Through the Bible in one year - Day 31

•           Psalms 30:11-12

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;

you have loosed my sackcloth

and clothed me with gladness,

that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.

O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!

•           Genesis 27:41-28:9

I am fascinated by this passage regarding Isaac and Jacob, and what it doesn’t say about Esau. We know already that Isaac preferred his son Esau to his son Jacob, and yet this blessing he gives to Jacob today of his own free will, and he sends him with the blessing that he have the promises of Abraham, he and his offspring after him. And next thing you know, Esau, who has already married a women who grieves his parents, marries someone that Isaac expressly tells Isaac not to marry. Oh, I am confused, why is it that Esau is doing these things to bother his parents on purpose? He has been wronged in his mind (and maybe in ours if we look at it from this distance) and yet all he seems to be interested in is himself and if he feels the least bit slighted he is off to hurt others. And an Ishmaelite – isn’t this Isaac’s half brother’s children? Or did I miss something?

Today’s readings: Psalm 30, Genesis 27:41-28:9, 2 Chronicles 4, Luke 20:45-21:38

Through the Bible in one year - Day 30

Today’s Psalm starts by praising God, and calling for us to ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name. It ends by calling for strength and peace. I see that there is an order to this that we can use for our own prayers praise the Lord – for he has earned it above all else, and in the end beg for mercy and strength that we may have his peace.

Genesis

Now, wait a minute; I’m thinking back to yesterday’s reading from Genesis and I begin to wonder why it said that Esau and his Hittite wife made life ‘bitter’ for Isaac and Rebekah. Is it because she was a Hittite? I had been thinking that Esau was making life bitter for Jacob, that might make sense – but perhaps I was near the mark anyway when I said that Esau was living through some buyer’s remorse because of his own actions with Jacob and it was coming out with his dealings with his family, I can certainly see that happening.

Today’s reading takes over from where we left off yesterday and it is where I thought we were going after that interlude with Esau and Jacob – and coming on the heels of the word that Rebekah received in a dream from God when the two were in the womb.

But [Isaac] said, "Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing." Esau said, "Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me these two times. He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing." Then he said, "Have you not reserved a blessing for me?" Isaac answered and said to Esau, "Behold, I have made him lord over you, and all his brothers I have given to him for servants, and with grain and wine I have sustained him. What then can I do for you, my son?" Esau said to his father, "Have you but one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father." And Esau lifted up his voice and wept. (Verses 35-38)

Reading this we can feel sorry for Esau – especially from his perspective – but I can’t say that Jacob ‘cheated’ him the first time – Esau thought more of his hunger and said what does the future matter if I die of hunger now...and since he didn’t die, now he has come to that future and it does matter. I can understand where this might be an object lesson for those of us who pay more attention to the desires and immediacies of the present rather than the long term needs of our lives. Today’s reading ends with Rebekah saying, yes indeed she does loath Esau’s wife because she is a Hittite, and sends Jacob away to be far from his angry brother, and also to be where he might find a woman of her own family, and not from the country where they sojourn.

I will go directly to the passage from Luke, (I read of Solomon’s building of the temple, I just don’t have a lot to say about it today) and the reason I jump right to it is the question of authority. That is what the Pharisees and scribes ask Jesus; that is also what was going on in our Genesis reading – it was all about the question of authority. Here we have the Pharisees angry and plotting to kill Jesus (much like Esau plots his revenge against his brother Jacob), and they try to trick Jesus with the question about paying taxes. ‘Who owns everything, and everything, and everything,’ I asked just a few days ago. Well, Jesus answers the Pharisees that we are to give to the authorities what is their due, and to give to God what is his; hmmm, that seems like a double-meaning answer if I understand him correctly.

There are more verses today, and the questions are getting tricky or heated or both. Partly, I would guess they are as outlined – ways in which they might catch him out – but on the other hand, I would suspect that their spirits wanted to know these things. The Sadducees really did want to know about the resurrection; their question about marriage and remarriage and death was just a way to get into a tricky question – but one they themselves wrestled with and weren’t able to answer satisfactorily.

I suggest that for us, we need to continue asking the questions and seeking his word to us through these readings and then when done, to start all over again and read, and question and ask some more.

Until tomorrow.

