pharoah. He of course forgets and Joseph has to wait another 2 YEARS before he is given a chance to be restored.

This is a challenge in two ways. Firstly, for those of you who suffer in some way like Joseph when it isn't 'your fault', it is a challenge to wait for God to resolve in his own timing but not in a miserable way, in a way that makes the most of the situation. It is also challenging to us who feel called to a ministry but which doesn't seem to be happening yet. If we are prepared to trust God, His timing will happen when it happens. We don't know if the time Joseph was in prison was to build character or toughness or whether it was because circumstances outside had to be right before he could carry on with God's plan but we know from history that he was restored and saved the lives of the Israelites from starvation, all in God's timing.

The One Year Bible - Day 18

Genesis 37 and the story of Joseph. It is often said that Joseph is an Old Testament type of Jesus and this analogy is interesting including the selling into slavery (in Jesus' case selling into the slavery of our sin) but also the righteousness in the midst of struggle.

I also wonder about the fact that a prophet is not recognised in his own town, something that Jesus said. Joseph comes across as obnoxious towards his brothers but in fact he had a Godly calling and something that at 17 he wouldn't have been able to easily understand or articulate. If the dream was very vivid and moving, why wouldn't he have shared it? I also wonder about Jesus growing up and how he was received by his friends, "I'm Jesus, my father in heaven has called me to follow Him", "yeah whatever Jesus, you're just the same as everyone else".

This conflict is difficult because we want to be accepted but the heavenly principles of truth and righteousness do not fit in the world's pattern and always conflict. If we find it easy to avoid conflict with unbelievers, then we might need to ask where the cross is involved in our lives. Jesus said if he suffered then so would we.

The One Year Bible - Day 17

We have a teaching about the Sabbath today in Matthew 12 and a reminder about a major difference between us and God, something we were reminded about last night. With humans, it is all about "doing", for God, it is much more about "being". Why? Because, as Jesus said, it is out of the heart that people produce evil, the outward part of a man does not make him clean or unclean. In other words, doing good Christian things like praying, reading the Bible and going to church do NOT make us Christians because they are outward. Human beings like these things because they are provable and visible. God realises however that if our insides are changed - and that includes minds, emotions, spirit, character and relationship with God - then the outward works will follow completely naturally and unforced. If we find certain things in our ministry hard, it is probably because has more work to do inside us, something we don't always give time for.

In the case of the Sabbath, as Jesus said elsewhere, "Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath", it was a plan by which people could rest and be restored and be fruitful in their work, not something you blindly follow for the sake of it.

The One Year Bible - Day 16

Genesis 32:22 has this amazing story of Jacob wrestling with God. This is one of those mysterious stories that we can read all sorts of things into or read it at face value. What we do know is that this is the birth of Israel, the man and the nation and it is birthed in prophecy - the prophecy that Israel will struggle against God. I do wonder what would have happened if Jacob was more like Moses or Joshua rather than Jacob the trickster but either way, God has chosen to use someone much less than perfect and makes him into a nation. How much can he do through us when we forget our shame and go to God in humility?

The One Year Bible - Day 15

Today, Genesis 32 shows us some great examples of humility as Jacob prepares to go back to the promised land. He know that Esau is there and probably still wants to kill him so he has a few choices. In this case he picks the correct one.

Firstly he could have ignored God and stayed where he was to avoid the conflict.

Secondly he could have gone back and fought against Esau - he could have enjoyed the conflict

What he actually did was got on his knees before God, offered gifts of reconciliation to Esau and actually had the possibility of conflict taken away. This is the God way - the supernatural way that says life's choices are not always the lesser of two evils, they are sometimes miraculous and undeserved as God who understands all is brought into the equation. God who knows whether someone is feeling generous that day or not, God who understands what people respond to and what causes them to become angry. If we seek God in humility, all of these situations are open to us daily.

The One Year Bible - Day 14

Today in Genesis 30 and 31, we have another great example of something we do all the time. We try and help God out with his business instead of letting Him dictate the best decisions we can make. We have his wives playing games with his future family and we have Jacob trying to con Laban out of his livestock at the same time that Laban is trying to reduce what he might have to give to Jacob.

