Daily GNT Bible Reading Podcast: Recent Episodes
Phil Fields
Hi there!
I’m so glad you have clicked to listen to this trailer to the Digging Deeper Daily Bible reading plan for 2024. If you want to read the Bible in a great reading plan that will hold your attention and enable you to stay with the program, you are in the right place.
My name is Phil Fields. I’m almost 74 years old and happily married to Gale. We have three children, and five grandkids. In 1983, when our kids were still small, our family went as Bible translators to Papua, Indonesia. We finished a New Testament translation for the Orya people in 2005. Since that time I have been leading an organization which is translating the Bible into the national language of Indonesia. We’re hoping that the entire Bible in the Plain Indonesian Translation will be finished at the end of 2025. Our sponsoring organization is Pioneer Bible Translators.
When I started the Daily Bible Reading Podcast in 2014 the audience I had in mind was my grandkids. I wanted to make a set of Bible recordings for them, to leave behind what I would tell each one of them if and when they fall into difficult times.
Here’s a list of what I will cover:
- Remember this new Web address: DDeeper.today.
- Please Sign up for email
- Why it’s a good idea to use a good Bible reading plan.
- Choose a Bible translation that makes sense for you for daily reading.
- Different ways to follow the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan
- Pointers about podcast listening
- How to contact me.
Remember this new Web address: DDeeper.today. I realized recently how hard it is to find my websites when they are named DailyBibleReading.info. When I started podcasting in 2014, there were not many podcasts or blogs with that name. So I am hoping that the oddity of the new web address will help everyone looking for information on the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan and podcasts. The site is DDeeper.today with two D’s. I figure most other podcasters won’t misspell Deeper like I have. Even though it starts with two D’s, I’m pronouncing it like it started with just one.
Please Sign up for email: There are times when I want to announce a special episode or a new feature in the YV Bible app. And listeners often like to hear about our Bible translation ministry. That is why I suggest that you sign up for my email updates. You will join a special list that is only for 2024. You will receive no more than 5 emails. I won’t ask for donations or try to sell you something. Please sign up by going to DDeeper.today, click the How-to’s link, and choose the menu item entitled 2024 Email Sign-up.
Why it’s a good idea to use a good Bible reading plan: If you start at the beginning of the Bible and attempt to read straight through, you will likely get bogged down somewhere in the Old Testament. The Bible is not organized like a novel. The Digging Deeper Daily reading plan will help you be successful. If you are looking for a reading plan that covers the whole Bible, I highly recommend you choose a reading plan that contains something from the New Testament every day.
For more information about the 3D reading plan, please click the How-To link at DDeeper.today and scroll down. I suggest that you view the short video on that page entitled How to Study the Bible.
READ in a real-book Bible: You’ll want to download the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. The link for that is found right on the front of DDeeper.today. It is labeled Plan.PDF.
READ the 3D reading plan using Bible apps on your smartphone or tablet: Subscribe to the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan in the YouVersion Bible app. This app is available for Android and Apple devices.
LISTEN to the DDeeper.today podcasts. The podcasts have an introduction to each of the three daily readings. The introductions remind you of what you heard yesterday, and the podcast ends with a prayer that I normally don’t close with an Amen, hoping that you will continue to pray.
How about READing and LISTENing?! Open your podcast player and start the introduction to your next episode. While listening to my greeting, you’ll have time to open the YV app to your next day in the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. You’ll get way more out of each day’s readings if you have time to do it this way, reading and listening.
When you sign up for a YV reading plan, you are given an option to do the plan privately or share it with your friends. If you share the plan with friends, at the end of each day’s readings, you will be given the opportunity to share something you gleaned from the readings. This is fabulous and a great way to connect with your friends through the Bible app. But since the Digging Deeper Daily plan is for the whole Bible in 365 days, I suggest you share with a select group of close friends, or maybe 1-2 other people, or just do the plan privately.
Choose a Bible translation that makes sense for you and for a year-long reading program. Many of you will be using a translation like the ESV for taking to church. My own church uses that translation. But it is not very well suited to a year-long reading program, especially if this is your first time reading the whole Bible. I strongly recommend the NLT or the GNT for following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. Please take my advice as a Bible translator: Using a translation like the NLT or GNT is even more important if you will be Listening to the Bible readings while doing something like driving to work. See more information about Bible translations under the READ heading in the How-To’s.
How to listen to podcasts: Please see the Listening How-To’s by clicking the How-To’s link at DDeeper.today. I recommend you use a podcast aggregator app that
- makes it easy to see the episode notes,
- that remembers your place and will automatically queue up your next episode,
- and that lets you speed up my reading to 1.20% speed.
If you use smart speakers to play the DDeeper.today podcasts, please help me improve the instructions found in the How-To’s.
My favorite way for you to contact me is via the contact button at the top of all my websites. If you are using an Alexa device, I recommend controlling the playback with the Amazon Music app.
The three older domain names for my two Bible-reading websites will still take you to the same pages. The main old website is dailybiblereading.info. Also: dailyNLTbiblereading.info dailyGNTbiblereading.info
For any long-time listeners, I believe that the change of the name of the podcast to DDeeper Daily and the new domain name will not change the way your podcast player is interacting with the podcasts. If you find otherwise, please let me know.
When I chose the odd extension for the DDeeper site, not dot Com, or dot info, but ‘today’, I thought of two places where the word ‘today’ is highlighted in the New Testament. One is
2 Corinthians 6:2 NLT
[2] For God says, “At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you.” Indeed, the “right time” is now. Today is the day of salvation.
Hebrews 4:6-7 NLT
[6] So God’s rest is there for people to enter, but those who first heard this good news failed to enter because they disobeyed God. [7] So God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is today. God announced this through David much later in the words already quoted: “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts.”
That last quote is one you will need to read in context to really understand. My point in sharing those two verses is to encourage you. Each day that you read the Bible with the goal of reading all of it, the Holy Spirit will be helping you experience the amazing spiritual transformation that God wants for you. Find salvation, and enter the place of rest and safety God has for you.
Please Sign up for email by going to the How-to’s at DDeeper.today.
Here is the link to the Digging Deeper Daily Youversion reading plan: https://www.bible.com/reading-plans/1314-digging-deeper-daily-by-daily-bible
Here is a link to a fuller explanation about how to duplicate the experience of the Read To Me Daily reading plan:
https://sites.google.com/clarinetpages.net/read-the-bible-in-a-year/listen/using-the-youversion-app?authuser=0
I am releasing this episode number 12 of Joysightings at the DBRP feed in order to let you know about my recordings of Tales of the Kingdom and Tales of the Restoration, by David and Karen Mains. You can find the other chapters of these two books at joysightings.info.
It was perhaps in 1989 that a precious friend sent the two books to us, when we were living in the rainforest of Papua, Indonesia. Our children were at just the right ages to enjoy the full impact of these stories. It is a joy for me now to share these with you also. Each book consists of 12 chapters written as allegories. You will enjoy the deep symbolic meanings that underlie the story of characters with names like Caretaker, Mercy, and Hero.
At the Joysightings.info site, the first chapter of Tales of the Kingdom is episode 12, and the first chapter of Tales of the Resistance is episode 25.
When I made the podcast recordings, I was reading from the first edition of the two books of Tales, published in 1983 and 1986 by David C. Cook. The books have beautiful color pictures (one per chapter) by Jack Stockman. I tried repeatedly to reach out to David C. Cook to ask for permission to share these recordings on my podcast. In 2019 I reached out to David and Karen Mains via their Facebook page, and David answered giving his permission for my podcasts. Now in 2023 I discovered that the copyright for the books now belongs to Mainstay Ministries. In February I attempted to more formally re-confirm the Mains’ permission for my podcasts. However I found that the Mainstay Ministries website is not currently working and both numbers given for contacting them have been disconnected. If any of you listeners can connect me with the Mains family, I would appreciate it very much.
The two sites I find for Mainstay Ministries are https://www.sundaysolutions.com/ https://kingdomtales.com/
Today I would like to give pointers for understanding Jesus’ parables. I consider the parable to be one of the greatest of all teaching devices, and a legacy of the Greatest Teacher. I will end this episode by sharing a non-Biblical parable.
One little detail to understand is that the word ‘parable’ (Greek paraboles) had a wider meaning than we normally think of in English, and you may see this sometimes in the New Testament. In English, we normally think of a parable as a story that points to some deeper meaning. However, as an example, the word ‘parable’ is used for a one-sentence figurative teaching in Mark 7:17 where it refers back to Jesus’ statement in verse 15:
GW “Nothing that goes into a person from the outside can make him unclean. It’s what comes out of a person that makes him unclean.”
In verse 17, the disciples ask Jesus to explain that ‘parable’.
With that footnote, I want you to know that I will really just be talking briefly about what we normally think of as parables, the story type.
In the episode notes, I give links to more complete and scholarly information than what I will present to you. In particular, I recommend viewing the 6 minute video from bibleproject.com entitled The Parables of Jesus. Also in the episode notes, I have links to both a video and a good summary about Interpreting Parables by Bob Utley.
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Bob Utley’s Special Topic page on Interpreting Parables:http://www.freebiblecommentary.org/special_topics/parable_interpretation.html
Bob Utley’s video on Luke 15:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f76EvjGy7Jw
Don’t miss the cool video from BibleProject.com! Title: The Parables of Jesus
I appreciated the original thinking and humorous examples in this short article:https://www.1517.org/articles/understanding-jesus-parables
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As I was thinking about what to mention to you, I was reading a historically-interesting commentary by Christopher Wordsworth from 1856, and I almost stumbled into a common error in interpreting parables, which is thinking of them as allegories. An example of this is Luke chapter 15, where we have the parable of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son. Wordsworth gives an allegorical interpretation, assigning an identity to all the characters. In this case, the shepherd is Christ, who searches for his lost sheep. That’s not too bad. But seeing the woman who loses one of her coins as a picture of the church, is definitely stretching things. Similarly in the Parable of the Lost Son, the father is interpreted as God, the younger son as the Gentiles who repent, and the older son as the Jews.
One of the things that leads people to take an overly allegorical approach to the parables has to be Jesus himself, in his foundational teaching about the parables found in Mark 4, Mat. 13, and Luk. 8. In Jesus’ explanation of the Parable of the Sower, He might almost contradict my last point about allegorical interpretation. It just happens that the Parable of the Sower (also called the Parable of the Different Kinds of Soil) has clear allegorical elements (the birds, path, rocky soil, etc), whereas for many other parables it doesn’t help to seek an allegorical identity for the various participants. A second thing that is unusual in the Parable of the Soils is that it has clear multiple teaching points, whereas most parables have a single, simple point.
I have mentioned all this heavy stuff to bring us around to this simple point: When we get too fancy in our interpretation of parables, we tend to miss the main point, which is to ask, “How does this apply to me?” The cool thing about parables is that Jesus intended them to be multi-purpose. People who were ready to believe in Jesus would get one interpretation, and the religious leaders criticizing Him would understand Jesus’ meaning very differently. Both groups got a correct interpretation, as Jesus intended, even though the interpretations were different.
This propensity of parables to be interpreted differently has a plus side and a negative side. On one hand, we must remember that parables are not good for determining doctrine. Let’s not decide the timing of Jesus’ second coming based on parables, but some of the parables clearly illustrate something about Jesus’ second coming. The plus side is that the Holy Spirit may use Jesus’ parables to say something very pointedly appropriate for you.
I have been amazed that in the Parable of Different Kinds of Soil I sometimes find that I am dangerously close to living amongst thorns, way too concerned with the cares of this life. But in a few months when I come across the parable again, I find that I have moved over to the rocky soil, meaning that I might glibly say that I love God’s Word, but on that day if I am honest, I have to admit that my roots are dangerously shallow.
Another illustration of a personal application for me is this, which I don’t think I have ever shared with anyone before: When I read the story of the prodigal son, I am reminded that I acted like the prodigal son, when I was young and thoughtless, by asking for part of my inheritance early. I didn’t realize that this was tantamount to wishing my father dead. How this must have hurt him! I wish I could tell him how sorry I am that I ever did that.
Don’t look to parables for decisions about moving to another city, quitting your job, or selling your house. That’s not what I mean by a personal application.
Finally, here are three final pointers:
- Understanding the context and the audience Jesus was speaking to is key to understanding what Jesus was saying.
- You can see a progression in Luke’s Gospel that leads from more general parables about the Kingdom of God, to Jesus’ identity as the king who will return, and to whom everyone will give an account.
- Look to see if the Gospel writer or Jesus himself tells what He was driving at. And also take note of any surprising twist in the story. Such twists often give an important clue to the meaning.
Let me illustrate that idea of a surprising twist found in some parables. One of my favorite booklets that we printed to display our translation in Indonesia is a collection of 25 parables. If I am in Indonesia, I like to have that booklet handy in my bag. There was one devout Islamic taxi driver that took me to my home at least six times. Because of frequent traffic jams in Jakarta, a 20 minute trip can take two hours on bad days. So I started reading the parables to him. He was interested, and it was way better than trying to debate with him about our religions. After many of the parables he would say, “OK, yeah. I think we Muslims could agree with that one.” That continued until we got to the Parable of the Vineyard owner in Matthew 20. That’s the one where the vineyard owner gives all the workers the same pay for a full day’s work, even though some workers only worked for one hour. He responded, “What?! He did that? That’s crazy. That’s unfair!” This gave me an opportunity to talk about God’s kindness. We call it grace. God wants to be generous with us, because none of us can manage to earn our salvation. God designed this counterintuitive situation so that all glory would go to our Savior, and none would go to us.
As I will not be living in the same place in Jakarta when I go back (in July 2022), it is not likely that I will take that route again with the same taxi driver. It is not appropriate for me to share his name. But you can join me in praying for that taxi driver that I read parables to.
To give you a chance of hearing a parable for the first time (like Jesus’ followers had), I’ll read The Innovator by G. Williams Jones, from his book with the same name, published by Abingdon Press, copyright 1969.
The complete name of the book is The Innovator and Other Modern Parables.
Announcement: If anyone knows of any of the heirs of G. William Jones, please ask them to contact me.
May the Lord bless you ‘Real Good’!
Phil
Every Word 2022 day 115: What most people don’t know about Bible translations
Hi there, and welcome to this bonus podcast! I will be discussing the two main types of Bible translations I recommend for most people. As a Bible translator since 1983, I feel that most Christians in the USA are not given enough information about why Bible translations differ in wording, and which kinds of Bible translations will be better for different kinds of readers. This is an important topic, so I am surprised at myself: I can’t believe that I haven’t released a dedicated podcast about this topic every year since 2014. ALSO, please stay tuned for the end of the podcast, because I want to recommend a fantastic new real-book Bible.
Because of more difficult content in this podcast, if you are not driving a car, it would be a great idea to open the episode notes so you can visually follow along and make sure you don’t miss something important. Look especially at the words I have made bold.
There are actually five types of Bible translations, but I will mainly discuss the two most-used types in this podcast. But let’s start with showing the two types with a translation example that is not from the Bible.
Consider this sentence:
Jill looked like a deer caught in the headlights when she heard Jack’s proposal.
Now let’s imagine a word-for-word translation for some language in Africa. Since we don’t know a language like that, let’s pretend we do and make a word-for-word translation into English. Here is my suggestion for that:
Jill appeared like a trapped gazelle in bright light upon hearing Jack’s desire.
What we have in this example (caught in the headlights) is a figure of speech. Americans rather frequently use this figure of speech. But a word-for-word translation for the hypothetical African audience would very likely be tricky for them to understand. They might not know what a gazelle would do if a bright light shone upon them. (For that matter, I don’t know if gazelle’s act like deer do when meeting with bright lights.) I think an African might understand “Jill appeared like a gazelle trapped in bright light” to be a gazelle trapped with a metal trap, in pain, and struggling to get loose when the bright light suddenly shines upon it. Our hypothetical African listener will probably get a very different idea about what is meant.
For our second hypothetical translation, let’s try giving the plain meaning like we would if we were explaining to an 8-year-old child. We might translate, “Jill was stunned by Jack’s proposal.” Or we might say, Jill was caught off guard and totally surprised by Jack’s offer.” In this example, I’ve dropped the figure of speech entirely and gone straight for the meaning.
These are the two main translation types that I want to explain: The first was what we call a literal translation, or a word-for-word translation. And the second is what I will call a meaning-based translation.
Literal: Jill appeared like a trapped gazelle in bright light …
Meaning-based: Jill was stunned by Jack’s proposal.
Which translation is ‘right’? Actually both translations can be considered right. But the word-for-word translation is difficult to understand for our hypothetical African listeners, because there are cultural factors involved in interpreting the figure of speech in this example. The listeners would likely come up with various interpretations about the poor, defenseless gazelle being trapped. Whereas, if Jill likes Jack, she may be thrilled at his proposal.
The meaning based translation is right too: “Jill was stunned by Jack’s proposal.” That translation is easy to understand, but if you remember the original sentence, you will miss the richness of the figure of speech.
The two main types of Bible translations have exactly the same problems as what I have shown in the two examples above.
The advantage of a literal, word-for-word translation is that it mirrors the form of the original text.
The disadvantage of a literal translation is that it cannot always clearly give the meaning in the target language.
The meaning-based translation is just the opposite:
The advantage of a meaning-based translation is that it shows the meaning clearly.
The disadvantage of a meaning-based translation is that it cannot mirror the form of the original text.
Every Bible translator starts out thinking, “I will be able to translate word-for-word and still clearly enough show the meaning.” For two languages that are strongly related to each other, a literal translation can often still be clear. But if we are thinking of translating ancient Hebrew and Greek into modern English, there is a huge gulf between the ancient and modern languages and cultures.
My first example involved an English figure of speech. But let me give you a chance to experience decoding an Indonesian figure of speech:
Yakobus adalah kacang yang sudah lupa kulitnya.
A word-for-word translation is this: Jack is a peanut that has forgotten his shell.
Now it is your turn to wonder what that could mean. You won’t guess, so I will tell you.
Here’s a meaning-based translation of “Jack is a peanut that has forgotten his shell.”
That means, Jack left his rural village to get an education in the city, and now has a good job with a high salary, but he has forgotten his humble beginnings. He never helps any of his friends and relatives in his home village.
There are many literal (or word-for-word) Bible translations in English. That kind of translation is easier to make. And not all literal translations are equally literal. Some fudge to be slightly more meaning-based. But for the purposes of this discussion, I will choose what I think is the most popular literal translation today: It is the ESV (English Standard Version). It is the translation that would translate, “Jill appeared like a trapped gazelle in bright light.” It is great at showing the word-for-word form of the original text, but not so good at giving you the meaning clearly. A literal translation I like better than the ESV is the WEBBE (World English Bible British Edition).
Meaning-based Bible translations are much rarer, because they require the translator to work much harder to accurately translate the meaning. For English language readers, I recommend the Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech of 1901, The Good News Bible (TEV 1966), and the New Living Translation. There are a few more, but those are my favorites, and I will focus in this podcast on the NLT. The NLT would translate our example as “Jill was stunned by Jack’s proposal.”
The KJV is a literal translation, and an unfortunate part of the continuing legacy of the KJV, is that pastors often prefer using literal translations from the pulpit. But unfortunately this means that many ordinary people in the pew wind up using something like the ESV for their daily Bible reading at home. This means that many Christians who read their Bibles at home often struggle with hard-to-understand passages. If you normally read the ESV Bible and think you understand everything in it, well, I bet you haven’t yet read all of it!
Here is one of my most important recommendations for you: Make sure you have access to both kinds of translations. In other words, use both an ESV and an NLT Bible. That way you can quickly see the meaning (in the NLT), and you get a window into the word-for-word shape of the original text with the ESV.
My Daily Bible Reading podcasts have only been of two meaning-based translations. Why? Because they can be understood by people just listening to the recordings. It would be useless to record the ESV, because listeners would often miss the meaning.
Now I want to illustrate what I have been saying with a Bible passage. I wish I could spend an hour doing this, but I feel I must limit myself to only one example. I have chosen the topic statement for the book of Romans, chapter 1, verses 16-17. In the ESV verse 16 says,
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
If I had all the podcast listeners in front of me as a group, I would say to you, “Raise your hand if you are a Jew.” Usually in my audiences, no one raises their hand. At that point I say, “Raise your hand if you are a Greek.” Usually again, no one raises their hand. But then my question is, “Where do you fit in to Romans 1:16?” This verse says that the gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Sounds like you people who didn’t raise your hands are not able to be saved! So which one are we?” The answer is that Paul is contrasting Jews with everyone else. Greek was the universal language of culture and commerce at that time, even under the Roman government. Now let’s compare the same verse in the NLT:
For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes— the Jew first and also the Gentile.
Now let’s look at verse 17 in the ESV:
For in it (referring back to the Gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
No English reader will suspect that there is anything kind of strange about the phrase ‘the righteous of God’. The problem is that ‘of God’ is a genitive in Greek, and genitives have a dozen different options for the meaning. ESV nearly always uses the word ‘of’ to translate genitives. But in this verse, ‘righteousness of God’ will mean that the Gospel is about revealing that God is righteous. Wait a minute! If God is righteous and I am not righteous, that is not Good News. He will punish me. Rather, in this verse, the genitive is one showing source. Just wait a moment and I will read the NLT.
A second significant problem in verse 17 is a grammatical construction that forms an idiom in Greek: For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. So the literal translation has zero meaning or leaves the reader to guess at meanings, which will probably be wrong.
Finally, because of the first two problems I just mentioned, it seems like the final quote from Habakkuk 2:4 doesn’t fit with what came before it. So we ask, why did Paul quote, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Now let me read the NLT to you:
17 This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”
Many years ago, I had a phone conversation with a woman who was a new believer. She liked reading her KJV, and I used Romans 1:16-17 to try to show her that she would be better off reading the NLT. The KJV has the same problem in v.17: “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith.” So I asked her what that means, and she quickly replied, “Oh, you know, the Catholic faith, the Mormon faith, the protestant faith.” Hello! None of those things existed when Paul wrote Romans. I give that story to show that a dangerous thing that happens when many people read the Bible: If we don’t understand something, we may just make up a meaning that sounds plausible to us. And as time goes on, we can get more and more convinced that our guesses are true.
Going back to the advantages and disadvantages of the two translation types, the ESV has made a very good literal translation of 1:17. The ESV closely mirrors the form of the Greek text, but the problem is that readers won’t grasp the meaning, unless perhaps there are study notes to guide them. On the other hand, the NLT has the disadvantage that it doesn’t match the word-for-word form of the Greek, but it nails the meaning. God is the source of our righteousness. NLT translates: This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. And the Greek idiom ‘from faith to faith’ means, “This is accomplished from start to finish by faith.” Finally, if you take the time to read verse 17 again, you will see that the quote at the end of the verse supports what Paul claims about the Good News about Christ.
I am passionate about people having access to at least one Bible that is a literal translation, and one that is a meaning-based translation.
Recently an elder in our church shared that he was struggling hard to read and understand Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. He was rather bitter in his complaints, saying, “Why did Jeremiah write like this? I can’t penetrate this stuff!” This is just one example of many I could share. Normal Christians like you and me who try to use a literal translation for devotional reading, and attempt to read every book in the Bible, will not enjoy the experience. This can clearly be seen in Indonesia, where the people have only had wide access to one literal translation since 1974. Indonesian Christians have been discouraged from reading their Bibles for too long, and that has seriously weakened the church throughout that country. Now, with our Plain Indonesian Translation, thousands of people have discovered that they enjoy reading the Bible. But now, through our 90-day Bible reading challenge, teenage kids and adults are rejoicing to find that they enjoy reading the New Testament, finishing it in 90 days, and many immediately start over to read it again.
Any Christian who wants to glorify God should read the whole Bible. And if we really want to glorify God, then we should read a translation that we understand. Reading a translation that you don’t understand fully will not help you or encourage you.
I need to give two important clarifications: Some people think that the NLT is a paraphrase because the first edition still contained some words or phrases that sounded like the Living Bible. The Living Bible deserves to be called a paraphrase, because it occasionally adds ideas not found in the original text, or fails to translate other things. But the New Living Translation is a highly researched and revised meaning-based translation. My second clarification is that The Message is an extreme paraphrase. Please don’t think it is a faithful translation. Please don’t quote it. Please don’t give it to a new Christian to read.
Here is the information about real-book Bibles I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast. I want you to know that no one at Tyndale House asked me to promote their products, and I am not getting paid anything for giving out this information.
Gale decided to give NLT Bibles to members of her Bible study groups, and I decided to give them to my small group. It has been a long time since we bought Bibles, and so we made some delightful discoveries. Tyndale House has several cool NLT Bibles right now. The NLT Illustrated Study Bible is incredible! Beautifully illustrated with maps and charts and many study notes and supplemental information. The hardcover edition is only $36.66. You might like the leather-like edition which is a bit more. However, at more than 2,500 pages, you won’t want to carry this Bible around.
Here’s what I am giving to some young people in our church, including our grandkids: There is a new kind of Bible developed by Tyndale House, called a Filament Enabled NLT Bible. This real-book Bible comes without study notes and maps, making it practical to carry and providing an uncluttered reading experience, but it has a companion cell phone app that gives you all the stuff you would get in a study Bible and even much more. You download the Filament app for your phone or tablet, and then you can take a picture of the page number or type in the page number for which you want to get more information. The app then gives you study notes, charts, timelines, and devotional material, including videos and even worship songs. There is a premium-value edition with a leather-like cover for just $15. For the person who wants to make notes, there is a beautiful wide margin edition available for $38. A large print Filament enabled Bible is about that same price. A genuine leather thin-line edition of the NLT Filament Bible is only $35.
I highly recommend an article linked at the very end of the episode notes entitled How Not to Argue About Which Bible Translation Is Best by Andy Naselli.
And may the Lord bless you ‘real good’.
LINKS:
https://sites.google.com/clarinetpages.net/read-the-bible-in-a-year/read/start-with-a-good-plan
See the second part of this page: Recommended Bible translations for devotional reading
Fantastic article: How Not to Argue About Which Bible Translation Is Best
June 13, 2017 | Andy Naselli
Greetings everyone!
I am hoping that all of you who are in different places in the 365 episodes of the DBRP will get this news. I’m going to use the initials DBRP for Daily Bible Reading Podcast several times in this message. At around 12:01 midnight GMT on February 1st, I am going to flip a switch that will probably change the way both the Daily NLT and the Daily GNT podcasts will display in your podcast app. It is likely that you may notice a change in the ordering or appearance of the podcasts. However, there should be no problem in finding the podcast that you want to play next.
For many years now, my podcasts have been scheduled to be re-released each day according to my Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. (By the way, if you want a PDF of the reading plan, it is always available on the front page of dailybiblereading.info.) So one podcast was released every morning as if everyone started the 365-day plan on January 1st and never missed a day. So if you went to the dailygntbiblereading.info website on January 31st, episode 31 would be at the top. I thought that this would be the most user-friendly way to release the podcasts. But it turns out that it is not like what other podcasts do, and is not what is expected by most podcast apps.
Now, starting on February 1, when a new listener subscribes to the Daily NLT Bible Reading podcast in a podcast app, he/she will probably see episode 365 and need to scroll down to find episode 1. After that, the podcast app will most likely play them in ascending order. OR some podcast players give you the option of reversing the order, so that you can listen to the podcast going downward in the list instead of upward. The new organization of the podcasts will also help people who like to download all or many podcasts at home, so that their cell phone doesn’t need to be streaming them while they are commuting to work.
However, the new organization may make it so that using the two websites for the DBRP will be less efficient. You won’t want to scroll down 365 episodes at dailygntbiblereading.info on a cell phone. You certainly would not want to do that daily.
HOWEVER, there is a problem here I want you to be aware of. Most podcast aggregator apps will forget your place in the DBRP episodes if you also use the same app to listen to other podcasts. So this is what I do each morning. I listen to my daily Bible reading first, then I listen to The World and Everything in it. (I highly recommend that podcast!) But if I do that on the same app, then my place will be lost in the 365 DBRP episodes, and I will have to scroll and search again the next morning. So the answer to the problem, at least for me, is to dedicate one podcast app to the DBRP, and use another good app for your other podcasts.
I found a new favorite app for my podcast listening! It is Podcast Republic, and that app is available for both Android and Apple devices. This app checks all the boxes for me, except one. Podcast Republic is very customizable, and the programmer did a brilliant job of giving popup hints that help you learn what to do. Podcast Republic allows you to set the order you want your podcasts to play, and whether you want the app to stop after playing each one, or whether you want it to keep going to the next episode. You can easily set the playing speed for individual or all episodes. (I like 1.2.) Podcast Republic makes it easy to see episode notes and episode artwork. It does show Google advertisements at the very bottom of the screen, and I felt it was worth $4 to turn them off permanently. The one thing I haven’t found in this app is how to keep it from forgetting my place if I switch to play The World and Everything In It. So I use Antennapod (my previous favorite app) for all my other podcasts.
When I release extra podcasts on the 7th day of each month and at other times, you will find them in two places. I will release them according to the reading plan calendar location where I suggest listening to them, and also as the most recent podcast. So for the February 7th Reader Take Note podcast, you will find that as numbered the same as the Bible Reading podcast for day 38, the episode that falls on February 7th. You will also find that same extra episode temporarily posted as the most recent one, in other words, somewhere after the Bible podcast for day 365.
The Reader Take Note podcast for February 7th will be entitled, “What most people don’t know about Bible translations. By giving it that title, it means that I think the topic to be very important.
I am so thankful that you have listened to this announcement.
I picked a new verse to post on my office door the other day: Deuteronomy 8:3 in the GNT:
He made you go hungry, and then he gave you manna to eat, food that you and your ancestors had never eaten before. He did this to teach you that you must not depend on bread alone to sustain you, but on everything that the Lord says.
This verse goes along with what I keep noticing: That the Lord has a plan in the things we each encounter, with difficult work situations, and all kinds of suffering, and not having things we need. In the end, may we be thankful that God uses these things to bring us back to the sustaining power of his Word. As you read ‘everything that the Lord says’ this year, may the Holy Spirit make your heart glad.
Gale and I send our greetings: May the Lord bless you ‘real good’.
Hey there! It seems like we are off to a good start this year in the Daily Bible Reading Podcast.
In this extra podcast, I am trying to give answers to frequent questions.
First I want to ask you to share the DBRP NOW with your friends. If you started listening to the podcasts just a few days ago, then perhaps it has occurred to you, “Hey, this podcast would be perfect for …” this or that friend. If so, please share with them right away. This first week of the yearly plan is a great time to start listening, and if your friend wants to, he/she can easily catch up with you. Then you can discuss the readings together.
I invite you to contact me if you hear mistakes in my podcasts or if you would like to send a comment. My favorite way for you to contact me is via the Contact button at dailybiblereading.info. It’s in the upper right hand corner of the screen. If you write about a problem in accessing a certain podcast, please tell me what device you are using and what podcast player.
But hey, before writing to me, please check out the Read This First pages linked in the banner bar at dailybiblereading.info. That’s the place to go for information about Bible apps, podcast apps, Bible sites useful for digging deeper. and also information about me (Phil) and Gale.[a]
After a break in listening to my own podcasts, in 2022 I came back to listen to them again in a concentrated way, looking for things to improve. I ended up making improvements to 154 out of the 365 episodes among the NLT podcasts, and I will continue making improvements to the GNT series in 2023. But now I am afraid that I may have introduced new errors in the NLT series. So for you listening to the NLT series in 2023, please let me know if you hear mistakes or if a certain episode has inferior recording quality compared to the others.
YouVersion now has an audio play button at the bottom of every page in the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. Because that reading plan is sponsored by the Daily Bible Reading Podcast, some people will think that the play button is giving them the recordings for the podcasts. It does NOT. If you hit the play button, you get a Siri/Alexa-like voice that reads the devotional content page, and after that page, the app will play whatever voice is bundled with the translation you have selected.
If any of the people who have recently subscribed to the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan in the YouVersion app are confused like that, then they won’t get the message about their mistake, since they will never see the extra podcast that I release like this one. However, when the voice pronounces the name of Job as job, I hope that they will figure out that they are not listening to a podcast. Actually following the 3D reading plan that way is not too bad. I’m just sorry that those who do this will miss out on the extra information that I sometimes give in the podcasts, and also they will miss the prayers at the end of each podcast. For more information about my two full-Bible reading plans in the YouVersion app, please visit the Read This First pages linked at dailybiblereading.info, and look for the page that is about Listening to podcasts.
Now let me give you a selection of quick tips.
If you have any questions about why I have recorded the NLT and the GNT for the DBRP, please see the Read This First pages. Those two are the most understandable English translations for those consuming Scripture in audio form.
If you started listening to episode 1 podcast on January 1st, if you don’t want to install a podcast app, you can simply go to dailybiblereading.info or dailygntbiblereading.info. Your daily episode will be near the top. Using that website is also a great way to listen if you are using a computer instead of a smaller device.
If you are somewhere in the middle of the year or are irregular in your listening, a good podcast app will make it easy to select the next episode without having to remember the day number or search for it.
If my reading is too slow for you, a good podcast app will let you choose to speed up the audio. My favorite speed is 1.20. I don’t recommend listening to Scripture at 1.5 speed if your aim is to understand it and think about it.
Two years ago, when I was reading the 3D plan and not listening to the audio[b], I enjoyed using the MyBible app, which works on both Apple and Android devices. It has MANY options for customization. A simpler app that allows you to follow the 3D plan is called Quick Bibles. The Indonesian version of that program is the most popular Bible app in Indonesia. You can download and follow the Digging Deeper Reading plan in both of these two apps instead of using the more popular YouVersion/Bible.com app.
Please, if you are listening to the DBRP on your commute to work, have things set up with your podcast app so you do not need to touch your phone. If you commute to work with an Android device, I recommend that you check out using the Podbean app. If you sort the DBRP podcasts in ascending order (low to higher numbers), then the app will automatically move from one episode to the next without a touch.
One of the easiest ways to listen to the 3D plan using smart speakers. Please see the Read This First pages at dailybiblereading.info for instructions about using smart speakers, and also for more information about podcast apps.
At the first of each year, I frequently have received email questions asking me to explain what I said about the Orya people in the introductions to Genesis 1 and 2. I said this:
I have seen first-hand in my work in Indonesia that when a people group misunderstands and twists the story in Genesis 1-3, it will have far-reaching consequences for their lives. In the case of the Orya people, twisting the story of the fall caused much suffering and misery among families.
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It was about 1986 when Isaak Sasbe made a special trip to see me. At that time I and several Orya men were about to finish translating the Gospel of Mark. While I knew how to say lots of things in the Orya language, I usually couldn’t follow everything in an extended narrative in that language. So, on the day Isaak visited me, I am so thankful that I thought to turn on my little tape recorder. In the following months, I would carefully transcribe everything that Isaak told me. Isaak was the governmental head (or the mayor) of the village of Santosa. This is the story that he told, and that which the people there learned from his uncle, Daud.
In the beginning, Adam and Eve and other Orya people lived on Jadam mountain. They lived by the power of God. They even had glass in their windows. And they could just think about it, and food would appear on their tables. And they could just think about it, and all the dishes would be washed and put away. (They lived by the magical power of God and didn’t have to work.) But it all was ruined when Adam had sex with Eve. Until that time people lived without sex. So God got angry and told Noah to build a big boat. When the boat was finished and the flood waters started coming up, everyone who helped build the boat could get on. Those that got on included Jesus. As the flood got deeper, other people tried to climb up, but Noah hit them over the head with a hammer and they fell back into the water. Jadam mountain was the only mountain peak left above water, and the remaining Orya people stayed there until the water receded. But Noah and Jesus took the power of God with them in the boat, and they sailed away with it and landed in America. That’s why you Americans live with the power of God.
Then Isaak said something most significant: “I came here to ask you: How can we get the power of God back?” (The anthropology article that I wrote on this is published with the title Of Paradise Lost.)
Of course I tried to explain to Isaak that all this was twisted and wrong! I remember his disappointed look upon hearing my explanations. Years later I gained insight as to why he would have been disappointed. According to his belief, if I really had the secret of the power of God, I wouldn’t share it with anyone, because that would let others in on the secret. If I told other people how to share the power, the result would be less power and wealth for me.
Eventually this story and another told by Isaak’s uncle resulted in what anthropologists call a ‘cargo cult’. Such movements are common in the Papua province of Indonesia (formerly called Irian Jaya), and the other side of the island in Papua New Guinea, and in the Solomon Islands. A cargo cult starts when a charismatic leader arises (like Isaak’s uncle Daud), and tells people, “Hey, we’re doing things wrong. If you do what I tell you, we’ll be blessed with cargo (health, wealth, and prosperity) from our departed ancestors.” Daud’s twist on this was that the thing the Orya people needed to do to unlock garden-of-Eden-like prosperity was to trade wives. That idea actually had almost nothing to do with Adam and Eve falling into sin in the garden, but with Moses and Joshua and the raising of the walking stick at the crossing of the Red Sea.
A little note about Isaak’s uncle’s background: Daud was one of the few men of his age that went into town and learned the Malay language. So when the first Malay-speaking evangelists came into the Orya area, he was one who was often called upon to translate what the preacher said. That’s where he learned Bible stories. How I wish I had recordings of those Maylay sermons and Daud’s translations! Another point worth mentioning: Spontaneous sermon translations are not a good way to present the Gospel.
There is a little interesting thing here also from a Bible translation perspective: The false teaching of Isaak’s uncle involved taking literal happenings in Bible stories and taking them figuratively. Orya people still struggle with this: “Adam and Eve surely didn’t sin by just eating a fruit. How silly! It’s no big deal if I take a papaya from someone else’s garden. They had sex.” Now, a figure of speech in Orya is ‘to pick a flower with someone’, and it means to commit adultery with that person. So it was very logical for them to think that picking a fruit was a euphemism for forbidden sex. And Daud’s false teaching was that Moses didn’t literally raise a walking stick over the Red Sea. Orya men always go to war in pairs. The junior goes first and strikes the first blow, and the junior warrior follows and dispatches the victims. The less senior warrior is called (using figurative language) the other man’s ‘walking stick’. So Daud said, “Instead of Moses raising his literal walking stick, he and Joshua (who were war partners) exchanged wives. God was so pleased with that that He opened the Red Sea for them to escape.”
When Daud first started promoting this teaching about wife-swapping, the Orya people didn’t just start having free sex. No, Daud and the other leaders regulated which pairs of men would trade wives. I said before that this led to misery. Imagine this: Among two couples, there might be 2-3 of them who were happy with making the trade, but 1-2 were not thrilled with having sex with their new partner. When I first heard of all this, I imagined that it might be all the guys who would be happy, and all the women who would not be. But, in fact, I heard stories of misery from both sexes. One could not run away from this. Where could you run to? And would you leave the children behind? Women were beaten. People of both sexes were trapped. And sexual sin is sticky, in the sense that it inescapably brings more sin and shame with it. Plus it all has to be kept hush-hush, and you can’t tell anyone about your problems. Trying to regain a Lost Paradise using human ideas results in misery.
I’ll probably tell you in another podcast how, years later, the Lord used his Word to defeat the cargo cult. One terrible effect of the cult was to distrust anyone teaching differently from the cult teaching. That is one thing the Lord defeated. Before the occasion that brought the defeat of the cult, people would hint to me about their cult activities saying, “We’re doing our traditional cultural practices to bless this land (meaning to bring prosperity).” Note that after only 30-40 years after the start of the cult, they called the wife swapping their ‘traditional cultural practice’. That was not their true tradition! I, the newcomer and foreigner, had to remind them! In the olden days before Daud Sasbe, adultery was severely punished. The punishment was to have your thigh shot at close range with an arrow. The thigh would be pierced with a big spear-like arrow— the kind used in killing pigs. Not many committed adultery back then.
God, our creator, has every right to tell us humans how to live. People who live as God instructs us in the Scripture are actually the happiest people in the world. God knows what is best for us. And He has been kind enough to not hide this knowledge from us. He made us male and female to harmonize together in a beautiful way. A couple is so harmonized that two become one, one body. Any time we humans say, “Oh God didn’t really mean what he said about __x__ in the Bible!” (you fill in the blank) — we are headed for trouble and misery. My stories about how the Orya people were led into degrading sexual sin probably sound so strange to you that you can hardly believe it. Well, when I tell the Orya what is happening now in the sexual revolution in America and other first-world nations, they can hardly believe it! The sexual revolution will not lead our society to Paradise, happiness, or prosperity, but to shame and misery.
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I want to repeat my appeal from the top of this episode: Please share with your friends about the 3D reading plan and the Daily Bible Reading Podcasts.
Any day of the year is a good day to start listening to the Bible. The Holy Spirit will never tell you not to read the Bible. That message comes from someone else. Expect the Holy Spirit to speak to you each time you read or listen to the Bible. Please forget about me and listen to Him.
Gale and I send you our New Year’s greetings, and as always, I say, May the Lord bless you ‘real good’.
Greetings everyone and welcome to this last extra podcast this year. Merry Christmas and may you have a very blessed new year.
If you are one who started around January 1 listening to the DBRP and are about to finish the plan on December 31, congratulations to you! I hope you celebrate that achievement! As always, I invite you to come back some year in the future and listen again, but suggest that after a full year with me, it is time to find another Bible reader to listen to in the new year. Don’t forget your own voice. Reading Scripture out loud is tremendously helpful, even if the audience is just you alone.
If you have listened to the NLT this year, for some future year remember that I have also recorded the GNT.
One of my projects during 2022 was to critically listen to the NLT series and fix poor recording quality and mistakes. I re-recorded a few episodes entirely, and made smaller improvements to others. I am continuing to do the same thing now in the GNT series.
For those not on our email list, Gale and I recently shared pictures from my recent trip to Indonesia. If you would like to see that letter and a few extra pictures, please click the link here in the episode notes.
Before January 1st, I will revise the dailybiblereading.info website and the Read This First pages, which contain all my advice about Bible reading and listening to the DBRP. (The link to the Read This First pages is found in the banner of dailybiblerading.info.)
If you have any question you would like me to answer in those pages, please use the Contact button at dailybiblereading.info. I would like to update the information I shared about podcast players. If you have a favorite podcast app that works well for managing your podcast listening, please tell me about it. I will need the app’s name, what platform it runs on, and why you recommend it.
In my October extra podcast, I gave the second lesson in the series I call Buckling the Belt of Truth. That lesson gives my advice about how to understand spiritual realities found in the Bible, which are spiritual things about you that cannot be seen with human eyes. In particular, I dealt with the biblical teaching that you have been united with Christ in his death (being crucified with Him), you died and were buried, and now have been raised with Him to new life. Since you and I never actually experienced death, the Holy Spirit has been so kind as to give us multiple metaphors to help us grasp the reality of our spiritual resurrection.
I think a key to grasping this concept is understanding our being one with Christ. At first I thought of giving you an allegorical treasure map, to walk you through the different ways Scripture repeats the same powerful idea. But in the end I had to recognize that I don’t have the literary gifts of John Bunyan. (But don’t miss reading his book, Pilgrim’s Progress.)
I started that Buckling the Belt series by saying how I struggled to find the promises that Peter mentioned in 2nd Peter 1, the promises needed for ‘living a godly life’, the ones “that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.” I am thinking now that not all God’s promises need to be expressed in the future with statements like, “He who started a good work in you WILL …” (I’m referring there to a beautiful promise found in Phl. 1:6.) Promises can also be stated in the present, such as when Jesus utters 7-8 ‘I am’ statements in John, and when He proclaims ‘you are’.
One of those ‘I am’ statements is found in John 15, where Jesus said,
“I am the true grapevine, and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.”
The statement, “I am the vine; you are the branches,” is actually a promise. It is a right-now promise. It is true of you now. But like many promises, there are conditions to fulfill. Some of the conditions are stated with the word ‘will’, like we expect for promises:
- Remain in me, and I will remain in you.
- Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit.
As a Bible translator, I don’t like the way our being united to Christ is expressed with the word ‘in’, as in “Remain in me, and I will remain in you.” Greek talked like that. But we English speakers don’t normally talk of branches ‘remaining in’ a tree. Instead, branches are simply part of the tree. I would translate “Remain in me,” as “Stay joined as one with me.” We are organically one with our Vine, Jesus.
There is a constellation of ‘treasures’ found in staying joined to Jesus which He explains in John 15:
- 9 “I have loved you as the Father has loved me.” Then later he commands us to love one another.
- 13-15 This is the passage where Jesus calls us his ‘friends’.
- 16 Then Jesus tells us, “I chose you.” Those three are on my list of the things that most Christians find hard to believe.
- 11 “I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my Joy.” What a wonderful promise!
- 7-8 Let me give you my paraphrase: Jesus is saying,
“If you continue clinging to Me in oneness, and if you internalize my teachings, then I invite you to pray asking for anything you want, and it will be given to you.
8 When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.”
This is another amazing promise: Answered prayers! Wow, how come we aren’t spending more time in prayer!
Let’s keep on clinging to Christ. Meditate on being Jesus’ branch. Ask God to help you internalize this new identity. Because then you will be able to reach out and touch God’s other promises, like the harder one I mentioned: Being crucified with Christ and raised with Him.