Today’s readings: Psalm 29, Genesis 27:1-40, 2 Chronicles 3, Luke 19:47-20:44

Through the Bible in one year - Day 29

Psalm 28:9

Oh, save your people and bless your heritage!

Be their shepherd and carry them forever.

Genesis 26:4-5

“...And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws."

Well, we see Isaac has heard his father’s stories...and chooses to try the same tactic; ‘she is my sister’. Sigh. God has just finished making Isaac a promise (see above verses 4-5) and what does he go and do the next thing? He goes to Abimelech and says “she is my sister.” In Abraham’s case it was ‘true’ in Isaac’s case it wasn’t even that, it was just, well, wrong. But, it does seem to have highlighted, for the King that Isaac was favored and blessed of the Lord, who sends Isaac and his company away in peace. Now, there does seem to have been some contention for a while but in the end we see through theses verses below and following that King Abimelech comes to an accord with Isaac and his company.

Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that also, so he called its name Sitnah. And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name Rehoboth, saying, "For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land." (Verses 21-22)

BUT, the last verse we read today in Genesis says that Esau and his new wife make life “bitter” for Rebekah and Isaac. (Not that we didn’t see that coming, what with Esau probably having a severe case of buyer’s remorse after giving away all his rights for a bowl of soup.)

Today in 2 Chronicles 2 we read of the beginning of the building of the Temple. And this is a very large undertaking and we will be reading about it for a while. I couldn’t help but think about these last verses today:

Then Solomon counted all the resident aliens who were in the land of Israel, after the census of them that David his father had taken, and there were found 153,600. Seventy thousand of them he assigned to bear burdens, 80,000 to quarry in the hill country, and 3,600 as overseers to make the people work. (Verses 17-18)

This concept that ‘resident aliens’ were hanging around ready to be assigned to the task of the king. Our countries today have differing understandings of what it means to be a resident alien, and of course what rights or responsibilities we may have to our harboring governments...What about us, though? Aren’t we resident aliens if we recognize that our sojourn here in this life is but a temporary time? Should we then, be about the business of preparing ourselves for our homecoming? Do you suppose that might mean helping in rebuilding the “Temple”? Well, I was just wondering, that’s all.

Luke 19:37-38

As [Jesus] was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!"

That follows along with the question I had from 2^nd Chronicles; are we ready with our voices to sing the Lord’s praises for all the wondrous works we have seen? And just a little bit farther we read what Jesus says about building this temple; "It is written, "My house shall be a house of prayer," but you have made it a den of robbers." (Verse 46)

For me today, I should be about prayer. You?

Today’s readings: Psalm 28, Genesis 26, 2 Chronicles 2, Luke 19:28-46

Through the Bible in one year - Day 28

Psalm 27:1

The Lord is my light and my salvation;

   whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life;

   of whom shall I be afraid?

I really like this Psalm. I don’t know if I remembered that before I read it this morning. See how it starts? And then it gets right down to the scary bits; when evil doers assault me...to eat up my flesh yikes. But what about it? The Psalmist says they will be the ones to stumble and fall, ok, so it isn’t that scary after all; in each instance when the scary bits come, the Lord is there to save and harbor us – that is a very good thing to hold on to in our own hearts. And then in verse 4:

One thing have I asked of the Lord,

   that will I seek after:

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord

   all the days of my life,

to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord

   and to inquire in his temple.

I know a song of this verse, and I can hear it as I read this...and the Psalm continues in this way until we see the Psalmist rescued from danger and dancing for joy in the Lord’s own tent. (Talk about safe harbor!) Verses 13 and 14 say this:

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord

   in the land of the living!

Wait for the Lord;

   be strong, and let your heart take courage;

wait for the Lord!

In the land of the living...we will see God. So David (I’m guessing he is our Psalmist here) has said the same thing that Job says:

I know that my redeemer lives, and in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes--I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me! (Job 19:25-27)

And then the Psalm’s last line says to wait. Wait for the Lord; be strong, take courage and wait for the Lord. Waiting has always been hard. For me and I would bet maybe for you too. Waiting is so indefinite, so...long. Whether waiting for a specified time period or as in this case for the Lord to come. The when we don’t know, but David says let our heart take courage and wait. I will wait, and it may take courage, because I might be distracted or discouraged or even fearful at times (I remember those scary bits) but David, and Job have given us hope.

