The One Year Bible - Day 110

The tribes that lived on the Eastern side of the Jordan river built an alter which immediately attracted the interest of the other Israelites since it would imply a dilution of the proper alter which was in Shiloh and which was the appointed place for offerings.

As it turns out, the alter was a way to ensure that in the future, the eastern tribes were not kept away from the true alter since they lived on the other side of the river and were "foreigners".

It is interesting and I guess the question is, what alters do we erect to remind us of what God has done for us in the past and to ensure we don't forget in the future?

The One Year Bible - Day 109

Jesus sends his disciples to get a colt tied up in a village ahead. He says, "if anyone asks you why you are untying it, tell them the Lord needs it".

This is a great story and alludes to the way in which Jesus worked. The cynic could say that Jesus already knew the owner and told him that he might want to borrow the colt a couple of weeks back but I prefer the Jesus who was so in-tune with His Father that he knew there was a colt, he knew that if he took it someone would question it and if they did, they would not mind if it was for the "Lord".

Not sure how often we work like that, where we have such a powerful word in advance that cuts through all the arguments and discussions about whether we can borrow the colt or not.

They do happen and I've heard of them recently but I fear not as often as I would like, certainly not in my own life.

The One Year Bible - Day 108

I like the story of Zaccheus because it is the gospel in a few verses:

1. Man is sinner
2. Man realises sin
3. Man goes to Jesus
4. Jesus responds to man
5. Man enjoys Jesus
6. Man reacts to Jesus by making amends

This re-enforces the belong/believe/behave model by the way.

The One Year Bible - Day 107

Luke 18:24 - it is easier for the camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.
Those who heard it said, "well then who on earth can be saved?"
My first response would be, "well the poor obviously!"
There is a reason why they didn't assume that Jesus was talking about poor people and that was because the Jewish belief was that being poor was related to being sinful and being rich meant God had blessed you for being righteous. If rich people couldn't go to heaven then no-one could!
What Jesus is tackling here is not related to being rich or poor. I believe Her is re-iterating the idea that people do not get into God's kingdom because of human effort related to how righteous they think they are. People get into the Kingdom because of God's action in Jesus' death to save us as sinners.
Jesus states this immediately afterwards, "For man this is impossible but not for God, for God all things are possible"
Someone once told me this passage related to a small gate in Jerusalem called the "eye of the needle" and which you could only get through if you took the baggage off of the camel! I don't like this for two reasons. Firstly, it smells like one of those convenient but dubious justifications for a difficult saying of Jesus from the book of "How to remove the cross from Christianity and make it all easy" and secondly because if it was this small gate then none of the rest of the passage makes sense. If it was a gate, Jesus would have said, "Only people who remove the baggage can enter". It was obvious that what he was saying appeared impossible rather than simply difficult and this links in with Jesus saying, "for man this is impossible..."

The One Year Bible - Day 106

If we consider much of the Old Testament, it is clear that God gave the land of Israel to the Israelites. However, if you asked many people, including Christians, what is the right way forward for the Middle East, I imagine very few would say that all the land should be given back to Israel to govern. I wonder if we know why we would say that? Is it our wisdom which says that compromise is always the preferred solution because that is completely un-Biblical! Perhaps we can't see past human beings and the media portrayal of suffering which troubles us (rightly) and which then distorts the outcome. I believe it is Godly and right that as few people as possible should suffer and die as a result of human action but do we really think we know the best way to achieve this?
Sadly, many politicians think they can broker peace and an amicable solution but this is not in line with God's plans according to the Bible which would suggest that human plans will not reduce suffering but increase and prolong it.
I would suggest reading a bit more about the situation in Israel than simply what the BBC puts on their web site. Try and read both sides of the story and you might be surprised that the portrayal of Israel is incredibly biased.

The One Year Bible - Day 105

Sometimes in our lives God gives us easy victories. We approach a certain task already knowing we will win because we have the upper hand. We know that we have God behind us and what we are about to do is easy. Other times like Joshua 11, we are vastly out-numbered and in a situation which we cannot possibly win. Like Joshua, God would tell us not to worry since He will hand the situation over to us but then we have those classic moments, "God, did you really say we would win?", "God, can you confirm that again?", "Am I just imaging God or does He really exist?"
It's really a question of trust. Do you think God toys with us and leads us off a cliff or do we picture a sovereign loving and powerful God who will provide for all our needs?