There is one more crowning jem of oneness with Christ in Ephesians that I didn’t mention in the last episode. Since we are joined as one with Christ Jesus, we ‘are seated with Him in the heavenly realms’ (Eph. 2:6). That verse doesn’t say that we ‘have a future position with Christ’, although promises to that effect are found elsewhere in the Bible. Instead Eph. 2:6 says we ‘are seated’ with Him right now. Where is Christ seated? At God’s right hand. (If you were standing directly in front of God, Jesus would be to your left.) The verse is a bit unclear as to how we could be seated with Christ. We might be seated circling God’s throne. I like to say, “There are no folding chairs in heaven.” None of heaven’s chairs are made of plastic. Your name is engraved at your place. There is a place reserved for you alone, and it is certain and permanent.
But capitalizing on the picture of vine-and-branch oneness with Christ, let’s imagine sitting on Jesus’ lap, while He is sitting on his throne next to God. You are right there with the King of the Universe. Lean back and whisper in his ear!
“Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask.
Keep on seeking, and you will find.
Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.” Mat. 7:7
John 15:7 “If you remain joined to me and my words remain in you,
you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted.”
Think of it: Jesus actually is inviting you to take advantage of your close position!
From this place of acceptance and privilege, you are invited to tell the King what You need Him to do for you. But when you sit there, filled with reverence and awe, you will suddenly realize that some things you thought about asking Him are not really what is needed or important. However when the Holy Spirit helps you find your voice to ask, the things you wind up asking will be ‘for His glory’ (that is to say, ‘in his name’). Such prayers are powerful!
Then our passage promised ‘you will be filled with joy.’ Why will we receive such joy? Because we will ask big things of God, and He will grant our requests, and God will be glorified. First of all, He will be glorified because we will sing his praises more thankfully.
This is where I am right now. I am working to understand and internalize all that I just shared, because I am asking God to do some amazingly big things.
Messages from my Think Cabinet:Our church remodeled the worship center a few years ago. A heavy black metal audio cabinet, six feet tall containing a big rack of amplifiers was left abandoned. Eventually I asked if I might take all the outdated stuff from that cabinet and use it for something in my office. I didn’t have a clear idea of what I would do with it. I have enjoyed it mainly as my Idea Incubation Box. It has light of seven colors seeping out of the cracks from the string of LED lights I installed. For a little more than a year I have been posting Bible verses inside the box that grabbed my attention. I’m going to share those verses with you now. (The verse references are given in the episode notes.)
Quote from Dr. Bob Utley, Introduction to Habakkuk:
“It is acceptable to question God.
However, often it is God’s presence,
not rational answers, that satisfy
(as in Job’s case).”
(This note is posted folded and very low. You have to kneel to open it and read it.)
“Whenever you pray,
go into your room, close the door
and pray to your Father
in secret.” Matt. 6:6
The LORD is near
to all who cry out to Him
to all who cry out to Him sincerely. Ps. 145:18
Keep on praying with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. (Two translations of Jude 20)
Entrust your efforts to the LORD, and your plans will succeed. Prov. 16:3
A heart that turns from God
becomes bored with its own ways.
But a good person is satisfied with God’s ways. Prov. 14:14
This is how our translation of Eccl. 12:11 sounds when translated into English:
The teaching of a wise advisor is like a shepherd’s stick
that is used to guide and direct his sheep.
May every saying given by this
advisor and shepherd
be nailed
into the mind of every learner
and guide them in living rightly. Eccl. 12:11 PET
Without [fully believing//faith] it is impossible
to please God,
for the one who approaches Him must believe
that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him. Heb. 11:6
Through suffering
our bodies continue to share
in the death of Jesus
so that the LIFE of Jesus
may also be seen in our bodies. 2Cor. 4:10
You love Him
even though you’ve never seen Him.
And even though you don’t see Him,
you believe in Him,
and celebrate with glorified joy
that goes beyond anything words can say,
since you are receiving
the proper goal of your faith,
namely, the rescue of your souls. 1Pet. 1:8-9
The people of an evil and unfaithful era look for a miraculous sign. Mat. 12:39
Which of you
wanting to build a tower
doesn’t sit down first
and compute the cost? Luke 14:28
Remember Uzziah:
When he became powerful his pride destroyed him. 2Chr. 26:16
Do not envy sinners
in your heart.
Instead continue to fear the Lord.
There is indeed a future for you,
and your hope will not be crushed. Prov. 23:17-18
One dead fly
can make a whole bottle of perfume stink.
Even so, a little foolishness
can outweigh great wisdom and honor. Ecc. 10:1
Instead, clothe yourself with the presence
of the Lord Christ Jesus.
And don’t think about ways to indulge your evil desires. Romans 13:14
If you,
though you are sinful,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
just think
how much more your Father in heaven
will give good gifts to those who ask Him. Mat. 7:11
The LORD of armies has planned it.
Who can stop it?
He is ready to use his power.
Who can turn it back? Is. 14:27
It is God
who enables us, along with you,
to stand firm for Christ.
He has commissioned us,
and he has identified us
as his own by placing
the Holy Spirit
in our hearts
as the first installment that guarantees
everything
he has promised us. 2Cor. 1:21-22
This note is my comment based on Weymouth’s translation of 2Cor. 5:14.
“His death was my death.”
Therefore, we who have fled to Him for refuge
can have great
confidence
as we hold to the hope that lies before us.
This hope is a
strong and trustworthy
anchor for our souls.
It leads us through
the curtain
into God’s inner sanctuary. Heb. 6:18b-19
There is a 8 year old boy who visits my office weekly and asks if I have put up a new note. I had to put up a special note inside the box telling how to get out of the box if you shut yourself in.
My sister or brother, have a wonderful time celebrating our Savior’s birth. Gale and I send you our love and together say May the Lord bless you ‘real good’.
Phil & Gale
ESTHER 5-6:
In Esther 3-4 Haman cast lots (purim) to find out that March 7 was the lucky date to exterminate the Jews. Mordecai requested that Esther intercede directly to the king. And since she hadn’t been called for, the only way to do that would endanger Esther herself, since no one was allowed to approach the king in the inner court uninvited.
ISAIAH 41b:
Did you notice in yesterday’s reading, we heard a description of a king that sounded similar to one described in the book of Daniel?
Is. 41:2 GNT “Who was it that brought the conqueror from the east and makes him triumphant wherever he goes? Who gives him victory over kings and nations? His sword strikes them down as if they were dust. His arrows scatter them like straw before the wind.
3 He follows in pursuit and marches safely on, so fast that he hardly touches the ground! Who was it that made this happen?
4 Who has determined the course of history? I, the Lord, was there at the beginning, and I, the Lord, will be there at the end.
Because of the amazingly fast progress of this king being like the description of Alexander the Great (the male goat) in Daniel 8, I previously thought that Isaiah was also describing Alexander. But Alexander came from the west. Instead, this is the same king as mentioned in verse 25 of today’s reading, and scholars say that he is most likely Cyrus. In a few chapters he will be mentioned by name, and chapter 41 is not the only time Isaiah alludes to him without mentioning his name.
2THESSALONIANS 2:
In preparing for his topic of Christ’s return, in 2Thessalonians chapter 1 Paul mentioned the punishment of people who refuse to obey the Good News about Christ. They will ‘suffer’ or ‘pay the penalty of eternal destruction’. Note that if people are going to be burned up in hell, or if God’s punishment was simply that people would cease to exist, it would not be called ‘suffer eternal destruction’. This understanding is not just a doctrine. It turns out that this gives great comfort to those who are suffering persecution, and gives a great motivation to all of us for sharing the Good News.
GNT Translation notes:
2Thes. 2:2 not to be so easily confused in your thinking or upset by the claim that the Day of the Lord has [already] come. Perhaps it is thought that we said this while prophesying or preaching, or [they may claim] that we wrote it in a letter.
3 Do not let anyone deceive you in any way. For the Day [of the Lord’s return] will not come until the final Rebellion takes place and the Wicked One appears, who is destined to hell.
7 The Mysterious Wickedness is already at work, but what is going to happen will not happen until the one who [is holding//holds] it back is taken out of the way.
10 and [he will] use every kind of wicked deceit on those who will perish. They will perish because they did not welcome and love the truth so as to be saved.
13 We must thank God at all times for you, friends, you whom the Lord loves. For God chose you as the [very beginning//first] to be saved by [the purifying work of His Spirit//the Spirit's power to make you his holy people] and by your [belief//faith] in the truth.
Review:
This podcast is Day number 2 in my series about Buckling the belt of truth. In the first day in this series (which can be found by searching for 195 or the word ‘buckling’, I explained what I consider to be the first step in putting on the belt of truth. The belt of truth is one of seven parts to the Christian’s armor found in Ephesians 6. But I suggest that we make this clarification: Buckle the belt of truth by believing what God says about you in the Bible.
The belt of truth is put on by believing what God says. (Remember: Believing = faith.) The belt of truth includes all of the truth found in Scripture. But if you just believe a lot of general truths found in the pages of the Bible, but don’t believe what the Bible says about YOURSELF (your own identity), it would be like leaving your house with your belt in your belt loops, but not buckled. Everyday we live in a spiritual war zone. You’ll be at a great disadvantage if your belt isn’t buckled!
The main thing I am after in this belt-buckling is living in spiritual victory and standing firm in our worldly battle with the flesh and the devil.
What God says about you in the Bible often seems too good to believe, because the devil has been feeding us lies about ourselves all of our lives. So, taking one example from the Day 1 lesson, when we read in the Bible, “God loves you,” the truth of this seems to bounce off of our minds. “How nice,” we think, “but God can’t really love me because I am so bad.”
We must seek to notice the things we find in the Bible that are repelled by our minds. Write them down. Underline them. Preach to yourself that you should believe what God clearly says about you. Pray, asking for God to make the concepts clear and believable to you. Meditate on those things, and you will start seeing your life being transformed by God’s Word.
Here are some major mind-challenging truths from our Day 1 study:
- God loves us. We often unfairly think of God as an angry judge.
- God’s Word tells us that we are one with Christ, joined to Him. We are united to Christ, so much so that He considers us actually part of his body.
- We have a powerful guarantee, the Holy Spirit, which is not an external thing, but an inward witness that we are joined to Christ.
- We are God’s holy people, not because we have the power to be holy. But God has made us holy by our unity with Christ. This is our identity! Take hold of this identity.
Paul wants us to understand all these things so that we understand that God will use his power to help us.
Residue from Day 1:
Here’s something I ask you to bear in mind: We each have different versions of what the Bible calls ‘flesh’. The flesh is basically the evil and selfish desires that spring from our bodies. Men and women are normally very different in their sinful desires. And even among Christians of the same sex, one sin may be highly adictive to you, but not to your fellow brother or sister. This means that Bible verses that I will share which mean so much to me may not ring any bells for you. If so, I hope you will still find basic principles in my presentation that will apply powerfully to you.
I think that it is important to remove a faulty excuse for persistent sin that many people use.
In Romans 7:24 Paul says,
“Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
Please do not take the end of Romans 7 to negate what Paul was saying in chapter 6 and 8! The theme of chapter 6 is given by the NLT translators in the section heading, “Sin’s Power is Broken.” And Romans 6:6 is a key verse for buckling the belt of truth:
“We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives.”
Here’s why readers have been confused by Romans 7:24:
In Rom. 7:5-6, Paul brings up a difficult concept:
“For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the lawThen starting in verse 7, Paul explains how the law gets involved in our ‘living in the flesh’. Note that for 17 verses more, Paul carries on for an uncharacteristically long time without mentioning Christ. That’s because he is either talking about how living in the flesh works out for someone who doesn’t know Christ, or someone who forgets about Christ and reverts to living in the flesh., were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.”
But Paul doesn’t leave us wallowing in our fleshly weaknesses (in 7:24-25) with ‘Wretched man that I am’, but quickly returns to his victorious theme. In chapter 8:2 he says:
“For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”
And then he begins to talk about living in the Spirit. Clearly, we are supposed to start having victory because of the Spirit. Understanding our spiritual position plus the help of the Spirit allows us to ‘put to death’ various sins that beset us.
Yes, I must admit that as long as we are in our bodies, we will stumble. We are ‘saints’ (holy people) who occasionally still fall into sin. However, overwhelming victory over fleshly sin is available to us. Don’t be satisfied with falling back to being a ‘wretched man’ or woman like Romans 7:24 when you have the riches of chapter 8 available!
THEME: Buckle up the belt of truth regarding your PRESENT RESURRECTION LIFE.
Readings:
ROM.6.1-14, 8:10-13; 12:1-2
2CO.5.14-15
GAL.2.19-20
COL.2.11-15
COL.3.1-11
EPH2.6
There are basically four steps to buckling the belt of truth:
Realize: Be alert when reading the Bible for truths that are presented as true for believers in Christ, but which seem too good to be true. Note them down, and check out translations like the NLT, GNT, and NET to make sure you are understanding what the Scripture says.
Ask God to help you overcome your difficulty in believing the truth you have discovered. It may be appropriate to ask God to help you discover if strong opposing ideas are coming from demonic influence or previous sins that you should confess.
Meditate on the scriptural truth you are working to internalize. Imagine how your life would be different if you started to live according to that truth.
Take any steps the Holy Spirit gives you to put your new identity into practice.
Today’s topic for belt-buckling is our resurrection life in unity with Christ. This goes along with Romans 6:6 that we just read:
“We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives.”
Being ‘crucified with Christ’ of course means that in some sense we have died. There’s a truth that will definitely bounce off your mind! It will go in one ear and right out the other. This is because we are dealing with a spiritual reality, not something that we can see with physical eyes or understand with earthly minds.
It will often help to consult a meaning based translation when we deal with spiritual realities. Let me illustrate from my experience in Indonesia. I was speaking to a small congregation and I read Colossians 3:1-3 in the default Indonesian literal translation. You’ll understand better if I read the ESV:
3:1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
There was a man on the second row who must have been an elder in the church, and I put him on the spot. I said to him, “This verse says, ‘For you have died’. Have you died?” And he replied, “No.”
So I asked someone else to read the verses again and I again asked the man, “Sir, this verse in your Bible says ‘You have died.’ Have you died?” And he again said, “No.”
I would have been smiling by now, because I knew this would help me make my point. I said, “This verse says ‘You have died’. Is there a spiritual way that you have died?” “Oh,” he said, “well yes, if you put it that way!”
The next thing I would have done is to read our translation, which makes the verse much clearer. So let’s read the NLT for those verses:
Col. 3:1 Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 2 Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. 3 For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.
Our first step that I mentioned above is to realize that this truth is something every Christian is supposed to believe. I hope you will take steps 2 and 3, namely Asking God how to do this and Meditating on this truth. But we are helped significantly in step 4, as Paul gives us steps to follow in the next part of Colossians 3. For now, I am leaving those as homework.
Let’s go back to Colossians 2 to pick up more important ideas about how God releases us from our fleshly weaknesses.
Col. 2:11 NLT When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature. 12 For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.
In verse 11, we see a different spiritual reality: That of our receiving a spiritual circumcision. This invisible circumcision was performed by Christ, and putting two and two together, I conclude that his own crucifixion is what made this possible. Verse 12 is linked with the word ‘For’, describing how this circumcision takes place.
2:12 For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.
So in chapter 3, Paul says we died, and here in chapter 2, we have been buried with Christ when we were baptized. This is exactly what Romans 6 says also. Note that the spiritual reality of our spiritual death and resurrection is so important that God gave a command for all believers to be baptized, so that all believers would have the physical experience of baptism to remind them. We can see the picture in the Lord’s supper, where we take the symbols of Jesus’ death right into our bodies. We in effect become unified with the Lord in that sacrement (John 6:56).
We see our spiritual death in Jesus’ words in Mark 8:34: “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.”
Look deeper and you will find this concept in so many places. It turns out that if we are to be ‘born again’ (as in John 3), then it implies that something fatal has happened to our old life. Consider the details: We are born again ‘of water and the Spirit’. (John 3:5)
I love the powerful implications of our being ‘crucified with Christ’ in Romans 12:1-2.
Rom. 12:1-2 NLT And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. 2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
In our Plain Indonesian Translation we found it more powerful to translate ‘give your bodies to God’ as a promise spoken directly to God: “O God, I offer up my body as a sacrifice to You.” I suggest that you, my listener, say that out loud: “O God, I offer up my body as a sacrifice to You.”
Now notice that your having made that commitment is the prerequisite for verse 2! This is the way that we ‘let God transform’ us into new people! We become transformed in our minds. We will think differently. There is an added bonus promise: We will discover God’s will for us, “which is good and pleasing and perfect.”
I think by now you will agree with me. This is what we want! And I hope that I have proved that this spiritual reality of our being crucified with Christ and resurrected by the Spirit is the key to our transformation.
Unlock this transformation by following the steps of Realizing, Asking God for his help, Meditating on this spiritual reality, and Taking the steps given to you by the Spirit and guided by passages like Colossians 3. Do those things while reading these passages:
ROM.6.1-14, 8:10-13; 12:1-2
2CO.5.14-15
GAL.2.19-20
COL.2.11-15
COL.3.1-11
EPH2.6
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
A few years ago I published a YouVersion reading plan entitled Buckling the belt of truth. In this podcast I’m reissuing the first episode of that reading plan.
Here I am at 72. I'm beginning to not be so surprised at my own age. Being so very elderly, perhaps it is time to share some grandfatherly advice.
Maybe I have some of you fooled. Some of you may think that an elder missionary like me has it all together and that I don't ever sin. You might think that I have conquered all weaknesses and no longer have episodes of sinful thoughts. You would be wrong. And I suspect that I don’t fool everyone. People who really know me have seen my weaknesses.
However, if I am working with the right information, a lot of you have struggles with sin the same way I do. So let me start by calling our attention again to these frequently quoted verses:
2 Peter 1:3-4 NLT'15
3 By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. 4 And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.
2 Peter 1:3-4 ESV:
3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
Those are great verses, but they leave me asking, even crying out, “Which promises?! I don't think I have “escaped the world's corruption” yet! Have I been overlooking a key promise somewhere?!”
Peter follows verses 3-4 by urging his readers to take steps for spiritual maturity found in verses 5-8. While Peter gives great advice in those verses (which I hope you will study), I still keep coming back to verses 3-4 and asking, “How do I put golden promises found somewhere in the Bible into effect?— so that through them, I can ‘share in God’s divine nature’ and truly ‘escape’ from bondage to sinful desires. What are the practical steps to do that?” Where can I find the promises that unlock moral excellence and self-control?
Just like any college curriculum, before you start advanced courses, you need to take the prerequisites. So also, for you to get the most from this study, here are the prerequisites.
- This study is for true believers in Christ who are mature enough in following Jesus to have experienced the frustration I just explained above.
- The 5-7 studies I am starting with this session won’t be much help to you if you are living in gross disobedience to basic commands in God’s Word. Using an extreme example, if you make your living by stealing packages, you need to get an honest job before taking this course. This course is for those seeking spiritual maturity. The first step in becoming a maturing follower of Jesus is for you to repent of all openly disobedient life-styles.
- Another foundational step toward maturity is being a member of a local Bible-believing church, being baptized, and taking part in the Lord’s supper with your fellow believers. I can imagine some readers complaining about my saying this. I urge you to understand that membership in an organized fellowship of believers is a baked-in part of how God designed humans to live. The picture of community life starts in Genesis and goes through the whole Bible. You will not be successful in your quest for spiritual maturity if you are attempting to live as a Lone Ranger Christian. Other readers will say, “I don’t want to be a lone ranger, but there isn’t a Bible believing church near me.” I recognize that finding a church that is faithfully teaching the Bible will become increasingly difficult at this time— especially in some countries, but also anywhere in the increasingly post-Christian world. Look for a home fellowship that you can join.
- Finally, an important foundational prerequisite step is to cultivate a scheduled Bible reading habit.
If you fit this profile, please continue to listen/read.
- My first step to finding the golden promises Peter mentioned and escaping moral corruption is to Put on the belt of truth. This is one of seven parts to the Christian’s armor found in Ephesians 6. But I suggest that we make this clarification: Buckle the belt of truth by believing what God says about you in the Bible.
NLT'07 Ephesians 6:14:
14 Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth …
If you are a Christian, you believe a lot of true things already about Christ and the Bible. (You believe Christ came to earth to save us. You believe the Bible is God’s message to us.) But do you reject believing other things the Bible says about you? If you do, it is like putting on a belt— putting it through your belt loops, but not buckling it. So let’s learn how to buckle the belt of truth.
In this lesson, I want to sensitize you to realize when you don’t actually believe it when the Bible says incredibly awesome things about YOU as a believer in Christ.
Having the realization is often the hardest part. After that, ask God to renew your mind to fully accept the new truth.
Let’s make one thing clear about believing. Believing isn’t something that just sort of happens. Believing is an act of the will. You decide if you believe something or believe in Somebody, or not. This is why in Scripture we read that God commanded people to believe and do what He told them, and He punished them for a stubborn refusal to believe His commands.
Just look at the people of Israel who followed Moses all the way from Egypt and through the wilderness. They got all the way to the border of the promised land, knowing all the time what they would have to do. But when the Lord, “Now it’s time to enter and conquer that land,” they said, “Surely you couldn’t mean us!”
Let’s go back to where we started. Peter said, “he (God) has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.
Here’s the basic principle I hope you will learn: When you encounter ‘great and precious promises’ in your Bible reading, telling you about wonderful things God has done for you or given to you, ask God to make those things real to you. Ask him to open your mind to receive that truth about you, and help you live in the light of that truth. You will need to pray asking God for such help, because for your whole life, Satan and his friends have been feeding lies to you.
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Now let’s turn to Ephesians 1. You might want to follow the episode notes so that you can see the words I have highlighted.
NLT'15 Ephesians 1:1-23:
1 This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. I am writing to God’s holy people in Ephesus, who are faithful followers of Christ Jesus.
2 May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.
This letter written to the normal believers in Ephesus, is therefore written to us too. For now let’s skip the idea that Paul called them ‘holy people’, because Paul comes back to that idea more than once below.
3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. 4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. 6 So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. 7 He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. 8 He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.
This paragraph turns our normal understanding upside down. I think that most people think of God as the angry judge that will destroy us. But these verses have God as the actor doing all these wonderful things, which are too many for me to comment on now. Let me highlight just two of them: God loves us and called us in advance. Change what you think about God and yourself: Tell this truth to yourself: God loves even me. God called me long ago, before I was born (amazingly, before He made the world).
Let’s claim another truth here: As a believer in Christ, you are united with Christ. A literal translation will say, ‘in Christ’. Jesus spoke of this unity when He said, “I am the vine and you are the branches.” (John 15:5)
NLT'07 John 15:4:
4 Remain in me (joined to me), and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.
This idea of being ‘joined’ to Christ (or ‘in Christ) is spoken of in many places in Paul’s writing, and it becomes one of the themes of this letter. But, dear friend, it’s time for you to start believing this idea about yourself! This is a key concept in believing that you are accepted as ‘holy’ in God’s sight. If you see yourself as separate from Christ, sadly, you will act like you are not connected to Christ.
Now with this connection, we also have the reason we are holy. It’s not that we are in any natural sense ‘saints’, but we have been made holy by Christ. We have received his holiness.
Out of the incredible richness of this paragraph, I want to pull out one more gem. God has adopted you and me into his family. In the Greek Paul used a legal term here which means you have been given ‘sonship’ or ‘legally adopted as a son’. In Roman law, the adoption of a son could not be undone. It was permanent. (Ladies, in this spiritual reality, don’t let the male gender of this term rob you from considering yourself permanently adopted.) Dear friend, it's time to revise how you think of yourself. You’re not a nobody. You’re not unloved. You are a permanent member of the most powerful royal family!
Let’s skip down to the middle of v.13.
9 God has now revealed to us his mysterious will regarding Christ— which is to fulfill his own good plan. 10 And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ— everything in heaven and on earth. 11 Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan.
12 God’s purpose was that we Jews who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God. 13 And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. 14 The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.
Think about this: God has given you a guarantee that he is going to give you a wonderful inheritance. Stop saying, “Well, as long as I get to heaven I don’t need an inheritance.” God wants us to think about that inheritance. It is healthy for us to think longingly for our inheritance in heaven.
Our guarantee is not some flimsy card that we will misplace. Our guarantee is the presence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts! Our text says, “when you believed in Christ, he (God) identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit,”
It is crucial that you have a sense of belonging to God given by the Holy Spirit. Think of how personal and intimate is this bond we now have with God. I think you will find that this intimate bond is something you want to keep. This is one of our main motivations in seeking to live a holy life in God’s sight.
NLT'07 Romans 8:9:
9 … (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.)
It’s no wonder that in the John 15 passage we quoted about Jesus being the vine and we the branches, He mentions prayer:
NLT'07 John 15:7:
7 But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted!
If we aren’t praying, then we aren’t believing the truths I just listed for you.
15 Ever since I first heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for God’s people everywhere, 16 I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, 17 asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. 18 I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called— his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.
19 I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power 20 that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. 21 Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else— not only in this world but also in the world to come. 22 God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church. 23 And the church is his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself.
Power points:
- God is for us and loves us. God is the actor for most of this chapter. This love from God the Father is counter-intuitive for us. We won’t believe it unless we realize our lack of belief and pray to God asking Him to make it real to us.
- God went to great lengths to put his plan into action. This gives us great confidence that we have really been called by Him. We are one with Him, joined to Him.
- We are united to Christ, so much so that He considers us actually part of his body.
- We have a powerful guarantee, the Holy Spirit, which is not an external thing, but an inward witness that we are joined to Christ.
- We are God’s holy people, not because we have the power to be holy. But God has made us holy by our unity with Christ. This is our identity! Take this identity. Believe and preserve this identity by taking care of the unity you have with the Holy Spirit.
- Paul wants us to understand all these things so that we understand that God will use his power to help us.
Homework:
| 2PE.1.3-4 | EPH.6.10-18 | EPH.1 | EPH.2.1-10 |
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Actual YouVersion reading plan text:
THEME: Buckle the belt of truth by fully believing WHAT GOD SAYS ABOUT YOU.
Verses like 2 Peter 1:3-4 often left me asking questions:
Which promises? I don't think I have ‘escaped the world's corruption’ yet! Have I been overlooking the key promise somewhere?! How do I put the promises into effect? How can be a ‘partaker of the divine nature and escape’ …’?
The verses that I am sharing in this reading plan are the best answers I have found to those questions. The verses in these readings include the Biblical term ‘flesh’— which might be translated in your Bible as ‘sinful desires’, or ‘sinful human nature’. The ‘flesh’ is basically the evil and selfish desires that spring from our bodies. We are all different in our ‘fleshly’ weaknesses, but the Bible holds the keys to victory for everyone.
First of all, it is important to remove a common excuse for sin. In Romans 7:24 Paul exclaims, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Paul is NOT negating what he says in chapter 6 and 8 by that desperate cry. (The second half of chapter 7 is Paul’s explanation of 7:5-6.) The burden of the whole passage is that we are to no longer to live as slaves of sin (6:6, 8:2).
Let’s take a look at all the spiritual armor that God gives us in Ephesians 6:10-18. I want to focus on the ‘belt of truth (6:14). But I want to first draw an analogy with the ‘helmet of ‘salvation’ (6:17). If you BELIEVE you have been SAVED, you are wearing the helmet of SALVATION!
In a similar way, to buckle on the ‘belt of truth’ (6:14), BELIEVE what God says ABOUT YOU. There is lots of correct doctrine that you can believe— and that is all part of the belt of truth, but if you are preparing for spiritual war against wicked spiritual forces, you haven’t actually buckled the belt around your waist until you BELIEVE what God’s Word says about YOURSELF!
For practice, read Ephesians 1:1-2:10, asking God in prayer to help you believe what these verses say about you as a believer in Christ. Claim everything Paul says about ‘you’, ‘we’, or ‘us’ in these verses. Clothe yourself with the amazing truths about YOU/US found in this passage.
JUDGES 20-21:
In yesterday's reading, the people of Dan took all the items in Micah's household shrine and Micah's Levite priest. The priest’s name was given at the end of the chapter. He was the grandson of Moses! And then the Danites slaughtered the unsuspecting residents of Laish, forgetting about the law about giving terms of surrender before attacking. Then we heard of the unnamed Levite and his concubine (meaning, additional inferior-status wife). Nothing happened according to God's will in this story. While the author says nothing negative about any of the characters, all had their faults. However, the Levite stands out as a terrible husband. And what happened at Gibeah— as we will see today— became the basis for Israel's first civil war.
PSALM 88:
This poem is perhaps the most-dark of all the despairing psalms. One encouragement to us is that God has now revealed things about our hope of heaven which were unknown to the writer. This psalm offers no hope or encouragement. But the presence of Psalm 88 in Scripture gives us permission when in our darkest depression to come to God in prayer speaking words like found here.
1TIMOTHY 4:
Yesterday in the 3rd chapter of First Timothy we heard one of the key passages in God's Word on the qualifications of church leaders. The chapter ended with a fragment of an early worship song.
GNT Translation notes:
1Tim. 4:1 The Spirit says clearly that [in later times//0] some people will abandon [their belief in true teachings//the faith] [0//in later times]; they will obey lying spirits and follow the teachings of demons.
6 If you give these instructions to the believers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus[. As the Lord’s servant, you must become increasingly mature in all the teachings that help us to believe more fully— like the good teachings that you already follow.//, as you feed yourself spiritually on the words of faith and of the true teaching which you have followed. ]
11 Give [the believers//them] these instructions and [0//these] teachings.
12 Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young, but be an example for the believers in your speech, your conduct, your love, [in fully believing true teachings//faith], and purity.
16 Watch yourself and watch your teaching. Keep on doing these things, because if you do, you will save both yourself and those who hear you.
Verses with ‘conscience’:1:5 The purpose of this order is to arouse the love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and [(sincerely) believing in true teaching (without pretending/hypocrisy)//a genuine faith].
3:9 [PET they must believe fully in the true teachings which God has revealed to us, and must live with a clear conscience.
1:19 and [to keep on believing in true teaching//keep your faith] and [to live with] a clear conscience. Some people have not listened to their conscience and [have wrecked their minds so that they are no longer able to believe in true teaching//have made a ruin of their faith].
4:2 Such teachings are spread by deceitful liars, whose consciences are dead, as if burnt with a hot iron.
JUDGES 18-19:
In Judges yesterday, we heard the famous and tragic story of Samson and Delilah. Victory, in that case, was not ‘sweet’. Then we heard the start of the story about Micah and the not so nice background of his personal idols and shrine. This is the first time so far in Judges where we have heard the repeated theme sentence of this book, “In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.” (17:6)
PSALM 87:
This is a prophetic psalm. The writer gives a picture of what is foretold in Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Revelation about the glory of the New Jerusalem. Every tribe, tongue, and nation will be found there because they will have come to know the Lord.
1TIMOTHY 3:
In chapter 2, Paul began his discussion of what Timothy should teach the congregation with the topic of prayer. We pray according to God's will if we pray for the salvation of others. God is always pleased with this prayer because we mirror his own heart. However the words of this chapter should not be twisted to say that every single person will be saved, or that the saving sacrifice that Jesus made will cover people who refuse to believe the Gospel. Chapter 2 also contains a part of Paul’s teaching about women, including that they should place high importance on being clothed with good deeds, and should dress and act sensibly and modestly. They are not to seek to take authority over men.
GNT Translation notes:
1Tim. 3:6 He must be mature in [believing (our true teaching/in Christ//the faith], so that he will not swell up with pride and be condemned, as the Devil was.
9 [PET they must believe fully in the true teachings which God has revealed to us, and must live with a clear conscience.//they should hold to the revealed truth of the faith with a clear conscience.]
13 Those helpers who do their work well win for themselves a good standing and are able to speak boldly [to others about believing in Christ Jesus//about their faith in Christ Jesus].
16 No one can deny how great is the secret of our religion:
[Christ//He] appeared in human form,
was shown to be right by the Spirit,
and was seen by angels.
He was preached among the nations,
was believed in throughout the world,
and was taken up to heaven.
JUDGES 16-17:
Yesterday we heard of Samson's disastrous marriage and his first major victory over the Philistines. Ways in which Samson disobeyed God's Laws are that he touched and even ate from a carcass, he murdered people when not at war, and he associated with pagans and even married one of them. In spite of this, God used him as a tool.
PSALM 86:
In this psalm, David models effective prayer. Let’s follow his example!
1TIMOTHY 2:
Yesterday we started Paul’s first letter to Timothy. As I said yesterday, this is a personal letter to Timothy, and it is one of the groups of letters called the Pastoral Epistles or sometimes called the 5 T’s. Central to the Pastoral Epistles is Paul’s concern for true teaching in the church, and he especially stressed avoiding the controversies that at that time came from Jewish background believers. These letters often include a listing of various things, and one example is the list of the types of lawlessness in chapter one. Paul frequently mentions how important it is for believers to keep a clear conscience. And chapter one also contained one of several Pastoral ‘trustworthy sayings’. A more unique point for chapter one is that Paul called himself the ‘chief of sinners’.
GNT Translation notes:
1Tim. 2:7 and that is why I was sent as an apostle and teacher of the Gentiles, to proclaim [true teaching to them so that they may become believers.//the message of faith and truth.] [I promise that] I am not lying; I am telling the truth!
15 [Verse 15 is particularly difficult to translate. NLT is a good translation, but it makes it sound like Christian women must bear at least one child in order to be saved: “But women will be saved through childbearing, assuming they continue to live in faith, love, holiness, and modesty.”
15 GNT But a woman will be saved through having children, if she perseveres in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.
2.15: will be saved through having children; or will be kept safe through childbirth.
**2.15: if she perseveres; or if they persevere.
I offer the PET as an alternative: “As a result of that sin, the female descendants of Eve fall under the punishment God gave of having pain in childbirth. But even so, God is ready to help and save each woman— if she keeps fully believing in Him, does loving acts, and lives a holy and [self-controlled//wise] life.”
Cross reference and footnote in the PET: See Gen. 3:1-13. This verse can also be translated, “Even so, God will make each woman safe when giving birth to children— as long as she keeps fully believing in Him, does loving acts, and lives a holy and sensible life.”]
Additional commentary:
In 2015, a woman wrote after hearing this chapter complaining about Paul’s attitude toward women. I hope I can help some listeners by saying this: If you do not like what Paul wrote here, consider that Paul knew the audience was writing to. Compare what Paul said in Ephesians 5 with what Peter said in 1 Peter 3, and note how Paul lovingly wrote in this same letter about taking care of widows. It can be shown that Scripture played an important role in history to raise the position of both women and slaves. If you are interested in this general topic, you might also be interested in the translation note for verse 15 in the episode notes for today.
Let me tell the story of a missionary who served with me in Indonesia. Before Ron Kriens was a Christian and was working as a bus driver in a big city, he was impressed by Jesus’ resurrection and reputation as a teacher, so he was willing to accept Jesus’ words, and at first would only read Jesus’ teachings. But then he found that Jesus said that after his death, the Holy Spirit would lead his disciples into all truth. So he read books penned by Jesus’ disciples, John and Peter. Then he discovered that Peter respected Paul’s writings as Scripture. (2Ptr. 3) And finally, at some point, I know that he realized how important understanding the Old Testament is to understanding the New Testament. I tell Ron’s story to say this: God’s Word is a unity. The very coherence of the message is wonderful proof of God’s sovereignly in controlling the writings which have come down to us. We will find the most joy and peace in submitting to our sovereign Creator fully and not rejecting any part of His Word.
JUDGES 14-15:
Yesterday we heard the conclusion of Jephthah's six years as a judge of Israel. Then we heard briefly of three more judges, and then about the miracles preceding the birth of Samson.
PSALM 85:
This psalm is one appropriate at any time and to anyone. There are hidden nuggets of spiritual gold here— deep truths that are worth digging for.
1TIMOTHY 1:
Yesterday in the final chapter of Galatians, Paul continued what he was saying (from chapter 5) about the contrast between being led by God's Spirit versus allowing our sinful natures to lead us. And Paul returned to something he said in chapter two, explaining the figure of being crucified with Christ. It means being so much in union with Christ as to consider ourselves dead to this world. Paul had marks on his body that were much more valuable than circumcision, and those were the scars he had gained as a representative of Christ.
Today we turn to Paul’s first letter to Timothy. This contrasts with the letter we have just finished in that it is personal correspondence written to Paul’s disciple. Timothy was so dear to Paul that he considered him a son. Paul had given Timothy— who was still a young man, the task of shepherding the church at Ephesus. This book is important for the personal advice, for personal insight given about Paul, for insight into church leadership, and for the sound teachings for us to follow.
GNT Translation notes:
Ps. 85:2 [CEV You have forgiven the sin
and taken away the guilt
of your people.//
You have forgiven your people's sins
and pardoned all their wrongs.]
3 [CEV Your fierce anger is no longer
aimed at us.//You stopped being angry with them
and held back your furious rage.]
8 I am listening to what [You, O Lord God are//the Lord God is] saying;
You promise//he promises] peace to us, [your//his] own people,
if we do not go back to our foolish ways.
9 Surely [You are//he is] ready to save [us//those] who honor [You//him],
and [your//his] saving presence will remain in our land.
11 [CEV Loyalty will sprout
from the ground;
justice will look down
from the sky above.
//Human loyalty will reach up from the earth,
and God's righteousness will look down from heaven.]
12 [You, O Lord//The Lord] will make us prosperous,
and our land will produce rich harvests.
13 [Righteousness is like a path spread out before You, Lord—
And that is the road You will always follow.
//Righteousness will go before the Lord
and prepare the path for him.
====
1Tim. 1:2 [To Timothy. You are like my own dear son because we share the same true beliefs.//To Timothy, my true son in the faith:]
May God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord give you grace, mercy, and peace.
4 Tell them to give up those legends and those long lists of ancestors, which only produce arguments; they do not serve God's plan, which is known by [believing (sound teachings/God’s Word)//faith].
5 The purpose of this order is to arouse the love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and [(sincerely) believing in true teaching (without pretending/hypocrisy)//a genuine faith].
13 even though in the past I spoke evil of him and persecuted and insulted him. But God was merciful to me because I did not yet [believe in the Lord//have faith] and so did not know what I was doing.
14 And our Lord poured out his abundant grace on me and [enabled me to believe in Him//gave me the faith] and [to love all who are joined//love which are ours] in union with Christ Jesus.
18 Timothy, my [son//child], I entrust to you this command, which is in accordance with the words of prophecy spoken in the past about you. Use those words as weapons in order to fight well,
19 and [to keep on believing in true teaching//keep your faith] and [to live with] a clear conscience. Some people have not listened to their conscience and [have wrecked their minds so that they are no longer able to believe in true teaching//have made a ruin of their faith].
JUDGES 12-13:
Yesterday, after hearing of three minor judges, we heard of Jephthah. Jephthah was a man of very poor credentials, but he turned out to be a surprisingly good leader. His story shows clearly why it is better not to make rash vows to the Lord. Indeed, the New Testament tells us to not make vows at all.
PSALM 84:
This favorite psalm has inspired many worship songs. Note the theme of joy!
GALATIANS 5:22-6:
Building on the concept of freedom from requirements of the Law in chapter 4, Paul continued on that theme in chapter 5. (Of course there were no chapter boundaries when he wrote his letter!) The freedom Paul described is founded on the idea that we are now controlled by the Holy Spirit. A second very important concept is considering ourselves dead to sinful desires and deeds which were enumerated at the end of chapter 5.
GNT Translation notes:
13:18 The angel [said//asked], “Why do you want to know my name? It is a name of wonder.”
19 So Manoah took a young goat and some grain, and offered them on [a rock//the rock altar] to the Lord [, and the Lord did an amazing thing://who works wonders.]
Ps. 84:2 How I want to be there! I long to be in [your Temple, O Lord//the Lord's Temple]. With my whole being I sing for joy to the living God.
3 Even the sparrows have built a nest,
and the swallows have their own home [in your Temple];
they keep their young near your altars,
Lord Almighty, my king and my God.
7 They grow stronger as they go;
they will see [You,] the God of gods on Zion.
10 One day spent in your Temple is better than a thousand anywhere else; I would rather stand at the gate of [your house, O my God,//the house of my God] than live in the homes of the wicked.
11 [You, Lord are//The Lord is] our protector and glorious king, blessing us with kindness and honor. [You do//He does] not refuse any good thing to [us//those] who do what is right.
====
Gal. 6:10 So then, as often as we have the chance, we should do good to everyone, and especially to [our brothers and sisters who believe the same things we have taught you.\those who belong to our family in the [same way of faith.
13 Even those who practice circumcision do not obey the Law; they want you to be circumcised [only] so that they can boast that you submitted to this physical ceremony.
JUDGES 10-11:
Yesterday we heard the conclusion of the story of Gideon. It is a pity that Gideon was so successful, but that a half-son and unfaithful people ruined his legacy. I am always very disappointed that Gideon so quickly turns to idolatry after God has worked so fantastically through him. The whole story, including the part about Abimelech, supports the verse which says, “Whatever you sow, that is also what you will reap.”
PSALM 83:
This is a psalm asking God to stop being silent when Israel was praying for relief from their enemies. And we now have the background to understand the names mentioned by Asaph.
GALATIANS 5:
In chapter 4, Paul continued to use Old Testament pictures to show the teaching that is central to this book: Gentiles do not need to be circumcised because we have been freed from the Law of Moses. We do not need to earn favor with God. We have already been adopted as sons and are considered heirs of God's promises. Proof of this is that the Spirit of Jesus is in our hearts.
Remember that in Greek, ‘faith’ and ‘believe’ have the same root word. Most other English words— like ‘operate’ and ‘operation’, show their root word similarity. It is an unfortunate quirk of English that it doesn’t work that way for ‘believe’ and ‘faith’. To help you see the cohesion and how Paul is harping on this one concept, I suggest reading this book substituting ‘fully believe’ for ‘faith’.
GNT Translation notes:
Gal. 5:4 Those of you who try to be put right with God by obeying the Law have cut yourselves off from Christ. You [have fallen away from//have become outsiders to//are outside] God's grace.
5 As for us, our hope is that God will put us right with him[self]; and this is what we wait for by the power of God's Spirit working through our [believing//faith].
6For when we are in union with Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor the lack of it makes any difference at all; what matters is [full belief//belief in Christ//faith] that works through love.
15 But if you act like wild animals, [biting//hurting] and harming each other, then watch out, or you will completely [devour//destroy] one another.
JUDGES 8-9:
Yesterday we heard of Gideon who led Israel in a miraculous victory over the hoards of Midian using only three hundred men. Gideon struggled with believing that God would actually use him, and God was amazingly patient with Gideon— giving him sign after sign. Because of this, Gideon really is not the best example for us to follow of how to trust God and live a life of faith.
PSALM 82:
Do you ever get upset about injustice on earth? Here is a psalm for you.
GALATIANS 4:
The Jews called non-Jews ‘sinners’ because they did not follow the Law of Moses. But the Jewish Christians themselves also become ‘sinners’ if they leave the old system of relying on the Law, but then require non-Jews to be circumcised. The important thing is to be joined as one with Christ, not simply being followers of a religion. Being joined to Christ means dying (considering ourselves to be dead) to old things (including religious practices).
Yesterday in the 3rd chapter of Galatians we heard an important teaching about the purpose of the Law. The Law did not replace the promise that was given to Abraham. And the way for us to follow Abraham and become heirs to the promise given to Abraham (even if we are not his physical descendants) is through _fully believing_ as Abraham did.
GNT Translation notes:
Jdg. 9:49 So everyone cut off a tree limb; then they followed Abimelech and piled the wood up against the stronghold. They set it on fire, with the people inside, and all the people [in//of] the fort died—about a thousand men and women.
Ps. 82:5 “How ignorant you [you oppressors] are! How stupid! You are completely corrupt, and justice has disappeared from the world.
Gal. 4:5 to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might become God's [sons//children].
[Paul uses the legal Roman law term for the adoption of sons. By their law, such adoption was irrevocable! Men feel squeamish at being included in the Bride of Christ. So in this case, ladies, I suggest that it is good for you to rejoice that you are included as having the rights of sons. This same term occurs in Rom. 8:15, 8:23, 9:4, and Eph. 1:5.]
6 To show that you are his [sons//children], God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who cries out, “Father, my Father.”
7 So then, you are no longer a slave but a [son//child]. And since you are his [son//child], God will give you all that he has for his [sons//children].
Gal. 4:9 But now that you know God—or, I should say, now that God [acknowledges you (as his children)//knows you]— [it makes no sense that you would//how is it that you] want to turn back to those weak and pitiful ruling spirits[ that I just mentioned.//?] Why do you want to become their slaves all over again?
JUDGES 6-7:
Yesterday we heard the story of Deborah and Barak. (Say, that name sounds familiar!) Barak doesn't get the glory for his notable defeat of Israel's enemy, Sisera. Instead the crowning glory goes to a woman named Jael, who happened to see a new use for a tent peg. The poem in chapter 5 includes taunts to Israel's tribes who ‘sat on their hands’ and didn't get involved in the war.
PSALM 81:
This poem has a mysterious part in verse 5, where an unknown voice (or perhaps ‘language’) speaks to us. But immediately afterward the unknown voice clearly belongs God, who speaks in the first person to us.