Jacob had his reasons and we read that he justifies himself to his wives on the basis that, "he has cheated me, and changed my wages 10 times" without telling them of his grand scheme to breed lots of livestock that he would keep and reducing the number and quality of Laban's flock. In some ways he gets away with it because God is helping him and his wives believe him but he also creates a lot of trouble for himself. He escapes Laban's wrath simply because of God's grace.

We sometimes do this in a ministry that might be partly God but is sadly partly us too. We might do alright by God's grace but in reality we can have things much better if we spend decent time seeking God on it. Would it be too much to commit at least an hour or two of prayer per week into EACH ministry that we are involved in? How many of us do that? I don't and I think it shows!

The One Year Bible - Day 13

Today is a great lesson to learn about Christians and romantic relationships. On the surface Genesis 20 is simply talking about Jacob marrying a woman of his 'own people' rather than a Canaanite woman. For us however, it is a reminder of the solidity of marrying inside of the kingdom and not simply finding a partner we 'like' or who is 'nice' (hopefully they will be these too!). We can see what happens to Esau after he decides to marry Canaanite women and all the trouble they bring to him and his family. I don't believe that the point is Canaanite people are bad and Abraham's people were good but rather we need someone who understands our perspective, our background, our culture, even if these things are spiritual rather than physical.

We will not easily teach people this word since we tend to think we can handle it all and we know whether someone is worth marrying or not but these stories are all reminders of the effects of us deviating from what might not be a commandment but which is God's way to a fulfilled life.

The One Year Bible - Day 12

I'm writing this a little in arrears since I haven't be spending as much time really digesting the readings. I read them in the morning and listen to them weekdays on the way to work but I've just gone back over the days I haven't blogged about to see if anything new needs to be blogged.

On day 12 we have this extraordinary situation where Jacob tricks Isaac into giving him the blessing that is due to Esau. We can analyse all sorts of things including Jacob and Rebekah's deceit and Esau's undeserving nature, we could also talk about the sovereignty of God in carrying out in Jacob what he already said would happen.

I noticed something else though that is perhaps more of an image than a genuine piece of theology from the passage but did you notice how much Jacob craved God's blessing? In a sense, ignoring his deceit, he was so desperate for God that he did whatever it took to get blessed. It reminded me of the Wesley brothers who wrote Christian hymns to pop music in the 18th century in order to do whatever it took to bring people to Christ, even making themselves "vile" in the process.

I would never condone dishonesty or poor character but we should certainly ask ourselves how desperate we are for God's blessing in our lives rather than trying to create our own blessings!

Managing Money

Some practical tips on keeping your finances in order:

1. Know how much you spend each month on regular bills and know how much you have left. It is obvious but you can't budget if you don't know how much spare you have!
2. If you have significant amounts of money in high interest loans or credit cards, take advice on moving them elsewhere to save hundreds.
3. If it works for you, if you work out that you can afford e.g. £100 per month on luxuries, take that out in cash after you get paid and don't use the cash machine until next pay day. It is a nice way of monitoring your spending money.
4. Try and keep at least 10% below your credit card limits so that you don't get pushed over by interest charges or emergencies.
5. Try and have at least £100 in savings to use for emergency times when you risk going over your overdraft limit.
6. Never miss a payment, even paying the minimum avoids a black mark on your credit history.
7. Have a plan to pay back debts which doesn't include waiting for someone to die or hoping for a payrise! If you can only afford the interest payments and have no more income on the horizon, you might need to cut back on something (get rid of Sky or Cable for instance) or take a part-time job on top of your normal workload.
8. Understand that paying off more debt money makes a difference in the long-term. Paying another £20 a month might not seem a big deal but can save hundreds over time on lower interest. This might not be obvious since your next interest payment might not seem much lower but you will pay off the balance more quickly as well as reducing the interest. Do this as soon as possible, it might be easier now to sacrifice some lifestyle for the additional payments but not when you get married/have kids/lose your job etc.
9. Do not pay for regular bills on your credit card unless you pay it off each month to get points etc. Doing this implies you cannot afford your outgoings which should be affordable from your current account. Credit cards are for emergencies or for paying for things abroad etc unless you have a definite repayment plan and understand your commitment.
10. It is MUCH cheaper to save up for something and buy it later than to get credit and buy it now. Even a 1 year loan at 10% will cost you £100 for every £1000. Lots of borrowing is much larger than this and at higher interest rates.
11. If you have multiple or large debts, take financial advice from an advice group, Citizens Advice Bureau etc even if you do not feel particularly burdened. You could save large amounts of money by switching providers, consolidating loans etc which will give you more money to pay them back sooner!
12. If you consolidate loans etc. to free up income, do not just go out and start spending it. If your debts will take you longer than a year to pay back, use the extra income to pay off the highest interest rate credit first. Again, over time this can save hundreds or thousands.
13. Buying things from a mortgage extension allows you to buy things you couldn't normally afford like cars and home improvements. Realise that although this seems cheap at mortgage interest rates, the rate is PER YEAR which means if you have a 5% mortgage with another 10 years to run (and the rate doesn't change!) and you borrow £5000, you might be paying back £7,500 over all (and the car might not even last 10 years!) This would be the same as a 1 year loan at 50% interest!
14. Get debt free while you are single, marriage and kids can be expensive!
15. If you are buying a house and your mortgage is a large part of your income, plan to get a lodger(s) which for the extra hassle is better financially, you don't have to keep them forever and it can make your first few years of mortgage easier. You can also use any 'spare' money to overpay the mortgage which will make the overall payback amount MUCH less (i.e. save tens of thousands over 25 years by overpaying early in the mortgage).