Now, we read of the birth of Esau and Jacob. Did you notice with me that first Isaac must pray for Rebekah to conceive and then when she does, she too must go to the Lord for assistance, direction and help. I can see echoes of the Psalm here: The lord is my light and salvation (Yeah my wife can conceive), then the children struggle within her womb and the Lord gives comfort and knowledge of what is to come. Oh, boy, now in the middle of reading this I wonder if this were happening today, would Rebekah decide these children were going to be too much trouble? Would she even let them be born? What does the Lord mean when he says two peoples shall be divided and the older will serve the younger? (Genesis 19:23)

I see that it was twenty years that Isaac and Rebekah waited to have children. It seems the first line after telling us that Isaac was 40 when they married, that we read Isaac prayed because Rebekah was barren – but we don’t notice until verse 26 that Isaac was now 60 when the boys were born – that is a long time to wait; no wonder they were praying to God. We have Esau, a real man’s man; out hunting and working in the field and bringing food for his father to eat; and we have Jacob in the tents, presumably where his mother was – and he knew how to cook, since when Esau comes in famished, and ready to die he exchanges his right to all his father’s possessions and lands for a bowl of lentil stew. We can think this is strange – and it certainly is. Tomorrow there is more about this, and I have read it before, but I will wait until we get there and read it together before saying anything more about this.

Wow! Here we are in 2 Chronicles – the time has flown by. In reading it this way, online I didn’t see that 1 Chronicles was ended before opening today’s reading and seeing that here we are in 2 Chronicles. I maybe could have figured it out when the passage ended yesterday saying that all the deeds of David had been written here and there...it does sound a bit like a summation.

Anyway, here we are in 2 Chronicles and the first we read about Solomon is that he worships the Lord; I’d say he’s off to a good start with that attitude. Then we come to the famous question from God:

In that night God appeared to Solomon, and said to him, "Ask what I shall give you." And Solomon said to God, "You have shown great and steadfast love to David my father, and have made me king in his place. O Lord God, let your word to David my father be now fulfilled, for you have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth. Give me now wisdom and knowledge to go out and come in before this people, for who can govern this people of yours, which is so great?" God answered Solomon, "Because this was in your heart, and you have not asked possessions, wealth, honor, or the life of those who hate you, and have not even asked long life, but have asked wisdom and knowledge for yourself that you may govern my people over whom I have made you king, wisdom and knowledge are granted to you. I will also give you riches, possessions, and honor, such as none of the kings had who were before you, and none after you shall have the like." So Solomon came from the high place at Gibeon, from before the tent of meeting, to Jerusalem. And he reigned over Israel. (2Chronicles 7-13)

Yes before I read any more or comment on this passage in general, I will say that this indeed is a great way to begin – anything. We could learn a LOT from this beginning.

Here, I’ve written a fair amount today already and we haven’t even gotten to the passages from Luke. Today the question Jesus puts to the blind man who stops him along the way, is what do you want me to do for you? (Luke 18:41) and the blind man says – I’d like to see, and he does! Notice that he and all the people who saw this happen praised God. This certainly was David’s response all the way back in our Psalm; the Lord saves him and puts him safely out of harm’s way and David praises the Lord.

Then in verses 19:9-10 we read of Zacchaeus: And Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost." This is in harmony with what we have read so far today in the Psalm – and of course in harmony with what we have read so far in Luke – and elsewhere. The last thing I will note is from the final passage about the men given charge over their master’s funds; one of them who neither likes nor trusts his master does absolutely nothing with the funds and instead says upon his master’s return “I knew you are a severe man...” (Verse 19:21) What I note, is the response of that Master that Jesus gives us: By your own words, I will condemn you. (Verse 19:22) That tells me, that I had better be careful of my own words – and my actions need to follow my faith instead of my fears. This advice from the Psalm comes in handy again: let your heart take courage – and wait. Too bad this poor fearful servant hadn’t paid attention. Best if we do.

Today’s readings: Psalm 27, Genesis 25:19-34, 2 Chronicles 1, Luke 18:31-19:27