GALATIANS 3:
Review 2:17-21 in the PET:
17 But there are Jews who believe in Christ who still don’t understand the way we are made right in God’s sight— which is only through union with Christ. For them, if we no longer depend on the Law to become right in God’s sight, we’ve become ‘sinners’. That’s definitely wrong! Becoming a follower of Christ definitely doesn’t mean that we’ve become ‘sinners’! 18 For we in the past taught, “Let’s become right in God’s sight by depending on Christ.” If we now teach, “Turn away from Christ and depend on the Law again,” it becomes very evident that we really are ‘sinners’! 19 And this is what I’ve experienced: When I tried in my own strength to obey the whole Law, I finally realized that I’m not able to do it, and would die in my sin. But it was in that despair that I realized the gift of God through Christ— which is eternal life. Now I consider that I’ve been crucified with Christ. 20 That means that I no longer control my life, but Christ is the One who is living in and through me. Now I live my whole life in this worldly body only through believing in the Son of God, who loved me so much that He gave Himself to redeem me. 21 So I reject turning away from the kindness of God which we receive through our union with Christ in order to go back to work to be made right in God's sight based on the Law. For if we suppose that mankind can be made right by obeying the Law, then it was useless for Christ to die for us!
GNT Translation notes:
[I have explained before that faith and believe are the same thing in Greek, just the noun and verb form of the same root (pistis). Faith has taken on all kinds of fuzzy and wrong meaning in modern English usage. To maintain Paul’s persistent use of the same term, in the reading today, I will read all instances of ‘faith’ as ‘believing’ or ‘belief’. The verses where I have read with this substitution in chapter 3 are 6-8, 11-12, 14, and 22-26.]
Gal. 3:7 GNT You should realize, then, that the real [sons//descendants] of Abraham are the people who [believe like he did//have faith].
[We will see in chapter 4 that Paul uses the legal Roman law term for the adoption of sons. Even women get adopted and have rights equal to sons.]
Gal. 3:20 [PET However, in the case of God acting alone in giving his promise to Abraham, God Himself gave it directly without an intermediary.//GNT But a go-between is not needed when only one person is involved; and God is one.]
22 [PET Moreover the Scripture says that sin has control over the lives of all men.* So the only way to be saved is by fully believing in Christ Jesus, and through believing, we receive the blessing that God promised to Abraham.//GNT But the scripture says that the whole world is under the power of sin; and so the gift which is promised on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ is given to those who believe.
*Ps. 14:3, 53:4; Rom. 3:9-19]
26 It is through [believing in Christ Jesus//faith] that all of you are God's [sons//children] [and united to Him// in union with Christ Jesus].
JUDGES 4-5:
We heard yesterday that around the time of Joshua's death, an angel appeared to the people of Israel and rebuked them for disobedience. In chapter 2, the author of Judges summarized the fickleness of the people. And in chapter 3 we quickly heard about Othniel, Ehud, and Shamgar— the first three judges.
PSALM 80:
In this poem, Asaph pictures the Lord as a shepherd and Israel like a vine. It is no accident that both of these are also pictures of Jesus in the New Testament. This psalm is marked by the repetition of these words, “Turn us again to yourself, O God of Heaven’s Armies.”
GALATIANS 2:
This chapter contains difficult concepts for many modern readers! It complicates things when Paul repeats the word ‘sinners’ with slightly different shades of meaning while mixing in irony. I suggest that you take a look at our Plain English Translation text below.
JUDGES 2-3:
Yesterday we heard how the tribe of Judah was more successful in driving out the Canaanites than the other tribes. Several of the tribes just moved in with their enemies.
PSALM 79:
This lament by Asaph is like Ps 74, talking about Jerusalem and the Temple conquered by enemies. There is a strong comparison with what we see starting to happen in Judges.
GALATIANS 1:
We heard the controversy over circumcision in Acts 15. This letter to the Galatian believers is on a similar theme, and it shows how Paul would have argued with the Jews of the circumcision party. Paul stays very much on this theme in this book— which in some ways foreshadows some arguments in the book of Romans. Important sections for memorizing include the ‘crucified with Christ’ passages in chapter 2 and 6, and the works of the flesh and fruits of the Holy Spirit in chapter 5. This book makes it perfectly clear that we are not saved by religion.
We are saved by ‘faith’— which means ‘fully believing in Christ’. Do not fall into the trap of choosing between what James says about being saved by works and what Paul says. The two teachings are compatible. The saying taught to me by one of my spiritual fathers (Glen Zumwalt) is this: We are saved by ‘faith alone’; but saving faith will never be ‘alone’.
Paul’s introduction in the first chapter is unique among his letters. He normally starts with praise for the congregation he is writing to. Not in this case! After he expresses his shock at the Galatian church, he goes on to remind them that the Good News they had so quickly abandoned was revealed directly to him by the Lord.
JUDGES 1:
It happens that Psalm 78 is a perfect introduction to the book of Judges! This book covers the dark ages for the nation of Israel, from the time following Joshua’s death to the birth of the last judge, Samuel. HC Mears gives a good easy-to-remember summary: Seven apostasies (times of turning away from God), seven servitudes to seven idolatrous and cruel nations, and seven deliverances. The last verse is the author’s own summary, which is often repeated near the end of the book: “In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.”
PSALM 78b:
Asaph continues his poetic reminder to the people of Israel. In yesterday’s reading, I hope you wondered, “When did the tribe of Ephraim run from battle?” I encourage you to ask questions like that and do a little research. (See the Shovels page at dailybiblereading.info for sites that will give you good answers.) Because this comes up several more times in the OT, I want to tell you this: The Ephraimites were the largest of the northern tribes, and their name came to stand for all of the northern tribes in the time when people distinguished between the kingdom of Judah (in the south)and the kingdom of Israel (in the north). It is likely that there was no specific battle in Asaph’s mind, but that he was using the northern tribes as examples of what happens when the people are unfaithful to God. They refused to be numbered with God’s people in time of national wars.
ACTS 28:
As Paul prophesied, all two hundred and seventy six people on board arrived safely on land, but the ship was lost.
JOSHUA 24:
In yesterday’s reading, Joshua dismissed the three tribes of warriors to return to their homes to the east of the Jordan. But when they went home, they decided to build an altar as a memorial. But their idea was misunderstood, nearly resulting in war.
PSALM 78a:
This poetic recitation of Israel’s history comes at a fitting place in relation to our other Old Testament reading.
ACTS 27b:
In yesterday’s reading, Paul, Luke, and Aristarchus started the voyage to Rome, under the command of a Roman officer named Julius. The captain, ship owner, and sailors didn't listen to Paul's prophetic warning, and disaster was the result.
JOSHUA 22-23:
Yesterday we heard the detailed list of the cities of refuge— the cities set apart for anyone who happened to kill someone accidentally. Following that was the list of the towns that were given to the priests and Levites.
PSALM 77:
This psalm by Asaph was dedicated to Jeduthun, whose name means ‘praise giver’. Asaph worries about this: Has God changed? Why doesn’t He help us like He helped the Israelites in the past? I have chosen again to read this from the CEV rather than from the GNT. The CEV makes it clear that this whole poem is a prayer to God.
ACTS 27:
Yesterday we heard Paul's defense before King Agrippa. Paul didn't hesitate to speak convicting ideas to his own judges. Instead of listening, they stood up and left. They admitted that Paul was innocent, but quite frankly, it must have been more politically expedient to get rid of Paul by sending him away to Caesar— in accordance with Paul's own request.
GNT Translation note:
[HCSB By now much time had passed,//We spent a long time there,] [so that it was//until it became] dangerous to continue the voyage, for by now the Day of Atonement was already past. So Paul gave them this advice:
JOSHUA 20-21:
Yesterday we read the details of land allotment and cities for the remaining seven tribes with their families. Last of all, Joshua himself received a city.
PSALM 76:
It only makes sense to know God and to be firmly on His side. As verse 10 says, “Human defiance only enhances His glory.” The second line of that verse is very unclear in Hebrew. NLT’s translation makes good sense, saying that God uses human defiance as a weapon against the same defiant ones.
ACTS 26:
In yesterday's story in Acts, Festus took his position as governor and tried Paul. Afterward King Agrippa and his sister came, and the stage was set for Paul to defend himself again.
GNT Translation notes:
Ps. 76:1 [You, O God, are known in Judah and your name is honored in Israel.//God is known in Judah; his name is honored in Israel.
2 [You have your//He has his] home in Jerusalem; [You live//he lives] on Mount Zion.
3 There [You//he] broke the arrows of the enemy, their shields and swords, yes, all their weapons.
7 [0//But] you, Lord, are feared by all. No one can stand in your presence when you are angry.
10 [NLH Human defiance only enhances your glory, for you use it as a weapon.//
Human anger only results in more praise for you; those who survive the wars will keep your festivals.]
11 [All you nearby nations,//0] Give the Lord your God what you promised him; bring your gifts to him, [0//all you nearby nations]. God makes everyone fear him;
12 he humbles proud princes and terrifies great kings.
====
Acts 26:18 You are to open their eyes and turn them from the darkness to the light and from the power of Satan to God, so that through [believing//their faith] in me they will have their sins forgiven and receive their place among God's chosen people.’
JOSHUA 18-19:
Yesterday we heard the details about Mannaseh and Ephraim's allotment of land. I suggest that it will be very helpful for your understanding of these chapters in Joshua to do an Internet search for “map tribes Israel.”
[These notes are used for both the podcast listeners and for those who are only reading the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan in the YouVersion app. If you are NOT one of the podcast listeners, and if you don’t enjoy reading lists of names, consider listening to this day’s podcast at http://dailybiblereading.info. Search for _120 on the landing page of the site.]
PSALM 75:
Do you remember what Paul talked to Felix about from yesterday’s reading? Asaph’s psalm takes a similar theme today.
ACTS 25:
Paul's accusers came, and Paul defended himself before the governor. The governor put off making a decision, and never got around to making one. One day at the beginning of that time, he and his Jewish wife came to listen to Paul for a little entertainment. But Felix cut the discussion short when Paul meddled a little too much. Paul stayed there in jail for two long years and never gave a bribe to Felix. Finally, Felix left Paul in prison when he was replaced by Festus.
GNT Translation notes:
Ps. 75:7 it is [You, O God, who are//God who is] the judge, condemning some and acquitting others.
8 [You, Lord, hold a cup in your hand//The Lord holds a cup in his hand], filled with the strong wine of [your//his] anger.
[You pour//He pours] it out, and all the wicked drink it; they drink it down to the last drop.
9 But I will never stop speaking of [You, O God//the God of] Jacob or singing praises to [You//him].
10 [You//He] will break the power of the wicked, but the power of the righteous will be increased.
JOSHUA 16-17:
Yesterday Caleb received his special portion within Judah's allotment of land, and then we heard the detailed list of Judah's boundaries and towns. Chapter 15 may be the most challenging passage in all the Old Testament to read out loud!
PSALM 74:
Could this psalm really have been written by Asaph?! If so, Asaph was a prophet as he seems to describe events that happened hundreds of years later in the Babylonian conquest. It is possible he could have been a 100-year-old man when writing this, speaking of the destruction caused by Pharaoh Shishak. It must also be observed that the attributions in the Psalms were written centuries later than the Psalms themselves and are not to be considered part of the inspired text. (However, I still think that Asaph was a prophet!)
ACTS 24:
A plot was made to kill Paul. Paul's nephew “just happened” to get wind of it. The Roman commander ordered that Paul is taken to the governor in Caesarea.
JOSHUA 14-15:
Yesterday in Joshua we heard an inventory of the kings conquered so far and details about the allotments of land for the 2 1/2 tribes east of the Jordan.
PSALM 73:
This is one of my favorite psalms because it speaks to an intellectual problem that so often bothers me. The turning point is verse 17 in this poem by Asaph.
ACTS 23b:
Paul before the council cried out words that divided the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, as were my ancestors! And I am on trial because my hope is in the resurrection of the dead!” Note that no one said, “But who says that Jesus has risen from the dead?!” The leaders could produce no proof that Jesus had not risen from the dead, and this fact also refuted the teaching of their sect, the sect of the Sadducees. So the resurrection of Jesus touched a very raw nerve for them. In the night, Jesus came personally to encourage Paul.
GNT Translation notes:
Ps. 73:26 My mind and my body may grow weak,
but [You, O my God, are//God is] my strength;
[You are//he is] all I ever need.
28 But as for me, how wonderful to be near [You, O] God,
to find protection with [You,] the Sovereign Lord
and to proclaim all that [You have//he has] done!
JOSHUA 12-13:
As we heard yesterday, God fought for Israel, even causing the sun and moon to stand still. Basically, the main central body of land was conquered in only two campaigns. It is important to remember that the total destruction of the people groups listed was commanded by God because of their disgusting pagan and idolatrous practices. Joshua 10:40 “… This was what the Lord God of Israel had commanded.” See also 11:20.
PSALM 72:
It is clear that this psalm, written by King Solomon— or more likely written about King Solomon, goes beyond Solomon, giving adoration to the King of Kings.
ACTS 23a:
Paul gave his defense from the top of the stairway leading to the military headquarters. In spite of the miracles in his story, the mob was not impressed. It was the word ‘Gentiles’ that caused the final violent reaction.
JOSHUA 10-11:
The king of Ai trusted in appearances and was defeated. And the leaders of Israel trusted in appearances and failed to ask God for guidance, leading to a problem that would later cause more pain.
PSALM 71:
This is a poem written by a senior citizen with examples for our prayers that are appropriate for ‘youth’ of all ages.
ACTS 22:
In the last part of Acts 21, people from Asia recognized Paul and started a riot in the temple. Paul was arrested and now gives his speech to the angry mob.
GNT Translation note:
Acts 22:26 When the officer heard this, he went to the commander and [said to//asked] him, “What are you doing? That man is a Roman citizen!”
[In several places in Luke’s writings irony is unmarked but would have been understood by readers of his day. PET 26 The commander scoffed, “Oh yeah, I’ve heard that one before! Now you’re gonna say, ‘It cost me plenty to buy my citizenship.’”//The commander said, “I became one by paying a large amount of money.”
“But I am one by birth,” Paul answered.]
Hi there, and welcome to this bonus podcast for day 115. I will be discussing the two main types of Bible translations I recommend for most people. As a Bible translator since 1983, I feel that most Christians in the USA are not given enough information about why Bible translations differ in wording, and which kinds of Bible translations will be better for different kinds of readers. This is an important topic, so I am surprised at myself: I can’t believe that I haven’t released a dedicated podcast about this topic every year since 2014. ALSO, please stay tuned for the end of the podcast, because I want to recommend a fantastic new real-book Bible.
Because of more difficult content in this podcast, if you are not driving a car, it would be a great idea to open the episode notes so you can visually follow along and make sure you don’t miss something important. Look especially at the words I have made bold.
There are actually five types of Bible translations, but I will mainly discuss the two most-used types in this podcast. But let’s start with showing the two types with a translation example that is not from the Bible.
Consider this sentence:
Jill looked like a deer caught in the headlights when she heard Jack’s proposal.
Now let’s imagine a word-for-word translation for some language in Africa. Since we don’t know a language like that, let’s pretend we do and make a word-for-word translation into English. Here is my suggestion for that:
Jill appeared like a trapped gazelle in bright light upon hearing Jack’s desire.
What we have in this example (caught in the headlights) is a figure of speech. Americans rather frequently use this figure of speech. But a word-for-word translation for the hypothetical African audience would very likely be tricky for them to understand. They might not know what a gazelle would do if a bright light shone upon them. (For that matter, I don’t know if gazelle’s act like deer do when meeting with bright lights.) I think an African might understand “Jill appeared like a gazelle trapped in bright light” to be a gazelle trapped with a metal trap, in pain, and struggling to get loose when the bright light suddenly shines upon it. Our hypothetical African listener will probably get a very different idea about what is meant.
For our second hypothetical translation, let’s try giving the plain meaning like we would if we were explaining to an 8-year-old child. We might translate, “Jill was stunned by Jack’s proposal.” Or we might say, Jill was caught off guard and totally surprised by Jack’s offer.” In this example, I’ve dropped the figure of speech entirely and gone straight for the meaning.
These are the two main translation types that I want to explain: The first was what we call a literal translation, or a word-for-word translation. And the second is what I will call a meaning-based translation.
Literal: Jill appeared like a trapped gazelle in bright light …
Meaning-based: Jill was stunned by Jack’s proposal.
Which translation is ‘right’? Actually both translations can be considered right. But the word-for-word translation is difficult to understand for our hypothetical African listeners, because there are cultural factors involved in interpreting the figure of speech in this example. The listeners would likely come up with various interpretations about the poor, defenseless gazelle being trapped. Whereas, if Jill likes Jack, she may be thrilled at his proposal.
The meaning based translation is right too: “Jill was stunned by Jack’s proposal.” That translation is easy to understand, but if you remember the original sentence, you will miss the richness of the figure of speech.
The two main types of Bible translations have exactly the same problems as what I have shown in the two examples above.
The advantage of a literal, word-for-word translation is that it mirrors the form of the original text.
The disadvantage of a literal translation is that it cannot always clearly give the meaning in the target language.
The meaning-based translation is just the opposite:
The advantage of a meaning-based translation is that it shows the meaning clearly.
The disadvantage of a meaning-based translation is that it cannot mirror the form of the original text.
Every Bible translator starts out thinking, “I will be able to translate word-for-word and still clearly enough show the meaning.” For two languages that are strongly related to each other, a literal translation can often still be clear. But if we are thinking of translating ancient Hebrew and Greek into modern English, there is a huge gulf between the ancient and modern languages and cultures.
My first example involved an English figure of speech. But let me give you a chance to experience decoding an Indonesian figure of speech:
Yakobus adalah kacang yang sudah lupa kulitnya.
A word-for-word translation is this: Jack is a peanut that has forgotten his shell.
Now it is your turn to wonder what that could mean. You won’t guess, so I will tell you.
Here’s a meaning-based translation of “Jack is a peanut that has forgotten his shell.”
That means, Jack left his rural village to get an education in the city, and now has a good job with a high salary, but he has forgotten his humble beginnings. He never helps any of his friends and relatives in his home village.
There are many literal (or word-for-word) Bible translations in English. That kind of translation is easier to make. And not all literal translations are equally literal. Some fudge to be slightly more meaning-based. But for the purposes of this discussion, I will choose what I think is the most popular literal translation today: It is the ESV (English Standard Version). It is the translation that would translate, “Jill appeared like a trapped gazelle in bright light.” It is great at showing the word-for-word form of the original text, but not so good at giving you the meaning clearly. A literal translation I like better than the ESV is the WEBBE (World English Bible British Edition).
Meaning-based Bible translations are much rarer, because they require the translator to work much harder to accurately translate the meaning. For English language readers, I recommend the Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech of 1901, The Good News Bible (TEV 1966), and the New Living Translation. There are a few more, but those are my favorites, and I will focus in this podcast on the NLT. The NLT would translate our example as “Jill was stunned by Jack’s proposal.”
The KJV is a literal translation, and an unfortunate part of the continuing legacy of the KJV, is that pastors often prefer using literal translations from the pulpit. But unfortunately this means that many ordinary people in the pew wind up using something like the ESV for their daily Bible reading at home. This means that many Christians who read their Bibles at home often struggle with hard-to-understand passages. If you normally read the ESV Bible and think you understand everything in it, well, I bet you haven’t yet read all of it!
Here is one of my most important recommendations for you: Make sure you have access to both kinds of translations. In other words, use both an ESV and an NLT Bible. That way you can quickly see the meaning (in the NLT), and you get a window into the word-for-word shape of the original text with the ESV.
My Daily Bible Reading podcasts have only been of two meaning-based translations. Why? Because they can be understood by people just listening to the recordings. It would be useless to record the ESV, because listeners would often miss the meaning.
Now I want to illustrate what I have been saying with a Bible passage. I wish I could spend an hour doing this, but I feel I must limit myself to only one example. I have chosen the topic statement for the book of Romans, chapter 1, verses 16-17. In the ESV verse 16 says,
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
If I had all the podcast listeners in front of me as a group, I would say to you, “Raise your hand if you are a Jew.” Usually in my audiences, no one raises their hand. At that point I say, “Raise your hand if you are a Greek.” Usually again, no one raises their hand. But then my question is, “Where do you fit in to Romans 1:16?” This verse says that the gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Sounds like you people who didn’t raise your hands are not able to be saved! So which one are we?” The answer is that Paul is contrasting Jews with everyone else. Greek was the universal language of culture and commerce at that time, even under the Roman government. Now let’s compare the same verse in the NLT:
For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes— the Jew first and also the Gentile.
Now let’s look at verse 17 in the ESV:
For in it (referring back to the Gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
No English reader will suspect that there is anything kind of strange about the phrase ‘the righteous of God’. The problem is that ‘of God’ is a genitive in Greek, and genitives have a dozen different options for the meaning. ESV nearly always uses the word ‘of’ to translate genitives. But in this verse, ‘righteousness of God’ will mean that the Gospel is about revealing that God is righteous. Wait a minute! If God is righteous and I am not righteous, that is not Good News. He will punish me. Rather, in this verse, the genitive is one showing source. Just wait a moment and I will read the NLT.
A second significant problem in verse 17 is a grammatical construction that forms an idiom in Greek: For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. So the literal translation has zero meaning or leaves the reader to guess at meanings, which will probably be wrong.
Finally, because of the first two problems I just mentioned, it seems like the final quote from Habakkuk 2:4 doesn’t fit with what came before it. So we ask, why did Paul quote, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Now let me read the NLT to you:
17 This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”
Many years ago, I had a phone conversation with a woman who was a new believer. She liked reading her KJV, and I used Romans 1:16-17 to try to show her that she would be better off reading the NLT. The KJV has the same problem in v.17: “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith.” So I asked her what that means, and she quickly replied, “Oh, you know, the Catholic faith, the Mormon faith, the protestant faith.” Hello! None of those things existed when Paul wrote Romans. I give that story to show that a dangerous thing that happens when many people read the Bible: If we don’t understand something, we may just make up a meaning that sounds plausible to us. And as time goes on, we can get more and more convinced that our guesses are true.
Going back to the advantages and disadvantages of the two translation types, the ESV has made a very good literal translation of 1:17. The ESV closely mirrors the form of the Greek text, but the problem is that readers won’t grasp the meaning, unless perhaps there are study notes to guide them. On the other hand, the NLT has the disadvantage that it doesn’t match the word-for-word form of the Greek, but it nails the meaning. God is the source of our righteousness. NLT translates: This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. And the Greek idiom ‘from faith to faith’ means, “This is accomplished from start to finish by faith.” Finally, if you take the time to read verse 17 again, you will see that the quote at the end of the verse supports what Paul claims about the Good News about Christ.
I am passionate about people having access to at least one Bible that is a literal translation, and one that is a meaning-based translation.
Recently an elder in our church shared that he was struggling hard to read and understand Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. He was rather bitter in his complaints, saying, “Why did Jeremiah write like this? I can’t penetrate this stuff!” This is just one example of many I could share. Normal Christians like you and me who try to use a literal translation for devotional reading, and attempt to read every book in the Bible, will not enjoy the experience. This can clearly be seen in Indonesia, where the people have only had wide access to one literal translation since 1974. Indonesian Christians have been discouraged from reading their Bibles for too long, and that has seriously weakened the church throughout that country. Now, with our Plain Indonesian Translation, thousands of people have discovered that they enjoy reading the Bible. But now, through our 90-day Bible reading challenge, teenage kids and adults are rejoicing to find that they enjoy reading the New Testament, finishing it in 90 days, and many immediately start over to read it again.
Any Christian who wants to glorify God should read the whole Bible. And if we really want to glorify God, then we should read a translation that we understand. Reading a translation that you don’t understand fully will not help you or encourage you.
I need to give two important clarifications: Some people think that the NLT is a paraphrase because the first edition still contained some words or phrases that sounded like the Living Bible. The Living Bible deserves to be called a paraphrase, because it occasionally adds ideas not found in the original text, or fails to translate other things. But the New Living Translation is a highly researched and revised meaning-based translation. My second clarification is that The Message is an extreme paraphrase. Please don’t think it is a faithful translation. Please don’t quote it. Please don’t give it to a new Christian to read.
Here is the information about real-book Bibles I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast. I want you to know that no one at Tyndale House asked me to promote their products, and I am not getting paid anything for giving out this information.
Gale decided to give NLT Bibles to members of her Bible study groups, and I decided to give them to my small group. It has been a long time since we bought Bibles, and so we made some delightful discoveries. Tyndale House has several cool NLT Bibles right now. The NLT Illustrated Study Bible is incredible! Beautifully illustrated with maps and charts and many study notes and supplemental information. The hardcover edition is only $36.66. You might like the leather-like edition which is a bit more. However, at more than 2,500 pages, you won’t want to carry this Bible around.
Here’s what I am giving to some young people in our church, including our grandkids: There is a new kind of Bible developed by Tyndale House, called a Filament Enabled NLT Bible. This real-book Bible comes without study notes and maps, making it practical to carry and providing an uncluttered reading experience, but it has a companion cell phone app that gives you all the stuff you would get in a study Bible and even much more. You download the Filament app for your phone or tablet, and then you can take a picture of the page number or type in the page number for which you want to get more information. The app then gives you study notes, charts, timelines, and devotional material, including videos and even worship songs. There is a premium-value edition with a leather-like cover for just $15. For the person who wants to make notes, there is a beautiful wide margin edition available for $38. A large print Filament enabled Bible is about that same price. A genuine leather thin-line edition of the NLT Filament Bible is only $35.
I highly recommend an article linked at the very end of the episode notes entitled How Not to Argue About Which Bible Translation Is Best by Andy Naselli.
And may the Lord bless you ‘real good’.
LINKS:
https://sites.google.com/clarinetpages.net/read-the-bible-in-a-year/read/start-with-a-good-plan
See the second part of this page: Recommended Bible translations for devotional reading
Blog post:
https://dailybiblereading.libsyn.com/website/more-about-bible-translations
Fantastic article: How Not to Argue About Which Bible Translation Is Best
June 13, 2017 | Andy Naselli
JOSHUA 8-9:
Yesterday the walls of Jericho “came a-tumbling down” after some skillful trumpet playing while marching around the city for 7 days. The city was devoted to destruction, meaning that this was God's judgment upon thm and that everything was to be destroyed. Right after this amazing victory, Israel learned through a man named Achan that keeping treasures devoted to destruction makes oneself devoted to destruction.
PSALM 70:
David pleads in this psalm for help against his enemies. And this poem is a repetition of the last part of Psalm 40.
ACTS 21b:
Paul, Luke, and the other companions arrived in Jerusalem. On the way, Paul heard the prophecies that he should not go to Jerusalem. Once there, he received advice from James and the others which turned out to be disastrous in the end. Should Paul have followed the advice he was given by prophecy? My opinion is that he did the will of God which had already been revealed to him before those prophecies. In other words, the information in those prophecies that Paul would be arrested and beaten was from God. The interpretation that Paul should not go there was added by people, and Paul was right in not following their advice.
JOSHUA 6-7:
In yesterday’s reading, Joshua leads the people across the Jordan on dry ground, and they set up 12 stones in two places to be memorial reminders for the people of this miracle. All the men were circumcised, and the angel who is the commander of God's army revealed himself to Joshua.
PSALM 69:
In yesterday’s reading, I appreciated that the writer appealed to God based on the Lord’s ‘constant love’. Let’s continue the reading of Ps 69 with four verses appropriate to Jesus’ life. Note that verse 22 is quoted by Paul in Romans 11.
ACTS 21a:
Yesterday we heard Paul's speech to the Ephesian elders. The Holy Spirit had revealed to him that they would never see him again. He warned them to be faithful in shepherding the people and to watch out for false teaching. In Revelation 2 we find out that they did as Paul commanded, but in their zeal to protect from error, they forgot to be loving.
GNT Translation note:
Acts 21:4 There we found some believers and stayed with them a week. By the power of the [Holy] Spirit, they told Paul not to go to Jerusalem.
JOSHUA 4-5:
In yesterday’s reading, Joshua sent out two spies. Rahab, who was a prostitute and later became an outstanding example of God's grace, protected them and eventually became a full member of Israel. The people of Israel crossed the Jordan miraculously on dry ground— even though the river was in flood stage, as Joshua leads following God's instructions.
PSALM 69:
This poem contains words that were quoted about Jesus (v. 4 and 9). Those verses give us an inside view of the nature of Jesus’ suffering while on earth in his public ministry.
ACTS 20:
In yesterday’s reading, Paul left Ephesus and prepared other churches for his departure. In Troas, Paul preached all night. Eutychus had trouble staying awake. And today we will hear all of Paul's speech at Miletus to the elders from the church at Ephesus.
JOSHUA 2-3:
Yesterday we started the book of Joshua, named after the man God chose as Moses’ successor. In this book we will see the victory of the Chosen People in conquering the Promised Land (chapters 1-12) and then the occupation of the Promised Land (chapters 13-24). Three times in Deuteronomy 31, we heard the charge, “Be determined and confident,” and that command was repeated three more times to Joshua in chapter 1.
PSALM 68b:
This Psalm starts with the words Moses spoke whenever the Ark of the Covenant was taken up to be moved to another place:
“1 Rise up, O God, and scatter your enemies.”
And David adds, “Let those who hate God run for their lives.”
ACTS 20a:
Yesterday we heard of how Demetrius— the silver-smith shrine-making businessman, incited a riot against Paul.
GNT Translation notes:
Ps. 68 [Again I read this from the CEV because it translates the pronouns/nouns in such a way that one understands the whole poem as a prayer.]
====
Acts 20:11 Then [Paul//he] went back upstairs, broke bread, and ate. After talking with them for a long time, even until sunrise, Paul left.
JOSHUA 1:
Yesterday we read the conclusion of Deuteronomy with Moses blessing eleven of the twelve tribes with a prophetic blessing. And when Moses died and the Lord buried him in an unknown location in Moab.
Now we turn to Joshua, the book named after the man God chose as Moses’ successor. In this book, we see the victory of the Chosen People in conquering the Promised Land (chapters 1-12) and then the occupation of the Promised Land (chapters 13-24). Three times in Deuteronomy 31, we find the charge, “Be determined and confident,” and that command is repeated to Joshua at the beginning of this book.
PSALM 68a:
This beautiful song of praise is filled with poetic imagery celebrating the victories God gives his people. So this song is very appropriate for us to read as a preface to the book of Joshua. This starts with the words that Moses spoke whenever the Ark of the Covenant was moved. Paul quotes from v18 and 20 in Eph 4.
ACTS 19b:
Apollos was introduced in yesterday's reading. And Paul returned to Ephesus and had a miraculous and fruitful ministry there for three years.
GNT Translation note:
Ps. 68 [Except for the first verse, I choose to read CEV for this Psalm because I feel it is helpful to understand this whole Psalm as a prayer spoken to God.]
DEUTERONOMY 33-34:
In yesterday's reading, Moses showed Israel that the leadership was given to Joshua, and he gave the command that this book of Deuteronomy is kept near the Arc of the Covenant. Then God gave Moses a long song to teach people, to help them remember. In this song, God described some future events as happening in the past tense. This is a feature of many prophetic writings. Here is one detail you might want to notice today in chapter 33: In Moses’ blessings for the tribes of Israel, only 11 are listed. So I’m giving a digging deeper challenge: Which tribe is left out, and what theory do you propose for that one being left out?
PSALM 67:
The theme of this beautiful psalm is that the salvation that God gives is to be made known to people everywhere, to every ethnic group.
ACTS 19a:
Yesterday in Acts 18, Paul met and began working with Aquila and Priscilla in Corinth. When put on trial before Gallio, God defended him so that he didn't even need to speak. Then that night Jesus strengthened him to keep on speaking boldly.
GNT Translation notes:
Deut. 33:11 Lord, help their tribe to grow strong; Be pleased with what they do. Crush all their enemies; [May their enemies//Let them] never rise again.”
====
Ps. 67:6 The land has produced its harvest; [You, O God have//God, our God, has] blessed us.
7 [You have//God has] blessed us; may all people everywhere honor [You//him].
DEUTERONOMY 31-32:
Yesterday in Deuteronomy Moses reviewed the covenant and again stressed that the choice is between life and death, and between experiencing blessings or curses. Be aware that in the poem dictated to Moses by the Lord, the Lord speaks of things that were in Israel’s future as if they had already taken place. This is called proleptic past tense and is a feature of prophetic writings.
PSALM 66:
Our glorious God deserves glorious praise. Note that this psalm shows the importance of confessing our sins to God.
ACTS 18:
In Acts 17, opposition hounded the steps of Paul, Silas and Timothy, first in Thessalonica and then in Berea. The people of Berea are an example for us all, and that’s why so many churches are named after their city. Then Paul in Athens debated with the philosophers of his day.
GNT Translation notes:
Deut. 32:3 [Because in this song I will praise the LORD— giving honor to his name//I will praise the name of the Lord,] and his people will tell of his greatness.
====
Ps. 66:4 Everyone on earth worships you;
they sing praises to you,
[their songs give honor//they sing praises] to your name.”
5 Come[, all peoples] and see what God has done,
his wonderful acts among people.
10 You[, O God,//0] have put us to the test[0//, God];
as silver is purified by fire,\
so you have tested us.
16 [Now, all who honor God,//0] Come and listen, [0//all who honor God,]
and I will tell you what he has done for me.
DEUTERONOMY 29-30:
Yesterday in Deuteronomy Moses ratcheted up the fear index to the red level. And the scary thing about the threats he used to motivate the people to obedience is that they later all came true, as we will see in books like Judges and 2 Kings.
PSALM 65:
Today’s Psalm is a hymn of joy and mighty praise.
ACTS 17:
Yesterday we heard of how Paul and Silas were beaten and put in jail. This was as a result of freeing a slave girl from demonic bondage. Their overnight in jail led to the jailer and his family becoming followers of Christ. But the next day, as requested, Paul and Silas left town.
DEUTERONOMY 28:
Yesterday we read of the ceremony that Moses commanded the people to perform when they entered the promised land. The Levites were to loudly proclaim curses from Mount Ebal over anyone who violates the laws.
PSALM 64:
If you feel that people are looking for opportunities to slander you, this psalm is for you.
ACTS 16b:
Yesterday in this chapter— via the change of pronouns, we understood that Luke joined with Paul as one of his traveling companions. Also, note that the Holy Spirit can also be called the Spirit of Jesus. These are one and the same Spirit of God.
GNT Translation note:
Deut. 28:44 They will have money to lend [to] you, but you will have none to lend them. In the end they will be your rulers.
====
Ps. 64:7 But [when You, O God, shoot your//God shoots his] arrows at them, [0//and] suddenly they [will be//are] wounded.
8 [You//He] will destroy them because of those words; all who see them will shake their heads.
9 They will all be afraid; they will think about what [You have//God] has done and tell about [your//his] deeds.
10 All righteous people will rejoice because of what [You have done, O Lord//the Lord has done]. They will find safety in [You//him]; all good people will praise [You//him].
DEUTERONOMY 27:
Yesterday in Deuteronomy, Moses continued with miscellaneous regulations. One repeated in the New Testament is to not muzzle an ox to keep it from eating when it is treading out the grain. Paul used that as a metaphor for something else.
PSALM 63:
This is another poem of David, including beautiful imagery. Pray like David, if you want to be blessed like David or need protection as David did.
ACTS 16:
Yesterday in Acts we heard how Barnabas and Paul with Silas and Judas/Justus delivered the letter from the leaders in Jerusalem. And afterward, Paul and Barnabas had their falling out over the issue of whether to take John Mark along on their next trip. Silas— who evidently had come back to Antioch, became Paul's new ministry partner.
DEUTERONOMY 25-26:
Yesterday we read some laws for what kind of people could not enter into the congregation of Israel, and how long before their descendants could enter into the congregation of Israel. And we heard laws about cleanliness based on the fact that God was living with the Israelites. And, God wanted his people to be kind, fair, and thoughtful of the needs of the poor.
PSALM 62:
Here is a psalm to pray and an example to follow when you feel the world is against you.
ACTS 15b:Yesterday in the first half of this chapter we heard how the controversy over circumcision started and we heard the speeches of Peter and James.
GNT Translation notes:
[The last verse of this Psalm shows that it is a prayer addressed to God. It is an open question if in verse 5 David is speaking encouragement to his own soul. The vocative form seems to indicate that. I think that CEV is correct in showing that in verses 3-5 David is speaking about himself in the third person.]
Ps. 62:1 I wait patiently for [You, O] God to save me;
I depend on [You//him] alone.
2 [You alone protect and save me//He alone protects and saves me];
[You are//he is] my defender,
and I shall never be defeated.
3 How much longer will all of you [people] attack [me—] someone
who is no stronger than a broken-down fence?
4 You only want to bring [me//him] down from [my//his] place of honor;
you take pleasure in lies.
You speak words of blessing,
but in your heart[s] you curse [me//him].
5 [O my soul, depend on God alone!//I depend on God alone;]
[O Lord, I put my hope in You.//I put my hope in him.]
6 [You alone protect and save me//He alone protects and saves me];
[You are//he is] my defender,
and I shall never be defeated.
7 My salvation and honor depend on [You, O] God;
[You are//he is] my strong protector;
[You are//he is] my shelter.
8 [O my people,//0] Trust in God at all times, [0//my people.]
Tell him all your troubles,
for he is our refuge.
9 Human beings are all like a puff of breath;
great and small alike are worthless.
Put them on the scales, and they weigh nothing;
they are lighter than a mere breath.
10 Don't put your trust in violence;
don't hope to gain anything by robbery;
even if your riches increase,
don't depend on them.
11 [O my God//0] More than once I have heard [You//God] say
that power belongs to [You//him]
12 and that [your//his] love is constant.
You yourself, O Lord, reward everyone according to their deeds.
====
Acts 15:29 eat no food that has been offered to idols; eat no blood; eat no animal that has been strangled; and keep yourselves from sexual immorality. You will do well if you take care not to do these things. [Farewell] With our best wishes.”
DEUTERONOMY 23-24:
Yesterday we read an odd collection of regulations: Cleansing the land from unsolved murder, marrying a captive woman after a war, rights of a first-born son when a man has more than one wife, the responsibility of helping neighbors, and various problems concerning adultery.
PSALM 61:
This is one I love to sing.
ACTS 15a:
In Acts 14, we heard of the incredible turn of events for Paul and Barnabas. At one moment they were hailed as gods, but after a very short time Paul was stoned. As they tell the believers, “We have to go through many hardships before we enter God's kingdom in heaven.”
DEUTERONOMY 21-22:
Yesterday we heard an explanation of why cities of refuge were needed. And we heard interesting rules concerning war. In the war and conquest of Canaan that we will read about in Joshua, I urge us to remember that God spoke repeatedly about the wickedness of the Canaanite nations that Israel would conquer (beginning with what He said to Jacob way back in Genesis 15:16). Included in the detestable customs of the nations mentioned, is that they sacrificed human babies, burning them alive, plus all of the other sins Moses told the people not to imitate.
PSALM 60:
This poem is again based on David’s experiences. I think that this psalm must show how David prayed before the victories mentioned in the rabbinical title.
ACTS 14:
In chapter 13 we completed the story of Paul and Barnabas' short but successful ministry in Pisidian Antioch. They were too successful, so were run out of town. This is just the first time that will happen!
GNT Translation notes:
Deut. 22:12 “[Attach//Sew] tassels on the four corners of your clothes.
[This change was made simply because the listener cannot hear the difference between ‘sew’ and ‘so’.]
====
Ps. 60:6 [From your sanctuary You, O God have said,//From his sanctuary God has said,] “In triumph I will divide Shechem and distribute Sukkoth Valley to my people.
12 [But] With [You, O] God on our side we will win; [You//he] will defeat our enemies.
====
Acts 14:18 [With great difficulty, using such words the apostles finally did succeed in stopping//Even with these words the apostles could hardly keep] the crowd from offering a sacrifice to them.
[This is one of the most frequently misunderstood verses in the New Testament!]
21 Paul and Barnabas preached the Good News in Derbe and won many disciples. Then they went back to Lystra, to Iconium, and on to Antioch in [the province of] Pisidia.
26 and from there they sailed back to Antioch [in the province of Syria], the place where they had been commended to the care of God's grace for the work they had now completed.
DEUTERONOMY 19-20:
In yesterday’s reading, we heard that the duties of the king included having a copy of the Law made, or perhaps making it himself (the Hebrew is unclear on that point). This is something we never hear of happening. (I don’t think what was given to King Josiah at his inauguration qualifies.) Then Deuteronomy 18 very strict in its prohibition against all kinds of witchcraft and fortune telling. Then there is one of the most important prophecies regarding Jesus: God was going to send a prophet like Moses and the people must listen to him. Another important point about this prophecy is the specific requirement that the prophet would come from the people of Israel.
PSALM 59:
Because of David’s unique situation, he certainly learned how to pray for protection from enemies.
ACTS 13b:
In the first part of chapter 13, we heard how God called Barnabas and Saul in the city of Antioch— the one in the Roman province of Syria, and the church sent them out. We repeat some verses from Paul’s important speech, which took place in the other city called Antioch, the one in the province of Pisidia.
GNT Translation notes:
Ps. 59:4 [NET Though I have done nothing wrong, they are anxious to attack. Spring into action and help me! Take notice of me!//nor because of any fault of mine, O Lord,
that they hurry to their places.]
====
Acts 13:40 Take care, then, so that what [God said through] the prophets said may not happen to you:
DEUTERONOMY 17-18:
In yesterday's reading, we heard about the release of debts and slaves in the Jubilee Year (also called the year of restoration), and a reminder about 100% participation for the males in three festivals.
PSALM 58:
This poem celebrates that God will indeed give justice to His people, even though many times it seems to us that there is no justice on earth.
ACTS 13a:
In yesterday’s reading, we heard how Herod decided to go after the top apostles, killing James. But Peter escaped. As a result, 16 soldiers died. Then Herod met his richly deserved end.
GNT Translation notes:
Deut. 17:18 When he becomes king, he is to [order that//have] a copy of the book of God's laws and teachings [be] made from the original copy kept by the levitical priests.
[The Hebrew says that the king is to make a copy. Most translations translate that literally, so that the king would make a copy himself. However probably most things that a king is spoken of as ‘doing’ are actually things he orders to have done for him. So this can be taken either way. We can see how Jehoiada the priest encouraged the obedience of this command when Joash was anointed king.]
18:8 [NLT He may eat his share of the sacrifices and offerings, even if he has a private source of income.//He is to receive the same amount of food as the other priests, and he may keep whatever his family sends him.]
Ps. 58:9 Before they know it, they are cut down like weeds; in [your fierce anger, O God, You//his fierce anger God] will blow them away while they are still living.
Acts 13:11 The Lord's hand will come down on you now; [and for a time//0] you will be blind and will not see the light of day [0//for a time].” At once Elymas felt a dark mist cover his eyes, and he walked around trying to find someone to lead him by the hand.
14 They went on from Perga and arrived in [the city of] Antioch [which is in the province of//in] Pisidia, and on the Sabbath they went into the synagogue and sat down.
DEUTERONOMY 15-16:
Yesterday's reading included Moses' warning about being led astray by anyone, including false prophets or even close family members. No one who proposed idolatry was to be allowed to live. Then we heard a repetition of the laws about which animals were to be treated as clean/edible and those unclean/detestable.
Psalm 57:
This Psalm is beautiful and often quoted. It again is from David's experiences.
ACTS 12:
In Acts 11 we heard how Peter needed to defend what he did in sharing the Gospel with Gentiles. The result was that the church leaders joyfully accepted that God was giving salvation to more than just the Jews. Then we heard how Barnabas visited the predominantly Gentile believers in Antioch and then called Saul to join him.
GNT Translation notes:
Ps. 57:2 I call to [You, O] God, the Most High, to [You who supply//God, who supplies] my every need.
3 [You//He] will answer from heaven and save me; [You//he] will defeat my oppressors[ and show your constant love and faithfulness to me.// God will show me his constant love and faithfulness.]
====
15 “You are crazy!” they told her. But she insisted that it was true. So they answered, “It [must be//is] his [guardian] angel.”
[18 When morning came, there was no little argument among the soldiers over what had become of Peter.//When morning came, there was a tremendous confusion among the guards—what had happened to Peter?]
DEUTERONOMY 13-14:
In yesterday's reading Moses continued to stress the need for faithfulness to God and all his commands. It is clear that Moses loves the people and is marshaling every argument possible to convince them to keep on obeying God.
PSALM 56:
This is another psalm from the experiences of David. This is a good psalm for us to pray when we feel that our lives are out of control and that people are against us.
ACTS 11:
In yesterday's reading, Peter didn't even get to finish his speech before the Holy Spirit took control of the Gentile listeners. The new believers were baptized by the astonished Jewish-background believers from Joppa.
GNT Translation notes:
Ps. 56:4 [CEV I praise [You for] your promises! I trust you and am not afraid. No [mere human//one] can harm me.//I trust in God and am not afraid; I praise him for what he has promised. What can a mere human being do to me?]
9 [CEV When I pray, Lord God, my enemies will retreat, because I know for certain that you are with me.//The day I call to you, my enemies will be turned back. I know this: God is on my side—
10 [NLT 0 O God, I praise your word. Yes, Lord, I praise your word.//the Lord, whose promises I praise.]
11 [CEV 11 I trust you and am not afraid. No [mere human//one] can harm me.//In him I trust, and I will not be afraid. What can a mere human being do to me?]
13 [NLT For you have rescued me from death;
you have kept my feet from slipping.
So now I can walk in your presence, O God,
in your life-giving light.//because you have rescued me from death
and kept me from defeat.
And so I walk in the presence of God,
in the light that shines on the living.]