The One Year Bible - Day 11

I love Rebekah. Everything about her story shows a mature, wise and Godly woman (as well as beautiful to boot!).

Firstly we see her servant heart as she helps Abraham's servant to drink and also waters his camels for him.

Then we see her hospitality as she immediately invites the servant to her house to stay.

She shows obedience when she agrees to go straight away with the servant - not obedience to the servant so much as obedience to God who she has already heard has lined these events up.

When she then sees Isaac, she shows humility since she dismounts the camel - something that was the done thing in the area at the time.

She also covers her face with a veil since she has already accepted God's plan and is happy to marry Isaac.

She shows an awareness of God since she enquires of Him why her twins are fighting in the womb. It is amazing that God is her first port-of-call and not as is common in the OT, an excuse for human wisdom to start screwing things up.

She then shows a lot of cunning when she sets up Jacob to receive the blessing in place of Esau. I'm not really sure what to make of the whole deception thing but she certainly shows a cleverness which makes her humility even more remarkable.

Rebekah: What a great role model for Christian women!

Lessons will be learned

An exceptionally annoying admission that someone cannot manage their job is when they say that "lessons will be learned", especially annoying when the incident that caused the comment was already a well known scenario and should not have been allowed to happen in the first place like a hacked website, lost personal data or protesters attacking the car of Prince Charles.

I know we learn from mistakes but they should really be mistakes that were hard to foresee and not stuff that has been happening for ages and which we should have learned from.

You don't let your web site be hacked and then claim that you will learn lessons when the whole world gets told to secure their computers daily after previous mishaps. You should have learned lessons from their experiences.

I'm just saying, it is really annoying.

The One Year Bible - Day 10

A couple of interesting passages today in Genesis 23 about the burial of Sarah and the faith of the Centurion in Matthew 8:1

I often wonder about passages of the Bible that seem to be quite insignificant but which take up page space which means they must be important. So much is NOT included in the Bible so that what is included must be there.

Genesis 23 is one of these passages and I was thinking about death and that metaphorically it can relate to the end of a ministry - whether planned or forced upon us - something that I have mentioned previously. The end of a ministry can be seen as merely a paper exercise, something to be done but which is not particularly important. Imagine having worked in a foreign culture for 10 years and deciding to leave. Often, most effort is taken up with practical matters such as selling a house, arranging flights and finding a destination back at home. What we see in Abraham is someone who is insistent on doing it right. Not wanting a quick and easy burial for his much loved wife but wanting to do everything 'properly' perhaps a principle we forget because it is so simple and 'obvious'. We also see something else here though and that is an investment in the future, Abraham wanting this to be his family burial spot. We can say that this relates to setting a precedent that we will always wind up our ministries properly and that as we do, we are reminded of previous experiences (to learn from them) and be known as someone who can finish well.