The One Year Bible - Day 104

Joshua 9 has one of these really interesting passages of human deception. The Hivites were afraid of the Israelites and pretended to be from a distant land so that they would not be destroyed by Joshua. They come up with a reasonably deception but here is the crunch for the Israelites, "they did not consult the Lord".
Could this be a story of our lives? Our human wisdom again gets in the way of God's work simply because we do not consult Him?
The Israelites made a vow to protect the Hivites and paid for it dearly since they then realised they had vowed to protect the very people they were supposed to destroy. These people ended up being a constant reminder of what happens when you don't consult the Lord.

The One Year Bible - Day 103

When we read passages like Joshua 7:26-, we are troubled by the idea that God condones capital punishment and also that this guilty man's family has been executed as well as him. But we are not at liberty to simply discard the passage or say, "that was OT and no longer has relevance". We need to ask what this tells us about God and what it tells us about us.
I guess what it tells us about us is mostly plain in that we do things we know to be wrong but it also implies that our sin not only affects other people but it infects other people. People guilty of sin are punished therefore if Achan's family were punished, it must mean before God that they are guilty of sin. How could this be so? Well we could assume they knew about it and did nothing but other OT passages reinforce the idea that sin or at least uncleanness is contagious. If uncleanness is contagious, how much more would sin - the ultimate uncleanness - be contagious as well?
What does this mean for us? At the very least we should take responsibility for the damage we inflict on others when we choose to sin. Sin most often comes after pride or self-pity (which is pride!) so if we keep humble, accept that we are weak and bring all of ourselves before God, then He is able to be gracious and help us in our weak moments.

The One Year Bible - Day 102

Joshua 5 and Joshua meets a man with a sword, "Are you friend or foe?". I love the angel's response, "I am neither"!
Our ego being a powerful and enduring beast has the ability to distort our understanding of God. How many times have we used the phrase, "God is on our side?" as if God is on anyone's side!
We like the to think of God as our friend because that fits in with our idea of the loving God. If we consider the Sovereign God however, He does not require friends and does not show favour or partiality except where He wants to.
I can imagine asking God, "Are you friend or foe?" and God simply replying, "I am neither, I am who I am!".
Re-enforces the idea that everything is and should be God-centric!

The One Year Bible - Day 101

Joshua 3: “When you see the Levitical priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, move out from your positions and follow them".
How profound and important but how easily missed or ignored. Life is about balance, our relationship with God is about balance. Here we see one way in which we require balance. You follow the Ark, which represents God's presence.
There are those of us who are impulsive or egotistical and we move before the Ark has moved. There are others who are fearful and do not move even when the Ark has moved on. Balance is when we go only when the presence of God goes before that. We must resist human wisdom and impulse which leads to error and we must overcome fear which prevents us being everything we can be.

The One Year Bible - Day 100

Someone challenged me the other day on the purpose of the Old Testament. One of the things I had long assumed (in my infinite wisdom!) was that the Old Testament, certainly the laws and practices, were primarily metaphor for Christians, a physical representation of a spiritual reality. This is a problematic theology because it reinforces the idea that the Old Testament and New Testament are fundamentally different, that the OT was for the Israelites and has little direct relevance to us today and that the God of the OT was sort of different from the loving forgiving God of the NT. We try and bridge this difference since we know both parts are related to the same Person but if metaphor is as far as we can go then it isn't a great link.
This guy said that there was no reason to think that some of the OT was metaphor simply because we didn't understand or follow it. For instance, we are told in the OT that if someone touches something unclean, they become unclean. Since we don't avoid touching the same things now, I assumed it was metaphor. What if it isn't metaphor but is actually true? The follow-on question would be, "why don't we still follow the practice then"? The answer would have to be something about Jesus obviously but in what way? This guy taught that although the principle was true that uncleaness is contagious, holiness is more contagious and although Jesus theoretically could have contracted uncleaness from others that he touched, because of His holiness, the flow of power was in the other direction and His holiness infected them!
This felt good as a theology since it made the OT even more real and true, the metaphor argument always felt a little like a cop-out. It also raises a challenge like all good theology that we have a responsibility to be contagiously holy!

The One Year Bible - Day 99

Luke 13 challenges a principal that is quite common even amongst Christians and that is the link between sin and suffering. We measure our 'success' as a Christian by how fruitful or blessed our lives are and tend to assume that things only go wrong when we step outside of the will of God. This was a very deeply entrenched Jewish belief in much the same way and Jesus puts the boot in to this principle. In fact He makes it much more simple. Repent or Perish! The fact that some people's lives are more blessed than others does not imply some sort of automatic salvation and certainly doesn't prove that a person has a proper belief in God. If we see with the eyes of faith then we can have a knowledge of our salvation DESPITE our circumstances.