====
Acts 11:13 He told us how he had seen an angel standing in his house, who said to him, ‘Send someone to Joppa for a man [named Simon who is also called Peter//whose full name is Simon Peter].
DEUTERONOMY 11-12:
In yesterday's reading, Moses continued to hammer on the people not to think that they have been favored by God because they are such good people. Moses gave his first-hand account of being in God's presence for 40 days and 40 nights on two occasions, one right after the other. He also again models in his prayer for Israel the way to effectively pray for people— which is to base our prayers on God's character and his promises.
PSALM 55:
This poem was written out of the discouragement caused by betrayal. It includes the figure of speech called apostrophe. That is where the writer, David, speaks to his enemy as if he were present. The same part which includes that figure of speech is often quoted as it shows us how Jesus must have felt about Judas’ betrayal.
ACTS 10b:
Yesterday we heard of the wonderful way the Lord called Peter to go to Cornelius' house. In preparation, God gave Peter a vision (repeated three times to leave no doubt whatsoever) to the effect that God was now opening the door to the Gentiles to be cleansed and included as God's people.
GNT Translation notes:
Deut. 11:9 And you will live a long time in the rich and fertile land that the Lord promised to give [to] your ancestors and their descendants.
Ps. 55:23 But [to You I pray//you], O God, will bring those murderers and liars to their graves before half their life is over. As for me, I will trust in you.
====
32 Send someone to Joppa for a man [named Simon who is also called Peter//whose full name is Simon Peter]. He is a guest in the home of Simon the tanner of leather, who lives by the sea.’
42 And he commanded us to preach [this Good News//the gospel] to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God has appointed judge of the living and the dead.
[It seems inconsistent to use ‘Good News’ in verse 36, and then to switch to ‘gospel’ here.]
43 All the prophets spoke about him, saying that [through his authority] all who believe in him will have their sins forgiven [0//through the power of his name].”
[The Greek does not have the word ‘power’, and this phrase comes before the verb ‘all who believe in Him’ in the Greek text. I have translated ‘name’ as a metonymy for ‘name’.]
DEUTERONOMY 9-10:
In yesterday’s reading, Moses continued his stern lecture. I note particularly that Moses did all he could to stress that the Israelites must not get proud or think they’re great people based on their own merits. The reading also included the famous words, “people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.”
PSALM 54:
This poem is a short cry for help when David was under severe stress and being attacked.
ACTS 10a:
We are prepared for today's reading by the two notable miracles performed by Peter in Acts chapter 9.
GNT Translation notes:
Ps. 54:3 Proud people are coming to attack me; cruel people are trying to kill me— those who do not care about [You, O] God.
4 But [You are//God is] my helper. [You, O Lord are//The Lord I ] my defender.
6 May [You//God] use their own evil to punish my enemies. [You//He] will destroy them because [You are//he is] faithful.
====
Acts 10:5 And now send some men to Joppa for a certain man whose [name is Simon, and who is also called Peter//, and who is also called Peter//full name is Simon Peter]].
6 He is a guest in the home of a tanner of leather [who is also] named Simon, who lives by the sea.”
18 They called out and asked, “Is there a guest here by the name of Simon[, who is also called] Peter?”
DEUTERONOMY 7-8:
Yesterday in Deuteronomy we heard Moses repeating the 10 Commandments and pleading with the people that they remain faithful in obeying all the commands and regulations the Lord gave. The reading ended with an important statement to remember when considering the difference between the old and new covenants:
NLT: 6:25 “For we will be counted as righteous when we obey all the commands the LORD our God has given us.’”
[GNT’s wording and its footnote are equally valid translations of this verse.]
GNT: 6:25 If we faithfully obey everything that God has commanded us, he will be pleased with us.’
Footnote in GNT: 6.25: If we faithfully...with us; or The right thing for us to do is to obey faithfully everything that God has commanded us.
PSALM 53:
This is another Psalm that is quoted in the New Testament, and therefore, often quoted in general. This is a tell-it-like-it-is psalm, not a sweet and flowery poem.
ACTS 9b:
In the first half of this chapter, we heard most of the story of Saul's dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus.
GNT Translation note:
Acts 9:31 And so it was that the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had a time of peace. Through the help of the Holy Spirit [the church//[the church//it]] was strengthened and grew in numbers, as [they//[they//it]] lived in reverence for the Lord.
DEUTERONOMY 5-6:
Yesterday we heard Moses expound on the most important command to never worship any idol or any god other than the Lord. He based this on the Israelite's experience of hearing God's voice and not seeing his form. Moses was realistic and knew that Israel would eventually leave God and that God would judge them. He gave them this amazing promise: “from there (where you have been exiled by your enemies) you will search again for the LORD your God. And if you search for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him.”
PSALM 52:This is another psalm from David's experiences. He was betrayed by a man called Doeg, and then that man killed priests who had done nothing wrong. This psalm stands as testimony that God notices such things and will eventually bring just punishment for all injustice.
ACTS 9a:
In chapter 8, we heard the fantastic way the Lord led Philip. The Lord wanted a certain Ethiopian high official to be saved. The traditional church in Ethiopia still traces its history to that official. And Philip had the privilege of being miraculously teleported to a new location. He continued from there in preaching the Gospel, all the way to Caesarea, which is where we find him later.
GNT Translation notes:
Acts 9:20 He went straight to the synagogues and began to preach that Jesus [is//was] the Son of God.
DEUTERONOMY 4:
Yesterday Moses gave his personal account of how God led the people of Israel is not attacking three nations, but finally led them in attacking two kings. Moses pleaded with God to allow him to cross the Jordan into the promised land, but God refused to let him.
PSALM 51:
This is one of the most quoted and most famous psalms. David's sincere and broken-hearted prayer for forgiveness is a pattern for all of us to follow.
ACTS 8b:
Yesterday we heard how the believers in Jerusalem were scattered by a wave of persecution following Stephen's martyrdom. Philip (the deacon, not the apostle) is given the wonderful privilege to turn many to the Lord in Samaria. My own thought about why the Holy Spirit was not given when the believers were baptized is because Peter really was given the “keys to the kingdom.” Peter was present when the Jewish people received the Holy Spirit, and when the despised mixed-breed Samaritans received the Holy Spirit, and when non-Jews received that same gift.
DEUTERONOMY 2-3:Yesterday we heard Moses preaching and confronting the people of Israel about their bickering and their incredible stubbornness in refusing to believe the Lord's commands, and their refusal to believe God’s loving intent in his commands.
PSALM 50:
Remember what Moses said yesterday in Deuteronomy? This Psalm tells us what God wants most from his people.
ACTS 8:
Yesterday we heard the conclusion of Stephen's speech. He confronted the high council with the indisputable fact that the people of Israel had always refused to follow what God told them and killed the prophets. “They (our ancestors) even killed the ones who predicted the coming of the Righteous One—the Messiah whom you betrayed and murdered.” Shortly after saying that, Stephen died as Saul watched.
GNT Translation notes:
Deut. 1:46 “So then, after we had stayed at Kadesh for a long time,
2:1 we finally turned and went into the desert, on the road to the Gulf of Aqaba, as the Lord had commanded, and we spent a long time wandering about in the hill country of Edom.
====
Ps. 50:7 [And He speaks,] “Listen, my people, and I will speak; I will testify against you, Israel. I am God, your God.
14 [No! But] Let the giving of thanks be your sacrifice to [Me, your Almighty] God, and give [Me//the Almighty] all that you promised.
16 But [I, your God say//God says] to the wicked, “Why should you recite my commandments? Why should you talk about my covenant?
====
Acts 8:5 Philip went to the principal city in Samaria and preached [about believing in] the Messiah to the people there.
28 and he was now returning. Seated in his carriage, he was reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah [while a driver was driving the carriage//0].
[See v. 38! Even back in that day, it was not a good thing to be a distracted driver.]
DEUTERONOMY 1:
Yesterday in the conclusion of Numbers, we learned that each clan's allotment of land must stay within that clan, even when parcels of land could be inherited by daughters.
- Mears says, “Deuteronomy is a book of remembrance. The name ‘Deuteronomy’ means “second law,” which indicates that the law is repeated. Moses did this to remind the people what God had done for them and what they were to do to serve Him when they reached the Promised Land. This book omits the things that relate to the priests and Levites but includes the things that the people should know. And the happenings in this book would cover only about two months, including the 30 days of mourning for Moses.”
I love this book because it seems to be a transcription of Moses’ last sermons to the people. Imagine sitting at the feet of the aged and revered leader and hearing him tell what is most important! I love the way this book frequently records Moses speaking in the first person.
PSALM 49:
This powerfully thought-provoking psalm shares important wisdom which should help us be content with whatever our situation is in this life. Note the parallels with Jesus' teaching.
ACTS 7:
Yesterday we heard the first part of Stephen's speech. Stephen was accused of two things: “This man is always speaking against the holy Temple and against the law of Moses. We have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy the Temple and change the customs Moses handed down to us.” So far it is clear that Stephen was NOT teaching against the laws or customs Moses gave the people of Israel.
GNT Translation notes:
Deut. 1:46 “So then, after we had stayed at Kadesh for a long time,
2:1 we finally turned and went into the desert, on the road to the Gulf of Aqaba, as the Lord had commanded, and we spent a long time wandering about in the hill country of Edom.
Acts 7:43 It was the tent of the god Molech that you carried,
and the image of Rephan, your star god;
[— the//they were] idols that you had made to worship.
And so I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.’
NUMBERS 36:Yesterday we heard about the boundaries for the nation of Israel, the 12 clan leaders appointed by the Lord, and about cities set aside for the Levites and cities of refuge— to protect from unjust prosecution of murder.
PSALM 48:
This psalm praises God for Jerusalem and shows that Jerusalem is a reflection of God's glory. It is clear that more than the earthly Jerusalem is the topic. God has prepared a city for us!
ACTS 7a:
Yesterday in chapter 6 we heard how grumbling in the ever-expanding group of believers in Jerusalem required that seven helpers (the first deacons) be appointed. (The word ‘deacon’ comes directly from a verb in Greek that means ‘to serve’.) One of them, Stephen, became the object of controversy with the Greek-speaking Jews. Before the council, his face shone with a radiance like that of an angel. The false witnesses made two accusations against Stephen, and today we hear his defense against the first of them.
NUMBERS 34-35:
Yesterday we heard the listing of the stages of the nomadic journey of the people of Israel. God began giving instructions for the time when the people would enter the promised land.
PSALM 47:
This is a jubilant song of praise. This has been a special Psalm for our family. We remember singing this whole Psalm with one of our favorite churches. And when we were in Indonesia, they made a recording and we listened to it many times.
ACTS 6:
Yesterday we heard Peter and the apostles give fearless testimony before the Jewish high council. They were beaten but counted it an honor.
GNT Translation notes:
Ps. 47:5 [See! God goes up to his throne. There are shouts of joy and the blast of trumpets, as the Lord goes up.
====
Acts 6:1 Sometime later, as the number of disciples kept growing, there was a quarrel between the Greek-speaking Jews and the native Jews. The Greek-speaking Jews claimed that their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of [food//funds].
2 So the twelve apostles called the whole group of believers together and said, “It is not right for us to neglect the preaching of God's word in order to [wait on tables//handle finances].
UMBERS 33:
Yesterday we heard how the tribes of Gad, Reuben, and half the tribe of Manasseh promised to go ahead of their fellow Israelites into battle on the west side of the Jordan, because they were receiving land on the east side of the Jordan. In hindsight, I must say this was not a great idea. Because of how often all the men were required to go to Jerusalem for the holy assemblies, it must have been very easy to not attend those events and grow increasingly far from the Lord.
PSALM 46:
This was the inspiration for the hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. The word translated by the GNT as ‘shelter’ in v.1 can also mean ‘refuge’. And the word translated as ‘refuge’ in verses 7 and 11 can also mean ‘secure height’.
ACTS 5b:
Yesterday we heard the sobering story of Ananias and Sapphira. Then, just when God was using the apostles to perform many miracles, they were arrested.
GNT Translation notes:
Acts 5:28 “We gave you strict orders not to teach [by the authority//in the name] of this man,” he said; “but see what you have done! You have spread your teaching all over Jerusalem, and you want to make us responsible for his death!”
NUMBERS 32:
Yesterday we heard of the conquest of the Midianite people. That story is an example of how hard it is for us humans to follow God's instructions.
PSALM 45:
This psalm may have originally been intended as a wedding song for King Solomon, but from our vantage point we can see that it is really a song of praise to our King, the Messiah, and we— the people of God, are the bride.
ACTS 5a:
Yesterday we heard of the fearless praying of the believers after being commanded to no longer teach about Jesus. And we heard of the wonderful unity of spirit among them.
GNT Translation notes:
3 Peter said to him, “Ananias, why did you let Satan take control of [your heart//you] and make you lie to the Holy Spirit by keeping part of the money you received for the property?
NUMBERS 31:
Yesterday the listing of sacrifices continued with those for the Festival of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the 8 day Festival of Shelters. Then in Numbers 30, we heard laws concerning the annulment of rash vows. These laws show how seriously God takes any vows made to Him!
PSALM 44:
This is a psalm with extreme contrast between part one and part two. Part one has a tone of praise— reciting the wonderful way God helped Israel. But part two accuses God of abandoning Israel. This psalm can be a pattern for us in how to plead with God to fulfill his promises or to again act as He has in the past.
ACTS 4b:
Yesterday we heard the start of the dramatic trial that happened after Peter and John were arrested following the healing of the lame man in chapter 3. Their arrest was due to Peter and John's teaching about the resurrection of Jesus. The council recognized that the two apostles had been with Jesus.
GNT Translation note:
Ps. 44:20 If we had stopped worshiping [You,] our God[,] and prayed to a foreign god,
====
Acts 4:30 Reach out your hand to heal, and grant that wonders and miracles may be performed through the [authority//name] of your holy Servant Jesus.”
NUMBERS 29-30:
Yesterday we heard about the request of the daughters of Zelophehad, and the Lord told Moses that it was time for him to die. Joshua was appointed to lead in Moses' place. And we were given the list of sacrificial offerings to be given every day in the morning and evening, those given each Sabbath, and those offered on the first day of the month, at the festival of unleavened bread, and the harvest festival. More of the same start our reading today.
PSALM 43:
This psalm is a companion to Psalm 42, containing the same refrain at the end. Both Psalms seem to be the prayers of someone in exile, who is unable to go to Jerusalem. This is a prayer for God to defend and guide each of us as worshipers of the Lord.
ACTS 4a:Yesterday we heard the story of the remarkable healing of lame beggar at the Beautiful Gate of the temple. Peter's speech was interrupted as we will hear today.
GNT Translation notes:
Ps. 43:5 Why am I so sad? Why am I so troubled? I will put my hope in [You, O] God, and once again I will praise [You] him, my savior and my God.
====
Acts 4:7 They made the apostles stand before them and asked them, “How did you do this? What power do you have or whose [authority//name] did you use?”
10 then you should all know, and all the people of Israel should know, that this man stands here before you completely well through the power [and authority//of the name] of Jesus Christ of Nazareth—whom you crucified and whom God raised from death.
NUMBERS 27-28:
Yesterday we heard of the second registration of Israel's troops.
PSALM 42:
This Psalm contains words we often sing. It is a song about renewing hope in the Lord after discouragement.
ACTS 3:
Yesterday we heard the conclusion of Peter's first sermon. 3,000 believed in Christ that day and were baptized. And the believers devoted themselves totally to the apostles' teaching.
GNT Translation notes:
Num. 27:1 Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah were the daughters of Zelophehad[. Zelophehad traced his genealogy as the] son of Hepher, son of Gilead, son of Machir, son of Manasseh, son of Joseph.
2 [His daughters//They] went and stood before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the leaders, and the whole community at the entrance of the Tent of the Lord's presence and said,
Ps. 42 [I hope that you remember who the clan of Korah was! Note that the presence of this Psalm is an interesting proof that God forgave and accepted the service of Korah’s clan.
This is another Psalm where the writer speaks honorific fashion to the Lord, speaking to him using the third person. To us, this makes it seem that the writer switches back and forth rapidly to talking about the Lord and talking to the Lord. I agree with CEV in adapting this Psalm to modern English and maintaining the perception that the whole poem is a prayer. Rather than reading from the CEV, I have simply made the required changes in the GNT at verses 4-9, and verse 11.]
====
Act. 3:6 But Peter said to him, “I have no money at all, but I give you what I have: [by the power//in the name] of Jesus Christ of Nazareth I order you to get up and walk!”
16 GNT: It was the power of [Jesus//his name] that gave strength to this lame man. [This miracle that you can plainly//What you] see and know was done by [believing in Him//faith in his name]; it was [belief//faith] in Jesus that has made him well, as you can all see.
16 revised NLT: “Through [fully believing//faith] in [Jesus//the name of Jesus], this man was healed—and you know how crippled he was before. [Fully believing in Jesus//Faith in Jesus’ name] has healed him before your very eyes.
[Peter uses a common Jewish metonymy here— where ‘name’ stands for the whole person of Jesus. We use metonymy in English (in sayings like “The _pen_ is mightier than the _sword_.”) While many English speakers will understand ‘name of Jesus’ to simply refer to Jesus himself, others (and especially some of my podcast listeners from other cultures) could mistakenly think that the Bible teaches followers of Christ use ‘the name of Jesus’ like magic words.
NET has this note at 3:6: In the name. … The reference to “the name” is not like a magical incantation, but is designed to indicate the _agent_ who performs the healing. The theme is quite frequent in Acts (2:38 plus 21 other times).
If any of you say, “I’ve never heard ‘in the name of Jesus’ used like magic words!” I answer: Start listening! It’s happening all the time.]
NUMBERS 26:
Yesterday we heard Balaam's final prophecies. Even though he was a shaman and a charlatan, God chose to speak through him on that occasion, giving a small glimpse of God's redemptive plan.
PSALM 41:
God hears us when we are down and cry out for his help.
ACTS 2b:
Yesterday we heard how the Holy Spirit came with tongues of fire and a loud noise, and the beginning part of Peter's first famous sermon.
GNT Translation notes:
Act. 2:18 Yes, even on [the slaves who obey me//my servants], both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will proclaim my message.
[Nowadays a pastor may be respectfully referred to as “a servant of the Lord”, but that is not the meaning of ‘servant’ that was intended here. This is about the lowest class of people, the slaves— whom no one would expect to be blessed by an outpouring of God’s Spirit.]
38 Peter said to them, “Each one of you must turn away from your sins and be baptized in the name of [Christ Jesus//Jesus Christ], so that your sins will be forgiven; and you will receive God's gift, the Holy Spirit.
[I remind what I said earlier this year: ‘Christ’ is a title and grammatically should be placed before the proper name, just as we do for all other titles.]
42 They spent their time in learning from the apostles, taking part in the fellowship, and sharing in [the prayers and the fellowship meals [(which included celebrating the Lord’s Supper)//the fellowship meals and the prayers].
46 Day after day they met as a group in the Temple, and they [shared//had their] meals together in their homes [(including celebrating the Lord’s Supper)], eating with glad and humble hearts,
[The phrase “breaking of bread” in verses 42 and 46 included both a meal and the celebration of communion.]
After being directly involved in Bible translation since 1983, I have wanted to share with younger generations about the things I have learned from my experiences as a Bible translator— the things that made the most impact on me through my years. I have now decided to put a few of my most important stories in this JoySightings podcast. I know that I am never going to write a book. But now if anyone ever asks about my experiences, I will have a place to send them: Go to JoySightings.info and start at episode 52. I hope to add several other stories this year. Today I will also read one more parable of Safed the Sage.
When we were about 7-8 years into the Orya translation project, back around 1991, Nahe asked one Sunday morning to have a private conversation with me. Nahe and I had never had much communication, so I felt it was an unusual request. I knew him mainly as a young guy who made his income by cutting trees into lumber with his chainsaw. He was strong and athletic, but a man of few words.
He came that evening and we sat down together in my candle-lit rustic cabin’s front room. He said, “You wouldn’t have heard this, because it happened in another village. I got very sick and died. When I came back to life, the men were already building my coffin. But while I was dead, I went to heaven and saw wonderful things. The people in heaven are so happy and rejoicing.”
He ended his story with tears in his eyes saying this, “I cry every single day because I know that someone like me can’t go to heaven. What do I have to do to be saved?”
I thought, “Oh boy! A chance to be a real missionary! This will make a good prayer letter.” (But I was in for a surprise!) I immediately answered his question from the book of Acts chapter 16, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” (Acts 16:31)
Nahe answered, “That’s just it! How can I tell if I have believed?”
I responded incredulously, “Can’t you tell if you’ve believed something?”
And he said, “We Orya people don’t think so.”
That’s how the conversation went according to my understanding of it in those moments. But what we said really meant this:
I answered wrongly from the book of Acts, “Have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.”
Nahe’s answer made sense, “That’s just it! How can I tell if I have faith?”
I responded incredulously, “Can’t you tell if you have faith?”
And he said, “We Orya people don’t think so.”
The difference is between ‘believe’ and ‘faith’. It took a little while in the conversation before I figured out what Nahe was saying. This was a heavy moment for me, because I realized that the word for ‘believe’ that we had used in all our translation work for six years was wrong, including verses in Scripture booklets we had carefully checked and distributed.
Long before we arrived in Guay, the word that the Orya people used to translate ‘faith’ was ei gwen, or to have ‘inner fruit’. By ‘inner fruit’ the Orya meant the inside part that you eat when you take off the skin. It’s the inside of the papaya or watermelon. The situation might be compared to buying a papaya at the market. You don’t know whether the inside is red or yellow until you take it home and cut it open.
Nahe told me that the Orya people assumed that you couldn’t know if you had this inner fruit (or faith) inside you until you died. They thought that at the door of heaven, God would somehow do an operation to reveal if you had any of the right stuff inside you.
It was clear that if we used ‘have inner fruit’ to translate ‘believe’, then no Orya person could tell if they had done the required action to be saved. No one could have assurance of salvation! After that Sunday evening conversation with Nahe, all day Monday Boas and I and several others worked to make sure we found exactly the right word for ‘believe’ in Orya. The word for believe in Orya is not ei gwen, but taïblïblan.
There is a weird twist that has happened with the words for faith and believe in several languages that is not like the Greek words pisteuo and pistis. The Greek words have the same root, so they sound alike.
| Greek | English | Indonesian | Orya | | verb | pisteuo | I believe | Saya percaya | taïblïblan | | noun | pistis | faith | iman | ei gwen | | visually | clearly related | dissimilar | dissimilar | dissimilar |
If only pisteuo (I believe) and pistis/pisteos (noun/possesive noun) were translated into English with similar looking words like ‘I’m confident’ and ‘confidence’, we wouldn’t have so many false teachings being spread around! But because ‘believe’ and ‘faith’ share no visible or audible root relationship, the English noun faith has been allowed to wander— so to speak. The cohesion between pisteuo and pistis that was obvious for the original readers in Grrek has been lost in translation. Perhaps because of the influence of the KJV on Indonesian translations, the same thing has happened in Indonesian. The result is that the Indonesian word iman (like ‘faith’ in English) is used for all sorts of things, including inner fortitude, vague hope, blind trust, denominational faith, and a force for good luck.
Notice what happens in verses like Ephesians 2:8: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. …” If you want to be saved, it would be a good idea to understand ‘faith’. But so many people who ask Nahe’s question, “How can I tell if I have faith,” will get all sorts of misleading answers.
Dear friend, anytime you want to understand what ‘faith’ means in a verse in the New Testament, just remember that you can substitute the word ‘believe’, ‘believed’, or ‘believing’ (whatever form fits) in place of the word ‘faith’. NLT translates Ephesians 2:8 as “God saved you by his grace when you believed. …” If you substitute the word ‘believe’ for ‘faith’ in translations that use that word, you will probably find that you want to add an object. You can choose an object from the context such as these: ‘believe in Christ’, ‘believe in the gospel’, ‘believe true teachings’, or ‘believe God’s promises’.
Now you know why in the Daily Bible Reading podcasts that I always substitute the word ‘believe’ or ‘fully believing’ for ‘faith’ in the NLT or GNT. It all stems from my conversation with Nahe. You see, I want people to know how to be saved.
Note that believing is a volitional act. We decide to believe, and we better hope our decisions are based on good logic and evidence. That is what makes it so different from the word ‘faith’. People believe that ‘faith’ just sort of happens. False teachers make money by promoting all sorts of things that they claim will increase your faith. But remember that in Greek, faith is the noun form for the verb believe. So if God gives you clear evidence of his power and love for you, like He did when he led the people of Israel out of Egypt, and then you refuse to believe in his good will for you, that is called stubborn disobedience. Believing is a volitional act. Deciding to believe what God says equals increasing your faith.
I wish I could tell you that Nahe followed through with my advice to fully believe in Jesus. Nahe’s widow goes to close friend Boas’ church, and I happened to meet her in his village two years ago. We both feel that Nahe never believed in Jesus to the point that it changed his life. But, interestingly, on that same visit to Boas’ village, two old friends there told me stories of their dying, going to heaven, and being told to return to this world. (If you ever experienced malaria, you would know how easy it would be to nearly die!) I am encouraged that both of my two old friends show signs of true new life in Christ.
Friends, I want everyone to get a clear answer to the question, “How can I be sure I am saved?” I want you to not get confused by the fuzzy word ‘faith’. Remember, faith is fully believing what the Bible says. Every time you read God’s Word and decide that you believe what you find there, you have increased your faith.
Yesterday we heard how Balak sent for the shaman Balaam to curse Israel, and we heard that God instead moved him to bless Israel two times. And the third sacrifice of 7 bulls and 7 rams was made.
PSALM 40:
This is a psalm that is quoted in the New Testament. It is a great psalm of praise which conveys many New Testament concepts. (Some of you will perceive some differences in the NT quotes. This is because the NT quote was taken from the Septuagint— the ancient translation of the OT into Greek.)
ACTS 2a:
Yesterday we heard about Jesus' followers who were waiting in Jerusalem for the promised Holy Spirit and for power from God.
GNT Translation note:
Ps. 40:1 I waited patiently for the Lord's help;
[and] then he listened to me and heard my cry.
NUMBERS 22-23:
In Numbers 21, the Lord gave victory to the Israelites over the Amorites, and then over King Sihon. And because of Israel’s grumbling, the Lord sent poisonous snakes among them. When the people cried out to Moses, the Lord told him to make a snake and set it up on a pole. This is an unannounced picture of Christ.
PSALM 39:
This is a prayer for relief by David when he felt he was under the discipline of the Lord.
ACTS 1:
We follow up Luke's first report to Theophilus with his second to the same man. (Or perhaps Luke meant this account to be for any 'lover of God'.) The book covers the story of what happened after Jesus’ death in 33AD to Paul’s two-year house arrest that ended in 62AD.
Since only a few of the apostles are told about in this book, rather than ‘Acts of the Apostles’, others have suggested the name ‘Acts of the Holy Spirit’. Constable quotes William Neil, who starts out quoting Streeter:
“Streeter suggested that an alternative title for the book of Acts might be ‘The Road to Rome’, for this is indeed the significance of Luke’s work. Whatever minor motifs Luke had in mind— such as the establishment of Christianity in men’s minds as a constructive and not destructive element in the social order, his main concern was to show that, in God’s plan for the renewal of the life of mankind, Jerusalem, the heart of old Israel, was the goal of Stage I [i.e., the Book of Luke], while Rome, the center of the world, was the goal of Stage II [i.e., the Book of Acts].”
And here is a more pointed quote from Rosner:
“. . . Luke in Acts is not merely concerned to draw a link between the time of Jesus and the time of the early church, as is commonly noticed, but also between the time of Israel and the time of Jesus and His church. Acts insists that the God who was at work in the history of his ancient people, Israel, bringing them salvation, is the same God who is at work in the church.”
NUMBERS 19-20:
In yesterday's portions in Numbers, we heard how God proved again His choice of Aaron and the Levites by causing Aaron's staff to bud and even produce almonds. And God explained to the Levites and priests that their portion was not land— as for the other Israelites, but God himself and all the gifts given to God.
PSALM 37b:
Today we return to the acrostic poem, Psalm 37. Look for how this poem shows us God’s perspective about this world.
LUKE 24a:
At the end of Luke chapter 23, we heard of the events of the crucifixion, including the miracle of the torn curtain in the temple. Jesus was laid in a tomb while the women watched, and afterward, the same women prepared spices to go back and anoint his body.
NUMBERS 17-18:
Yesterday in Numbers, we heard another dramatic chapter in Israel's history: The rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. They must have been included in those who refused to go to the Promised Land, but then they had the gall to find fault with Moses that he didn't lead them to that land. It is also incredible that God would prove Moses' authority so dramatically (resulting in the death of the three conspirators and their families), yet the people would the next day without fear accuse Moses of killing the Lord's people (further resulting in a plague).
PSALM 37a:
Today’s psalm, Psalm 37, is an acrostic poem which we will read in two parts. This is a great Psalm for giving us the right perspective in our fallen world.
LUKE 23b:Yesterday we heard In the first half of Luke chapter 23 that Jesus was tried by Pilate and Herod, before Pilate finally caved into pressure and sentenced Jesus to death. Today we’ll repeat a few verses before finishing the chapter.
NUMBERS 16:
In Numbers 15, we found out that there were sacrifices that could be made for unintentional sins— whether done by the whole community or by an individual. But there was no sacrifice to cover an intentional sin— such as working on the Sabbath, as was so clearly illustrated by the man who gathered wood on the Sabbath. Then at the very end of chapter 15, we heard the instruction about the tassels with a blue cord that was to hang on the four corners of the Israelites’ garments. Those are the tassels that Tevia in the musical Fiddler on the Roof doesn't know the meaning of.
PSALM 36:
While this is a song praising God’s unfailing love, I want you to notice today how some parts of this poem are so appropriate to the story about Dathan, Abiram, and Korah.
LUKE 23a:
Chapter 22 ended with Peter's denial of being a follower of Jesus, and we heard of the council's decision against Jesus.
NUMBERS 15:
Yesterday in Numbers 14 we heard this very important and dramatic story: The people of Israel became unworthy to enter the Promised Land because of their stubborn unbelief. In the midst of that experience, Moses' prayers to God on behalf of the people are prime examples of how to plead with the Lord. The key revealed in that passage is to plead with God in accordance with his character and quoting his promises!
PSALM 35:
In today’s psalm, David prays for victory over his enemies. Opposition to David was sponsored by King Saul, who became David's enemy for no good reason— only because of envy.
LUKE 22b:
Yesterday in this chapter we heard of Judas betraying Jesus to the Jewish leaders, of the last supper, and of Jesus' last words to the disciples, including the prophecy that Peter would deny Him three times.
NUMBERS 14:
Yesterday in Numbers, we again found out what the Lord thinks when we grumble against him! Let's remember Miriam. Then the Lord commanded to send out the spies, but after taking stock of the land of Canaan, they brought an evil, unbelieving report— forgetting all the miracles the Lord had done to bring them out of Egypt.
Psalm 34:
Today we read Psalm 34, which is another acrostic psalm. I cannot write a better introduction than the one already written by the ancient Rabbis.
LUKE 22a:
Yesterday in chapter 21, we heard Jesus' prophecy about what will happen in judgment upon Jerusalem before his return.
Jesus said about his prophecies in chapter 21:32-33, “I tell you the truth, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” If we take away the part about Jesus coming again in a cloud, then many of the people there would have lived long enough to see the other things Jesus talked about in that chapter. But if we include His coming again in a cloud, then to define what Jesus meant by ‘this generation’, we have other Scriptures that imply to us that God defines a ‘generation’ as all the people in a historical epoch of perhaps thousands of years. Then the next verse says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” Well, here we are, after more than 2000 years, still reading his words. Jesus said that at a time when it would have been highly unlikely for his words to be preserved. But his words and those of the apostles have been preserved in more manuscripts than the sayings or writings of any other historical figure before the invention of the printing press. When papyrus didn’t last, believers copied the books on leather. Not only will Jesus’ words outlast heaven and earth, but we should be amazed at the incredible quality of God’s Word. Other ancient books are not of this literary quality. And compared to something like the Islamic Al-Koran and Hadith, the whole Bible is remarkably free of things that modern generations feel the need to sweep under the table. There are prophecies in the Bible (such as those in Luke 21) that cause us to wonder how they could happen, but God has shown us in so many fulfillments of Old Testament prophecies, that He likes to surprise us by fulfilling his prophecies in ways humans could not predict.
NUMBERS 12-13:
In Numbers 10 yesterday we heard about the signals given to the people using two silver trumpets, and about the first journey leaving Mount Sinai. Then we heard of the start of the grumbling against Moses and God. Moses appointed 70 leaders, and God sent quail in response to the people's complaints. Even Moses said some things that sound like complaining to me. But remember the name Kibroth Hattaavah and what the name means. We have strong evidence that God doesn’t like complainers.
PSALM 33:
Psalm 33 is full of important wisdom for us! This is the 4th Psalm without a title given by the rabbis.
LUKE 21b:
As we heard yesterday, Chapter 21 of Luke starts with the short account about the widow's offering exceeding (according to heavenly reckoning) the large gifts of the rich. Most of the chapter is Jesus' important prophecies about signs that will occur before he returns.
NUMBERS 10-11:
Yesterday in Numbers 9, we heard about the position of the lamps on the lampstand in the Holy Place, and the Levites were formally dedicated for service. The second Passover was celebrated. The Israelites received their marching orders based on when the cloud moved from over the sacred tent.
PSALM 32:
Today’s psalm, Psalm 32 gives essential spiritual principles conveyed in David's testimony. I encourage you, my listener, to camp out awhile in this psalm.
Let me add my testimony to David’s: I note as I look over the years, that the Lord has been extremely patient with me. I think that a major reason is that I have tried to keep ‘short lists’— so to speak, with the Lord. I mean by that that I didn’t stuff my feelings of guilt away, but would confess my sins. This meant that— embarrassingly, I was confessing the same sins over and over again. I am totally embarrassed to admit that it took me like 10, 20, and even 30 years of doing this before I finally had breakthroughs one at a time. But even so, one advantage of confessing your sins daily is that the embarrassment factor makes you want to find answers. Guess what! There are answers in God’s Word! Keep digging for them. The things that help me might not help you. The things YOU dig out of Scripture will help you the most. But to me, one thing is clear: If I had stopped confessing and trying to stay in fellowship with God like 1 John 1 talks about, it would have been like walking away from God. There would have been no progress and no breakthroughs, and my life would have been totally different.
LUKE 21:
And as we turn to the book of Luke, in the last confrontation in Luke 20, Jesus soundly refuted the Sadducees. After this, his teaching further embarrassed and offended the religious teachers.
NUMBERS 8-9:
In Numbers 7, we heard about the gifts given by the leaders of Israel following the dedication of the sacred tent.
PSALM 31:
Psalm 31 is a desperate— yet confident, prayer for protection. This prayer models the secret of effective prayer— praying with full belief in the Lord.
LUKE 20b:
Yesterday’s reading in the first part of Luke 20 showed how the Jewish leaders tried to confront and discredit Jesus. I remember reading these passages in the summer after 6th grade and being so impressed with Jesus' wisdom.
NUMBERS 7:
Yesterday in Numbers we heard how the people had to follow through with God’s commands, and those with defiling diseases were expelled from their camp until such time as they could be declared ritually clean again. And we heard about cleansing for issues involving the conscience, and what a man might do if he suspected his wife of unfaithfulness. (A man would be cruel to do this to his wife if he didn't have good reasons for his suspicions!) The 6th chapter dealt with the Nazarite vow and ended with the famous Aaronic blessing.
In today’s chapter 7 of Numbers, the GNT has done a beautiful job of giving the complete information in a way that is clear, precise, and that reduces repetition.
PSALM 30:
Today you will enjoy Psalm 30, as it is a wonderful song of thanks to God.
LUKE 20b:
Yesterday in the second half of chapter 19, Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem. While on the road, he wept over Jerusalem because of the spiritual blindness of the leaders, and he cleansed the temple of commerce.
When Jesus wept over Jerusalem, he prophesied, (Luke 19:43-44 NLT) “Before long your enemies will build ramparts against your walls and encircle you and close in on you from every side. They will crush you into the ground, and your children with you. Your enemies will not leave a single stone in place, because you did not recognize it when God visited you.”
It was no more than 40 years after Jesus said that when the Roman army did just as he prophesied. But on that day when he said those things, the religious leaders wanted to arrest Jesus in the temple. But they couldn’t do it because “all the people hung on every word he said.” So too, for us, let us hang on every word in our readings today.
NUMBERS 5-6:
Yesterday in Numbers 4 we heard the assignments for the Kohathite, Gershonite, and Merarite clans in regard to the care and moving of the sacred tent, all under the direction of Aaron's sons.
PSALM 29:
Psalm 29 is one of my personal favorite psalms because of the response of the people in the temple to God's glorious revelations of himself in nature.
LUKE 19b:
In yesterday's reading in Luke, Zacchaeus— a notorious sinner, dramatically came to Jesus. Then Jesus told a very thought-provoking parable. He is the King who will return and He will ask for an accounting from each of us— his servants.
NUMBERS 4Yesterday we learned that the Levite clans were given separate tasks in the care of the sacred tent. The 22,000 Levites became substitutes for Israel's 22,273 first-born sons.
PSALM 28David cries out to the Lord with all his heart. I love the imagery of the Lord as David’s ‘rock’, ‘shield’, and ‘shepherd’. (v1, 7, 9) As a translator, one sometimes has to make the choice of whether to retain a figure of speech more literally, or just to give its meaning. The GNT chose to translate the meaning at the first of v1 and7, but I will follow the NLT in those two places because I think we will understand David’s metaphors.
Translation notes:
1 [GNT: O Lord, my defender, I call to you.//NLT: I pray to You, O Lord, my rock.]
Listen to my cry!
If you do not answer me,
I will be among those who go down to the world of the dead.
5 They take no notice of what [You have done, Lord,//the Lord has done]
or of what [You have//he has] made;
so [You//he] will punish them
and destroy them forever.
6 [How I praise you Lord!//Give praise to the Lord;]
[You have//he has] heard my cry for help.
7 [You protect and defend me.//based on NLT: You, Lord, are my strength and shield.//The Lord protects and defends me;]
I trust in [You//him].
[You give me help and make me glad!//He gives me help and makes me glad;]
I praise [You//him] with joyful songs.
8 You, Lord, protect your people.//The Lord protects his people;]
[You defend and save me, your chosen king.//he defends and saves his chosen king.]
LUKE 19Yesterday in Luke 18, we heard of Jesus’ encounter with the rich young man, Jesus again predicted his death, and blind Bartimaeus (as named in Mark) was healed at Jericho.
Yesterday in the book of Numbers we heard about the organization of Israel's camp, having three tribes on each of the four sides of the tabernacle. This also determined their marching positions when the whole group moved.
PSALM 27:
Psalm 27 is a beautiful song, expressing David's confidence in the Lord’s protection, and he asks the Lord to vindicate him.
LUKE 18b:
Yesterday in the first half of Luke chapter 18, Jesus told the parable of the persistent widow and the one about the Pharisee and the tax collector. And we heard Jesus' surprising response to the rich young man.
NUMBERS 2:
Yesterday in Numbers chapter 1, God ordered a census of the men capable as soldiers in war. And we heard the list of the clan leaders of the 12 listed tribes— excluding Levi. (The number of tribes remains at 12 because the tribe of Joseph is split in two.)
PSALM 26:This poem is a personal lament. It is similar to Psalm 25 but does not contain confession. David asks for God’s vindication based on his personal integrity and shows his love for God by his devotion to God’s sanctuary.
LUKE 18a:
Yesterday we heard about the suddenness of the coming of Jesus as the Son of Man, and that believers will be suddenly taken out of a context that looks like ‘business as usual’. Jesus again said that first He must suffer and be rejected.
I want to challenge everyone to dig deeper into God’s Word— including myself. The last verse of Luke 17 says,
37 The disciples asked him, “Where, Lord?” Jesus answered, “Wherever there is a dead body, the vultures will gather.”
Greek does not differentiate between ‘vulture’ and ‘eagle’. Because of the presence of the word ‘dead body’, translators chose to translate ‘vulture’, but how would it change your ideas if we read this as ‘eagles’? Also, it is possible that Jesus’ response was a common proverb. If that is so, what did Jesus mean by quoting that proverb? When you have questions about words in the translation you are using, one easy thing to do is to switch versions temporarily to the NET, in order to read the many excellent footnotes there.
NUMBERS 1:
Numbers is the 4th of Moses' 5 books. In this book we will see that unbelief hinders God's blessings for Israel. HC Mears says, “Numbers might be called the Wilderness Wanderings,” because it chronicles the journey. And “Numbers might be called the book of the March and the Roll Call. ... It might, too, be called the Book of Murmurings, because from beginning to end it is filled with the spirit of rebellion against God.”
“Leviticus dealt with the believers' worship— Numbers deals with
the believer's walk. In Leviticus we see the believer’s privileges— in Numbers the wilderness is the drill field.”
Important lessons from the Book of Numbers:
- We must trust God, not people.
- God will supply all we need, including food, meat, water, leaders, and land.
- We must worship God according to his instructions.
PSALM 25:
Psalm 25 is the first acrostic poem we encounter in the psalms. An acrostic poem is one where every line starts with a new letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
In older translations which followed the KJV, verse 14 contains the word ‘secret’, but that word is better translated as ‘friendship/friend’. Here we read of the privilege of an intimate relationship with the Lord. I am reminded of a few years ago when things were not going well for me in relation to the leaders of my organization. Psalms like this were very comforting to me.
LUKE 17b:
Yesterday in Luke 17a Jesus taught about the importance of forgiving others, the importance of believing fully and being humble servants. Then we heard of the healing of 10 men who had a contagious/dreaded skin disease.
LEVITICUS 26-27:
Yesterday in Leviticus, we heard about the Sabbath year and the year of Restoration/Jubilee. Before the Year of Restoration, property could be bought back//redeemed. In the Restoration year property was returned to the original owners and poor people who had become enslaved were set free. I suspect these laws were never done in all of Israel's history. If they were, perhaps only once— seventy years after Israel entered the land of Canaan. In the final two chapters of Leviticus which we read today, we hear the LORD’s prophecy that the people of Israel would fall into sin and rebellion against God. They would be warned many times and be sent into exile. In exile, God said that they would repent and God would still remember his covenant with the people of Israel. The book ends with a list of regulations.
PSALM 24:
Today we read one of the most majestic psalms, Psalm 24! This ends with the song for welcoming the triumphant Messiah into Jerusalem.
The words of the fourth and final section of Psalm 24 are sung in Handel’s Messiah, “Lift up your heads, you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.”
In the first line, “Lift up your heads, you gates,” we have a poetic personification of the gates. This has been translated in the NET as “Look up, you gates.” But gates don’t have heads and they can’t look up. I like the GNT in that verse: “Fling wide the gates, open the ancient doors, and the great king will come in.”
LUKE 17a:
Yesterday in chapter 16 we heard two longer parables— both very insightful: The parable of the shrewd manager, and the one about the rich man and Lazarus. Both of them show this lesson:
Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they (those friends) will welcome you to an eternal home.
LEVITICUS 25:
Yesterday in Leviticus we heard about the seven important yearly celebrations of the Jewish religion. Then we heard about oil and bread for the tabernacle. Following that, we heard about the example of a law-breaker who was stoned to death for his crime of blasphemy.
PSALM 23:
Today we read the most famous psalm of all. My wife has often said: Psalm 23 is so often quoted at funerals, but this is a psalm about living, not dying!
LUKE 16:
Yesterday in Luke 15, we heard the three-part parable of the lost sheep, lost coin, and lost son. There is much treasure to dig for there! Consider taking some time to reflect on that wonderful chapter.
LEVITICUS 21-22:
In yesterday’s reading in Leviticus, we heard various laws that are for preserving the holiness of God's people, and various kinds of punishment for disobedience.
PSALM 21:
Psalm 21 is a companion to yesterday's psalm, which was for the nation and the king in time of war. Today’s poem is the corresponding victory song.
I have made a comment about the psalmists switching back and forth between seeming to pray to God, and then speak about God. I said that in Hebrew, many parts where the psalmist seems to speak about God can still be understood as praying to God.
In Psalm 21, not only does David pray to God using the 3rd person, but he speaks of himself also in the 3rd person.
Let me show you what I mean. The NLT gives the ancient title, “For the choir director: A psalm of David
Verse 1, “How the king rejoices in your strength, O Lord!”
David being the writer, but talking about himself as ‘the king’ can be considered ungrammatical in today’s English, and translating literally here may prevent readers from seeing this Psalm as a very personal prayer. I will read several verses adapted from the GNT to show you how I wish this psalm was translated.
21:1 O LORD, I— the king you have chosen, am so glad
because of the strength you have given me.
2 You have given me my heart's desire;
you have answered [my//his] request.
3 You came to me with great blessings
and set a crown of gold on my head.
4 I asked for life, and you gave it,
a long and lasting life.
5 My kingly glory is great because of your help;
you have given me fame and majesty.
6 Your blessings are with me forever,
and your presence fills me with joy.
Luke 14:
As we heard yesterday, Luke chapter 13 contains 4 parables. Jesus sternly warned the people to repent, and he grieved for the persistent stubbornness and hardness of heart of the people of Jerusalem. In both that chapter and today’s chapter, Jesus healed people on the Sabbath, using those occasions as opportunities to teach and rebuke his enemies.