I also love today's Matthew passage of the Roman Centurion, one of the few times that Jesus is "astonished". Here is a man who was not one of the Jewish "children" that Jesus has come to lead back to God but a Gentile and not only that but also a Roman "oppressor". Despite him being the bad guy however, his faith allows God to move powerfully through his life. He approaches Jesus with a run-of-the-mill request for healing for his servant (a Roman who cared about his servant that much?) and an amazing display not only of faith but of authority, something which the Jews seemed a lot more uncertain about. In most cases, Jesus' authority was continually questioned, both by the religious leaders who doubted it and the normal people who were always amazed by it. This Roman quite simply sees Jesus' authority and that seems to have produced the faith required for the healing. One of those healings where the person being healed was not even there!

I wonder if most of our problems with faith relate to lack of understanding about authority. God's authority in creation, Jesus' authority as he lived on the earth and his changed authority after being raised from the dead and more importantly OUR authority delegated in Christ which allows us to command healing and deliverance for people, something we are still much too afraid to exercise.

Personally I believe that authority is partly from office (so that a leader(s) of a church has some authority over the people in that church) but more importantly by the spiritual reputation we achieve by practising what Jesus commanded us. If we start by praying for a broken leg and it isn't healed, so we assume it doesn't work and we forget about it? Or do we pray for things we have faith for so that our faith grows and then we can pray for bigger things to the point where even the demons say, "Jesus I know and Paul I know" (Acts 19:15)?

The One Year Bible - Day 6

Today we have the story of Abram and Lot separating and a strong picture of salvation from Genesis 13. Firstly we have Lot and the people he joined demonstrating the 3 faces of temptation. Firstly Lot lusts with his eyes when he looks to what seems to be the best land to take. Secondly, we presume that by continuing to live there, he lusted in his flesh - something that Sodom and Gomorrah were famous for, and then, as a group of kings, they lusted after pride, believing that they would defeat the foreign kings. Since this was all done in their own strength, we are shown that temptation leads to sin which leads to defeat. It is always interesting that God doesn't choose sides in the OT per se, but instead seems to work through those who trust in him, whether at home or from abroad (remember that phrase "my servant Cyrus" - a foreign king!).

We are then told about God's wonderful redemptive plan through Abram who saves Lot and the rest of the captives graciously and not for any earned reason.

Matthew 5:27 reflects on some of these temptations when he records Jesus talking about adultery, vows, divorce, revenge and loving your enemies. The hint here is that it is the inside that is defective in humans and therefore the inside that needs saving, something we are unable to do ourselves. It also alludes to our total dependence on God for life and direction.

We then read in Psalm 6 about the correct posture of a human which as yesterday involves genuine humility before God, referring our need onto God who can and will provide.

Proverbs 1:29 then warns people who chose to control their own destiny what will happen to them.

The One Year Bible - Day 5

We had some amazing parallels today. First we read of various old-testament examples of the flesh.

We have the Tower of Babel, an example where people used man-made materials (bricks and tar) rather than God-made materials of stone to try and produce something great. If there is one way to really annoy God, it is to build things in a human way. They displayed a lack of humility when Matthew 5 today tells us, "God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth."

We then have the story of Abram's father taking some of the family towards Canaan but stopping short. It is not stated but possibly Terah was supposed to go the distance to Canaan but got too comfortable en-route and stayed in Haran. This would be a strong metaphor of people who start on what is supposed to be a definitive ministry - something with a goal, but get so used to the ministry that it carries on for too long. Simon Guillebaud says in his book, "For what it's worth" that good ministry needs not only to start well but to finish well in order to be productive and worthwhile. Many a ministry has finished with a sense of anti-climax or unfinished business which undermines the valid work that was carried out. Of course, some ministries don't even finish when they should - they are likely to be lifeless and unfruitful.

We then have another example of human wisdom where Abram decides to pretend Sarai is his sister so that he doesn't get killed for her when visiting Egypt. This contrasts strongly with Matthew 5 telling us that "God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs". Abram was fortunate that he survived the encounter since the Pharoah was extremely angry with the situation. We must stick to what is right and true even when it is hard.

Matthew 5 shows the differences between the human and the Godly kingdoms, some or all of these beatitudes contradict the methods of the people we have read about today in Genesis. Psalm 5 then paints the picture of the righteous man who rather than using his own pride and wisdom to plan out their life, looks instead to God and literally begs God to direct his paths.