The One Year Bible - Day 98

Israel, a nation who should have known better. I often read the OT and think, "Israel, you are stupid, how could you possibly see all that God has done and still muck things up so badly". Then I realise, I am EXACTLY the same. God has done an immense amount in my life and those of my friends and families and that is on top of the basics like life and health. Yet I still forget and start doing things in my own strength. If anything, the OT should remind me that I need to constantly look back at my testimony in order to look forwards with God.

The One Year Bible - Day 97

Joshua takes over from Moses. In some ways a simple handover of leadership but how often do you see this in church? In fact, in some ways maybe this is quite human. Moses does not stand down in as much as God makes him stand down. Why? Because he mis-represented God and His holiness when he disobeyed God's command to speak to the rock for water. We can see God as vindictive and wanting to teach Moses a lesson but we can also see a God who realises Moses' character flaw is unsuitable in someone who is leading a nation to capture a whole country. Let us not be unfair to the guy, he experienced more than most people who have ever lived but we realise that God is not a respecter of persons. He does not choose people because they've been around a while or are well known or have run famous churches or written popular books. God chooses who He chooses for His own reasons sometimes we think that he wants our experience to provide quality in ministry, most of the time, He just wants people who can listen, trust and obey, something that often becomes worse over time rather than better.
Do we constantly analyse our own leadership roles or those we supervise and ask whether these are the right people to continue? Probably we don't like to offend so we just hope that people will leave as soon as possible and we can pretend we are really upset about them leaving and then just move on.

The One Year Bible - Day 96

Today we are reminded that blessing and obedience go hand-in-hand. We are happy to be blessed but much slower to obey in order to get this blessing. It's funny that our view of a gracious and loving Jesus distorts the fact that obedience is essential to a fulfilled life. Why? Well why do we think that despite acknowledgement of our sin, which is essentially thinking that we know best, that we still want to direct our own lives and take our own decisions, the very thing that brought sin into the world.
The absence of sin is simply saying, "Father, what should I do now?". That is obedience! Not slavish obedience which says, "Go away and do that for me now" but obedience like an apprentice asking their master how to do something, recognising that the master knows and can impart his knowledge to his under-study.

The One Year Bible - Day 95

We don't like talking about the blessings that follow us when we follow Christ because we struggle to balance our teaching. We are afraid that if we teach blessings, we will be accused of a prosperity gospel which cannot be lined up with the struggles we have in the world. You know what, I believe in a prosperity gospel! I believe that when we follow God we prosper at every level and the only time we don't is when we start putting too much of ourselves into our walk and not enough of God.
Of course, we have to define what prosperity is. I don't have a million pounds but do you know what? I believe I am financially prosperous. I don't have everything I want but I have far more than I need. I am spiritually prosperous despite my sin, I am emotionally prosperous despite the times when I am sad or lonely.
Just ask people who have experienced a genuine born-again process whether they are prosperous and they will say yes.
Let us not be afraid, I won't seek blessings rather than the blesser but I am more than happy to experience the blessings of a generous and rich Father as I learn that what He wants for me is to prosper and not to be harmed. He also wants that for others.

The One Year Bible - Day 94

The tithe is often used in the OT not just to support the priests who didn't work the land but also as a testimony to God and all He had done.
What do you do to testify to God? Words are cheap but do you put your money where your mouth is? What better testament to God's provision than to show on your bank balance that you believe in and support the work of the church (globally).
There are loads of excuses people give as to why they don't tithe but they are pretty weak when it measures up to scripture. I can't "afford" my tithe if I look at my finances with human eyes but when I give the money as the first deduction when I get paid, I simply work with what I have left and I can prove that I believe in the church!