LEVITICUS 19-20:
Yesterday in Leviticus we learned about the rule that all sacrifices must be done at the tabernacle, also the prohibitions of eating anything containing animal blood, and forbidden sexual practices.
PSALM 20:
Today we will read Psalm 20, which is a prayer for the nation of Israel and their king, asking for national security in a time of war.
LUKE 13:
In the second half of Luke 12, Jesus taught about being ready for his return, and to be ready for the division that would come about because of Jesus himself.
LEVITICUS 17-18:
Yesterday in Leviticus we learned about regulations concerning uncleanness caused by bodily discharges of all kinds. Then we heard the procedures for the high priest to perform yearly on the day of atonement.
PSALM 19:Today’s Psalm— Psalm 19, is a famous poem celebrating the heavens and God's creation, and secondly celebrating the perfection of God's Word.
LUKE 12b:
In yesterday’s reading in the first half of Luke 12, Jesus warned about hypocrisy, and one of our biggest fears— fearing what other people will think of us. Here is a clear translation of two important verses from that part:
Luke. 12:8 PET “I tell you the truth, everyone who says publicly here on earth, ‘I am a follower of Jesus’, I, the Son of Man, will also acknowledge them as my followers in the presence of God’s angels.
9 But those who deny me here on earth, saying they are not my disciples, I will also say that they are not my disciples in the presence of God’s angels.
LEVITICUS 15-16:
Yesterday in Leviticus 14 we heard about sacrifices following the healing of skin diseases and after getting rid of the diseased infection in a house. Note that the infection in a house is probably more serious than mildew, which is the word used in some translations. Did you happen to notice in that chapter Who is said to cause such infections? (14:33) Chapter 15 is about defiling bodily discharges.
Chapter 16 is about the Day of Atonement, and the chapter contains a translation problem in the word or name ‘azazel’. If you are interested in finding out more about ‘azazel’, check out the footnote in the NET at Leviticus 16:8. The truth is that we don’t know what ‘azazel’ means, and little linguistic clues saying “the word might be related to” another word can never provide certain answers. We don’t even know if it was a name. So in a case like this, I think it is better to translate the term in a generic way, rather than being too specific.
PSALM 18:
Psalm 18 reveals David’s intimacy with God. Even though he frequently refers to himself, we see that God— and not himself, is the center of his spiritual life.
LUKE 12a:
The religious experts and Pharisees remembered the stinging rebukes that Jesus gave them in Luke chapter 11. When they were trying to trap Jesus in Luke 20, they even tried to butter Him up by saying, “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach correctly, and show no partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.”
These days, the whole concept of ‘truth’ has fallen on bad times. Now everyone gets to create their own truth— that is, until your truth conflicts with my truth. Then your truth is wrong and my truth is right. So these days we are being trained to show partiality to everyone. If you speak out, you might offend someone. But, just think, following Jesus’ example, it is often more loving to not show that kind of blind ‘partiality’ and to help people realize that there really is something called ‘the truth’, and where it can be found.
LEVITICUS 14:After hearing about the serious skin diseases in Leviticus 13, today we hear of the regulations if someone is healed from one. Note that these regulations were probably very seldom performed— until perhaps when Jesus caused a wave of men who had been healed to come with offerings.
Note that our modern translations use either ‘serious skin disease’ or ‘contagious skin disease’ instead of calling these ‘leprosy’ as in older translations. Leprosy— also called Hanson’s Disease, is a very different disease from the ones described in Scripture.
PSALM 17:
This is one of David’s poems. Olsen quotes Spurgeon commenting on this psalm: “David would never have been [called] a man after God's own heart if he had not been a man of prayer. He was a master in the sacred art of supplication.”
LUKE 11b:
Yesterday in the first half of Luke 11, Jesus taught about prayer, and persistence in prayer, and He refuted those who slandered him saying that he worked by the power of Satan. Jesus also taught that demons can leave on their own, but the spiritual vacuum will result in more demons than before.
LEVITICUS 13:
Yesterday in Lev. 11-12, we learned the animals considered clean and edible, and those that were considered unclean and detestable. Then we heard about the sacrifices for purification after a woman gives birth.
PSALM 16:
Today we read Psalm 16. E.C. Olsen says that the Old Testament is like a sundial. “It is not difficult to read the hour marks on a sundial. Anybody can read them and at any time, but one can only tell time when the sun shines upon the sundial. Thus, while the Bible is the Word of God and can be read by all at any time, only the man who has received the Lord Jesus Christ is able to tell divine time by the Bible. It is only as the “Son” shines upon the pages of Scripture, particularly the Old Testament, that we are able to understand, to see and to appreciate that Christ is to be found on every page of Scripture.” With the Son shining on it, we see that the 16th Psalm is a Messianic Psalm.
LUKE 11a:
Yesterday in Luke 10b, Jesus agreed with a law expert in the most important commandments but taught the man the meaning of who is one's neighbor. And Jesus visited Martha and Mary.
Just a footnote here if you happen to be new to reading God’s Word: In the story about the man who fell among robbers, Jesus skewered the religious elite. Because those who went by on the other side were members of that class, first a priest and then a Levite, who could work in the temple. And the one who helped the victim laying bleeding on the road was a Samaritan. The Samaritans were the hated race that came into the land of Israel while the Israelite people had been taken away in captivity to Babylon. Everyone would have considered it quite normal for a Samaritan to leave a wounded Jew there on the road and go right on. Loving our neighbor as God wants us to, means that we will go out of our way and do things that are unexpected, including
Yesterday in Leviticus, Aaron and his sons started their work, and the glory of the Lord was revealed. But right after that Nadab and Abihu died because they offered an unauthorized kind of fire to the Lord.
There are important lessons for us in that story. We will see other stories also were others who wanted to ‘do it their way’ instead of God’s way were severely punished or died like Nadab and Abihu. Such stories show that God expects, and has the right to demand, that He be approached according to the way He has specified and in a way that shows reverence for his holiness. In our time in many Christian churches, it seems that we have forgotten all about reverence for our holy and all-powerful God. Many of you will know the song, “I can only imagine.” The writer wonders what it will be like to meet Jesus. He sings, “Will I dance for you Jesus, or in awe of You be still.” I recommend not trying to dance for Jesus when you first meet him! Remember that the apostle John was so very close to Jesus during his earthly life. But when John actually met Jesus in heaven, he fell at his feet like a dead man. In our time, we can praise Jesus for the access He has given us to our Holy Father. However, any time we approach God in prayer, we should remember to do so in an attitude of deep awe and reverence.
PSALM 15:
Today in Psalm 15 we will hear about the kind of people who will be welcomed into God's presence.
LUKE 10:
Yesterday in the first half of chapter 10 of Luke, Jesus sent the 72 disciples out ahead of Him with interesting instructions. A sent-out worker will be given his pay as he trusts in the Lord to provide it. And there were strong words for the villages which received most of Jesus' miracles.
You may notice that there are textual differences among Greek manuscripts that show up as footnotes in our translations. In that story I just mentioned, older or more conservative translations use the text that where Jesus sends out 70, not 72. If you are interested in such things, you will find a blog post at dailybiblereading.info about which Greek text I believe is the best to follow.
LEVITICUS 9-10:
Yesterday in Leviticus, we heard more regulations for the priests (mainly), and then heard the story of the ordination ceremony that Moses performed for Aaron and his sons.
PSALM 14:
Psalm 14 can be classed as a messianic psalm because of v7. (However, the messianic nature of that verse is not made clear in all translations.) David shows us what God sees when He looks at this world. And that is why Paul quoted from this psalm in Romans 3.
LUKE 10:
In the second half of Luke 9, Jesus came down from the mountain to find a crowd, and he healed a demon-possessed boy. Jesus predicted his death and talked about the cost for anyone wanting to be his disciple.
LEVITICUS 7-8:
In yesterday’s reading in Leviticus, we heard about sin and guilt offerings and about the ordination offering for priests. In today’s reading, it sounds to me that for repayment offerings (repayment being a sin which would usually be intentional), the person offering the sacrifice would not be entitled to receive any of the meat.
In today’s reading, Lev. 8:17, we read that “He (Moses) took the rest of the bull, including its skin, flesh, and intestines, and burned it outside the camp, just as the Lord had commanded.
Note that there are many times in Scripture where it says that one leader or another performed some large work, but it is clear that they ordered that the work is done. (An example would be statements like King X built the city of Y.) It would have taken Moses a long time to burn up the skin, flesh, and intestines of a bull, so it seems to me that we should understand that he didn’t do this by himself.
PSALM 13:
David starts Psalm 13 by crying out “How long?” and ends with a note of praise. We can be thankful for his difficult experiences which give us these Psalms.
LUKE 9b:
Yesterday in Luke we heard of Jesus sending out his disciples, and afterward the feeding of the 5,000. Peter rightly declared what position Jesus was filling. Jesus predicted his death. He said that some standing there would not die before seeing the Kingdom of God. Perhaps he meant his three disciples who saw the transfiguration because His kingship was clearly foreshadowed there.
In yesterday’s reading, we read again Jesus’ statement about what it takes to become his disciple. The metonymy that Jesus coined is to ‘take up your cross’. As I said before, this means that we make the decision to follow the Lord no matter what, even to the point of death by crucifixion. Differing from Mark’s account of this statement, Luke adds the word ‘daily’. That decision I just explained, that taking up of our cross, its a daily commitment.
LEVITICUS 5-6:
Yesterday we read about sacrifices given for unintentional sins and for peace offerings. And today we’ll hear about offerings for intentional sins.
PSALM 12:
In Psalm 12, we hear of trusting in God's promises even in the midst of hard times.
LUKE 9a:
Yesterday to the woman healed of bleeding, Jesus said, “It is because you believe in me that you are healed.” And to Jairus, He said, “ Don’t be afraid. Just keep on believing in Me.”
Today I would like to give pointers for understanding Jesus’ parables. I consider the parable to be one of the greatest of all teaching devices, and a legacy of the Greatest Teacher. I will end this episode by sharing about one of my favorite writers of non-Biblical parables.
One little detail to understand is that the word ‘parable’ (Greek paraboles) had a wider meaning than we normally think of in English, and you may see this sometimes in the New Testament. In English, we normally think of a parable as a story that points to some deeper meaning. However, as an example, the word ‘parable’ is used for a one-sentence figurative teaching in Mark 7:17 where it refers back to Jesus’ statement in verse 15:
GW “Nothing that goes into a person from the outside can make him unclean. It’s what comes out of a person that makes him unclean.”
In verse 17, the disciples ask Jesus to explain that ‘parable’.
With that footnote, I want you to know that I will really just be talking briefly about what we normally think of as parables, the story type.
In the episode notes, I give links to more complete and scholarly information than what I will present to you. In particular, I recommend viewing the 6 minute video from bibleproject.com entitled The Parables of Jesus. Also in the episode notes, I have links to both a video and a good summary about Interpreting Parables by Bob Utley.
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Bob Utley’s Special Topic page on Interpreting Parables:
http://www.freebiblecommentary.org/special_topics/parable_interpretation.html
Bob Utley’s video on Luke 15:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f76EvjGy7Jw
Don’t miss the cool video from BibleProject.com! Title: The Parables of Jesus
I appreciated the original thinking and humorous examples in this short article:
https://www.1517.org/articles/understanding-jesus-parables
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As I was thinking about what to mention to you, I was reading a historically-interesting commentary by Christopher Wordsworth from 1856, and I almost stumbled into a common error in interpreting parables, which is thinking of them as allegories. An example of this is Luke chapter 15, where we have the parable of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son. Wordsworth gives an allegorical interpretation, assigning an identity to all the characters. In this case, the shepherd is Christ, who searches for his lost sheep. That’s not too bad. But seeing the woman who loses one of her coins as a picture of the church, is definitely stretching things. Similarly in the Parable of the Lost Son, the father is interpreted as God, the younger son as the Gentiles who repent, and the older son as the Jews.
One of the things that leads people to take an overly allegorical approach to the parables has to be Jesus himself, in his foundational teaching about the parables found in Mark 4, Mat. 13, and Luk. 8. In Jesus’ explanation of the Parable of the Sower, He might almost contradict my last point about allegorical interpretation. It just happens that the Parable of the Sower (also called the Parable of the Different Kinds of Soil) has clear allegorical elements (the birds, path, rocky soil, etc), whereas for many other parables it doesn’t help to seek an allegorical identity for the various participants. A second thing that is unusual in the Parable of the Soils is that it has clear multiple teaching points, whereas most parables have a single, simple point.
I have mentioned all this heavy stuff to bring us around to this simple point: When we get too fancy in our interpretation of parables, we tend to miss the main point, which is to ask, “How does this apply to me?” The cool thing about parables is that Jesus intended them to be multi-purpose. People who were ready to believe in Jesus would get one interpretation, and the religious leaders criticizing Him would understand Jesus’ meaning very differently. Both groups got a correct interpretation, as Jesus intended, even though the interpretations were different.
This propensity of parables to be interpreted differently has a plus side and a negative side. On one hand, we must remember that parables are not good for determining doctrine. Let’s not decide the timing of Jesus’ second coming based on parables, but some of the parables clearly illustrate something about Jesus’ second coming. The plus side is that the Holy Spirit may use Jesus’ parables to say something very pointedly appropriate for you.
I have been amazed that in the Parable of Different Kinds of Soil I sometimes find that I am dangerously close to living amongst thorns, way too concerned with the cares of this life. But in a few months when I come across the parable again, I find that I have moved over to the rocky soil, meaning that I might glibly say that I love God’s Word, but on that day if I am honest, I have to admit that my roots are dangerously shallow.
Another illustration of a personal application for me is this, which I don’t think I have ever shared with anyone before: When I read the story of the prodigal son, I am reminded that I acted like the prodigal son, when I was young and thoughtless, by asking for part of my inheritance early. I didn’t realize that this was tantamount to wishing my father dead. How this must have hurt him! I wish I could tell him how sorry I am that I ever did that.
Don’t look to parables for decisions about moving to another city, quitting your job, or selling your house. That’s not what I mean by a personal application.
Finally, here are three final pointers:
- Understanding the context and the audience Jesus was speaking to is key to understanding what Jesus was saying.
- You can see a progression in Luke’s Gospel that leads from more general parables about the Kingdom of God, to Jesus’ identity as the king who will return, and to whom everyone will give an account.
- Look to see if the Gospel writer or Jesus himself tells what He was driving at. And also take note of any surprising twist in the story. Such twists often give an important clue to the meaning.
Let me illustrate that idea of a surprising twist found in some parables. One of my favorite booklets that we printed to display our translation in Indonesia is a collection of 25 parables. If I am in Indonesia, I like to have that booklet handy in my bag. There was one devout Islamic taxi driver that took me to my home at least six times. Because of frequent traffic jams in Jakarta, a 20 minute trip can take two hours on bad days. So I started reading the parables to him. He was interested, and it was way better than trying to debate with him about our religions. After many of the parables he would say, “OK, yeah. I think we Muslims could agree with that one.” That continued until we got to the Parable of the Vineyard owner in Matthew 20. That’s the one where the vineyard owner gives all the workers the same pay for a full day’s work, even though some workers only worked for one hour. He responded, “What?! He did that? That’s crazy. That’s unfair!” This gave me an opportunity to talk about God’s kindness. We call it grace. God wants to be generous with us, because none of us can manage to earn our salvation. God designed this counterintuitive situation so that all glory would go to our Savior, and none would go to us.
As I will not be living in the same place in Jakarta when I go back in July, it is not likely that I will take that route again with the same taxi driver. It is not appropriate for me to share his name. But you can join me in praying for that taxi driver that I read parables to.
One of my spiritual fathers (Richard Burson) introduced me to the parables of Safed the Sage. Safed was the pen name of William E. Barton, who lived from 1861 to 1930. William Barton was a highly regarded Congregational pastor, and also a published expert on the life of Abraham Lincoln. Barton also edited a Sunday School newsletter (and in his day, Sunday School included adult classes). In the newsletters he first published his Parables of Safed the Sage. These were picked up by newspapers who republished them, and around 1919 the parables were published in several books. Happily, you can find Barton’s parables of Safed the Sage as free downloads at the Library of Congress website. They are in the public domain.
Barton’s writing style is humorous because he used an affected old-fashioned style of English, mixing in expressions like in the King James Bible. And he heightened the effect by using capital letters in strange places, for words that he wanted to highlight. So I feel that often his parables are better when read, rather than in audio form.
I have so appreciated Barton’s parables that I have recorded many of them for a podcast that I call JoySightings, found at joysightings.info. You can subscribe to this podcast in any podcast player.
I will give you two short examples of the parables of Safed the Sage in this podcast. They are different than Jesus’ parables in that Safed usually gives the meaning of his parable at the end. I think you will enjoy the experience of hearing a new parable. Think of how engaging Jesus’ parables would have been, and still are, for people hearing them for the first time!
The Gravity Trolley
I journeyed unto a distant State, even to California, and I rode upon a Trolley that ran Six miles back from the Railway Station into the hills. And I observed that all the way as we Ascended, the Motorman consumed Electric Current, but when we Descended, then did he shut off the Juice, and controlled our speed by means of the Brake, with an Emergency Brake at hand, and I spake unto certain of those with whom I rode, of the Trolley, and of how the Roadbed was all Up-Hill one way, and all Down-Hill the other way; and how they used two kinds of power, even Electricity and Gravitation, and each of them in one direction only.
And one of them spake unto me, saying, Thus it was intended when this Road was Surveyed, and before they had Electric Power; for in that day did they haul the cars Up-Hill with Mules; and there was a Platform upon the Rear of the Car, and the Mules Ascended the Platform and rode down. And they told me how the Mules soon learned the trick, so that as soon as they were unhitched they hastened to the rear of the car and climbed up.
And others told me many things about those Mules; and a certain Woman procured for me a Picture of the Car with the Passengers riding Inside and the Mules riding Outside, and the Mules enjoying it as much as the Passengers. And it pleased me much.
Now it came to pass in time that the Electric Current Emancipated the Mules, and the Owners of the Trolley sold the Mules. And farmers bought them at a good price, for the Mules were fat and strong. But it was a Bad Buy for the farmers.
For those Mules would pull the Plow Up-Hill to the end of the Furrow, and then turn around and seek to climb up on the rear end of the Plow in order to ride down! And when they found no Platform, then were they Troubled in their Mind and much Bewildered. Neither was it Possible ever to teach them to pull any load Down-Hill.
Now I know many people with whom this System worketh the other way, and who are very willing to be hitched up to a job that runneth down hill by Gravity or the labor of others, but who insist upon riding or being Unhitched when the Trolley hitteth the up-grade. For the work of the Lord hath its Up-Hill and its Down-Hill aspects, and if there be any Platforms provided for those who would ride, thou shalt find them already occupied by kindred souls who have beaten you to it.
On Rising Above the Clouds
I rode upon a Railway Train; and we were in the Rocky Mountains. And we awoke in the morning, and the Train was climbing, with two Engines pulling us, and one pushing behind. And we were nigh unto Twelve Furlongs above the sea.
And it came to pass as we ascended, that there were clouds below us, and Clouds upon the sides of the Mountains, but there were no clouds above us, but the clear shining of the Morning Sun.
And there came unto me a small Girl and her younger Brother, who were riding upon the Train, and we talked about the clouds. For so did John Ruskin, and Aristophanes, and the little lad was very happy, and said,
I have never been above the Clouds before.
And his sister was worldly wise. And she said, A Cloud ain't nothing but just fog.
And he said, Nay, but it is more. And behold now, how then is a cloud just under us, and we ride on top of it?
And she said, We are on the Rails, just as we always have been; and there can't nobody ride on a Cloud.
And the boy said, Jesus can ride upon a Cloud; For I saw a Picture of Him.
And the little girl said, Yes but that ain't us.
Now the little girl may have been right; but I thought within myself that this world hath too many people who look out on Life through her windows. For they see no sunlit Clouds, but only Fog; and they have little faith in rising above Clouds, but have confidence only in the Rails.
And I do not despise Rails, nor advise people to discard them and ride upon Clouds. Nevertheless, I have seen people rise above Clouds, and live in the sunlight of God. But I have known others who, whenever it is said unto them, Thus have other men done, or thus did the good Lord Jesus, make reply, Yes, but that ain't us.
And if it is spoken concerning the House of God, Thus did the Synagogue in Jonesville, and thus was it done by the Church in Smithville, they answer, Yes, but that ain't us.
And if it be said, Thou shouldest be a better man; for other men have risen above thy Clouds and thine Infirmities, they say, Yes, but that ain't us.
And when it is said, Thus hath the grace of God abounded in other lives, they say, Yes, but that ain't us.
But if it ain't, why ain't it?
For this cause did God dwell in human flesh: That men should never count any good thing impossible that they behold in the dear Lord Jesus.
For he is our peace, who hath broken down all middle walls, that men should no longer say, But that ain't us.
May the Lord bless you ‘Real Good’!
Phil
LEVITICUS 3-4:
Yesterday in the beginning chapters of Leviticus, we heard about burnt offerings and grain offerings. In the first chapter, did you happen to notice how many things were being done by the person bringing the offering, not the priest?
Andrew Bonar states about Leviticus:
“There is no book in the whole compass of that inspired Volume which the Holy Spirit has given us, that contains more of the very words of God than Leviticus. It is God that is the direct speaker in almost every page; His gracious words are recorded in the form wherein they were uttered.”
Note this in our reading in Leviticus today: By and large, the sacrificial system was set up to forgive unintentional sins. (Some small exceptions will be noted in tomorrow’s reading in Leviticus.) It is good to draw a distinction— as the book of Hebrews does, between unintentional and intentional sins. Each of us should feel uncomfortable because each of us can look back and remember sins we committed intentionally. Let us make the firm commitment to never trample upon our Savior’s kindness by sinning intentionally. But we can praise the Lord for this verse spoken by Paul in Acts 13:
38-39 NET “Therefore let it be known to you, brothers [and sisters//0], that through this one forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by this one everyone who believes is justified from everything from which the law of Moses could not justify you.”
PSALM 11:
Psalm 11 is a song of trust in the Lord.
LUKE 8b:
Yesterday we read the parable of the sower or different kinds of soil. Jesus taught about the importance of hearing and doing what is in God's Word, and that was echoed again when his mother and brothers came to see him.
LEVITICUS 1-2:
Yesterday in the final chapter of Exodus, the worship in the completed and the dedicated tabernacle was started.
Leviticus is a continuation of Exodus, in the same way, that Exodus is a continuation of Genesis. Leviticus also starts with the word ‘And’. The title once again comes from Latin Vulgate which was based on the name in the Septuagint. So the name does not come from the Hebrew. But because of the name Leviticus with its obvious relationship to the Levites, many think that this book is a handbook only for the priests. Not so. Wenham (from Constable) states:
“It would be wrong, however, to describe Leviticus simply as a manual for priests. It is equally, if not more, concerned with the part the laity should play in worship. Many of the regulations explain what the layman should sacrifice. They tell him when to go to the sanctuary, what to bring, and what he may expect the priest to do when he arrives. Most of the laws apply to all Israel: only a few sections specifically concern the priests alone, e.g., chs. 21—22. The lay orientation of the legislation is particularly noticeable in ch. 23, where the whole emphasis lies on the days that must be observed as days of Sabbath rest.”
Many New Testament concepts are foreshadowed in this book, such as the seriousness of sin in God’s sight, the necessity of atonement of sin, the holiness of God, and the necessity of a mediator between God and Man. H.C. Mears summarizes the themes of the first three books of the Bible,
“In Genesis we see humanity ruined, in Exodus, humanity redeemed, and in Leviticus, humanity worshipping.”
One can’t read this book without being thankful to Christ Jesus for His sacrifice which fulfills for us the incredibly detailed laws about sacrifice under the old covenant.
PSALM 10:
E.C. Olsen says this Psalm has “a triple theme: the silence of God, the despair of the humble, and the pride of the wicked.” This Psalm doesn't give us all the answers, but we know God understands how we feel about these things.
LUKE 8:
At the end of Luke 7, we read about how Jesus was anointed by a sinful woman, and how Jesus answered the silent criticism of Simon, the Pharisee.
EXODUS 40:
Yesterday in Exodus we read about Bezalel making the outside articles for worship— like the altar for burnt offerings. There was a listing of materials used, and then we heard of the making of the priests' clothes— all according to how Moses was instructed by God. Moses inspected everything and blessed the people. The stage is set for the start of worship according to God's instructions.
PSALM 9:
Psalm 9 is a song celebrating God sitting on his throne and judging justly.
LUKE 7b:
Yesterday we read about Jesus healing a favorite slave of a Roman officer and the raising of a widow's son from death. We start today’s rereading where Jesus was speaking about John the Baptist.
In our reading today at the end of Luke 7, Jesus says to a woman who has been forgiven many sins, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
Jesus said, “Your faith has saved you.” I want to emphasize again: Jesus did NOT use ‘faith’ to mean such things as inner fortitude, vague hope, blind trust, denominational faith, or many other meanings. Remember that in Greek, ‘faith’ is simply the noun form of ‘believe’. So Jesus’ statement can be translated, “It is because you believe in Me that you’ve been saved.”
Then Jesus told the woman, “Go in peace.” Have you ever thought of what ‘peace’ means in a place like this? Jesus wasn’t telling her that she would have absence of war. You would be right in telling me that this is a spiritual peace. But if you told someone, ‘Go with spiritual peace’, it kind of sounds hollow. What we’re talking about is an inner peace that one can have even in the midst of the world falling apart all around you. After much discussion, what we came up with for the Indonesian language is, ‘go with the feeling of calm in God’s protection’ or another way to say it, ‘go with the calm assurance of being sheltered by God’. This is the realistic kind of inner peace that we who love the Lord have according to Romans 8:28.
EXODUS 38-39:
In the two chapters we heard in Exodus yesterday, we heard of the building of the tabernacle, the Covenant Box, and the other furniture of the Holy Place and Most Holy Place. Everything was done precisely as God had described before. The actor ‘he’ as we start chapter 38 is again Bezalel.
PSALM 8:
Today we read Psalm 8. Verses 4-8 from this Psalm are quoted in Hebrews 2 but frequently misunderstood. The term “the son of man” does not refer to Jesus in this Psalm or in Hebrews 2, and the NLT and the GNT are correct in not using that term here. This is a psalm of praise for the awesomeness of God, expressing amazement at the place of _mankind_ in God's creation.
The first verse of Ps. 8 in literal translations, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
This verse contains a type of figure of speech called a metonymy. Metonymy is when something small is used to stand for something big, like in the saying, “The pen is mightier than the sword”— where both ‘pen’ and ‘sword’ are metonymies. So in the sentence, ‘how majestic is your name in all the earth’, ‘name’ stands for the whole person of God, or in this case, it might stand for God’s reputation. Although English clearly uses metonymy, we don't so often use it based on ‘name’. A more natural metonymy for English and a good translation for this verse would be, “O Lord, our Lord, your glorious fingerprints are visible everywhere on earth!”
LUKE 7a:
Yesterday, in Luke chapter 6 we read the Beatitudes, and Jesus taught about loving others and not judging them. Jesus taught using the figures of trees and their fruit, and building houses upon a rock foundation.
One of the most frequently misquoted verses in Scripture was included in yesterday’s portion of Luke 6, “Do not judge others and you will not be judged.” But if we take that to the extreme, we would not be able to recognize good and bad people, as Jesus talks about in verse 45. And there are many other places where Christians are called upon to make judgments— especially those who are shepherds over a flock of believers. But the key is not bringing judgment against others if we might be found to be guilty of the same fault.
EXODUS 36-37:
Yesterday in Exodus we read about how Moses returned to the top of the mountain, taking two stone tablets which he had made, and God repeated many of the terms of the covenant. In the Hebrew text, chapter 34:28 says that ‘he’ engraved the 10 commandments over again on the second set of stone tablets. Because Moses is the last actor mentioned, some translations take it that Moses engraved the second set of tablets. But we know from Ex. 34:1 and Deut. 10:2-4 that God engraved both sets. Then after Moses came back down the mountain, the people responded to God by willingly bringing all that was required to make the Tabernacle.
PSALM 7:Psalm 7 is the song of a slandered saint.
Psalm 7 is one of the Psalms and in our English translations where it seems like the writer shifted unexpected from praying to God directly, to speaking to the reader about God. Some Psalms shift back and forth between speaking about and praying to God with dizzying frequency. However, readers of the original Hebrew may understand such psalms as praying directly to God from start to finish. I don’t have space here to explain the vast differences between Hebrew and English that have skewed our translations in this way, and I admit that I don’t understand the causes well enough to write clearly about them.
I can only say this: When reading Old Testament prayers in the NLT, GNT, or NIV, you may notice rapid changes: Talk to God, talk about God, pray to God again, then talk about God again. If you want to see a translation which does a more coherent job of translating OT prayers, take a look at the Contemporary English Version. The CEV is available in the YouVersion Bible app but does not have recordings. I appreciate that the CEV translators made many Psalms sound like the writer is praying to God all the way through.
LUKE 6b:
In the first half of Luke 6 yesterday, we saw the beginning of opposition to Jesus based on the way He kept the Sabbath law. He kept the Law but did not follow added traditions. He chose his 12 disciples and called them apostles. This biblical term basically means representatives. Then he gave the Beatitudes, which in Luke— unlike the more famous set in Matthew, include both the Blessings and corresponding Woes.
EXODUS 34-35:
In yesterday’s reading in Exodus, we heard about how God's meeting with Moses was interrupted because of the people making the golden calf. (Don’t ya’ hate interruptions!) Aaron caved into the people's desires. Moses interceded for the people, and God agreed not to destroy them. God eventually agreed to go with the people to the promised land. As we heard at the close of chapter 33, Moses asked to actually see God. God will hide Moses in a cleft in a rock, and allow Moses to see his back.
PSALM 6:
Today we read Psalm 6, which is the prayer of a wronged and oppressed man crying out to God for help and rescue. God has revealed more to us than was revealed to David. We now know that people can praise God after death.
LUKE 6:
Yesterday in Luke chapter 5, Jesus called several of his disciples after the miracle of the large catch of fish, healed two men, and answered a question about fasting.
Before I start our prayer for today, remember that scene where Moses asked to see the Lord. God put him on a rock, and Moses was protected in the opening of the rock, the cleft of the rock. There’s a hymn about that, and it’s a beautiful picture of our Rock, Jesus. Through Him, we can come to God in prayer today.
EXODUS 32-33:
Yesterday in Exodus, we heard about the plans for the incense altar, and about the making of incense and anointing oil. We heard also of God's choosing and giving the ability to Bezalel and Oholiab for making everything required in the worship of God. And God emphasized the importance of keeping the Sabbath as a covenant responsibility.
PSALM 5:
Psalm 5 is a song for early morning (when arising from a night of sleep). Erling Olsen comments that this Psalm says that God hates or detests evildoers. Olsen observes correctly that this stands in stark contrast to pictures of God that make him only capable of the sentiment of love. We as God's created beings have no right to criticize Him or remake him in an image we find more acceptable. God who created us has all emotions. And thankfully, He is completely just. He possesses the right to judge his created beings.
LUKE 5:
Yesterday in Luke 4, we read of Jesus being rejected in his hometown, of healings, and casting out demons. He refused to have his identity proclaimed by demons and silenced them. And He refused to stay in one town but went around preaching in the whole area.
The verses we will hear today in Luke 5:22-23 were very difficult for us to translate into both languages in which I have worked as a Bible translator. The NLT translated this way: “Why do you question this in your hearts? 23 Is it easier to say ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up and walk’?
For one thing, it is not physically ‘difficult’ to pronounce either statement. As to the answer to the rhetorical question ‘which is easier to say’, I do NOT buy the interpretation found in some translations that it was easier for Jesus to forgive the man’s sins because it was something that could not be physically seen. It was hard for Jesus to say both statements— hard in the sense that both statements require the power of God. Remember, Jesus knows that He will go to the cross in order to purchase forgiveness for this man— and for us. Jesus chose the order of his statements— not based on apparent difficulty, but to prove an important point to everyone, and especially his critics. As you listen today, be sure to catch the point!
EXODUS 30-31:
In yesterday’s reading in Exodus, we heard the instructions for consecrating the priests for their special work.
PSALM 4:
Psalm 4 is an evening hymn expressing our trust in God.
LUKE 4b:
Yesterday we heard about Jesus being tested by the devil, and today we will revisit the story of how Jesus was rejected in his hometown. When Jesus had finished reading from that special place in Isaiah 61, he sat down. In our culture, we are likely to assume that sitting down was without the expectation of teaching. But in Jewish practice of this time, teachers sat down to teach. Frequently in the Gospels, we find Jesus taking a sitting position when teaching.
In verse 38, Luke uses Peter’s given name, Simon, not the name Jesus gave him in John 1, which was Cephas in Aramaic, and which is Petrus/Peter in Greek. Many readers of this gospel today won’t make the connection of Simon to Peter. Some people wonder if there is a rhyme or reason for where the gospel writers used one name or another, and most of the time I think the writers simply were using the name they normally called him. But in John 21, I think that Jesus calling him ‘Simon son of John’ is significant. On that day, Jesus did not use the name He had given to him.
EXODUS 29:
In our reading in Exodus yesterday, we heard about the design of the altar for burnt offerings and the plans for the courtyard. The dimensions we heard the day before were for the sacred tent that was enclosed by the courtyard that we heard about yesterday. And we read about the fabulous garments for the priests, Aaron, and his sons.
PSALM 3:
As the title for today’s Psalm says, this is “A Psalm of David, regarding the time David fled from his son Absalom.” The ancient titles in the Psalms were written by the rabbis at a time much later than David’s, so we need not consider the titles as part of the sacred text.
Found at various strategic points in the Psalms is the word ‘Selah’. This has been variously translated. The truth is, we don’t know what it means! But people conjecture that it is a musical term, and it likely could have signaled an interlude. I suspect it could be a repetition mark. Whatever it is, it likely would have had the effect of allowing the listener to pause and reflect on what was just performed or communicated.
Luke 4a:
Yesterday we heard of John the Baptist's ministry and imprisonment, and the genealogy of Jesus.
The genealogy in Luke starts a bit differently, with the words, “He was the son (as was supposed) of Joseph.” These words alone are not enough to substantiate the claim that this genealogy is that of Mary. One thing we can say, only Mary could have supplied the information we heard in the first two chapters of Luke.
EXODUS 27-28:
Yesterday in Exodus, we heard the beginning plans given by God for the Tabernacle (or sacred tent) and the Arc of the Covenant, that was to become the focal point for the worship of God under the Covenant. The whole Tabernacle— and particularly the atonement cover on top of the Arc of the Covenant (called the Mercy Seat), symbolized that God was living among them. (Ex. 25:8) The whole Tabernacle was to be made exquisitely, as appropriate for God's own dwelling.
PSALM 2:
In Psalm 1, the author (probably David) mentioned obeying and studying ‘the Law’. In much of the Old Testament and even in the New, the word ‘Law’ came to mean more than the Mosaic Law or just the first 5 books of the Old Testament. We are within bounds to say that the author intended meditation and study of all of God’s Word.
Today we have our first prophetic Psalm.
LUKE 3:
Yesterday in Luke we heard of Jesus' childhood, and today we will hear of John the Baptist's ministry.
EXODUS 25-26:
Yesterday we read the commands for the Israelites to be good neighbors and to practice justice. And we heard the requirement for all Israelites to celebrate three festivals, and God gave promises of how He would bring them into the land. Then we read the story of how Moses led the people in accepting the covenant. Note how important the sacrificial blood was in this ceremony. The Israelites promised to obey the covenant. Moses told them to wait for him, then followed God's call to go up to the summit of the mountain, where he stayed for 40 days and nights.
PSALMS 1:
Job— as I said before, is a book of sophisticated poetry, one that uses literary devices and makes reference to a well-developed mythology. And we find a book that defies simple analysis. At the conclusion of Job, some of you may be feeling that some basic questions were not really answered. Some of you may be saying, “But I have suffered injustice, and God has not responded to me the way he responded to Job at the end of the book.” To those of you, I say that we can learn several things from Job, and one would be that there are many things God takes into account that we do not know about. And secondly, we can be sure that God is just and fair, and in the final analysis— when we reach heaven, all issues of justice will be resolved. And I also say this: I hope you continue to read the Bible with us this year, because we will find more answers about God’s sovereignty and justice as we go on.
The book of Psalms was the nation of Israel's hymnbook. The poems were compiled over time, with most of the first half by King David. The Psalms fall into these categories:
Instruction, Praise, Thanksgiving,
Penitence, Trust, Distress,
Aspiration, History, and Prophecy.
Under the prophecy category, the Psalms talk of Jesus' prophetic office, his priestly office, his kingly office, his sufferings, and his resurrection. (For details, see HC Mears.)
LUKE 2b:
Yesterday we read of Jesus' birth, of the angels announcement to the shepherds, and of Jesus being presented in the temple— which is where we pick up the story today.
GNT Translation note:
Luk. 2:34 Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, [the child’s//his] mother, “This child is chosen by God for the destruction and the salvation of many in Israel. He will be a sign from God which many people will speak against 35 and so reveal their secret thoughts. And sorrow, like a sharp sword, will break your own heart.”
NLT Translation notes:
Luk. 2:30 [For I have now//I have] seen your salvation,
31 which you have prepared for all people.
32 He is a light to reveal [You/God] to the nations,
and he is the glory of your people Israel!”
EXODUS 23-24:
Yesterday in Exodus we heard laws regarding the treatment of slaves, cases of personal injury, protection of private property, and social responsibility.
Job 42:
As we turn to the final chapter of Job, we have heard three chapters of God confronting Job. Today Job gives his final response, and we hear of God’s blessings to him.
Luke 2a:
Yesterday in Luke, Mary visited Elizabeth, and we read Mary's famous song of praise, and later John's father Zechariah prayed an inspired and fully-believing prophetic prayer.
In our reading in Exodus yesterday, we read about the awesome and fearful way the Lord revealed himself at Mount Sinai to the Israelites. (Remember that for when we come to Hebrews 13.) And God gave the 10 Commandments.
JOB 41:
In Job today, God continues to confront and challenge Job, asking questions revealing God's power compared to human weakness.
A note about Leviathan in this chapter. Leviathan can be compared to a sea crocodile. The identification of Leviathan is disputed, ranging from an earthly creature to a mythical sea monster in ancient literature.
LUKE 1b:
As we started Luke’s gospel yesterday, we read Luke’s prologue, in which he formally stated his purpose in writing this account. Then we read of Zechariah's unbelief, and how Mary accepted the role God had given to her. She said:
1:38 NIV “ I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.”
It is very interesting to me that Zechariah receives a punishment for not believing, according to Gabriel’s words. But there is not that much difference in the first reaction of Zechariah and Mary’s first reaction to Gabriel’s messages. Zechariah said, “How can I be sure this will happen?” And then he gave his and Elizabeth’s ages as the reason for his question. Mary responded very similarly, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.” I conclude that the differing responses from Gabriel are not based on the wording of Zechariah’s and Mary’s responses. Gabriel is simply relaying God’s messages, and God sees into the heart of each person. And this is something for us to remember— whether or not we are visited by an angel!
EXODUS 19-20:
Yesterday in Exodus, we heard of God satisfying the thirst of the Israelites by commanding Moses to hit a rock. Israel defeated the Amalekites. And Jethro brought Moses’ wife and sons to him and stayed around long enough to give him good advice.
Note that in Hebrew, God often talks of _Himself_ in what we might term the royal fashion— as ‘The Lord’, and as ‘He’ or ‘His’ (instead of ‘Me’ and ‘My’). Many translations into other languages must use ‘I, the Lord’ and ‘Me/My’, as to speak of oneself in the third person is ungrammatical. To speak that way is highly unusual in English. An example of this happens in today’s reading in Exodus 20:7, in the commandment about not taking the Lord’s name in vain.
JOB 40:
Yesterday in the book of Job, God continued to challenge Job with questions too hard for humans to answer. In today’s chapter, starting at verse 15, we read about the Behemoth. The GNT footnote tells that some identify this as a hippopotamus. But the description of Behemoth's tail in verse 17 doesn't fit with a hippopotamus. Maybe a sea crocodile would be a better choice, but they don’t eat grass. It is perhaps better to simply say that the Behemoth and Leviathan are legendary or mythical sea creatures.
LUKE 1:
Yesterday we finished 2nd Peter with his advising us to get ready for the Lord's return.
Luke— as we will find out in other NT books, was the physician who was a traveling companion of Paul. His goal was to write a well-researched and ordered account of Jesus' life— as he says in his formal prologue.
Robert Maddox states:
“[Luke] writes to reassure the Christians of his day that their faith in Jesus is no aberration, but the authentic goal towards which God’s ancient dealings with Israel were driving.” More Muslims have become followers of Christ through reading Luke’s Gospel than from reading the other three, because of its emphases.
Luke is the longest book of the NT, and if we put Luke’s two books together, they form 27% of the NT.
Luke wrote to Theophilus, who may have been a Roman dignitary, but since the name means “Lover of God” Luke may have intended his book for all of us who love God. Luke's explanations show that he was writing to the Greeks, and so he appropriately brings out that Christ came for all mankind— Jews, and Gentiles. Luke also highlights the roles played by women. A major example of this is the material in this gospel that clearly from Luke’s interviews with Mary, the mother of Jesus. Luke includes more poetry than the other Gospels, tells more about Jesus praying, and chronicles Jesus' parables and teaching.
EXODUS 17-18:
Yesterday in Exodus we heard the wonderful victory song of Moses. Then we heard how the people of Israel grumbled against Moses, Aaron, and most importantly, the Lord. Even about a simple command like the one about gathering manna, the people of Israel disobey repeatedly. They are not called stubborn for nothing.
JOB 39:
Job 39 is the continuation of God’s harsh challenges to Job.
2PETER 3:
I observe about 2Peter chapter 2, that sadly, even in Peter's day, there were greedy false teachers. Peter's descriptions of the false teachers are some of the most colorful in the Bible.
EXODUS 15-16:
Yesterday in our reading in Exodus, we heard that because of the Passover plague which killed Egypt's firstborn, God claimed the firstborn of Israel for all time to come. Then we heard of Pharaoh's final hardening of his heart, and the parting of the red sea.
JOB 38:
In the 6 chapters before this, Elihu has said that God uses multiple means of communication with humans. He maintained that God is just, and said that Job— in his despair, had gone too far in saying it doesn't make any difference if one tries to serve God. He said that God is amazing in His power, and God does notice and punish the wicked. Then it so happened that as Elihu was speaking, a storm was blowing up that showed God's awesome majesty. Then— in today’s chapter, the Lord answers Job, not the last speaker, Elihu.
2PETER 2:
Yesterday in 2nd Peter we heard that we can employ God's promises to supply power for godly living. This power can even enable us to share in God's own nature, thereby escaping the world's corruption. For many years I was disappointed in Peter because he did not tell us WHICH promises we need to claim to escape worldly corruption and evil desires. I have concluded that everyone is different, and what works for me may not work for you. But if you are interested in what works for me, I recommend a seven day YouVersion reading plan I made called Buckling the Belt of Truth.
There is a stark contrast between chapter 2 of 2nd Peter and the end of chapter 1. So before we start our readings for today, let me remind you what we read at the end of chapter 1.
EXODUS 13-14:
Yesterday In Exodus we heard of the final plague— the death of the firstborn, which happened at the first Passover. And we heard the rules for the Passover celebrations. Note how Christ is foreshadowed in the Passover lamb, including the detail that not a bone was to be broken.
JOB 37:
Today we read chapter 37 of Job, which is the conclusion of Elihu's speech.
2nd PETER 1:
Yesterday in the last chapter of his letter, James railed against the rich to encourage the poor. He also told us how to be patient in our suffering. The last section teaches about prayer for the sick and finally about repentance. I add a little footnote here. So often I hear the part about praying for the sick quoted by people who do not bother to fulfill all the instructions that James gives. If we are going to claim promises in Scriptures, we need to fulfill the conditions given!
The 2nd letter of Peter's was probably written not long before he was martyred in AD 68. Or it could have been written as early as AD 65. A different person with a very different vocabulary served as Peter’s secretary to write this. One of the things that tell me that Peter really was the author is his consistent humility. In 1Peter 5, he spoke of himself as a fellow elder and a fellow in looking forward to the glory that will be revealed to us. And he starts this letter in a similar vein, calling his listeners those ‘who share the same precious [faith/way of believing] we [apostles] have.’
Constable quotes Vernon McGee:
“Second Peter is the swan song of Peter, just as 2 Timothy is the swan song of Paul. There are striking similarities between the two books. Both epistles put up a warning sign along the pilgrim pathway the church is traveling to identify the awful apostasy that was on the way at the time and which in our time has now arrived. What was then like a cloud the size of a man’s hand today envelops the sky and produces a storm of hurricane proportions. Peter warns of heresy among teachers; Paul warns of heresy among the laity.”
EXODUS 11-12:
Yesterday we heard of the plague against the livestock, the plague of boils, and the plague of hail. We are not told how much time there was in between each plague. It seems there was enough time for many Egyptians to buy more livestock before they were again decimated by the hail. Then we heard about the plague of locusts followed by the plague of darkness.
I hope you noticed Who is doing the hardening of hearts and causing the stubbornness. Paul talks about that in Romans 9.