We are left with the warning for those who choose their own path rather than God's in Proverbs 1:24-28.

I continue to be amazed at how these parallel readings line up, especially since these testaments are being read in order.

The One Year Bible - Day 4

Today was about Noah sending out a dove to test for the earth being suitable to re-inhabit.

Interestingly, Noah sends out a raven initially, a clever bird that can find food easily and presumably would be a tough contender for an explorer into this post-flood world. This could signify when we 'push' doors trying to make a decision. If the door opens, we treat it as a good sign, if it stays closed, we trust that God closed it.

Afterwards, he then sends a dove out twice. Since the dove is a metaphor for peace in the Bible, it made me think that there are many times where we are troubled by a decision like Noah was, like Noah we don't want to wait around too long to make the decision. However, unless we have the peace that Noah got when the Dove returned with a branch and then didn't return at all, we are probably not in the right position to make the decision.

Don't decide things too soon and don't feel rushed into making decisions that might be right but not right now!

The One Year Bible - Day 3 - A man on a mission

I love Noah and the ark. There is so much meaning here and the readings today allude to Noah being a picture of baptism which is great but also commonly covered. I wanted to pick up on something more straight-forward and that is Noah as a man on a mission and the elements that can be looked for in our own callings and ministries. Although what Noah did was massive and obviously life-changing, I still think it can be applied to all of our day-to-day spiritual callings and can be used as a measure of whether we are in God's will.
First, we have God's revelation. Now he reveals his plans to Noah, who was righteous. Does this mean that God only reveals himself to righteous people? In my experience he reveals himself commonly to many people in different ways and for different reasons.
Then there is God's calling where he tells Noah to build an ark. We are usually too quick to assume a calling once we have a need revealed to us and this is dangerous because God might want to call someone else, or perhaps he will call us but not yet. We mustn't assume that need=calling since there is much need in the world but we must work inside God's timing and wisdom and not ours.
God then reminds Noah of His promise which is something that can keep us going as we soldier on. We all have dreams of massive ministries with thousands of converts but Noah reminds us that much of our mission in life is plain hard work. Noah worked for probably around 100 years to build this ark. He didn't go to the local DIY store and ask for 100000 lengths of wood, he and his sons had to cut trees down and shape all the wood to build this massive ark. Even during the flood, he was in the ark for about a year probably wondering what on earth was going on.
We then have this great picture of God's hand quite literally closing the door on the ark. We aren't told why He had to do it or whether it was out of necessity (to ensure it was closed tight enough to be waterproof) but we have this reminder again to Noah that God is actually at the reigns here. I can imagine Noah scratching his head looking at the door and asking his sons how they were going to close it, "I thought you were going to sort that out", "Well we could hang over the outside", "no, that would never work" and then God coming along and handling the situation. One of the most humbling aspects of ministry is when God does something that we can't do to remind us that it is not our ministry but His.
We then have a post-mission nightmare when Noah comes out to a post-apocalyptic world presumably covered with dead bodies and mud which must have knocked the wind out of his sails. There is much here to learn about finishing ministry but that is for another day!