The One Year Bible - Day 93

Great passage today, one of those, "I don't get it" passages in Deuteronomy 23: "If a man's testicles are crushed or his penis is cut off, he may not be admitted to the assembly of the Lord."
We can simply dismiss this statement and presume it can't really mean anything for us today. After all, God is a God of love right? He wouldn't want someone to not worship Him just because he was deformed?
We have to ask what this meant for the Jews and therefore what it might mean for us, not just this but similar prohibitions on illegitimate people and Ammonite/Moabites. I am not an expert on the OT as you have probably gathered but having children was something very significant for the Jewish nation. To not have children was shameful and implied that you had sinned to cause the situation to arise. To not be able to rear children was therefore considered an impediment to worshipping God, after all if you had sinned to deserve your handicap, why would you be able to worship God?
What would this mean to us today? Well at the lowest level, it could simply imply that we need to deal with sin before we are able to fully come into the presence of God. That isn't too surprising but perhaps there is something further, if child-rearing is a way of leaving a legacy, a way of spreading God's kingdom, perhaps God is also saying that he does not want people to worship Him who don't have a mind to spread the gospel, those who are not interested in legacy but are simply in it for themselves?
In a similar vein, illegitimate children imply a mixture, people who are neither hot nor cold and we know that God hates mixed motives. He would rather somebody was cold than luke-warm!
Moabites and Ammonites are harder to translate into modern day types but bearing in mind that both were born from human intervention (when Lot's daughters had sex with Lot to keep their lineage going) and both opposed Israel when they came into the Promised Land. Perhaps they simply represent the mixture of human will with God's kingdom, a poisonous cocktail and one which carries with it a simple prohibition of worship to God (10 generations means forever).

The One Year Bible - Day 92

There are a few places where the OT seems really strong on punishment and uses the phrase, "all Israel will hear about it and be afraid". It was clear in the OT that the two primary purposes for capital punishment were firstly to remove the evil from the land and secondly to provide a deterrent to others who might think about doing the same thing. In this country nowadays, these things are rarely mentioned and the most likely objection that people have to any form of incarceration is that "it won't stop him doing it again". Punishment is never about rehabilitation, that is a human concept, that you can take a bad person and somehow train him to learn from his mistakes. We all know that doesn't work. For some reason though, many of us are uncomfortable with the whole idea of punishment, especially corporal or capital, we think it is "not very nice" but this is irrelevant. The point is, with consistency, people know beforehand that a certain crime attracts a certain punishment and they know that if they commit the crime, they will get the same. This is all out the window now where murder sentences vary from a few years to 30 or more so you might as well take your chance. I wonder what God would make of our justice system?

The One Year Bible - Day 91

"How will we know whether or not a prophecy is from the Lord?"
If the prophet speaks in the Lord's name but his prediction does not happen or come true you know that the Lord did not give that message.
Nothing more to add!

The One Year Bible - Day 90

I saw a TV program the other day where an American District Attorney turned a blind eye to the crimes of the son of one of his major doners. He allowed an innocent man to stand trial because in his own eyes, the 'innocent' man was not a good man and if the doners could support his plan to become mayor, he would be able to do so much good in the city. It was a great example of the way in which our egos can distort justice and then justify it. Quite simply, justice is a prime principle in the kingdom - in other words, we cannot allow the end to justify the means when it comes to justice. Truth is the same, it is a prime principle. With other principles like discipline, we might decide that one time, we will not discipline our child because sometimes grace trumps discipline, grace being a prime principle. If there is one thing that is very strongly described in the OT, it is justice. We are to show no partiality and never try and justify changing it.

The One Year Bible - Day 89

Most of us probably think that the 'proof' of Jesus being the Way is in the things we see happen, such as healing and deliverance and which we claim do not exist in other religions. If we think this, we are wrong. The soul and the devil are both very powerful and enable someone who does not follow God to produce what appear to be miracles. Where does that leave us? Do we believe them? God reminds the Israelites in Deuteronomy 13 that these things can and do happen but that when these things happen, rather than simply trying to dismiss them out of hand, we refuse to take any part in them since they are pulling us away from what we know to be true. This is obviously hard, especially if we don't see God working that much in our lives, we might question our whole belief. We don't want to be the person who has it totally wrong but insists on "keeping the faith" even in the face of evidence that we are wrong but we also can't be seduced by people who can produce great party tricks but do not follow God. These people might even call themselves Christians and perhaps to an extent they are but if they do not glorify God in what they do, they are false prophets.

The One Year Bible - Day 88

"Don't let your heart be deceived". An interesting phrase, have you ever thought about what it means? Well our minds can be deceived by an outright lie if we choose to believe it but logic is quite good at detecting truth and untruth if we have an open mind. The heart though is so fragile since our feelings change as quickly as the day turns into night and something that would fail to deceive the mind, can deceive the heart and lead us astray. Where is your heart? As a single person, it is easy for my heart to be thinking of a wife but if this is not kept in check, my heart can lead me to do all kinds of things that are at best a waste of time and at worst can distract me from God and cause me to sin. The solution in Deuteronomy is to follow God "whole-heartedly", only then is there no danger of a divided heart pulling us away from God. We don't like such absolutes since they sound like hard work but what is harder? Following God wholeheartedly or being a slave to whatever might entice us each day?