JOB 36:
Job chapter 36 is Elihu's 5th chapter preaching to Job.
JAMES 5:
In the 4th chapter of his letter, James preached against the way the world had infiltrated the church— and we could say, still infiltrates the church. He gave an important clue about why God doesn't answer our prayers. And he taught that we need to purify our hearts from pride and having divided loyalty between God and the world. He gave a big clue on how to be rid of Satan's influence. Finally, James taught us how prideful it is to judge others, and warned about prideful planning.
Note that in verses 1-6 of today’s reading, James is using the rhetorical device called ‘apostrophe’— where he harshly rebukes rich people who are NOT actually in his audience. He is doing this to give comfort to his actual audience, which includes many who are poor. It is almost certainly the case that any rich people who were actually part of James’ audience had not done the crimes James mentions.
EXODUS 9-10:
The two chapters of Exodus we read yesterday included the story of Aaron's staff becoming a serpent, and the plagues of blood, frogs, gnats, and flies.
Note verse that in our reading today:
9:19 GNT Now give orders for your livestock and everything else you have in the open to be put under shelter. Hail will fall on the people and animals left outside unprotected, and they will all die.’ ”
Evidently, enough time had passed between the plague against the livestock so that the Egyptians were able to again purchase livestock, and I am sure the people of Israel profited in many of those transactions!
JOB 35:
Chapter 35 of Job is Elihu's 4th chapter preaching to Job.
JAMES 4:
Yesterday James preached about controlling the tongue, then he taught about the qualities of wisdom from God.
EXODUS 7-8:
In yesterday’s reading in Exodus, we heard of Moses and Aaron's first disastrous meeting with Pharaoh, and Pharaoh's retaliation against the Israelite people. God spoke with Moses again, reaffirming his promises and his covenant with the people of Israel.
JOB 34:
Today in chapter 34 of Job, we hear the third chapter of Elihu's six-chapter monologue.
JAMES 3:
Yesterday James warned that showing favoritism breaks the Law of Love that our King Jesus taught. And he talked about dead religion, which consists of easy believism with no acting out of what we believe. There is no contradiction between what Paul and James wrote. Here is a famous statement that sums up the complementary nature of Paul and James on this topic: “We are saved by faith alone (= fully believing), but saving faith will never be ‘alone’.” In other words, saving faith will always produce some proof.
I have mentioned before that the Greek words for ‘faith’ and ‘believe’ share the same root. Faith is simply the noun form of the verb believe. I mentioned how cohesion in the discourse is damaged for us English speakers when in close proximity the two dissimilar looking words are used for the same concept. This happens in James 2, verses 19-24. To show you what I mean, I will list the two words in the order of their occurrence in the NLT: have faith, believe, believe, faith, faith, faith, believed, faith. The reader may be tempted to look for some deep shade-of-meaning reason for this variation, but no such reason exists. Now listen to that passage when I read it using various forms of the verb ‘believe’ in a consistent manner:
EXODUS 5-6:
In Exodus so far we have heard that Moses accepted God's call, returned to Egypt with Aaron, and had a successful meeting with the leaders of the Israelite people.
JOB 33:
Today’s chapter in Job is Elihu's second chapter of six in his speech.
JAMES 2:
Yesterday James told us to consider it a great joy when troubles come our way. Don't miss the reasoning he gives for this seeming contradiction. Then he spoke very strongly about not just being people who merely listen to God's Word. We must do it.
I would like to remind you of some of those frequently quoted verses from chapter 1 which express the theme of this letter, verses 22-24. I also share my slight tweak to
James 1:22-25 NLT 22 But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.
23 For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror.
24 You see [that you have dirt on your face, and then just//yourself,] walk away, and forget what you [looked/look] like.
25 But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.
EXODUS 3-4:
In yesterday's beginning to Exodus, we heard of Moses' birth and his young adulthood in Egypt. He murdered a man and had to flee for his life, going to Midian. We also read of his helping the seven daughters of Reuel, a scene that I can't read without thinking of the Cecil B. DeMill movie.
JOB 32:
Job having finished his defense, Elihu takes the stage. HC Mears says,
Eliphaz basically said, “God never makes a mistake. What have you done to bring this on yourself?” Bildad essentially said, “God is just. Confess your sin.” Zophar suggested, “God is all-wise. He knows man.” Elihu’s name means, ‘My God is He’ or ‘He is my God.’ So Elihu is God's man, and he said the wisest thing: “God is good; look up, and trust Him.”
Note that at the end of the book, Elihu is not mentioned as having misrepresented God— unlike Job’s three friends. He does seem to speak wisely, but we can fault him for his arrogance.
JAMES 1:
Yesterday in 1Peter 5, Peter gave a very stern warning to rich people, and also important encouragement to elders within the church. And among other things, he gave an important word about spiritual battle with Satan. I summarize his commands as Stay alert, Stand firm, and Remember.
The letter of James is similar to 1 Peter in several ways. In the first verse of both letters, both mention that their audience is dispersed throughout the world. Both describe their audience using Jewish catchphrases. James’ style is also similar to Peter’s in the way he sets out several themes and keeps returning to them. Moyer says of this book, “As soon as we read through the letter of James we say to ourselves, ‘This man was a preacher before he was a writer.’”
James is probably the oldest book of the New Testament, written perhaps only 15 years after Jesus' death and before the first council of Jerusalem in AD 50. This was written, not by the disciple named James, but by James the half-brother of Jesus. While Jesus was alive, his brother James was not a believer. But he came to believe when Jesus appeared to him shortly after His resurrection. Sometime after this and before his martyrdom in AD 62, James was the leader of the church in Jerusalem.
James does not call himself ‘the brother of Jesus’ but His slave!
EXODUS 1:
Yesterday we wrapped up Genesis with Jacob's very prophetic blessings for each of his sons. Then we heard of the conclusion after Jacob was buried, including the account of Joseph’s death and his instruction about what to do with his bones.
Exodus is clearly a continuation of the story of Genesis since the first word in the Hebrew text is ‘And’. Tradition holds that Moses is the author. The name Exodus derives from the name that was given by the Septuagint translators— which is the translation of the OT into classical Greek made during the period from three hundred to one hundred and thirty-two years before Christ.
Here are two perceptive summary statements about Exodus— quotes by Durham (from Constable’s Notes):
“No other biblical book surfaces elsewhere in the OT as frequently as the Book of Exodus does; in the NT only the Books of Psalms and Isaiah are cited more, and that for the fairly obvious reasons of liturgy and messianism.”
“The story of the first half of Exodus, in broad summary, is Rescue. The story of the second half, in equally broad summary, is Response, both immediate response and continuing response. And binding together and undergirding both Rescue and Response is Presence— the Presence of Yahweh from whom both Rescue and Response ultimately derive.”
Here is a quote by J. Daniel Hays:
“The deliverance of Israel out of Egypt by Yahweh in the Old Testament is parallel in importance to the resurrection of Christ in the New Testament. The historicity of these events is a critical foundation for a proper understanding of the rest of the Bible.”
And finally, Henrietta Mears in her handbook says this:
“Exodus is connected to Genesis in much the same way that the New Testament is connected to the Old Testament. Genesis tells of humanity’s failure under every test and in every condition. Exodus is the thrilling epic of God rushing to the rescue. It tells of the redeeming work of a sovereign God.”
JOB 31:
No matter how you divide the discourse in the book of Job, today’s reading of chapter 31 is the final one in Job’s long speech. In today’s reading Job makes his final protest that he is innocent. After this, Elihu struts his stuff.
1PETER 5:
Peter finished chapter 4 talking about proudly bearing the name of ‘Christ’— which is part of the word ‘Christian’, and being patient under suffering— if that is included in God's will for you.
GENESIS 49-50:
In yesterday's reading in Genesis, Jacob blessed Pharaoh, Joseph lead powerfully during the worst of the famine, and Jacob blessed Ephraim and Manasseh— putting the younger Ephraim above his older brother. (And if you remember Jacob's story, you'll know how he got that idea.)
JOB 30:
In the book of Job today, if you are following the GNT, this is the 2nd of Job’s three chapters stating his complaints. In the NLT, this is the 5th chapter of his monologue. Yesterday Job spoke of his previous blessed life and high position. In this chapter, he tells of his anguish.
1PETER 4:
Yesterday in 1st Peter chapter 3 he gave instructions to wives, husbands, and all Christians— particularly when we suffer. NOTE: The final verses of chapter 3 having to do with Noah's day and spirits in prison have caused much debate. I agree with the maxim that states that in interpretation “Context is king.” It is, therefore, best to let the ending verses of chapter 3 be interpreted for us by what Peter says in chapter 4, verse 6. When we get to the NT portion for today, we’ll begin by re-reading 1PETER 3:17-22.
Welcome back for Day 29 in our reading plan.
GENESIS 47-48:
In yesterday's reading, Jacob arrived in Egypt with his family. Excluding more extended family, the whole group numbered 70 people at that time.
JOB 29:
Yesterday in Job 28, we heard the chapter in praise of God’s wisdom. I think NLT is right attributing this to Job rather than to Zophar. Today Job speaks of his former blessings, in the first of three chapters which are the final statement of his case.
1PETER 3:
In his first two chapters, Peter packed each sentence with meaning. I encourage you to take time to re-read those chapters slowly and think about Peter’s descriptive words. Yesterday, for instance, we read the wonderful “Living Stones” passage— which pictures deep meaning about our spiritual identity because of our being built upon (or, joined as one with) Christ, the Cornerstone.
At the end of chapter 2, Peter taught about submitting to governmental leaders, and slaves submitting to their masters.
GENESIS 46:
In yesterday’s two chapters of Genesis, Joseph's brothers went back to Egypt with Joseph's younger brother, Benjamin. Joseph contrived a creative way to reveal his identity. When Pharaoh heard about Joseph's brothers, he helped provide for Jacob's family to come to Egypt.
JOB 28:
Today’s chapter in Job and part of the previous chapter are assigned to Zophar in the GNT. NLT goes strictly with the assignments of speakers as in the Hebrew, where all of this is assigned to Job. Starting in 27:13, NLT, therefore, makes it clear that Job’s words— which sound mighty like what his opponents have said, are Job sarcastically repeating their arguments.
1PETER 1:22—2:
Peter addressed his letter to “To God's chosen people who live as [refugees/foreigners] scattered throughout” various provinces. But it is clear that Peter also has a spiritual meaning in mind. As the song says, “This world is not my home.” In chapter 2, Peter again comforts us and gives wonderful descriptions of our identity because of being joined to Christ. The first verse of chapter 2 starts with ‘then/So’, so let’s start out by reviewing the last verses of chapter 1, starting at v22.
In my prayers in these audio devotionals, you will notice that I do not finish with an Amen. I do this intentionally because I hope that some of you will pause the playback and continue to pray. And I also hope that we can continue in a spirit of prayer as we listen to God’s Word.
GENESIS 44-45:
Yesterday we heard of Joseph's brothers on their first and second trips to Egypt.
At the end of chapter 43, Joseph’s giving wine without limit might be considered as the typical generosity of a wealthy host. The GNT and NET say that Joseph’s brothers became drunk. But under these circumstances, I very much doubt that his brothers would have allowed themselves to become drunk. I prefer NLT and NIV’s translation, saying that the brothers drank freely. We pick up the story, still in Joseph's palace on the second trip.
JOB 27:
When we turn to Job 27, if you are reading or listening to the NLT, this chapter is the 2nd chapter of Job’s six-chapter-long speech. But if you are reading in the GNT, Zophar interrupts starting at chapter 27 verse 13 and carries on through chapter 28.
FIRST PETER 1:
In the last chapter of Mark’s Gospel, we read about the resurrection of Jesus. Since Mark very likely wrote his gospel based on Peter's information, it seems fitting that we move to Peter's two letters now. Evidently, Peter spent the last decade of his life in Rome, where he was martyred around the year 64. Mark (whom Peter fondly refers to as ‘his son’ in chapter 5) was with him in Rome when this was written. Silas— whom we will hear of later in Acts, was the secretary for writing this letter. Scholars do not doubt that this letter is from Peter.
For those who want to delve deeper in studying this short letter, I encourage you to search out and mark every occurrence of these repeated words: trials/suffering, hope, joy, grace, and glory.
As we start this letter, I want to remind you that in Greek, the abstract noun ‘faith’ and verb ‘believe’ have the same root word. It would be better if our translations mirrored this, but instead they have used two dissimilar looking words, faith and belief. Using two dissimilar words damages the cohesion of the text. Unfortunately the NLT has further damaged the cohesion by using the word ‘trust’ in 1st Peter to translate ‘believe’. I encourage you to keep in mind that ‘faith’ and ‘trust’ means ‘fully believing’.
I have prepared this Every Word podcast to discuss the ending of Mark 16, verses 9-20. Those are the verses that are bracketed in most translations made in the last century. The brackets indicate that the compilers of the Greek text used by the translators did not think those verses are part of the authentic inspired text. I am going to try to convince you today that the verses shouldn’t have brackets around them, and that they are authentic Scripture inspired by God.
The NLT, has this:
Mark 16:8 NLT
8 The women fled from the tomb, trembling and bewildered, and they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.[c]
c The most reliable early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end at verse 8. Other manuscripts include various endings to the Gospel. A few include both the “shorter ending” and the “longer ending.” The majority of manuscripts include the “longer ending” immediately after verse 8.
[The most ancient manuscripts of Mark conclude with verse 16:8. Later manuscripts add one or both of the following endings.] [Shorter Ending of Mark] Then they briefly reported all this to Peter and his companions. Afterward Jesus himself sent them out from east to west with the sacred and unfailing message of salvation that gives eternal life. Amen.
[Longer Ending of Mark] verses 9-20
I did not read the shorter ending for the podcast. That ending has extremely thin support in ancient manuscripts, and where the words occur, the manuscripts often also have the longer ending, verses 9-20.
In my preparation to be a Bible translator, I was given virtually zero preparation about different Greek texts of the NT or the manuscript evidence supporting them. We were expected to simply follow the lead of the main English translations as we translated into the Orya language (an ethnic language of Papua Province) and later in our translation into Indonesia’s national language. So the Orya translation and the first editions of our Indonesian translation include the brackets and a footnote. But our 3rd edition Plain Indonesian Translation (TSI) has no brackets for verses 9-20. I want to tell you why I changed my mind, and why the decision is important.
Some experts today think that Mark intended to end his Gospel with the words, “they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.” But this defies imagination. I don’t think authors started using the type of endings where you leave-the-audience-hanging until centuries later, like perhaps just two centuries ago. Remember that Mark starts with the words, “This is the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.” Mark shows a pattern of telling the outcome for every miracle. He is not about to leave his main thesis of his story without its fulfillment. The fulfillment of the starting thesis is found in the next to last verse (16:19), which says, “19 When the Lord Jesus had finished talking with them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand.” Verse 19 also is an important doctrinal statement, since no other Gospel includes those words as part of the story after Jesus’ resurrection. And the same verse also very appropriately links the book of Mark with Peter’s teaching in 1Pet. 3:22.
Please check yourself. Do you believe what Moses and Jesus said?: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Luk. 4:4) If we are to live by ‘every word’, do you believe that God would preserve every word for us?
I hope you respond, “Why yes, of course.”
I believe that God has preserved His Word for us. Therefore it is unacceptable for me to say that the Holy Spirit would leave a whole book of the NT without a clear ending. We have two choices for the ending: One says the ladies didn’t tell anyone because they were afraid. The other ends with Jesus at the right hand of God. Which one seems to be the proper ending to you?!
The NLT has words in bold italics before Mark 16 verses 9-20 which say, “[The most ancient manuscripts of Mark conclude with verse 16:8. Later manuscripts add one or both of the following endings.]”
How many manuscripts are we talking about with the words ‘most ancient manuscripts’? Then the footnote says ‘later manuscripts add’ the last 12 verses. What are the real numbers? Two of the very oldest manuscripts plus one other do not have the last 12 verses of Mark. But the manuscripts that include the last 12 verses number more than 1,650! 99.99% of ancient manuscripts contain the longer ending of Mark.
The NLT also has a footnote that starts with “The most reliable early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end at verse 8.” But this statement is actually false. The two manuscripts they are talking about (Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) cannot be said to be ‘reliable’. They are, however, recognized as the very earliest, dated at 325 and around 345. For Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus to be considered reliable, one would hope they would be reasonably consistent with one another. Instead they differ from one another in 3,036 places. I believe that early scribes recognized that they were defective, and this offers a plausible explanation for why there are no extant copies made from them.
I do not agree with the practice of writing vague footnotes in our Bibles as seen above. Many of the footnotes in your Bible will talk about what ‘some manuscripts’ say. It has actually been recommended to translators to keep such footnotes vague. I do not have the time to adequately explain why this has been done. It is time to give people better information. I will explain more about this in another podcast.
Many old-school ‘experts’ (by that I mean seminary teachers from the mid-20th century) will say that the two oldest manuscripts outweigh all of the 1,650 other ancient manuscripts. But many of today’s informed experts will not agree with the people I just called the ‘old-school experts’. Here are some points to consider:
- Both of the two oldest manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) have an odd blank space at the end of Mark, showing that the scribe realized the manuscript he was copying had something left out. This is called a ‘memorial space’. Such memorial spaces are found in various places in other ancient manuscripts. So even though the two manuscripts do not have the last 12 verses of Mark, the scribes telegraphed to us that they knew such an ending existed.
- Remember that Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are from the early 4th century. There are quotes of verses from Mark 16:9-20 by church fathers that predate Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Earlier support for the longer ending of Mark include “four second-century witnesses, and 99.9% of the [other ancient] Greek manuscripts, and 99.99% of the [ancient] Latin manuscripts, and 99.5% of the [ancient] Syriac manuscripts, and 40 Roman-era patristic writers.” (Quote from Dr. James Snapp: https://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2013/08/robert-stein-and-ending-of-mark.html)
- Codex Sinaiticus was discovered in 1844. This touched off a lot of excitement, and a revolutionary new text of the NT was published by Westscott and Hort in 1881. Please consider that there are multiple examples in history where excitement over new discoveries resulted in mistaken theories. For example, Darwin’s theory of evolution from the same time period is now discredited. Just like you have university teachers still bone-headedly holding on to the theory of evolution, so the theories of Westscott and Hort are no longer upheld by many of today’s experts but are still being repeated by seminary teachers. Westscott and Hort’s faulty decisions about what verses are not authentic are still seen in today’s Bibles.
- I’m sure that you will hear someone claim that the last 12 verses of Mark use non-Markan vocabulary, but that assertion has been repeatedly disproved.
In my January 4 news and information podcast, I mentioned that the GotQuestions web site often included very good answers to questions Bible readers bring up. Generally I believe that is true. But evidently it is NOT true when it comes to textual issues like the long ending of Mark. The GotQuestions article I refer to is entitled Should Mark 16:9-20 be in the Bible? https://www.gotquestions.org/Mark-16-9-20.html But please don’t read that one unless you also read Dr. James Snapp’s refutation of it linked here: https://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2013/07/the-got-questions-website-and-mark-169.html I would be very happy for you to read both articles, as this would show you how untruths are passed on by people who should know better.
Please consider supporting the work of James Snapp by buying and reading his 400-page book entitled Authentic: The Case for Mark 16:9-20: 2016 Edition. The Kindle book is only 99 cents. https://www.amazon.com/Authentic-Case-Mark-9-20-2016-ebook/dp/B01EU1OR9O
Some of you might be interested in listening to my 2020 podcast entitled EveryWord005 Mark 16. Please follow that last link to find the supplemental PDF for that episode containing an essay on the ending of Mark by Dr. Wilbur Pickering.
What I have said about the ending of Mark is important. Let me illustrate:
About six years ago, the pastor at our church in Siloam Springs preached an expository series of sermons on the Gospel of Mark. Our pastor does an excellent job of preaching straight through books of Scripture, even through some of the hardest material in the Bible. So I was shocked that on the Sunday when we were all expecting to hear a message about Mark 16, the pastor began by telling us he would not be preaching about that chapter. Before he launched into the totally new topic he had chosen for that Sunday, he rather quietly said this, “I decided that I would not preach on the ending of Mark, because, after all, we don’t know whether it is part of inspired Scripture or not.”
Our pastor said, “after all, we don’t know whether it is part of inspired Scripture or not.” He didn’t say “I don’t know.” He said ‘we’ don’t know if it is inspired. What a terrible thing for a pastor to say from the pulpit! If 12 whole verses could disappear and marr the conclusion of a book of Scripture, how many other corruptions might there be in the New Testament?
This semester my wife (Gale) is teaching a morning and evening Bible study for women based on the Gospel of Mark. The same pastor (whom I highly respect) very nicely supplied four commentaries to help her. Three of the four do not discuss the last 12 verses of chapter 16. But none of them have a good explanation as to why they do not discuss it. Two of them hold to the idea that Mark intentionally left readers hanging with the words ‘because they were too frightened’. One of the books gushes, “What a perfect ending!”
The footnotes and the brackets in our Bibles don’t just confuse believers in Christ, but they confuse people who are wondering if the Bible is true. And opponents of Christianity seize on such things to say that the Bible text is not reliable. The answer to this problem is to base our Bible translations on the Majority Text of the New Testament, also called the Byzantine Textform. I will give more information about that later.
Until then, the bottom line is that 1650 ancient manuscripts found all over the ancient world, all made by an army scribes each copying the text of an earlier manuscript, could not have the last 12 verses of Mark if the verses had not come from the first papyrus copy written by Mark.
Until next time, may the Lord bless you ‘real good’.
GENESIS 42-43:
Yesterday in Genesis chapter 41, we heard of Pharaoh's dream, and what happened to Joseph as a result of his correctly telling the interpretation. Note also that Joseph was careful to give the glory to God for that interpretation.
JOB 26:
In yesterday’s reading in Job chapter 25, Bildad only had a six verse response, because Job interrupted him with the speech we will read today. Bildad implied Job’s guilt in more than one way, including this most obvious rhetorical question:
25:4 GNT Can anyone be righteous or pure in God's sight?
MARK 16:
Yesterday we heard of the death and burial of Jesus. That chapter was full of fulfilled prophecies. Psalm 22 includes several of those prophecies and helps us remember what Jesus suffered. We will read the first 18 verses of that psalm before reading Mark 16. After the part of Psalm 22 which we read today, that psalm continues with 13 more verses, which prophetically give praise about our victorious Messiah and God. So also we find that something better is coming in Mark chapter 16.
GENESIS 41:
In yesterday's reading in Genesis 40, Joseph interpreted two dreams. He said something quite significant: Interpreting dreams is God’s business.
JOB 25:
Yesterday in Job chapter 24, Job said,
Job 24:1 GNT Why doesn't God set a time for judging, a day of justice for those who serve him?
And speaking of the helpless and downtrodden he said,
12 “In the cities the wounded and dying cry out, but God ignores their prayers.
Starting in 24:18 GNT follows a number of other translations in saying that Zophar chimed in, disagreeing that the wicked are indeed punished, contradicting what Job was saying. NLT doesn’t do that. When you find a place like that and want more information, it is always a good idea to see if the NET (New English Translation) has a footnote. The NET footnotes will often give information about alternative translations and their basis in the source text. If you are using the YouVersion Bible reader, and do not see the footnote marks in NET, click the Menu button, then choose Settings, and activate Show Notes.
In chapter 25, Bildad only has time to speak a few lines when Job interrupts him.
MARK 15b:
In the first half of Mark chapter 15, Jesus was tried by Pilate and condemned when Pilate caved in to pressure orchestrated by the religious leaders. The soldiers beat and mocked Jesus, he was nailed to the cross, and then everyone mocked him. The two Marys observed the tomb where Jesus’ body was placed. They would have known that they were to come back after the Sabbath to move the body and perform the customary anointing of the body.
GENESIS 40:
Were you shocked by yesterday’s reading in Genesis?! We heard the less than auspicious beginnings of Judah's line— particularly involving Tamar, who was more righteous than Judah. Then we heard of Joseph working for Potiphar and then being thrown in jail. Even in jail, he rose to the top.
JOB 24:
In Job 24 today, Job continues his response to Eliphaz.
MARK 15a:
At the end of chapter 14, Jesus was arrested, was tried before the council, and Peter denied knowing Jesus.
Mark. 15:2 GNT Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
Jesus replied, “[Phil’s translation: Yes, as you said.//GNT So you say.//NLT You have said it.]”
Jesus literally says “You say” in Greek. I am told that this would normally be interpreted as an affirmative response. For English, I don't like the NLT here, because “You have said it” might mean an enthusiastic affirmative. On the other hand, if we say something like “Those are your words,” it implies that Jesus is disagreeing. I also am not happy with the GNT. When we say, ‘So you say,’ in English, we are implying that we are skeptical of the previous speaker’s statement. In this case, Pilate has asked a question, and the response ‘So you say’ seems inappropriate. Probably the best way to translate in the affirmative is to add a 'Yes' to make clear the meaning.
GENESIS 38-39:
In yesterday's reading in Genesis 37, we heard of Joseph's dreams, his brothers' jealousy, and Joseph being sold into slavery in Egypt.
JOB 23:
Yesterday Eliphaz said:
GNT 4 It is not because you stand in awe of God
that he reprimands you and brings you to trial.
5 No, it's because you have sinned so much;
it's because of all the evil you do.
And he also said,
21 Now, Job, make peace with God
and stop treating him like an enemy;
if you do, then he will bless you.
22 Accept the teaching he gives;
keep his words in your heart.
23 Yes, you must humbly return to God
and put an end to all the evil
that is done in your house.
24 Throw away your gold;
dump your finest gold in the dry stream bed.
25 Let Almighty God be your gold,
and let him be silver, piled high for you.
28 You will succeed in all you do,
and light will shine on your path.
Beware that some teachers of prosperity in our age say things just like that, and quote such verses without understanding the message of this book. They also will be happy to assist you in knowing where to throw away your gold and silver.
MARK 14b:
Yesterday we heard the story of the Last Supper, the prophecy that Peter would deny Jesus three times, and the prayers at Gethsemane.
GENESIS 37:
The focus of Genesis 36 was on the descendants of Esau, and the ethnic groups they spawned.
JOB 22:
Yesterday in Job chapter 21, Job— refuting what Zophar said, gave a very convincing argument that God does not always punish wicked people. Today Eliphaz begins the third set of exchanges between Job and his ‘friends’. The promises Elifaz gives at the end of his speech sound rather hollow to me.
MARK 14a:
Yesterday we read the prophecy chapter of Mark, chapter 13. The theme of that chapter is “Be ready” and Jesus says, “Keep watching for Me.”
In Mrk. 13:14 Jesus says, “You will see ‘The Awful Horror’ standing in the place where he should not be.” Then there is a note that is often in parentheses, “Let the reader understand.” Following good exegetical experts, I translate that this way, “Hey, public reader, explain this!”
At the time Mark wrote his gospel, only a small percentage of a congregation would be able to read. In Greek ‘the one reading’ (ho anaginoskon) probably means ‘the one reading out loud (to others)’. The word often translated ‘understand’ (noeito) would then take on the meaning ‘explain’ to the listeners. This would make three Greekwords (Ho anaginoskon noeito) to be Mark’s parenthetical comment, saying, “Hey public reader, explain this!” This makes sense because Jesus was speaking, and would more likely say, “If you have ears, listen.” Mark was the one writing, so it makes sense for him to address the reader.
Following Marks advice, like the well-read reader of old, it behooves me to explain to you: In saying ‘the Awful Horror’ Jesus is referring to the Antichrist, which was first clearly prophesied in Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11. Here we see a prime example of the way God repeats the fulfillment of important prophecies. In the immediate context in Mark 13 of fleeing to the hills, we can clearly see that Jesus was talking about the destruction of Jerusalem that happened in AD 70— just 40 years after he gave this prophecy. But Paul in 2Thessalonians 2 teaches that ‘the man of lawlessness’ or alternately translated ‘Wicked One’ “will oppose every so-called god or object of worship and will put himself above them all. He will even go in and sit down in God’s temple and claim to be God.” While there have been many intermediate fulfillments of the Antichrist, the ultimate Antichrist still has not been revealed. We all must still keep watch.
GENESIS 36:
In yesterday’s reading in Genesis, Jacob's daughter Dinah was raped, and the perpetrator Shechem was killed together with all the males in his town. God then told Jacob to return to Bethel. At the end of yesterday’s reading, Rachel and Grampa Isaak died.
JOB 21:
In Zophar's angry speech yesterday in Job chapter 20, he did not directly say that Job was wicked, but he clearly implied it.
MARK 13:
Mark chapter 12— which gives an overview of the interactions with the enemies and critics of Jesus, marks the end of Jesus' public ministry as related by Mark.
Today’s chapter represents the center of Jesus’ prophetic teaching. It includes the difficult part about ‘the abomination of desolation standing where it should not be’ (in other words, in God’s temple). This is a reference to verses found in Daniel. This is a prime example of a prophecy that is fulfilled multiple times. The first fulfillment happened some 167 years before Jesus was born, in the time of Antiochus IV. However in this chapter Jesus seems to be pointing to what happened in 70 AD when Rome desecrated the temple. But later this year we will see that this prophecy will be fulfilled again in the end times. God shows us repeated pictures of things that are important. And the important point of the whole chapter is ‘Be ready’!
GENESIS 34-35:
In Genesis 32 we heard about Jacob wrestling all night with a mysterious heavenly figure, and about Jacob's reunion with Esau.
JOB 20:
Today’s reading in Job is chapter 20— Zophar’s second response to Job. In chapter 19, Job responded to Bildad's second speech. Job expressed amazing belief that he would see his defender (often translated ‘redeemer’). He said, 19:25 GNT
“But I know there is someone in heaven
who will come at last to my defense.
26 Even after my skin is eaten by disease,
while still in this body I will see God.
27 I will see him with my own eyes,
and he will not be a stranger.”
MARK 12b:
Yesterday in the first half of Mark 12, Jesus told a pointed parable against the Jewish religious leaders, then he went on to refute the Sadducees. We re-read several verses today.
GENESIS 32-33:
Yesterday in Genesis 31, we heard how Jacob and his big family got away from Laban and started the journey home. When Laban caught up with him, he and Jacob got into a quarrel and ended up making a covenant with one another.
JOB 19:
In Job chapter 18, Bildad once again gave a speech about what happens to wicked people, and by implication, he said, “You're just getting what you deserve.” Job’s response in today’s chapter includes amazing revelations. Verses 23-27 can be compared with the second half of 1Corinthians 15.
MARK 12a:
In Mark 11, Jesus was welcomed in triumph in Jerusalem, he cursed a fig tree and taught about prayer, and cleansed the temple of merchant activity. Then he answered and confuted the chief priests who challenged his authority to “do these things,”— in particular, taking their businesses out of the temple.
About v. 26, in Lumina.Bible.org Constable quotes Lane:
“If the death of the patriarchs is the last word of their history, there has been a breach of the promises of God guaranteed by the [Abrahamic] covenant, and of which the formula ‘the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob’ is the symbol. It is in fidelity to his covenant that God will resurrect the dead.”
Yesterday we heard of the rivalry between Rachel and Leah, and about more sons for Jacob— whose names all have meanings appropriate to what Rachel or Leah were feeling at the time.
JOB 18:
Yesterday in chapter 17, Job again complained that he was surrounded by mockers, and once again despairingly said
17:15 GNT Where is there any hope for me?
Who sees any?
16 Hope will not go with me
when I go down to the world of the dead.
MARK 11:
Jesus has by now prepared his disciples for his death by prophesying about it, and by teaching them about what it will be like to be a ‘leader’ in His kingdom. And he healed Bartimaeus, who called Jesus by his Messianic title: the Son of David.
Listen to this quote from Constable’s notes for v.10:49:
The two descriptions of Jesus in these verses reveal the faith of Bartimaeus. The crowds simply described Jesus as “the Nazarene.” Bartimaeus had obviously heard about Jesus and had concluded that He was the Messiah. “Son of David” is a messianic title (cf. 11:9-10; 12:35-37; 2 Sam. 7:8-16; Isa. 11:1, 10; Jer. 23:5-6; Ezek. 34:23-24). Even though Bartimaeus lacked physical sight he saw more clearly who Jesus was than the multitudes who could see. His cry for mercy from Jesus expressed the attitude of trust, humility, and dependence that Jesus had been teaching His disciples to maintain.
Thomas Constable was a professor for many years at Dallas Theological Seminary. His notes are available to read using the Bible study site: lumina.bible.org.
GENESIS 30:
In yesterday’s reading in Genesis 28-29, Jacob left home, and God appeared to him and promised to bless him as he blessed Isaac. Jacob worked for Laban, married both Leah and Rachel, and he had four sons through Leah.
JOB 17:
Yesterday was the first chapter of Job's response to Eliphaz. He complained that his three comforters were not very comforting, saying
1-2 GNT I have heard words like that before;
the comfort you give is only torment.
3 Are you going to keep on talking forever?
Do you always have to have the last word?
And he said,
6 But nothing I say helps,
and being silent does not calm my pain.
And
9 In anger God tears me limb from limb;
he glares at me with hate.
This last statement shows how easy it is for us humans to misunderstand God’s will or intentions concerning us. God did not hate Job!
MARK 10b:
Yesterday in the first half of chapter 10, Jesus gave God's true perspective on divorce, blessed some children, and said that is impossible for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God (in their own strength). By the way, there is a wrong teaching that is still often heard. People have heard that the ‘eye of the needle’ was a little door next to the big gate in Jerusalem, and that a camel could get through this gate but all the burden would have to be taken off. This is just plain wrong, but it is one of those things that just keeps being passed on. No such gate was made in New Testament days in Jerusalem. Such gates were made in castles in Europe in the middle ages. No, instead of holding out hope for rich people, Jesus’ meaning is just what he said: It is just as impossible for the rich to enter heaven as it is for a camel to go through the eye of a real sewing needle. The next statement of Jesus however shows the way the rich may enter heaven.
Jesus gave a wonderful promise for missionaries at the end of the chapter. I bear witness to every part of that. 2,000 Orya people call me ‘Aya Bak’— which means ‘older brother’. The Lord has blessed me way more than 100 times.
GENESIS 28-29:
After what Jacob did to Esau in Genesis 27— with Esau holding a big grudge, it was time for Jacob to get out of town.
JOB 16:
In Job 15, Eliphaz said that Job was showing no reverence for God, and that his own words condemned him. His rhetorical questions all imply that Job is being proud and guilty of sin. Eliphaz maintained that no mortal can be pure (and that much is true).
MARK 10a:
AND, in yesterday's reading, Jesus predicted his death, spoke about who is greatest in God's kingdom, and talked about the seriousness of sin.
In 9:37 Jesus took a little child in his arms and said to them, “Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not only me but also my Father who sent me.”
And we can be sure that means that our welcoming of a child on Christ’s behalf will be rewarded. Jesus goes on to say in verse 41, “If anyone gives you even a cup of water because you belong to the Messiah, I tell you the truth, that person will surely be rewarded.”
I can hear someone say, “That’s too good to be true!” But this is consistent with other Scripture. I think that in heaven we will be amazed at how closely and lovingly we have been watched, and how amazingly appropriate our rewards will be from our generous Father.
GENESIS 27:
In yesterday's reading we read the history of Isaac and Rebecca's family before the narrative focuses on their dissimilar twin sons— and especially Jacob.
JOB 15:
God has revealed so much more to us in our day than what Job could know in his day. One thing was shown yesterday. Job asked,
15:14 GNT If a man dies, can he come back to life? …
MARK 9b:
After coming down the mountain with three of his disciples, Jesus met his other disciples who were having two difficulties simultaneously with people arguing with them and with failing to heal a man’s son— who was possessed by an evil spirit or a demon.
Repeating a little of what I said in an earlier podcast: In Greek, ‘demon’ is daimonia, and the other term, ‘evil spirit’, is more literally ‘unclean spirit’. As someone who has worked in another culture and seen what has happened over my lifetime in the USA, I hope it will be helpful to some readers if I share about this topic. Some of you— particularly those of the older generation in the USA, will say, “What people called demons in Jesus’ day were just what we call mental illness.” While, paradoxically, it is the younger generation in the USA who more readily believe that demons actually exist. I think the younger generation have it right this time. Demons do exist.
Here’s what I have observed: Where demons are not believed in, they are happy to stay in the background— where they are very adept at promoting falsehood and sin. Where demons are feared, worshipped, where people listen to satanic music and take part in occult rituals, demons come out more openly— to increase people’s fear of them and to manipulate people.
As believers in Jesus, remember that Jesus has complete power over Satan and all demons. We who belong to Jesus should not fear them. Nor should we seek communication with such beings. Remember two things from yesterday’s story: The father wisely cried out, “Help my unbelief!” So the first thing to remember is to fully believe in Christ Jesus. The second is the answer Jesus gave to the disciples question: Prayer is of vital importance in this area of spiritual warfare.
Share your questions and comments at the Digging Deeper Facebook page.
GNT Translation notes:
Job 15:25 That is the fate of those
who shake their fists at God
and defy the Almighty [— like you].
====
Mrk. 9:42“If anyone should cause one of these little ones [who believe in me to fall away//to lose faith in me], it would be better for that person to have a large millstone tied around the neck and be thrown into the sea.43 So if your hand makes you [fall away from me//lose your faith], cut it off! It is better for you to enter life without a hand than to keep both hands and go off to hell, to the fire that never goes out.45 And if your foot makes you [fall away from me//lose your faith], cut it off! It is better for you to enter life without a foot than to keep both feet and be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye makes you [fall away from me//lose your faith], take it out! It is better for you to enter the Kingdom of God with only one eye than to keep both eyes and be thrown into hell. 48 There ‘the worms that eat them never die, and the fire that burns them is never put out.’
[Jesus also taught using these sayings:]
49 “Everyone will be purified by fire as a sacrifice is purified by salt.
I encourage you to Dig Deeper in your Bible study this year. I have linked several powerful on-line Bible study tools in the Shovels blog post at http://dailybiblereading.info. The same information can be found in the Read This First pages under the menu entry Links and Shovels.
And when you find an especially precious insight or a question, please share it with us via our Facebook group.
Our Facebook group and other ways to stay connected with other Bible readers will change each year. Please see the links in the site header of http://dailybiblereading.info.
GENESIS 25-26:
Yesterday in Genesis 24 we read the charming story of how Rebecca became Isaac's wife.
JOB 14:
In Job chapter 13, Job challenged Zophar and his other two friends with these words,
6 GNT Listen while I state my case.
7 Why are you lying?
Do you think your lies will benefit God?
8 Are you trying to defend him?
Are you going to argue his case in court?
9 If God looks at you closely, will he find anything good?
Do you think you can fool God the way you fool others?
…
14 I am ready to risk my life.
15 I've lost all hope, so what if God kills me?
I am going to state my case to him.
16 It may even be that my boldness will save me,
since no wicked person would dare to face God.
Job said in 13:15 that he would present his case to God, and that is exactly what he does, starting in verse 19 (in the GNT) or 20 (in the NLT). And Job continues to speak to God through all of chapter 14.
MARK 9:
Yesterday at the end of Mark 8, Jesus gave this requirement for all his followers:
“Everyone who wants to follow Me must leave his own self-interests, and follow Me continually with this resolve, ‘No matter if I die— even if that be by crucifixion, I will keep following the Lord!’”
[That translation sounds different because it is from what I call the Plain English Translation. That is an English translation of our Plain Indonesian Translation (TSI).]
The rest of Mark chapter 8 has other important verses including this one:
If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.
GENESIS 24:
In Genesis 22, Isaac asked,
22:7b GNT “I see that you have the coals and the wood, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?”
8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide one.”
It is amazing to me that Moses adds the proverb,
14 “even today people say, “On the Lord's mountain he provides.”
In our time, we easily see how this points to the provision of the Lamb of God on the mountain called Calvary.
JOB 13:
As we saw in Job chapter 12, by now he is pretty ticked off, starting off with,
Job 12:1-2 GNT “Yes, you are the voice of the people.
When you die, wisdom will die with you.
Note the irony Job points out:
4 Even my friends laugh at me now;
they laugh, although I am righteous and blameless;
but there was a time when God answered my prayers.
5 You have no troubles, and yet you make fun of me;
you hit someone who is about to fall.
6 But thieves and godless people live in peace,
though their only god is their own strength.
MARK 8b:
In yesterday's reading in the first half of Mark chapter 8, Jesus fed the 4,000, and then the Pharisees demanded a miraculous sign ‘showing God’s approval’— literally a sign ‘from heaven’. The reading yesterday ended with the disciples not understanding what Jesus meant by
Mark. 8:15 GNT “Take care and be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.”
In many passages of Mark and the other Gospels, there are places where Jesus talks of ‘the Son Man’. And He is talking about himself, but using the pronoun ‘he’ for the Son of Man. Here is an example from verse 31:
8:31 GNT Then Jesus began to teach his disciples: “The Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the Law. He will be put to death, but three days later he will rise to life.”
This form of speech— speaking of oneself in the third person, is quite unusual in any language. For modern readers, the term ‘son of man’ is also very strange sounding. The standard meaning for the Hebrew idiom ‘son of man’ was ‘ordinary flesh and blood human being’. Jesus was both concealing his identity to some, and revealing it to those who were able to remember the prophecy about a special Son of Man in Daniel 7.
May God richly bless you as we read God’s Word together!
GENESIS 22-23:
In yesterday's reading in Genesis, Abraham deceived Abimelech, Isaak was born, and Sarah demanded that Hagar and her son be sent away— which grieved Abraham. (But remember that story, because Paul uses it as a spiritual metaphor in Galatians 4.) Finally, Abimelech visited Abraham, and the two made several formally ratified promises.
JOB 12:
Yesterday in Job chapter 11, Zophar said to Job,
Job 11:1-2 GNT Will no one answer all this nonsense?
Does talking so much put you in the right?
3 Job, do you think we can't answer you?
That your mocking words will leave us speechless?
4 You claim that what you say is true;
you claim you are pure in the sight of God.
5 How I wish God would answer you!
6 He would tell you there are many sides to wisdom;
there are things too deep for human knowledge.
God is punishing you less than you deserve.
Having accused Job of sin in that way, Zophar then goes on to give this lovely advice:
13 Put your heart right, Job. Reach out to God.
14 Put away evil and wrong from your home.
15 Then face the world again, firm and courageous.
16 Then all your troubles will fade from your memory,
MARK 8a:
Yesterday in Mark chapter 7, Jesus gave this very significant teaching in verse 15:
15 GNT There is nothing that goes into you from the outside which can make you ritually unclean. Rather, it is what comes out of you that makes you unclean.”
And we heard the way that Jesus gave a difficult test to the Gentile woman. And again I say, please don’t just assume that Jesus was unfeeling to that woman. There is treasure to find hidden there under the surface in that enigmatic test!
Greetings as a fellow recipient of God’s Kindness!
GENESIS 20-21:
In chapter 19 of Genesis we heard what happened to Lot and his daughters after being saved from Sodom. The sons of Lot’s daughters became the ancestors of the Moabite and Ammonite races who were always at war with God’s people.
JOB 11:
In Job chapter 10, Job accused God like this:
Job 10:13 GNT But now I know that all that time [since birth]
you were secretly planning to harm me.
14 You were watching to see if I would sin,
so that you could refuse to forgive me.
15 As soon as I sin, I'm in trouble with you,
but when I do right, I get no credit.
I am miserable and covered with shame.
MARK 7:
Yesterday's reading in Mark 6 was of Jesus feeding 5,000+ and walking on water.
I would like to challenge each of my listeners to dig deeper to find a spiritual gem behind Jesus’ seemingly harsh and impolite first answer to the Syro-Phoenician woman. I encourage you to ask what right anyone (and especially any Gentile) would have to come to Jesus and ask for a miracle. With that question in mind, I encourage you to read all of Ephesians chapter 2.
GENESIS 19:
In yesterday's reading in Genesis, Abram and Sarai received new names and God confirmed and expanded his covenant with Abram (now called Abraham). Circumcision was added as a sign of following the covenant. Angels visited Abraham and Sarah and Abraham bargained with God about saving the few righteous people in Sodom— among whom I am sure Abraham was thinking of Lot.
Today we read JOB 10,
where Job continues his response to Bildad. At the end of chapter 9 Job showed mankind's need of a mediator:
Job 9:32 NLT “God is not a mortal like me,
so I cannot argue with him or take him to trial.
33 If only there were a mediator between us,
someone who could bring us together.
34 The mediator could make God stop beating me,
and I would no longer live in terror of his punishment.
35 Then I could speak to him without fear,
but I cannot do that in my own strength.
Mankind has now received that mediator in the person of Jesus.
MARK 6b:
In the first part of Mark chapter 6, Jesus sent out the twelve disciples after giving them authority to cast out evil spirits. He also sent them to teach, and to heal. Then we learned about the death of John the Baptist.
Before we read GENESIS 17-18,
remember that in chapter 15 we heard of God's covenant with Abram and Abram's _fully believing_ God's promises. Then in chapter 16 we read of Abram and Sarai trying to help God fulfill his promises.
Chapter 15 verse 6 is a famous verse that is quoted three times in the NT:
GNT translates it this way: 6 Abram put his trust in the Lord, and because of this the Lord was pleased with him and accepted him.