The One Year Bible - Day 2

A few things today that are interesting, the first of which links back to the idea that we were supposed to lean on God for understanding whereas we chose to put ourselves at the centre. In Proverbs 1:7-8 we are told to firstly fear the Lord and then to listen to our parents when they instruct us. Both of these are important to suppress our selfish instincts. If we learn to listen to others we create humility in ourselves. If we resist instruction, we will become fools who do not understand how little we really understand (no doubt that is mentioned loads of times in Proverbs).
Back to Genesis 3 though and this amazing story of the serpent and Eve (did you notice she wasn't called Eve yet!). There must have been some trust issues here because if Eve really trusted God at this point and the serpent told her, "You won't die" then Even would have simply pointed out, "no offence, Mr serpent, but God said we would". However, there must have been enough humanity in her that she decided that maybe, just maybe, God was holding out on them. The serpent seemed so nice, so harmless, he would have no reason to lie whereas God on the other hand might have all sorts of ulterior motives. We must all sometimes have this view of God being stingy or shady. There's the whole thing about the nature of temptation, covered many times before in churches but I am more interested in what happens afterwards.
I was telling someone today that the whole area of the knowledge of good and evil is conveniently overlooked in church teaching, presumably because it seems a bit abstract or difficult to teach but I believe it is as concrete as anything else. I believe that this knowledge is literally the ability to judge a situation, not just good or bad but even a choice situation like what school to send your children to or whether to apply for a new job. The root issue here is that rather than allowing God to be our wisdom, seeing as He knows the end from the beginning and everything in between, we have presumed to decide things for ourselves with the massively limited set of knowledge we possess. This is how Adam and Eve suddenly decide they are naked, it is also why politicians can't agree on things and why people argue with each other. The fallout of this I believe is often shown as God being suitably unimpressed and punishing us but I think the truth is much more in line with the God of love we know.
Firstly though, did you see Adam's typically male statement to deny responsibility? (3:12) "The woman you gave me...". One thing that gets my goat is that many men nowadays in the UK seem amazingly irresponsible about pretty much everything, whether it is their family, their work or their commitment to church and this pretty much sums it up to me: "It is everyone else's fault, including Gods, but not mine". What if Adam would have said, "God, you're right. I was stupid and I didn't teach my wife properly about how serious this all was".
Anyway, Eve suffers in childbirth and becomes ruled by her husband rather than simply being the helper that she was created to be. This seems to be a direct punishment since God says, "I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy" although we do see elsewhere in the Bible God's use of reminders about previous sins as way to point us back to God. Even being ruled over I guess could be a way of reminding women of the time when Eve decided she knew best and did not consult God or Adam about her decision?
The man suffers indirectly however. Remember Adam had been told not to eat from the tree, Eve was not formed at this point (although we know that she knew what she was doing). We see something that demonstrates the preeminence that Adam had over the land because his sinning had caused the ground to be cursed. God didn't say (in most versions!) that "I will curse the ground" in the style of a punishment, but the Bible records, "cursed is the ground because of you". In other words, your decision has affected that which you have authority over in and in return, this will be a burden for you since this curse will cause weeds and other problems for farming.
We then see God provide clothes, even though it was their own fault and we see something else that evokes the image of the God of Love and that is the fact that God bars Adam and Eve from grabbing eternal life from the Tree of Life since it would not be in this state of suffering that God wants us to live forever. He then ultimately sent Jesus as a better way of fixing things that allows us to eventually be free from sin and everything that is a burden for us physically and to return to the way we were intended before God forever.

The One Year Bible - Day 1

Our church is reading through the Bible in a year, all following the same plan by Tyndale House Publishers called the One Year Bible. I only got the list from church today (1 day late!) but then I found the plan is available for free on the You Version Android Bible app called Bible - lifechurch.tv

As I go through the year, if anything jumps out at me, I will record it on my blog.

Today, we had Genesis 1 and 2 and I have spent a lot of time in the past reading these chapters as I feel they are foundational to the rest of the Bible and certainly in our understanding of the human condition. The choice that was interesting to me as I read this today was between the two trees. The Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. One represents life and the other death and God did specifically warn Adam in 2:17 that he would surely die if he ate from the second of them. This is not a surprise because the Tree of Life by definition relates to the Source of all life, that is God. It was God's breath that gave us all life in the first place and is the reason why we don't instantly die as sinners - that life is so powerful that sin takes a while to finally kill it off! Anyway, the second tree represents a choice that we all make to put us at the centre of our lives. It means that virtually every decision we ever make is based on our persepective, our judgment, our value system. This would probably be OK if we knew everything in the world but of course we don't. We have a very limited and differing set of experiences from each other so that my view of right and wrong is not your view. Sometimes we might agree on something but often we do not.
The only solution is through Jesus to figuratively start eating from the Tree of Life and to go back to God. He, having a full knowledge in all things, is uniquely qualified to judge all matters and that we through the Holy Spirit, likewise can make sound judgments on things. The fact that we disagree on so many matters really just proves how far off many of us are from listening to God's opinions over our own.
Interestingly the other passage today is Matthew 1-2 which says that it is Jesus who will save his people from their sins. Take Jesus away from the picture and you have humanism. We know that doesn't work because that's exactly what Adam introduced on the day he chose death rather than life. On that day that Adam decided that he wanted to be in charge, the earth started dying and we cannot recover without Christ.