[The NT translates this verse a bit differently because it is quoted from the Septuagint (the LXX, the ancient translation of the Old Testament into Greek, made in the third and second centuries BC). ]
JOB 9:
In chapter 8 of Job, Bildad defended God as always acting with justice and insisted that this meant that there had to be some sin on Job's part or his children's.
MARK 6a:
Yesterday In the second half of Mark 5, we heard how Jesus did two amazing miracles— the second one causing a dead girl to live again.
Today we’ll start out reading GENESIS 15-16.
Yesterday we heard the stories of Abram and Lot separating company, and of Abram rescuing Lot in time of war. Then we heard of the mysterious priest Melchizedek (who we will read about in the NT in Hebrews).
Before we read JOB 8,
recall that in the preceding two chapters, Job said some very despairing and angry words, telling God basically to go take a walk and leave him alone. Job again wished for his own death.
He said to God,
Job 7:19 GNT Won't you look away long enough
for me to swallow my spit?
20 Are you harmed by my sin, you jailer?
Why use me for your target practice?
Am I so great a burden to you?
21 Can't you ever forgive my sin?
Can't you pardon the wrong I do?
MARK 5b:
Today we read the second half of Mark 5. In the first part of the chapter, Jesus cast a host of demons out of a man named Mob or Legion.
As I hope you have discovered, if you click on a verse in this Bible app, you have six very useful options— including highlighting verses and writing comments. Have you tried making a verse-picture yet? The pictures are easy to make and provide an eye-catching way to share meaningfully with your friends on social media. The backgrounds provided within the app are quite nice, and now you can also upload background images from your own device’s picture gallery. Then you set the size, color, and location of the verse text. The results are often so artistic that your friends will re-share your creations.
Please share your YouVersion verse-pictures with the Daily Bible Reading Podcast Facebook group! The link to this group is found at the top of our site: dailybiblereading.info.
Our Facebook group is now replaced by our forum at http://biblereaders.info.
As we turn to Genesis 13-14, let me remind you
that in yesterday's reading we heard about God scattering people by confusing their languages. It’s important to remember that the city they were building is called Babylon. Then we traced the ancestry of Abram, who descended from Seth's line. Then we read about the call of Abram and what happened when they were staying in Egypt because of a famine. In that episode, Abram doesn’t sound like a model husband.
JOB 7:
Today in Job 7 we hear the second chapter of Job’s response to Eliphaz. In chapter 6 Job said,
10 GNT If I knew he [God] would [kill me], I would leap for joy,
no matter how great my pain.
I know that God is holy;
I have never opposed what he commands.
And he also complained:
14 In trouble like this I need loyal friends—
whether I've forsaken God or not.
15 But you, my friends, you deceive me like streams
that go dry when no rain comes.
And his three friends are only warming up to what they will say. In desperation Job says,
24 All right, teach me; tell me my faults.
I will be quiet and listen to you.
25 Honest words are convincing,
but you are talking nonsense.
MARK 5a:
Yesterday we completed the one and only ‘parable chapter’ of Mark’s Gospel. Following the parable of the mustard seed, the disciples and Jesus took off to the other side of the lake. Jesus slept soundly in the boat while a storm was raging on the lake, and then he calmed the storm.
GENESIS 11-12:
Yesterday in Genesis 9-10, we heard the story of Noah's drunkenness and his curse on Canaan because of it (which really wasn't very fair since it was his father Ham who actually caused the offense to Noah while he was drunk, and because Ham also had other sons). After that, however, we heard about Noah's descendants.
JOB 6:
In chapter 5 of Job, Eliphaz continued to imply that Job had sinned:
Job 5:6 NLT Evil does not grow in the soil,
nor does trouble grow out of the ground.
7 No indeed! We bring trouble on ourselves,
as surely as sparks fly up from a fire.
Eliphaz’ main point in that chapter was that Job would be forgiven and blessed if he repented, as he said in v. 17-18:
17 Happy is the person whom God corrects!
Do not resent it when he rebukes you.
18 God bandages the wounds he makes;
his hand hurts you, and his hand heals.
There is truth in what Eliphaz says, and a similar statement to verse
17 is found in James 1.
MARK 4b:
Chapter 4 is the parable chapter of Mark, and today we read the second half. The Parable about the Different Kinds of Soil is in all three synoptic Gospels— which are Matthew, Mark, and Luke. That parable holds deep meaning that one never really grows out of. Each time you hear it, new facets come to light, and every believer should meditate on what kind of soil they are most like at the present time.
This is a good place to note this: Rhetorical questions were often used by Jesus to start a new topic in his teaching, and at the end of chapter 4, he used two rhetorical questions to give a mild rebuke to the disciples. In many of the world’s languages, people don’t use rhetorical questions for starting a new topic, but most languages seem to use questions for rebuking.
In the YouVersion devotional notes for this episode and at the bottom of these program notes in the listening app, you can read about the difference between literal and meaning-based translations. So I think it is a good time, at the beginning of this podcast to say a few words about the two translations I have used in the podcasts. First of all, I agree with what the translators of the NIV said in the Preface to the NIV. They said, “There is no such thing as a perfect translation.” That includes the GNT as well as even the more famous and popular NIV.
The whole purpose of these podcasts is to promote the reading, understanding, and fully believing of God’s Word. Literal translations will include passages that are impossible for modern listeners to assimilate in audio form. So I want to read a version that my listeners can understand even if they are driving to work, or even if they are children like my grandkids. The GNT is a wonderful translation of God’s Word, and I think every English speaking believer should read it at least once in their lives. If you have heard people say bad things about it, that is likely because it caused controversy when it was first introduced and when people were not used to using more than one Bible. If the GNT were released today, there would be no controversy. The NLT is my favorite Bible translation. Its predecessor was the Living Bible, which it cannot be called a faithful translation, but is a paraphrase. The NLT was created with a big team of scholars and is a very reliable meaning-based translation.
Because of my Bible translation experience, there are things that I want to tweak in any translation. Listeners to the podcasts from 2014-16 have not accused me so far of making controversial changes or of being doctrinally biased. The little tweaks I make to the GNT/NLT are intended to help listeners understand the meaning contained in the Biblical source languages, and they are documented at the bottom of the episode notes.
GENESIS 9-10:
In chapter 8 the flood receded. After everyone came out of the boat, Noah made a sacrifice.
JOB 5:
In chapter 4 Eliphaz implied that Job’s guilt was the reason he was being punished:
“Stop and think! Do the innocent die?
When have the upright been destroyed?
8 NLT My experience shows that those who plant trouble
and cultivate evil will harvest the same.
MARK 4a:
In chapter 3 we have seen that opposition to Jesus was mounting from the Jewish religious leaders. They were already plotting to kill him and saying he performed miracles by the power of Satan.
I want to comment briefly about the sin of blaspheming or reviling the Holy Spirit that we heard about at the end of chapter 3. Some people worry about whether they have done this and committed the unforgivable sin. Note the context here. The experts in the Law were saying the Jesus was working by the power of _Satan_. But Jesus was working by the power of the _Holy Spirit_. A person in a frame of mind like those Law experts will never repent. So Jesus was warning the Pharisees because they were mighty close to blaspheming the Holy Spirit by what they were saying about Jesus. I want you to know this: If you worry about whether in some past time you have blasphemed the Holy Spirit, then you haven’t! If you are the kind of person who feels sorrow for sins already committed and are ready to repent of sin, then you have never blasphemed the Holy Spirit, nor are you likely to ever do so.
———————
Choose a good Bible version for your reading this year!
I recommend that you choose a good _meaning-based_ translation for your Bible reading this year, not one of the _literal_ versions. I recommend that you use a literal version whenever you have time for in-depth study, but not for your daily devotional reading. Here’s the difference:
The advantage of a literal translation is that it gives you a word-for-word view into the _form_ of the original. The disadvantage of literal translations is that they cannot give you the _meaning_ in clear and natural English.
The advantage of a meaning-based translation is that it gives you the _meaning_ of the text in clear, natural English. The disadvantage of the meaning-based translation is that they cannot show you the word-for-word _form_ of the original text.
We need both kinds of translations! Use both kinds when you are doing an in-depth study. But for devotional reading, my top choices are the New Living Translation and the Good News Bible. These meaning-based translations will help you be successful in reading the Bible in a year because the text is so much easier to understand. Both have good scholarly backing and are reliable.
I don’t recommend using a paraphrase like The Message. The popular NIV is halfway between literal and meaning-based. (This means that you cannot immediately know if a verse is translated literally or more freely based on meaning.) One of the most popular literal translations these days is the English Standard Version. My advice is to NOT use the ESV for your devotional reading unless you have time for reading the notes in your study Bible.
GNT Translation notes:
Genesis 10:2 [These were the sons of Japheth: //The sons of Japheth—] Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras[. The people groups who were their descendants bear their names.//— were the ancestors of the peoples who bear their names.]
[And similar changes were made to aid my reading in the rest of the chapter. I found I just couldn’t read the text clearly the way it was.]
5 they were the ancestors of the people who live along the coast and on the islands. [They//These] are the descendants of Japheth, living in their different tribes and countries, each group speaking its own language.
Mark 4:8 But some seeds fell in good soil, and the plants sprouted, grew, and bore grain: some [stalks] had thirty grains, others sixty, and others one hundred.”
12 so that [— just as God said through Isaiah],
‘They may look and look,
yet not see; …
24 [Jesus/He] also said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear! …
Hey there! It seems like we are off to a good start this year in the Daily Bible Reading Podcast.
I have already gotten one email indicating some confusion on the part of one listener, so I will explain about that in just a few moments.
First I want to ask you to share the DBRP NOW with your friends. If you started listening to the podcasts just a few days ago, then perhaps it has occured to you, “Hey, this podcast would be perfect for” this or that friend. If so, please share with them right away. This first week of the yearly plan is a great time to start listening, and if your friend wants to, he/she can easily catch up with you. Then you can discuss the readings together. If you visit the Read This First pages linked in the header of dailybiblereading.info, you can find the Sharing page, which has images that you can use for sharing on social media posts.
I will give you some reasons for contacting me below, so let me share now that my favorite way for you to contact me is via the Contact button at dailybiblereading.info. It’s in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
I have recently revised much of the information found in the Read This First pages linked in the banner of dailybiblereading.info. That’s the place to go for information about Bible apps, podcast apps, Bible sites useful for digging deeper. and also information about me.
Last year, I followed the 3D reading plan again, but did not listen to any of the podcasts. This year, I am going to listen to all of them again in a concentrated way, looking for things to improve. And already I have made improvements to some podcasts from episode 1 through 26. I always want to know if you find a mistake in something I have said in one of the recordings.
Here is the item of confusion mentioned above that I wanted to share with you: YouVersion now has an audio play button at the bottom of the page for the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. Because that reading plan is sponsored by the Daily Bible Reading Podcast, some people will think that the play button is giving them the recordings for the podcasts. It does NOT. If you hit the play button, you get a Siri/Alexa-like voice that reads the devotional content page, and after that page, the app will play whatever voice is bundled with the translation you have selected.
If any of the people who have recently subscribed to the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan in the YouVersion app are confused like that, then they won’t get the message about their mistake, since they will never see the extra podcast that I release like this one. However, when the voice pronounces the name of Job as job, I hope that they will figure out that they are not listening to a podcast. Actually following the 3D reading plan that way is not too bad. I’m just sorry that those who do this will miss out on some of the extra information that I can give in podcasts and also the prayers at the end of each podcast. For more information about my two full-Bible reading plans in the YouVersion app, please visit the Read This First pages linked at dailybiblereading.info, and look for the page that is about Listening to podcasts.
I want to close this podcast with a selection of quick tips. For all of these items, you can find more complete information in the Read This First pages.
If you have any questions about why I have recorded the NLT and the GNT for the DBRP, please see the Read This First pages. Those two are the most understandable English translations for those consuming Scripture in audio form.
If you started listening to episode 1 podcast on January 1st, if you don’t want to install a podcast app, you can simply go to dailybiblereading.info or dailygntbiblereading.info. Your daily episode will be near the top. This is also a great method if you want to use a computer instead of a smaller device.
If you are somewhere in the middle of the year or are irregular in your listening, a good podcast app will make it easy to select the next episode without having to remember the day number or search for it.
If my reading is too slow for you, a good podcast app will let you choose to speed up the audio. My favorite speed is 1.25. I don’t recommend listening to Scripture at 1.5 speed if your aim is to understand it and think about it.
When I was reading the 3D plan last year and not listening to the audio, I enjoyed using the MyBible app, which works on both Apple and Android devices. It has MANY options for customization. A simpler app that allows you to follow the 3D plan is called Quick Bibles. The Indonesian version of that program is the most popular Bible app in Indonesia.
For listening to the 3D plan using smart speakers, please see the Read This First pages at dailybiblereading.info.
Please, if you are listening to the DBRP on your commute to work, have things set up with your podcast app so you do not need to touch your phone.
I want to repeat my appeal from the top of this episode: Please share with your friends about the 3D reading plan and the Daily Bible Reading Podcasts.
Any day of the year is a good day to start listening to the Bible. The Holy Spirit will never tell you not to read the Bible. That message comes from someone else. Expect the Holy Spirit to speak to you each time you read or listen to the Bible. Please forget about me and listen to Him.
Gale and I send you our New Year’s greetings, and as always, I say, May the Lord bless you ‘real good’.
Most people find out about the DBRP through the YouVersion Bible reading app on their smart device. If you are one who has found out about these podcasts through some other means (like via iTunes), then I want to make you aware that the Bible app created by YouVersion.com is wonderful. You can subscribe to the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan within the app, then reading along with these daily podcasts is very easy. Just start your episode using the DBRP app or your podcast player, then start the YouVersion Bible app and activate the Reading Plan. Also, if you are listening to the DBRP using any podcast app on your smart device that doesn’t allow you to see the episode notes, I suggest you install and try out our dedicated listening app.
GENESIS 7-8:
In Genesis 5, we heard the overview of the descendants of Adam and Eve up to Noah. In chapter 6, Noah was further introduced. Also the reason for the flood was explained.
JOB 4:
In chapter 3 Job cursed the day he was born and expressed his deep misery.
Remember that in the speeches of Job’s three friends we will see a mixture of truth and error. In particular, we should not follow Eliphaz’s example in today’s chapter. The Bible tells us repeatedly that we are not to trust or listen to communication from spirits. We will read the second chapter of Eliphaz’ response tomorrow.
MARK 3:
In Mark 2, Jesus shocked his listeners by first forgiving a paralyzed man’s sins before actually healing the man’s body. And in three other events in chapter 2 we can see the beginnings of the conflict between Jesus and the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees.
———————
Be curious! When you find something in the Bible that brings up a question, there usually are good answers. Check out the Shovels page at http://dailybiblereading.info.
I invite you to share the treasures you find, and your questions with the Digging Deeper Daily online community. See the Sharing Together page at dailybiblereading.info.
GNT Translation notes:
Job 4:17 “Can anyone be righteous in the sight of God
or be pure before his Creator? [Of course not!]
19 Do you think he will trust a creature of clay [like you],
a thing of dust that can be crushed like a moth?
====
Mrk. 3:19 and Judas [the man from Cariot//Iscariot], who betrayed Jesus.
22 Some teachers of the Law who had come from Jerusalem were saying, “He has Beelzebul in him! It is the chief of the demons who gives him the power to drive [demons//them] out.”
27 “No one can break into a strong man's house [like Satan’s dominion] and take away his belongings unless he first ties up the strong man; then he can plunder his house.
[Many times the rhetorical questions of Jesus can be misunderstood, and in many languages it is better to translate them as statements, as I have done here:]
33 Jesus answered, “[I’ll tell you who my mother is. And I will show you who my brothers are!//Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?]”
Hey, since you are following the Daily Bible Reading Podcast, I suggest that you connect with others who are following this reading plan. The methods for sharing together and receiving news from me will change from year to year. See the site header at dailybiblereading.info for this year’s options.
GENESIS 5-6:
In chapter 3 of Genesis, the Lord gave his judgment against the serpent. God talked about the woman’s offspring (which is a collective singular noun) when speaking to the serpent, and said, “her offspring and yours will always be enemies. Her offspring will crush your head, and you will bite her offspring's[c] heel.” This is the very first prophecy looking forward to a Messiah and Redeemer who will crush Satan’s head. Just before that, there is another picture worth noting: God provided clothes for the man and woman made from animal skins. This is the first hint of the sacrificial system that prefigures Christ.
JOB 3:
Today we read Job’s first speech. In the Bible— and especially in Job and the Psalms, we find out that God thoroughly understands and takes into account the fact that humans suffer. This is shown in the fact that such deep expressions of suffering are found in God’s Word— right from the earliest writings.
MARK 2:
Yesterday in the second half of Mark 1, we read of Jesus miraculously healing people in Capernaum, and his refusing to stay only there. He preached and cast out demons all over the region of Galilee. The healing of the man with leprosy is notable because of the exchange between Jesus and that man, and also the results of the man’s not following Jesus’ instructions.
———————
How can you get more out of your Bible reading this year? My top advice is to SLOW DOWN! The readings in this plan take around 20 minutes if read aloud. If you read silently, you might finish in only 10 minutes. But if you skim through like that, you won’t retain very much! I suggest these two ways to slow down:
- Read out loud to yourself. Read expressively. When you find that your first attempt didn’t quite have the right intonation, go back and read the sentence again. Take time to think about— and pray about, what you have just read.
- Read along while listening to the Daily Bible Reading Podcast. This will definitely slow you down. And one extra advantage is that each podcast ends with a short prayer that is aimed at helping you apply what you have just read.
The landing page at http://dailybiblereading.info gives various ways to conveniently listen to the podcasts using any kind of smart device.
GNT Translation notes:
Job 3:19 Everyone is there (in the world of the dead), the famous and the unknown, and slaves at last are free.
====
Mrk. 2:5 Seeing how much [they believed in him (or, that Jesus could heal the man)//faith they had], Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “My son, your sins are forgiven.” [I will make this modification frequently and will explain it soon in the translation notes.]
15 Later on Jesus was having a meal in Levi's house.[a] [Many tax collectors and other outcasts were//A large number of tax collectors and other outcasts was] following Jesus, and many of them joined him and his disciples at the table.
18 On one occasion the followers of John the Baptist and the Pharisees were fasting. … [This makes it sound like they were friends and doing this together. So in Indonesia we translated like this: 18 On one occasion the followers of John the Baptist were fasting, and the Pharisees were fasting also.]
[In most languages of the world— and really even in English, it is ungrammatical to talk of oneself in the third person using ‘he/his or a title. I will consistently modify most places like this one to show that Jesus was talking about himself. I do this partly because many second-language speakers of English listen to these podcasts, and it also makes the meaning clearer even for native English speakers.]
28 So [I— as the Son of Man, am// the Son of Man is] Lord even of the Sabbath.”
For more information about the features of this reading plan, please see the ‘ReadMe’ PDF file linked in the header of http://dailygntbiblereading .info.
You will note that I read most Bible names phonetically— rather than the using normal English pronunciation. This means that the letter A will have a consistent sound ‘ah’ and the letter I will be pronounced ‘ee’. This happens to match Indonesian pronunciations and that of many other languages. This also makes the pronunciation more like that of the source languages, Hebrew and Greek.
GENESIS 3-4:
In chapter 2 of Genesis, we saw that Eve was created and introduced to Adam. And the pair at the end of the chapter were “naked and not embarrassed/unashamed.” As I said in yesterday’s introduction, I have seen first-hand in my work in Indonesia that when a people group misunderstands and twists the story in Genesis 1-3, it will have far-reaching consequences for their lives. In the case of the Orya people, twisting the story of the fall caused much suffering and misery among families.
JOB 2:
At the close of chapter 1 of Job, Job had lost virtually everything he had, including his possessions, livestock, and children. He said, “I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord!”
MARK 1b:
Mark does not specifically identify himself as the author, but the church fathers unanimously say that the John Mark mentioned several times in the New Testament was the author. Mark was a companion of Peter, so the eyewitness content in this book is that of Peter. It is also thought that Mark wrote this account before or shortly after Peter’s martyrdom in Rome— which happened somewhere between 64-67 AD. This is certainly the first written Gospel, and it could have been written earlier than the earliest of Paul’s letters. Tradition says that Mark wrote this Gospel in Rome. That would help to explain why Mark gives background information to some Jewish customs that would have been unknown to his Roman readers, and why he doesn’t include teachings of Jesus which were based on the Jewish Scriptures and religion. Instead he tells us the plain story of Jesus and his miracles, so that the reader finds out who Jesus is.
Yesterday in chapter 1 of Mark, Jesus was baptized by John, called his first disciples, and cast out an evil spirit from a man in a synagogue.
GNT Translation note:
Gen. 3:15 I will make you and the woman hate each other; her offspring and yours will always be enemies. Her offspring will crush your head, and you will bite her offspring's heel.”
[Verse 15 has several translational difficulties. When you find a place where you would like to understand why translation differ, I recommend looking at Lumina.bible.org and reading the notes to the NET.]
Congratulations on starting TODAY on a life-transforming journey! The Digging Deeper Daily plan will help you be successful in your commitment to read the whole Bible in a year. The unique order of the readings— together with the brief devotional notes, will help you see the various threads that unify the message of the Old and the New Testaments. I hope these notes will help you remember what you have read the day before, and hint at the deep and incredibly rich treasures in God’s Word. But the most satisfying treasures that you find this year will be the ones you dig to discover for yourself! Check out the ‘Shovels’ page of dailybiblereading.info for tools to help you go deeper in your study. Please also check out our free dedicated listening apps for your smart device by searching for the DailyBibleReading podcast in the app store or play store.
GENESIS 1-2:
The first five books of the Bible are the Jewish Torah, and the Bible refers to them collectively as ‘the Law’. Many other books in the Bible attribute the authorship of these five books to Moses. Genesis is the foundational book of the whole Bible. When we were in our first Bible translation project among the Orya in Papua, Indonesia, I witnessed how getting a little detail of the foundation wrong (such as, how the first sin happened) can wreck the whole building that is being constructed. This book of Genesis tells us what God wants us to know about the beginning of our world, the beginning of sin, mankind’s rebellion against God, and who God and Satan are.
JOB 1:
The story of Job is set in the period of the patriarch Abraham, and it takes place in the land of the East. What I did not realize until recently is that signs indicate that this book was written at a later time and almost certainly by an Israelite. By the author writing that Job was “the richest man in the East”, it places the author in the West, in the land of Israel. The author frequently uses the name of ‘Yahweh’, which I think would not have been done in Abraham’s time— which was long before God’s name was revealed to Moses at the burning bush. The author was a highly educated man. All of the book— except the first two chapters, are in exquisite poetry. The author displays an in-depth knowledge of mythology, the constellations, and the current wisdom concerning the world— including the underworld and traits of exotic animals. I might as well say it: The philosophy of this book is worthy of Solomon.
Whoever he is, the author displays incredible wisdom. One would expect an ancient book that is didactic in nature to end with a neat answer that sums up the author’s opinion. Or one would expect an ancient author to create a debate where the hero is totally right and the other speakers are clearly wrong. Instead, all the human speakers in the book of Job mix truth and error. It is a mark of inspired wisdom that in the end, the book of Job leaves us still pondering and searching for some answers.
MARK 1a:
Due to the 400 word limit for the YouVersion Devotional Content pages, the introduction to Mark is given on Day 2.
GNT Translation notes:
1 This is the Good News about [Christ Jesus//Jesus Christ], the Son of God.
[The order in Greek here is ‘Jesus Christ’, and sometimes the Greek puts the order the other way around. I will consistently read ‘Christ Jesus’. Here is the reason I do this: Although it has become natural for us to say ‘Jesus Christ’, it is actually against English grammar. ‘Christ’ is a title. And in English, titles (such as president, doctor, or ambassador) always come first. The reason why I point this out is this: I have found people who think that ‘Christ’ is Jesus’ last name. The title ‘Christ’ (from Greek) means exactly the same thing as Messiah (from Hebrew). Both mean ‘anointed one’.
You will notice that I read many Bible names in a strange way. I read them with a more phonetic pronunciation— which in fact, is more like how the Indonesian language and many others read them. This allows me to be more consistent in my pronunciation, and it also happens to be more like the Hebrew and Greek pronunciations. English pronunciations for some names is quite far from the source language pronunciations. An example from today is the name Isaiah, which I pronounce as ‘Yesayah’.]
6 John wore clothes made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and his food locusts and wild honey.
As I finish this podcast series, I am really thankful for this year-long experience. If you are one of the faithful ones who have listened through a year’s worth of daily podcasts— and no matter whether this has taken longer than a year, I say Way to go! I sincerely hope these podcasts have been a blessing for you— as they have been for me. I hope that nothing that I have said has caused you to stumble or decreased your desire to study God’s Word. I started this project in the hope that my four grandchildren would— in some future year, listen to this series of recordings. Now we have five grandchildren. If you are Luke Fields, Laura Fields, Ava Baughn, Joel Baughn, or Devan Baughn, know that Grampa loves you and that I desired to share spiritual treasures with you. I am proud of you and wish that we could have shared these readings in person. I urge you to stay centered upon God’s Word. And to ALL of you in the family of Christ Jesus our Savior, I send warm greetings and love. May the Lord bless you as you continue your journey with Him!
MALACHI 4:
As people like Simeon and Anna (Luke 2) waited for the Messiah to come, I am sure that they were thinking of verses like Malachi 3:1:
Mal. 3:1 NLT “Look! I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. Then the Lord you are seeking will suddenly come to his Temple. The messenger of the covenant, whom you look for so eagerly, is surely coming,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.
Re-reading ISAIAH 66:
Isaiah ends with blessings and promises that foreshadow Revelation, such as these:
Is. 66:12 GNT The Lord says, “I will bring you lasting prosperity; the wealth of the nations will flow to you like a river that never goes dry. …
22 “Just as the new earth and the new heavens will endure by my power, so your descendants and your name will endure.
In stark contrast to the promises and blessings, Isaiah also ends with vivid warnings against judgments and punishments that are like those in Revelation. Jesus himself quoted that final verse about the worms and the unquenchable fire. (Mark 9:48) You can take that as Jesus’ stamp of approval on all that Isaiah said!
REVELATION 22:
In chapter 21 we heard the invitation to receive free life-giving water for anyone who is thirsty, and that invitation is repeated in today’s chapter. The culmination of everything promised and the healing of everything sick and broken occur here. God says, “Look, I am making all things new.” There is again symbolism in every aspect of the New Jerusalem— including even the shape of a huge cube. As noted above at the end of Isaiah, in stark contrast to the eternal blessings for God’s people are the vivid ending warnings of eternal judgment in the last two chapters of Revelation.
In Rev. 22:8-9, most translations make it sound that John made the same mistake twice— bowing down again to the angel that was showing everything to him. But the Greek in those verse in chapter 22 can be understood to be retelling that event that happened in chapter 19, and I think that makes better sense. The probable reason that John included the story twice was to emphasize that angels should not be worshipped. Let’s beware of such heresy! Because such false teaching keeps on resurfacing and some forms of Gnosticism remain to the present day.
Congratulations on finishing the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan!
GNT Translation notes:
Rev. 22:8 I, John, have heard and seen all these things. And when I finished hearing and seeing them, (as I told you before) I fell down at the feet of the angel who had shown me these things, and I was about to worship him.
14-15 [It makes better sense to me to include verses 14-15 in Jesus’ quote, which means I did not read those verse the way I would if they were John’s narration.]
MALACHI 3:
In chapters 1-2 yesterday, we heard how skeptical and sassy the Israelites had become. This came out in the way Malachi has the people of Israel talk back to God. The first is like this:
Mal. 1:2 NLT “I have always loved you,” says the LORD.
But you retort, “Really? How have you loved us?”
Topics for such exchanges included offering sacrifices that don’t show appropriate honor to God, breaking covenants of marriage through divorce, and not honoring God as the God of justice. Two more sassy exchanges happen in today’s reading.
ISAIAH 66:
I highlight verse 17 from chapter 65, as it foreshadows what we will read in Revelation today and tomorrow:
Is. 65:17 NLT “Look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth,
and no one will even think about the old ones anymore.
And I believe that these moving verses from that same chapter portray the torment of the lake of fire:
Is. 65:13 GNT And so I tell you that those who worship and obey me will have plenty to eat and drink, but you will be hungry and thirsty. They will be happy, but you will be disgraced.
14 They will sing for joy, but you will cry with a broken heart.
REVELATION 21:
In chapter 20, we read about the millennium or the thousand year reign of Christ, the defeat and imprisonment of Satan, his brief release following the 1,000 years, and his eventual eternal judgment in the lake of fire. Death and the Grave were also abolished in the lake of fire.
MALACHI 1-2:
We heard a very difficult conclusion to Zechariah yesterday. Chapter 14 started out with horrendous news for Jerusalem. But the Lord himself steps in:
Zec. 14:3 NLT Then the LORD will go out to fight against those nations, as he has fought in times past.
4 On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem. And the Mount of Olives will split apart …
We will see the following from Zech 14 very soon in Revelation:
Zec. 14:5c NLT “Then the LORD my God will come, and all his holy ones with him.
6 On that day the sources of light will no longer shine,
7 yet there will be continuous day! …
8 On that day life-giving waters will flow out from Jerusalem, half toward the Dead Sea and half toward the Mediterranean,
flowing continuously in both summer and winter.”
We turn now to the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi. The name means, “my messenger.” There is debate as to the date of the writing of this post exilic prophet, but generally speaking it is true that there is a 400 year gap between this last Old Testament prophet and New Testament. It could be that Malachi prophesied in Nehemiah’s day. Both Malachi and Nehemiah dealt with priestly laxity (Mal. 1:6; Neh. 13:4-9), neglect of tithes (Mal. 3:7-12; Neh. 13:10-13), and intermarriage between Israelites and foreigners (Mal. 2:10-16; Neh. 13:23-28).”
Re-reading ISAIAH 65:
Note that the chapter starts with a verse that Paul quotes in Romans 10.
REVELATION 20:
After the judgment wreaked against Babylon (chapter 18), we heard songs praising God’s justice in chapter 19. Then we saw the appearing of Christ riding on a white horse. Typical of John’s reticence to name deity, Christ is not named, but is beautifully described. Note that even Jesus has a name written on his person which only He understands. And like in John 1:1, Christ’s title is the ‘Word of God’. It is possible that this account of His appearing may not be in chronological order in its position following the destruction of Babylon. Although Christ’s army is mentioned, note how the victory is won by Christ alone.
Hey, happy New Year to you all! If you happen to be one who started the DBRP at the beginning of 2021, you have surely noticed that our readings have contained one prophetic figure of speech or metaphor after another that all say that, “In the end, Jesus, the Son of God and Lion of Judah WINS. Blessed are you if you faithfully endure as a believer and follower of Him. The times that we are living through will be increasingly tough. Stand firm in holy living and in doing good works that glorify God. You will not be disappointed in the results!”
In 2022 my prayer is that we believers become better ambassadors of the basic beliefs taught in the Bible. How can we help our friends, family, or casual acquaintances to see the errors in the pagan worldview that is being promoted in the media today? I recommend the videos, podcasts, and books by Greg Koukl. His organization is called Stands to Reason, and his website is str.org. In particular, I recommend his book called Tactics. Be sure to get the 10th Anniversary Edition, which is available also as a Kindle book/audio book. The great thing that Koukl teaches is how to use questions in discussions with people holding different views, so that your conversations don’t turn into arguments. (All the links for things I mention today are found in the episode notes.)
At this time every year I give suggestions for other audio Bible podcasts, so that after listening to me for a year, you can listen to another voice. The great granddaddy of daily Bible reading podcasts is the Daily Audio Bible. Another good one is the Daily Radio Bible. As you choose a reading program for next year, I urge you to remember the basics that I give in my How to Study the Bible video, https://youtu.be/sPyAp8ZxDBE. Be sure to pick a plan that will have you reading some of the NT every day, not zipping through the NT starting in September or October.
Some of you who listened to the NLT podcasts this year may want to listen to my GNT podcast series next year. If so, the site is dailyGNTBiblereading.info.
If you want to use the YouVersion Bible app for your daily Bible readings, my 365-day plan is called ‘Digging Deeper Daily’. You can search in the YouVersion plans for Digging Deeper Daily, or find the direct link in the episode notes.
Digging Deeper Daily: https://www.bible.com/reading-plans/1314-digging-deeper-daily
If you would like to listen to David Suche reading the NIV Bible (as I did in 2020), I suggest that you follow the YouVersion plan named ‘Read to Me Daily’. If you select the NIV UK edition as your Bible, then David Suche is the reader. You can search in the YouVersion plans for ‘Read to me daily’.
Read to Me Daily: https://www.bible.com/reading-plans/13707-read-to-me-daily
This 365-day reading plan is presented in four semesters.
For information about other apps you can use for Bible reading or listening to the Daily Bible Reading podcasts, please see the Read This First pages that are linked in the top bar of the dailybiblereading.info site. If the app you are using does not show you the episode notes with clickable links and paragraph formatting, there are many other apps that will do a better job of that.
For people following the Daily Bible Reading podcasts in 2022, I will not be starting a new Facebook group or sending our special emails next year. But if any of you will be starting groups on some social media platform for a small group following the Digging Deeper Reading plan, I would like to offer my help and encouragement. If your group has questions that I might answer from a Bible translator’s viewpoint, you can invite me to join your group. I won’t have time to be active in multiple groups, but I would be glad to answer questions and encourage your group. I will continue sending out news or informational podcasts at random times, like this one.
Finally, I want to remind you that these 4-5 days are the peak times when people make resolutions to read the Bible. Please share with your friends about the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan and the DBRPs. Please give them the link: dailybiblereading.info.
Gale and I wish you a joyous year in 2022. May the Lord bless you ‘real good’!
ZECHARIAH 14:
Unfortunately, we have not yet seen the fulfillment of this prophecy from the end of Zechariah 12:
Zec. 12:10 NLT “Then I will pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on the family of David and on the people of Jerusalem. They will look on me whom they have pierced and mourn for him as for an only son. They will grieve bitterly for him as for a firstborn son who has died.
(The podcast notes for the previous episode contain a translation note on this verse.)
However, this part has been fulfilled from the beginning of chapter 13:
Zec. 13:1 “On that day a fountain will be opened for the dynasty of David and for the people of Jerusalem, a fountain to cleanse them from all their sins and impurity.
This from Zechariah 13 was referred to by the Lord Jesus in Mark 14:27 in— or on the way to, the garden of Gethsemane:
Zec. 13:7 NLT “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd,
the man who is my partner,”
says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.
“Strike down the shepherd,
and the sheep will be scattered,
and I will turn against the lambs.
ISAIAH 65:
In chapter 64, there is a mixture of hope, regretful repentance, and supplication— including these verses:
Is. 64:4 NLT For since the world began,
no ear has heard
and no eye has seen a God like you,
who works for those who wait for him!
5 You welcome those who gladly do good,
who follow godly ways.
But you have been very angry with us,
for we are not godly.
We are constant sinners;
how can people like us be saved?
6 We are all infected and impure with sin.
When we display our righteous deeds,
they are nothing but filthy rags.
REVELATION 19:
In Revelation 18 we heard the chapter of doom against the city of Babylon (or Rome, or the united evil world system based on immoral commerce). If chapter 18 sounded familiar, it is because you were remembering Ezek 27.
ZECHARIAH 12-13:
Several times I have noted Zechariah and other prophets who use the figure of shepherding a flock— picturing God’s people. In chapter 11, there were puzzling verses where Zechariah evidently performed an outward demonstration involving two staffs. Other prophets did such demonstrations. In this one, evidently Zechariah stood in for the Messiah. The two staffs were named Favor and Union. Our Messiah, Jesus, came to restore us to God’s favor and give us unity as God’s people— no matter from what race. The 30 pieces of silver is spoken of with irony: “this magnificent sum at which they valued me.” Remember this shepherd picture!
ISAIAH 64:
Yesterday in chapter 63, we heard the people of Israel ask a whole series of questions about the Lord, like:
Is. 63:11b NLT “Where is the one who brought Israel through the sea, with Moses as their shepherd?
And here is another verse:
Is. 63:15 NLT LORD, look down from heaven;
look from your holy, glorious home, and see us.
Where is the passion and the might
you used to show on our behalf?
Where are your mercy and compassion now?
The chapter ended with deep pathos:
Is. 63:18 NLT How briefly your holy people possessed your holy place,
and now our enemies have destroyed it.
19 Sometimes it seems as though we never belonged to you,
as though we had never been known as your people.
However, don’t forget how the chapter started, with the Lord wearing blood-stained robes from trampling out the grapes (yes, ‘grapes of wrath’)— the nations who oppressed his people. This is a picture of the grape harvest that we saw so recently in Revelation 14. Note that in Isaiah the Lord does the trampling alone. And so we see also in Revelation, the final battle is won by the Lord acting alone.
REVELATION 18:
The part that puzzles me most in chapter 17 is this:
Rev. 17:8 GNT That beast was once alive, but lives no longer; it is about to come up from the abyss and will go off to be destroyed. The people living on earth whose names have not been written before the creation of the world in the book of the living, will all be amazed as they look at the beast. It was once alive; now it no longer lives, but it will reappear.
While that is confusing, the important thing is clear: Satan is the sponsor of the beast.
GNT Translation note:
Zech. 12:10 [NLT “Then I will pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on the family of David and on the people of Jerusalem. They will look on me whom they have pierced and mourn for him as for an only son. They will grieve bitterly for him as for a firstborn son who has died.//GNT “I will fill the descendants of David and the other people of Jerusalem with the spirit of mercy and the spirit of prayer. They will look at the one whom they stabbed to death, and they will mourn for him like those who mourn for an only child. They will mourn bitterly, like those who have lost their first-born son.]
[The Masoretic Text says ‘me’, but then the undergoer changes to ‘him’ in the next phrase. This unexpected shift in undergoers caused some textual variants, as scribes tried to reconcile the grammatical difficulty. See the note in the NET at Lumina.Bible.org. The NLT translation is more faithful in showing the difficulty. The GNT followed textual variants in order to make the grammar sound right.]
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Rev. 18:18 and cried out as they saw the smoke from the flames that consumed her: [They said,] “There never has been another city like this great city!”
ZECHARIAH 10-11:
As we have seen before, the Lord loves names and delights to give new names. In Zec. 8 He said,
Zec. 8:3 NLT Then Jerusalem will be called the Faithful City; the mountain of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies will be called the Holy Mountain.
In Zec. 9 we read the verse Matthew quotes in chapter 21 about Jesus coming riding on the foal of a donkey. The verse is also alluded to in John 12:15. And we heard this verse about the New Jerusalem:
Zec. 9:16 NLT On that day the LORD their God will rescue his people,
just as a shepherd rescues his sheep.
They will sparkle in his land
like jewels in a crown.
ISAIAH 63:
In chapter 62 we read promises like what I shared above about the Lord giving names:
Is. 62:4 NLT Never again will you be called “The Forsaken City”
or “The Desolate Land.”Your new name will be “The City of God’s Delight”and “The Bride of God,”for the LORD delights in you
and will claim you as his bride.
And similarly at the end of that chapter:
Is. 62:11b NLT Look, your Savior is coming.
See, he brings his reward with him as he comes.’”
12 They will be called “The Holy People”
and “The People Redeemed by the LORD.”
And Jerusalem will be known as “The Desirable Place”
and “The City No Longer Forsaken.”
We will see the fulfillment of all this in the last chapters of Revelation.
REVELATION 17:
In chapter 16 we heard all 7 of the Bowl Judgments. At the time this judgment happens and the bowls are poured out on the earth, it seems that 100% of the people are opposed to God. No one repents when the judgments happen, but instead curse God. And there are preparations for a final battle of Armageddon with God. However God’s voice from the throne says that “It is finished.” This seems to refer to the punishment against Babylon. In John’s day, Babylon was a code word among Christians for the city of Rome— the capital city of the empire, which was built on 7 hills. In our day Babylon pictures the united evil world system supported by immoral commerce.
ZECHARIAH 8-9:I hope that you have noticed [Joshua//Jeshua] the high priest. He was the one that Satan was not allowed to accuse. He was given clean clothes. He is a priest and was given a clean priestly turban. And the gem with seven facets (literally, seven eyes) was set before him. He is a picture of the Messiah, who is called the Lord’s righteous Branch. Then in chapter 6 we read that he was given a crown, and told:
Zec. 6:13 NLT Yes, he will build the Temple of the LORD. Then he will receive royal honor and will rule as king from his throne. He will also serve as priest from his throne, and there will be perfect harmony between his two roles.’
As far as a normal man can do so, he is a picture of Jesus. And Joshua is a variant of Jeshua— which is the same name the Greeks pronounce ‘Yesu’, which is where we get our pronunciation of Jesus. From our place in history, how easy it is to see what God was picturing.
ISAIAH 62:Yesterday we heard another Messianic section of Isaiah— the part that Jesus spoke in his hometown synagogue in Luke 4. And Jesus alluded to the same passage when he sent John the Baptist’s disciples back to him in Luke 7.
REVELATION 16:Note that we saw another view of the crystal sea in chapter 15, but this time it was mixed with fire. In chapter 4 it was clear as crystal. My theory is that the glassy sea is the same, but it changes in appearance based on God’s prevailing mood and the tenor of current events. Note that the 144,000 (or all the people victorious over the beast) sang the song of Moses. Note that with just that little hint, the victory over the forces of Satan is pictured as victory over the army of Egypt and release from bondage. The angels are dressed like Jesus in chapter 1. The plagues come from the interiour of the heavenly sanctuary.
We turn now from the interlude between the trumpets and the bowls. There is a difference here: You will see that before, the plagues struck just a third of whatever object. Now they strike 100%. This is the end!
GNT/NLT Translation note:
Zec. 6:13 [The Hebrew for verse 13 can also be understood like GNT, ESV, and HCSB.]
GNT He is the one who will build it and receive the honor due a king, and he will rule his people. A priest will stand by his throne, and they will work together in peace and harmony.’
//NIV84 It is he who will build the temple of the Lord, and he will be clothed with majesty and will sit and rule on his throne. And he will be a priest on his throne. And there will be harmony between the two.
ZECHARIAH 6-7:
There were so many correspondences to Revelation in the three chapters we read yesterday in Zechariah that I cannot even take time to list them. I single out this one from chapter 3 as especially interesting:
Zec. 3:8 NLT “Listen to me, O [Joshua//Jeshua] the high priest, and all you other priests. You are symbols of things to come. Soon I am going to bring my servant, the Branch.
9 Now look at the jewel I have set before Jeshua, a single stone with seven facets. I will engrave an inscription on it, says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, and I will remove the sins of this land in a single day.
Joshua was called the ‘Branch’, or ‘Rod’, or ‘Shoot’— and in this age we can clearly see that both he and Zerubbabel are pictures of the Messiah. The Branch is also referred to in Jeremiah and Isaiah.
Secondly, it is interesting that the stone has seven ‘facets’. The word for facets in Hebrew is literally ‘eyes’. And the Lamb in revelation has seven eyes.
This insight given to Zerubbabel in chapter 4 is a principle for all of us to lay hold of:
Zec. 4:6 NLT It is not by force nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.
This is one of Gale’s favorite verses. We have claimed this repeatedly in our lives:
Zec. 4:10 NLT Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin…”
ISAIAH 61:
Yesterday in chapter 60, we heard many wonderful promises about the New Jerusalem— especially verses 1-3 and 19-21.
REVELATION 15:
Note that in chapter 14 the victory over Babylon is proclaimed as already won. God’s holy people are again warned against receiving the mark of the beast. At the end of the chapter are the two harvests, the wheat harvest of the righteous, and the grape harvest of those who will enter into eternal punishment. These are visions that give an overview, in a similar vein as the vision in chapter 12.
ZECHARIAH 3-5:
In Zechariah 1-2 we heard how Zechariah’s dreams often included angels talking with him. There were horses and riders, horns and blacksmiths, and the measuring Jerusalem. Jerusalem will not be nearly big enough. God’s people WILL COME out of captivity in Babylon. Note that by Zechariah’s time, this was already happening. His words and those events foreshadow what we read in Revelation about the new Jerusalem.
ISAIAH 60:
In Isaiah 59 we again read beautiful messages that harmonize with what we are reading in Revelation. The beginning verses contain foundational truths:
Is. 59:1 NLT Listen! The LORD’s arm is not too weak to save you,
nor is his ear too deaf to hear you call.
2 It’s your sins that have cut you off from God.
Because of your sins, he has turned away
and will not listen anymore.
Ephesians 6 is not the only place we hear of spiritual armor, but in 59:17 it is the Lord who wears it.
The next-to-last verse of the chapter prophecies about the coming Redeemer. And the last verse says about those who are God’s redeemed people and enjoy a covenant with Him, “My spirit will not leave them.”
REVELATION 14:
Note that the beast that comes up from the sea— which we heard about in chapter 13, is under the ancient dragon of chapter 12. It says this about the beast:
Rev. 13:7 NLT And the beast was allowed to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And he was given authority to rule over every tribe and people and language and nation.
8 And all the people who belong to this world worshiped the beast. They are the ones whose names were not written in the Book of Life before the world was made—the Book that belongs to the Lamb who was slaughtered.
Note that the Book of Life belongs to the Lamb, and note when the names were written in it. This should encourage us who are on the path of Life! God knew you from before the world was made!
Back in chapter 12 we heard how long all this would last: a time, times, and half a time = 3 ½ years, 42 months, or 1260 days. We heard those times in Daniel. But remember these are symbolic numbers, and God alone knows how to calculate them.
ZECHARIAH 1-2:
Yesterday we read both chapters of the little book of Haggai, and heard how Haggai motivated his discouraged audience to return to the task of rebuilding the temple. Haggai certainly must have known and worked with our next author— Zechariah.
There are at least 27 men named Zechariah in the Old Testament. The name means ‘Yahweh remembers’. This book— remarkable for its surrealistic visions and vivid poetic images, is sometimes called the ‘Apocalypse of the Old Testament’. Since we are also reading Revelation, you will get a double dose of this genre.
Mears gives this interesting comment, and this is something I suggest we watch for as we read this book:
Someone has said that to correctly read the visions of this book, you must shine two lights on them— the light of the cross and the light of the crown. Otherwise, you will find that you don’t have the proper perspective or background to understand Zechariah’s visions. The prophet, looking far into the future, saw two aspects of the future Messiah— one Person, but two appearances. First, he saw Him in humiliation and suffering; then he saw Him in majesty and great glory. Jewish people who do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah ignore the Christ of the cross. Christians too often ignore the Christ of the crown. Both are wrong.
ISAIAH 59:
Although chapter 58 didn’t use the word ‘hypocrisy’, that is what God was preaching against. After telling us the kind of fasting that God desires most, God gave beautiful promises to those who live as He teaches.
REVELATION 13:
Following the 7th trumpet blast in chapter 11, the vision in chapter 12 is an overview. The woman who gives birth to ‘he who will rule the nations with a rod of iron’ is not a picture of Mary. This is an overview. I encourage you to dig deeper to find out more about the picture of the glorious woman. I will give you my take about the dragon’s seven heads and seven crowns. The dragon, as we will see will do his best to masquerade as God. He is doing that right now in our day! Look out, and don’t be fooled! An important foundational teaching in that chapter is to explain about the source of the spiritual battle we now see being played out in the world.
GNT Translation note:
Zech. 1:9 I asked him, “Sir, what do these horses [and riders] mean?” He answered, “I will show you what they mean.
====
Rev. 13:10 Whoever is meant to be captured will surely be captured; whoever is meant to be killed by the sword will surely be killed by the sword. This calls for endurance and [full belief//faith] on the part of God's people.”
HAGGAI 1-2:
I hope you saw correlations to Revelation in the 3rd chapter of Zephaniah yesterday— in what God plans for the nations and for those who come to the new Jerusalem.
Mears gives a helpful summary about the prophets:
- Of the 16 prophets, most of them— eleven, prophesied before the exile,
- just two prophesied during the exile (Ezekiel and Daniel),
- while three prophesied after the exile. We turn to the first of these now— Haggai.
This book (with only two chapters) consists of four prophecies in four months— each dated and all in the second year of King Darius’ reign. In the modern calendar these dates would have been between August 29 and December 18, 520 B.C. This places Haggai’s messages two months before Zechariah started to prophesy. Haggai’s purpose was to move a discouraged nation to rise up again and rebuild the temple.
ISAIAH 58:
In chapter 57, we saw again that God considers idolatry to be a sin against him that is just like a wife being unfaithful to her husband. In such a context of explicit and harsh condemnation, these words stand out:
Is. 57:18 NLT I have seen what they do,
but I will heal them anyway!
I will lead them.
I will comfort those who mourn,
19 bringing words of praise to their lips.
REVELATION 12:
In chapter 11, John again took an active part in the vision he was seeing. He was given a rod (as a measuring stick) and told to measure the temple, the altar, and count the worshippers. What other prophet participated in measuring a temple in a vision? John was told not to measure the court of the Gentiles. I encourage you to dig for gold there. While you are at it, find out what ideas people have about the two witnesses. John is not the first prophet that saw olive trees on both sides of a lamp and lamp stand. Who was the prophet? And how is John’s vision different than the other prophet’s vision?
At the end of the chapter, we heard ‘the last trumpet’. Say, is the same ‘last trumpet’ that Paul mentioned?! The words of praise by the 24 elders and the last verse in the chapter give a big clue as to what the seventh trumpet brings.
ZEPHANIAH 3:
Today we read the last chapter of Zephaniah. In chapter 2, we heard words that were much like what we heard recently in Isaiah 49 and 55:
Zep. 2:2 NLT Gather [together] before judgment begins,
before your time to repent is blown away like chaff.
Act now, before the fierce fury of the LORD falls
and the terrible day of the LORD’s anger begins.
3 Seek the LORD, all who are humble,
and follow his commands.
Seek to do what is right
and to live humbly.
Perhaps even yet the LORD will protect you—
protect you from his anger on that day of destruction.
Note that God repeatedly says, “What you need to do to get right with me, do it NOW. Don’t put it off!”
ISAIAH 57:
In chapter 56, we heard how God’s plan includes even eunuchs and foreigners— which includes us. The chapter ended with a condemnation of Israel’s leaders which was filled with irony. The people who listened to Jesus when he said that he is the Good Shepherd, would likely have thought back to Isaiah’s words:
Is. 56:11 NLT Like greedy dogs, they are never satisfied.
They are ignorant shepherds,
all following their own path
and intent on personal gain.
12 “Come,” they say, “let’s get some wine and have a party.
Let’s all get drunk.
Then tomorrow we’ll do it again
and have an even bigger party!”
REVELATION 11:
We are still in the interlude before the 7th trumpet. In chapter 10 John saw a mighty angel come to earth holding a little and open scroll, the 7 thunders spoke. That— in prophetic language, indicates God’s voice, and John takes the scroll and as commanded eats it. This is not the first time a prophet has been told to eat a scroll. Do you remember the name of the other prophet? The mighty angel stood on the land and the sea. The sea symbolizes the kingdom of darkness, so his standing on land and sea indicates that the message the angel brings will impact the whole world even including Satan’s kingdom.
ZEPHANIAH 1-2:
The concluding words of Habakkuk are the most often quoted and memorized, because they are so encouraging. That quote begins like this:
Hab. 3:17 NLT “Even though the fig trees have no blossoms,
and there are no grapes on the vines;”
… yet I will rejoice in the LORD!
Constable tells us that “Zephaniah” means “Yahweh hides [or has hidden],” “Yahweh’s watchman,” or “Yahweh treasured.” The uncertainty arises over the etymology of the prophet’s name, which scholars dispute. I prefer “Yahweh hides.”
Zephaniah was very likely a descendent of king Hezekiah, and he was born sometime during the reign of the wicked king Manasseh, and was active as a prophet during the time of the reign of King Josiah (640-609 BC). Like Nahum, Zephaniah prophesied against Nineveh. He preached vehemently against idols. He also prophesied these important things:
- A faithful remnant will be delivered from captivity.
- The Gentile nations will be converted.
- One day people everywhere— not only in Jerusalem, will worship God (2:11; John 4:21).
ISAIAH 56:Rather than commenting on the Bible translator’s favorite verse (Is. 55:11), I’m picking this section to remind you about of instead:
Is. 55:8 NLT “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD.
“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
How true it is that God’s thoughts are always counter-intuitive for humans! Take for instance what God says in this chapter: “Come to me. Seek me while I may be found. Come, I am offering eternal food and water for free. You don’t have to earn it.” Time and again, humans think they have to earn salvation. Another way we misunderstand what God offers is by saying that ‘free food and water’ mean that people don’t need to repent. Those who think that should read verses 6-7 of chapter 55 and the whole book or Revelation.
REVELATION 10:Note that after some huge judgments in Revelation— such as at the end of chapter 6, the people on earth recognize God’s hand and react to the Almighty in some way, such as trying to hide from God. But in response to the plagues in chapter 9 the people close their eyes and refuse to repent of demon worship and all kinds of immorality.
HABAKKUK 3:
Yesterday in this book we heard Habakkuk bring his complaints to God about God’s justice, and God answered, in effect, that after he uses the Babylonians, their time of judgment will come. In chapter 2 verse 3, God gives this assurance:
Hab. 2:3b GNT It may seem slow in coming, but wait for it; it will certainly take place, and it will not be delayed.
Then the next verse ends with a famous promise:
Hab. 2:4 GNT And this is the message: ‘Those who are evil will not survive, but those who are righteous will live because they are faithful to God.’”
(The verse as it is often quoted in the NT is a little different since it was quoted from the Septuagint.
Two more powerful and often quoted verses bear repeating:
Hab. 2:20 NLT But the Lord is in his holy Temple.
Let all the earth be silent before him.”
Hab. 2:14 For as the waters fill the sea,
the earth will be filled with an awareness of the glory
of the Lord.
Rereading ISAIAH 55:
Note that in Revelation we have already read— and will read again, words like the beginning of Isaiah 55:
Is. 55:1 NLT “Is anyone thirsty?
Come and drink—
even if you have no money!
Remember also that Jesus in John chapters 4 and 7 offered living water and streams of water that would bubble from within.
This chapter 55 is so rich! But we don’t have time for me to comment verse by verse. As a Bible translator, the promise we base our very lives upon is found in verse 11.
REVELATION 9:
In Rev. 8, we saw the results of the first four trumpet blasts. This, like the seals, is another vision of God’s justice finally being expressed in judgment. Note that the enactment of this punishment was preceded by the prayers of God’s holy people. (That’s is how NLT translates ‘saints’. And that word means us, we have been purified by Christ!) At last, the answers to prayers for God’s justice like heard from the martyrs in Rev. 6 and like in Habakkuk’s prayer will start to be answered.
HABAKKUK 1-2:
The book of Nahum ended with these words about Nineveh:
Nam. 3:19 NLT There is no healing for your wound;
your injury is fatal.
All who hear of your destruction
will clap their hands for joy.
Where can anyone be found
who has not suffered from your continual cruelty?
And now we turn to the book of Habakkuk. Habakkuk preached at the time when it was already clear— through the means of prophecy and conquest, that Babylon would defeat Judah. This was between 627 and 605 BC, which would have been at the same time as Jeremiah, Nahum, Zephaniah were living, and Daniel may have been a young boy.
We often hear people questioning how God could be good and loving and allow various disasters or evil things to happen. And Habakkuk asks that question, and another: “Why do You, God, use a nation that is more sinful than we are to punish us?”
Mears gives this neat outline of the three chapters of Habakkuk:
- Watch and see
- Stand and see
- Kneel and see
ISAIAH 55:
Perhaps you noticed that Isaiah 54:1 was quoted by Paul in Gal. 4:27.
And did Isaiah 54:11-12 cause you to think of Revelation? In just a few days in our reading of Revelation we will hear about precious gems used in building the New Jerusalem.
REVELATION 8:
Remember that in Rev. 7 we saw first the 144,000 from the tribes of Israel. 144,000 = 12 x 12,000. Remember, numbers in Revelation have symbolic meanings! Now the question is whether the next group that John sees is the same group or a different one. He says that they were “a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language.”
Look closer at God’s Word and you will always see that it is very deep. Look closely at the names of the 12 tribes! Notice that the list has been altered from the normal list repeated in the Old Testament. Which tribes are missing? Which tribe is doubled up? Note that the answers to this may hold a clue as to whether the 144,000 is made up only of ethnic Jews. There is gold to dig for here!
NAHUM 3:
Yesterday we heard just how Nineveh’s defenses would be breached. The description was detailed and vivid, including the scarlet color of the enemy uniforms and the way chariots would rumble recklessly in the city streets after the river gate was torn open. God justly judged this city for its cruelty to others.
ISAIAH 54:
In Isaiah 53:10 it says,
Is. 53:10 NLT But it was the LORD’s good plan to crush him
and cause him grief.
Often literal translations give a meaning that can hardly be conceived of— saying that the Lord was ‘pleased’. The pleasure of the Lord means that it was His will or decision— which is why Jesus received a No answer in the garden of Gethsemane. Seeing His Son suffer so much certainly caused great sorrow! Think how Abraham felt when he was about to sacrifice his son, Isaac!
Also Isaiah 53 ends with the idea that Jesus ‘intercedes for the rebels’— which is us. This is echoed in Hebrews 7 in the teaching that Jesus is our great High Priest.
Heb. 7:24 NLT But because Jesus lives forever, his priesthood lasts forever.
25 Therefore he is able, once and forever, to save those who come to God through him. He lives forever to intercede with God on their behalf.
REVELATION 7:
In Revelation chapter 5 we heard what happened when Jesus opened 6 of the 7 seals on the scroll that had been in God’s hand. After the 6th seal was broken,
Rev. 6:14 NLT The sky was rolled up like a scroll, and all of the mountains and islands were moved from their places.
No one on earth will call that ‘climate change’. There will be no atheists by that time. Everyone still left on earth will be cowering in terror of God’s judgment.
These judgements— set off when the seals are opened, are an overview. Remember that we will hear the same story from other perspectives. And this is not the only time in this book where there is an interlude between the 6th and 7th item.
GNT Translation note:
Rev. 7:9 After this I looked, and there was an enormous crowd—no one could count all the people! They were from every race, tribe, nation, and language, and they stood in front of the throne and [in front] of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.
NAHUM 1-2:
Micah certainly poured out his heart in chapter 7. Micah 7:7-9 matches the verse I highlighted in Isaiah 50:10. Those are verses that give comfort to people dealing with long-term suffering.
Now turning to Nahum: Nahum’s name means ‘compassion’, ‘consolation’, or ‘comfort’. Nothing is known about Nahum except for what we can glean from his book. He must have written between the fall of the Egyptian city of Thebes in 663 B.C. and the fall of the Assyrian city of Nineveh in 612. Nineveh fell to a combined force of Medes, Babylonians, and Scythians.
This book is a vivid prediction of the fall of Nineveh— which is the same city that Jonah preached against 150 years earlier. Assyria was an extremely violent and cruel oppressor.
Rereading ISAIAH 52:13—53:
Note the contrast between verses 8 and 10:
Is. 53:8 NLT Unjustly condemned,
he was led away.
No one cared that he died without descendants,
that his life was cut short in midstream.
But just two verses later, we read:
10 But it was the LORD’s good plan to crush him
and cause him grief.
Yet when his life is made an offering for sin,
he will have many descendants.
He will enjoy a long life,
and the LORD’s good plan will prosper in his hands.
So we have the word ‘died’ (past tense) in verse 9, ‘buried like a criminal’ and ‘no descendants’ in 8, but the words ‘long life’ and ‘many descendants’ in verse 10. Looking back at Jesus, this makes perfect sense. In a similar way, mysteries in Revelation will one day be perfectly clear.
REVELATION 6:
In Revelation 5 we heard that only One was worthy to take the scroll that was in God’s hand. The scroll had seven seals, and it is the first of three big series of seven in this book. Christ is introduced as the Lion of the tribe of Judah. But when John sees him, he appears as a lamb that has been slain. (Remember quotes about the Lamb spoken by Isaiah, Micah, and John the Baptist!) The Lamb had seven horns. Horns are used in Scripture to portray kingly power to rule, so with 7, he is the perfect and divine King. And the Lamb had 7 eyes, which again, we are told, stand for the sevenfold Spirit of God. Through the Holy Spirit Christ has perfect eyesight— seeing in all places and in all hearts.
MICAH 7:
The complete quote about the Messiah’s birthplace (Micah 5:2-5) quoted to Herod in Matthew 2:6 mentions Bethlehem, a woman in labor giving birth, and the Lord is pictured as our shepherd who will be ‘highly honored around the world’. Note that Herod would have had cause for concern about his reign if such a leader appeared.
If Micah 6:8 sounded familiar, it is because Micah quoted from Deut. 10:12.
ISAIAH 52:13—53:
In our reading yesterday, Isaiah 52, we heard the passage that Paul quoted in Romans 10.
Is. 52:7 NLT How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of the messenger who brings good news,
the good news of peace and salvation,
the news that the God of Israel reigns!
All the ends of the earth will see
the victory of our God.
Note that God gave a special message (in 52:11-12) to those who would carry the temple treasures back to Jerusalem led by Ezra (Ezra 8). Those who carried those ‘sacred objects’ and who prayed and fasted with Ezra beside the river near Babylon had their prayer answered around 200 years before they prayed it!
REVELATION 5:
After acting as Jesus’ secretary to write down the seven letters to the seven churches, John was taken up to God’s throne in heaven. We can note a feature of Jewish custom in the writing of John in Revelation 4: In reverence he avoided saying, “I saw God sitting on his throne.” He went beyond custom and didn’t even say ‘the Lord/Kyrios’. Instead he said, ‘Someone’ or ‘the One sitting on the throne’. God was mentioned directly only in the quotes of the four living creatures and the 24 elders. Note that we have seen the living creatures with four faces before in Ezekiel.
And in front of the throne were seven torches with burning flames. And we are told, “This is the sevenfold Spirit of God.” The number seven has a symbolic meaning— indicating perfection, completeness, or attributes of God. (Compare Rev. 1:5, 3:1, 4:5 and 5:6.) Commentators also say that John could have thought about Isaiah 11:2-5— where Isaiah prophesied about the sevenfold spiritual characteristics of the Branch growing from David’s stump (Jesus).
MICAH 5-6:
Remember that Isaiah and Micah were contemporaries. Yesterday we read very familiar sounding verses at the beginning of Micah 4 which start like this:
Mic. 4:1 NLT In the last days, the mountain of the LORD’s house
will be the highest of all—
the most important place on earth. …
That was so familiar sounding that I thought the passage must be quoted in the New Testament— but no! There are three verses there in Micah 4 that are almost exactly the same as verses found in Isaiah chapter 2. No wonder they sounded familiar!
Note that God, as he speaks in Micah, frequently jumps from one time to another without warning. He can tell the people, “You will be exiled to Babylon” in one verse, but then very quickly, God says, “Rise and crush the nations, Jerusalem.” We just have to accept that this kind of unannounced time-switching is a feature of prophetic writings.
ISAIAH 52:
The chapter break between Isaiah 50 and 51 breaks up an important connection. For any of us who are “walking in the dark without a ray of light,” (like it says at chapter 50:10), there are encouraging words for you at the beginning of chapter 51.
And our family will remember this verse from a song we used to sing:
Is. 51:11 NLT Those who have been ransomed by the LORD will return.
They will enter Jerusalem singing,
crowned with everlasting joy.
Sorrow and mourning will disappear,
and they will be filled with joy and gladness.
REVELATION 4:
Yesterday we heard the last of the seven letters, the one to Laodicea, the spiritually indifferent church. If we were seeking to interpret the seven letters as seven church ages, we would have no difficulty in saying that that last letter fits us to a tee. Laodicea was a medical center and was known for making an eye salve. So this letter is full of irony that Christ finds them poor, wretched, blind and naked. And note that the Savior doesn’t tell them to fix the problems by their own effort. He tells them to buy the eye salve, white garments, and the gold FROM HIM. What an awesome word is this statement:
Rev. 3:19 NLT “I correct and discipline everyone I love. So be diligent and turn from your indifference.”
Then the famous verse about Christ knocking is not spoken to unbelievers. In its first application, the famous promise is made to the members of the church who are willing to turn from spiritual indifference.
GNT Translation note:
Rev. 4:5 From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder. In front of the throne seven lighted torches were burning, which [picture the perfect powers of God’s Spirit//are the seven spirits of God].
MICAH 3-4:
In Micah 1 yesterday we heard one of the sections of Hebrew poetry which is virtually impossible to translate and capture the same impact as the original. Micah— expressing his deep sorrow at God’s coming judgment, concatenated many place names— using them in a compound figure of speech based on the meanings of the names. For instance,
Mic. 1:10b NLT You people in Beth-leaphrah,
roll in the dust to show your despair.
The name Beth-leaphrah means ‘house of dust’.
For those following this plan in the GNT, Micah 1 would be a good place to open the NLT. The NLT footnotes do a good job helping us with the meanings of the names. That holds true until the reader gets to Adullam. No footnote for that one! Say, we’ve heard that name before, haven’t we? Who else hid there?
ISAIAH 51:
If you have time, go back to review Isaiah 50. God showed the thoughts of our Savior in advance of his coming in verses 4-6. Jesus’ resolve (alluded to in Luke 9:51) is shown in verse 7. And verse 9 might have been Paul’s inspiration for the last part of Romans 8! Verse 10 has been an amazing comfort to many with incurable disease or in hopeless situations.
REVELATION 3b:
One of the rewards given to the victorious from Philadelphia is this as NIV translates it:
Rev. 3:12a The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will they leave it.
That gives the wrong impression to me. “Oh, no, I don’t want to be made into a pillar and not be able to move!” NLT gives the right idea with neat economy of words like this:
Rev. 3:12a NLT All who are victorious will become pillars in the Temple of my God, and they will never _have to_ leave it.
Another part of their reward is this:
12b And I will write on them the name of my God, and they will be citizens in the city of my God—the new Jerusalem that comes down from heaven from my God. And I will also write on them my new name.
People get very concerned about the mark of the beast in Revelation 13. Observe here something that you will see throughout this book: EVERYONE gets a mark of ownership upon them— including all the saints, and even Jesus has a mark on his forehead.
GNT Translation notes:
Rev. 3:7 “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: “[I am the one who is holy and true. My message to you is this://This is the message from the one who is holy and true.] [I have//He has] the key that belonged to David, and when [I open//he opens] a door, no one can close it, and when [I close a door//he closes it], no one can open it.
12 I will make those who are victorious pillars in the temple of my God, and they will never [have to] leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which will come down out of heaven from my God. I will also write on them my new name.
14 “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: “[I am the Amen//This is the message from the Amen], the faithful and true witness, who is the origin of all that God has created.
MICAH 1-2:The name “Micah” is a shortened form of “Micaiah,” which means, “Who is like Yahweh?” A different Micaiah, the son of Imlah, served as a prophet in the Northern Kingdom during the reign of King Ahab of Israel (874-853 B.C., 1Kings 22:8-28; 2Chron. 18:3-27).
Micah prophesied during the reigns of the Judean kings Jotham (750-732 B.C.), Ahaz (732-715 B.C.), and Hezekiah (715-686 B.C.). This makes him a late eighth-century contemporary of Isaiah. While Isaiah was ministering in Jerusalem, perhaps Micah was more of a country prophet. Amos and Hosea were preaching at the same time in the Northern Kingdom. Micah’s message is similar to that of Amos, and Micah spoke at a time when conditions in Judah were much like those in the Northern Kingdom while Amos was preaching. Both prophets denounced social sins and the unfair treatment of the poor by the rich. The Northern Kingdom was taken into captivity during Micah’s lifetime— fulfilling Amos’ prophecies.
Micah contains three notable passages about Christ:
- Bethlehem will produce the ultimate Ruler 5:2— the information quoted to Herod in Mat. 2.
- Christ will be the King 2:12-13
- Christ will reign in righteousness over the whole earth 4:1,7-8
ISAIAH 50:
As we heard yesterday, Isaiah 49 includes these words that are quoted in 2Cor 6:2:
Is. 49:8 NLT “At just the right time, I will respond to you.
On the day of salvation I will help you.
And these next words are frequently repeated by the Lord elsewhere, therefore, IMPORTANT:
Is. 49:23b NLT Then you will know that I am the LORD.
Those who trust in me will never be put to shame.”
REVELATION 3a:
The churches of Pergamum and Thyatira (chapter 2) were enduring and remaining loyal to Jesus. But both were allowing the corruption of false teaching that promoted adultery and idolatry. Jesus warned of severe punishments including death for those who failed to repent, and also wonderful promises to those who are victorious. I especially love the last promise to the church in Pergamum because it shows how intimately Jesus knows us and how his rewards will be appropriate for each of us:
Rev. 2:17b NLT And I will give to each one a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one understands except the one who receives it.
GNT Translation notes:
Rev. 3:7 “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: “[I am the one who is holy and true. My message to you is this://This is the message from the one who is holy and true.] [I have//He has] the key that belonged to David, and when [I open//he opens] a door, no one can close it, and when [I close a door//he closes it], no one can open it.
12 I will make those who are victorious pillars in the temple of my God, and they will never [have to] leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which will come down out of heaven from my God. I will also write on them my new name.
Hi friend, I’m so glad you’re listening to this update. I will share a very useful tip today.
Before I tell you about that, I want to ask for your help: Are you one who made a New-Year’s resolution last year to read the whole Bible? Well, how did that go for you? Would you be willing to share a word of testimony from your year reading the Bible to encourage others? If so, please use your voice memo app on your cell phone to record your message. You might share a verse that meant a lot to you this year, or share some way God used his Word in your life. I will post your comments at the dailybiblereading.info website. I will tell you how to make and send your audio file to me at the end of this episode.
If you are one of those who made that decision a year ago and have kept up your reading since January 1, you know that we are now in the big Prophecy binge-reading time at the end of the year, reading minor prophets, Isaiah, and Revelation. The possibility of seeing correspondences between your three daily readings goes up to about 95%.
Some people find the prophetic genre difficult. Recently I had a conversation with one of our church’s elders. He had undertaken to do a thorough study through the book of Jeremiah, and found it very difficult. More than that, he complained about his frustration in understanding the book of Revelation. I want to offer a little help in this area that I re-discovered recently. Here’s the tip I mentioned: Dr. Bob Utley’s Free Bible Commentary (http://www.freebiblecommentary.org/) Note the word Free!
What you get in Utley’s commentary is expert information that is gleaned from a lifetime of research. Dr. Utley has dedicated himself to making a high-quality commentary on every book in the Bible. His work is scholarly, yet written so that it is easy to understand.
So, in view of our current prophecy-reading binge, I would like to share some thoughts on the prophetic genre, which is also called the Apocalyptic genre. Many of us recently read the book of Daniel. You may recall that chapter 11 is filled with incredible details prophesied to Daniel by an awesome angelic messenger. I am not going to go into any of the details now. What I will do is to give you some introductory material from Bob Utley’s commentary on Daniel 11. I will summarizing some general points about the prophetic genre that Bob Utley quoted from D. Brent Sandy’s book Plowshares and Pruning Hooks: Rethinking the Language of Biblical Prophecy and Apocalyptic.
- From Daniel 2, "What Makes Prophecy Problematic?"
- "the question is whether emotional language is necessarily exact language," p. 41
- "hyperboles, in effect, stretch the truth in order to increase the impact of the words," p. 41
- "a prophet's intent may be to express emotion more than exactness," p. 41
- "at what level are readers supposed to understand the prophetic visions—every detail? The overall picture?" p. 48
- From Daniel 3, "How Does the Language of Prophecy Work?"
- "if we fail to grasp the inherent metaphorical nature of language, we fail to understand prophecy," p. 59
- From Daniel 5, "How Does the Language of Apocalyptic Work?"
- Are the details in the vision allusive and symbolic or precise and explicit? Generally, the images lack precision," p. 117
- "anticipating the details of political events of the fourth through the second centuries raises the issue whether the point of the vision is the details or the overall impact," p. 119
- "but we must not begin with the specific lest we fail to grasp the global!" p. 122
- "it is also expected with the nature of apocalyptic language that some details may simply be for effect; stated another way, some details may be make-believe," p. 124
- "details may have no particular significance other than to give the account more emotive power," p. 126
- "there is a certain amount of futility; therefore, in trying to determine the significance of all the details of apocalyptic visions," p. 126
- "to read the Apocalypse with a microscope, even striving to decipher the significance of the most minute detail, defrauds the genre of it intended function," p. 127
- "understanding the orality of the Apocalypse underscores the point that correct interpretation pays more attention to the overall impression of the visions than to the individual details," p. 127
- "from the vision in Daniel 8 we learn that while apocalyptic may seem on the surface to describe the future in detail, in point of fact, it does not. Some details may in the end match up with a precise event, but it would have been impossible to see that in advance," p. 128
- From Daniel 6, "How Have Prophecies Been Fulfilled?"
- "the already fulfilled prophecies demonstrate a pattern of translucence rather than transparency. The intent was apparently not to give specific information about the future," p. 146
- "figures of speech abound in the poetry of prophecy. That should suggest that correct understanding of prophetic poetry is often not possible until after the fulfillment," p. 150
- "if we grasp the intent of prophecy as primarily prosecution and persuasion, we will not expect it to reveal details of the future," p. 154
- Daniel 7, "How Will Prophecies Be Fulfilled?"
- "because prophecy is poetic, it is inherently ambiguous and in some ways less precise," p. 158
- "given the nature of prophecy, we should probably deduce that it offers panorama, not close-up details," p. 163
- "prophecy and apocalyptic: it is a stained-glass window, not a crystal ball," p. 184
- "the function of the prophets' language was to draw attention to basic ideas about the future, not to reveal precisely what will happen and when it will happen," p. 184
- Conclusion
- "the fundamental question is, does the language of prophecy intend to give us details from which we can preconstruct how the future will unfold?" p. 206
- "biblical prophecies were generally not understood before they were fulfilled," p. 199
This perspective has helped me as I struggled with Dan. 9:24-27. It is less helpful with chapter 11 because there are so many corroborated historical details from Dan. 11:2 to 11:35. Daniel 11:36-45 parallel Dan. 7:7-8,11,24-25 and 9:24-27. These seem to fit into Jesus' words in Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21; Paul's words in 1 and 2 Thessalonians; and John's words in the Revelation. However, as the NT authors saw fulfilled OT prophecy only after Jesus' life, these end-time events are not all literal, historical predictions. Only time will tell. But for those last generation of hurting and dying believers, many (but not all) of them may be very literal to encourage them to faith and hope (which is the purpose of all apocalyptic literature).
- Conclusion
- Daniel 7, "How Will Prophecies Be Fulfilled?"
- From Daniel 6, "How Have Prophecies Been Fulfilled?"
It was actually my Bible translation team in Indonesia who re-introduced me to the Free Bible Commentary series. They described the commentaries like this: “Utley doesn’t promote only his own interpretation of a passage. Instead he equips the reader with all the information needed to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of differing opinions, giving you the tools needed to make good interpretive decisions.”
My wife, Gale, has been leading two groups of women at our church every week in studying Isaiah 40-66. It used to be that I would find post-it notes on the dining room table with questions for me to answer. Ever since I showed her Bob Utley’s commentary, I seldom find post-it notes on the breakfast table.
Now, to let Bob Utley help us with the book of Revelation, I would like to read a couple of paragraphs from his Introduction to that book:
Most of my adult academic/theological life I have had the presupposition that those who believe the Bible take it "literally" (and that is surely true for historical narrative). However, it has become more and more obvious to me that to take prophecy, poetry, parables, and apocalyptic literature literally is to miss the point of the inspired text. The author's intent, not literalness, is the key to a proper understanding of the Bible. To make the Bible say more [than the original writer intended] (doctrinal specificity) is as dangerous and misleading as to interpret it in such a way as to make it say less than was intended by the original, inspired writer. The focus must be the larger context, the historical setting, and the intention the author expressed in the text itself and in his choice of genre. Genre is a literary contract between the author and the reader. To miss this clue is surely to lead to misinterpretation!
The book of Revelation is surely true, but not historical narrative, not meant to be taken literally. The genre itself is screaming this point to us if we will only hear it. This does not mean that it is not inspired, or not true; it is just figurative, cryptic, symbolic, metaphorical, and imaginative. The first century Jews and Christians were familiar with this type of literature, but we are not! The Christian symbolism in The Lord of the Rings or the Chronicles of Narnia might possibly be modern parallels.
…
These apocalyptic works were never presented orally; they were always written. They are highly structured, literary works. The structure is crucial to a proper interpretation. A major part of the planned structure of the book of Revelation is seven literary units, which parallel each other to some extent (e.g., the seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls). With each cycle the judgment increases: seals, 1/4 destruction; trumpets, 1/3 destruction; bowls, total destruction. Within each literary unit the Second Coming of Christ or some eschatological event occurs: (1) sixth seal, Rev. 6:12-17; (2) seventh trumpet, Rev. 11:15-18; an end-time angel judgment in Rev. 14:14-20; (3) seventh bowl, Rev. 16:17-21 and again in Rev. 19:11-21 and still again in Rev. 22:6-16 (also note the three-fold title for God in Rev. 1:4,8 and Christ in Rev. 1:17,18, "who is, who was, and who is to come," notice the future aspect is left out in Rev. 11:17 and Rev. 16:5 which means the future has come [i.e. second coming]). This shows that the book is not chronologically sequential, but a drama in several acts which foresees the same period of time [expressed] in progressively violent OT judgment motifs (cf. James Blevins, Revelation as Drama and "The Genre of Revelation" in Review and Expositor, Sept. 1980, pp. 393-408).
There is so very much more that I could share. Here again is the link to Dr. Utley’s commentary on Revelation: http://www.freebiblecommentary.org/new_testament_studies/VOL12/VOL12.html
Once again, if you have been blessed by reading the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan this year (no matter where you are in year’s readings), please share your blessing by recording a voice memo for me. This request is for anyone who has been following the Digging Deeper Daily plan, no matter if you have been reading in a Bible, or listening to the daily podcasts. To send your audio file, use the contact button at dailybiblereading.info. Please write a short message to me saying that you have recorded a message for me. You won’t be able to attach the file. But I will reply to that email, and then you can attach your audio file to your reply to me.
May the Lord bless you ‘real good’!
Phil & Gale
OBADIAH:
At the end of Amos, the clouds of judgment broke and there were wonderful promises about the restoration of Israel. God would shake the nations like a sieve and not a single kernel (child of Israel) would drop through the cracks and be lost. And Israel’s crops would be so rich and fruitful. Then, did you notice?— Isaiah said the same thing in chapter 49.
Obadiah’s name means “servant of Yahweh” or “worshipper of Yahweh.” There are 13 men who have this name in the Old Testament, and it is very possible that the writer of this book is not one of those mentioned. Only two Old Testament prophetic books lack any information about the author: Obadiah and Malachi.
Obadiah refers to a time when the Edomites had gloated over a successful invasion of Jerusalem (vv. 10-14, 16), but this does not help much in dating the book, since invasions of the city happened at least seven times in Old Testament history. The Edomites lived in the inaccessible rock fortress of Petra— which is famously seen in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. From our vantage point, we may see the Edomites as being symbolic of all the proud enemies of God’s people.
ISAIAH 49b:
In our first reading in Isaiah 49, I hope you noticed many poetic prophecies that remind us of Jesus. It is fascinating that most of these can be understood to refer to Cyrus as well! After all, Cyrus did release the captives of Israel to return again to their land. Alternatively, some of the prophecies may refer to the nation of Israel or even Isaiah, as the Lord’s servant.
REVELATION 2b:
Yesterday we heard the letter to the church at Ephesus— the church that lost their ‘love’ (in a literal translation). So the question is, they lost their love of who? The GNT specifies the implicit object ‘Me’ (meaning Jesus). NLT chooses another good option: It makes good sense to say that the love was for Jesus and for one another, since the two go hand in hand!
Secondly we heard about the poor and persecuted church in Smyrna. Their church is exceptional because there was no word of rebuke for them. Jesus just urged them to keep on being faithful.
Jesus ends each letter just like he ended his parables— which I paraphrase: “Ya’ got ears, don’t ya?! Well then pay attention …”
Remember what Isaiah said about people who have grown deaf!
AMOS 9:
In Amos 7 we heard of how the priest of Israel’s pagan shrine, Amaziah, told Amos to go away, and Amaziah even tried to get king Jeroboam the 2nd to move against Amos.
There were sad words at the end of chapter 8, which indeed happened during the 400 year inter-testamental period:
Amo. 8:11 NLT “The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign LORD,
“when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread or water
but of hearing the words of the LORD.
12 People will stagger from sea to sea
and wander from border to border
searching for the word of the LORD,
but they will not find it.
ISAIAH 49a:
In Isaiah 48 God said,
Is. 48:3 Long ago I told you what was going to happen.
Then suddenly I took action, (past tense)
and all my predictions came true.
Such words may be hard to understand. There is a trait of some prophetic writings where the past tense is used instead of the future tense. Since Cyrus had not yet come, this section may well have meant in Isaiah’s time “suddenly I will take action.” Remember that all times are alike to God, and it is natural for Him to speak of future things (from our perspective) as already happening (in the present or past from HIS perspective). We see this trait also in Revelation.
REVELATION 2a:
The first chapter ended with Jesus’ explanation of what John saw:
Rev. 1:20 NLT This is the meaning of the mystery of the seven stars you saw in my right hand and the seven gold lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
The word ‘angel’ in Greek can also mean ‘messenger’. It could be that the angel for each church is the pastor, but at this time, churches did not have just one pastor. So this can be translated as the messenger (probably one of the elders) to whom the Lord gave the responsibility of conveying His message.
We now come to a very special section: the letters to the seven churches in Asia. Some have tried to see church ages in these letters. It is better to see them as representative of churches at any age. Each letter has the same form. First there is a highlighting of one of the characteristics of Jesus as seen in chapter 1. Then Jesus shows that He sees and knows each church intimately. He gives whatever rebuke or commendation that is deserved. Then the Lord exhorts each church appropriately according to their condition. Finally there is a repeated warning, and a special promise appropriate to each church.
AMOS 7-8:
Our reading in chapter 6 of Amos included these words quoted in Stephen’s speech in Acts 7 in the New Testament:
25 NLT “Was it to me you were bringing sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, Israel?
26 No, you served your pagan gods—Sakkuth your king god and Kaiwan your star god—…
This makes it sound like the Israelites never gave sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness, which we know is false. So we should understand Amos’ and Stephen’s words an exaggeration or hyperbole.
ISAIAH 48:
In Isaiah 47, we heard how God criticized the Babylonians just like Amos criticized the people of Judah and the Northern Kingdom for living in uncaring luxury built upon the unjust treatment of others. And God taunted the Babylonians to use their magic charms to try to charm away his coming judgment.
REVELATION 1:
This book is also called the Apocalypse. The apostle John clearly tells us that he is the author of this book and that he was at that time in exile on the island of Patmos.
Four early church fathers affirm that John was exiled to the island of Patmos during Domitian’s reign. They wrote that the government allowed John to return to Ephesus after this emperor died. And I have seen a picture of John’s tomb at Ephesus. Domitian died in A.D. 96. Consequently many interpreters date the writing of this book near A.D. 95 or 96.
Estimates vary that from two hundred and seventy-eight to 500 allusions to Old Testament verses are found in the book of Revelation. John never actually quotes from the Old Testament, but just make obvious allusions to it.
The book of Revelation has the reputation of being a hard book to understand, and people have often said to me that it must be hard to translate. On the contrary, Revelation is a rather easy book to translate! And John’s main points in writing this book are not at all hard to understand. To help us understand, here are two important points:
Remember that this book is full of symbolism and that many things are not to be taken literally.
Realize that most of this book is not arranged chronologically. What we have instead is a series of visions that show the same events from different perspectives.
GNT Translation notes:
Amo. 7:12 Amaziah then said to [me//Amos], “That's enough, prophet! Go on back to Judah and do your preaching there. Let them pay you for it.
14 [I//Amos] answered, “I am not the kind of prophet who prophesies for pay. I am a herdsman, and I take care of fig trees.
====
Rev. 1:1 This book is the record of the events that Jesus Christ revealed. God gave him this revelation in order to show to his servants what must happen very soon. Christ made these things known to [me,] his servant John[,] by sending his angel to [me//him],
2 and [in this book I have told all that I saw//John has told all that he has seen]. This is [my//his] report concerning the message from God and the truth revealed by Jesus Christ.
AMOS 5-6:One device that Amos used in yesterday’s reading was rhetorical questions. He asked a whole series of them like this one:
3:4 GNT Does a lion roar in the forest unless he has found a victim?
All of his rhetorical questions expect the unspoken answer, No. And they all led up to this one:
Amo. 3:8 NLT The lion has roared—
so who isn’t frightened?
The Sovereign LORD has spoken—
so who can refuse to proclaim his message?
And, surprisingly, the message the Lord proclaimed next was an invitation to Israel’s enemies to come and witness Israel’s destruction. After the unforgettable denunciation against Israel’s wealthy women— whom he calls ‘cows’, he lists some of the previous acts of judgment against Israel— things like drought. And after each one are the words, “but you still would not return to me.” Chapter 4 ended with these awesome words:
Amo. 4:12 GNT “So then, people of Israel, I am going to punish you. And because I am going to do this, get ready to face my judgment!”
13 God is the one who made the mountains
and created the winds.
He makes his thoughts known to people;
he changes day into night.
He walks on the heights of the earth.
This is his name: the Lord God Almighty!
ISAIAH 47:
God continued speaking in Isaiah 46 about how He alone reveals his plans to mankind through prophecy. The section about Babylon’s idols being led off on a heavy ox cart was dripping with irony:
Is. 46:1 GNT “This is the end for Babylon's gods!
Bel and Nebo once were worshiped,
but now they are loaded on donkeys,
a burden for the backs of tired animals.
2 NLT Both the idols and their owners are bowed down.
The gods cannot protect the people,
and the people cannot protect the gods.
They go off into captivity together.
3JOHN:
Thomas Constable points out that 3rd John is the shortest letter in the New Testament and it is also the most personal. Certainly 2nd Timothy, for instance, was an intensely personal letter, but at the end, Paul greeted everyone— showing that he knew his letter would be read to the church or churches. In 3rd John, the recipient seems to be Gaius alone, and this letter follows a pattern like a normal secular letter of the time— not including a ‘grace and peace’ salutation that Paul seems to have made standard for Christian letters. The time of the writing and the themes of this letter are like John’s two other letters.
GNT Translation notes:
3Jn. 1:3 I was so happy when some [fellow believers//Christians] arrived and told me how faithful you are to the truth—just as you always live in the truth.
5 My dear friend, you are so faithful in the work you do for other [brothers and sisters in Christ//Christians], even when they are strangers.
8 We [believers//Christians], then, must help these people, so that we may share in their work for the truth.
10 When I come, then, I will bring up everything he has done: the terrible things he says about us and the lies he tells! But that is not enough for him; he will not receive the [travelling brothers who minister in the name of Christ//Christians] when they come, and even stops those who want to receive them and tries to drive them out of the church!
AMOS 3-4:
As I said about Amos yesterday, he was wise in his methods. He condemned Syria, the Philistines, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, and Moab before coming around to Judah and finally the northern kingdom, Israel. We also heard some of the wonderful word pictures Amos used.
ISAIAH 45:22-46.
Remember that in the last chapter Cyrus’ name was repeatedly mentioned. God’s motivation for making such bold predictions is clear:
Is. 45:19 NLT I publicly proclaim bold promises.
I do not whisper obscurities in some dark corner.
I would not have told the people of Israel to seek me
if I could not be found.
I particularly like those lines. Some of the prophets the world now looks to do indeed utter obscurities and purposefully choose to keep their followers in the dark. And God refutes the contention that he is hard to find, that he has left the world and doesn’t care about humans or pay attention to us. Bear that in mind as we start today at chapter 45, verse 22.
2nd JOHN:
I wish we knew if Timothy made it to Rome in time to see Paul before he died. Was Luke still there? Paul needed that warm coat as winter was approaching. And he wanted the parchment papers in particular, which were probably Old Testament Scripture. That was happening around AD 67.
Things were even even worse for Christians around AD 90 when John wrote the two little letters of 2nd and 3rd John. 2nd John is written to the ‘chosen lady’, but this is a euphemism or a code word for a church. The ‘children’ of the ‘lady’ are the church members. We find several echoes from the book of 1st John in these two letters. Mears points out four basic beliefs that John keeps coming back to, which are visible in these two little letters also:
- *We must believe that Christ came ‘in the flesh’, meaning, with a real human body.
- *At the same time we must believe that Christ is deity, that is, fully God.
- *We must believe that “God is love.” This is both a major characteristic of God and the way followers of Christ must live.
- *We must believe that Christ is our Savior. The only way to have eternal life is to know Christ personally— not just know information about Him.
GNT Translation note:
2Jn. 1:4 How happy I was to [meet//find that] some of your children [who] live in the truth, just as the Father commanded us.
AMOS 1-2:
If you are new to reading the Bible, I hope that you will remember the events and expressions that Joel used. One or two ideas were repeated by Jesus in the Gospels, and we will soon see how important Joel’s predictions are in Revelation.
We turn now to Amos, whose name means ‘burden bearer’. Amos— like David and Gideon, started out as an ordinary guy going about his business as a shepherd and grower of sycamore figs. He was not a priest or a man with training as a prophet when God called him. Because of the mention of a great earthquake and king Uzziah, it is likely that Amos was working as a prophet around the year 760 BC. This makes him a contemporary of Jonah, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah.
Although Amos’ home town of Tekoa is only 12 miles south of Jerusalem, Amos prophesied primarily about the Northern Kingdom of Israel. He was wise in his delivery. First he prophesied judgment for Israel’s enemies before lambasting Judah and Israel themselves. Although from a humble occupation, Amos was very gifted as a writer, using very graphic and unique figures of speech. Amos would have had a difficult ministry because he prophesied horrible events that would have been unimaginable for his comfortable and prosperous listeners. The fulfillments were 50 years away, so he was quite ‘ahead of his time’. Mears quotes someone else in saying, “Amos proclaimed a message so far ahead of his time that most of the human race— and a large part of all Christendom, have not yet caught up with it.”
ISAIAH 44:24-45:Because the prophecy at the end of chapter 44 is so stunning as to mention Cyrus some 150 years before his birth, skeptical scholars claim that this portion of Isaiah was not written until after the events happened and by a different author. But what then? If you say something like that, are you going to claim that Isaiah 53 was written after Christ came and died?
2TIMOTHY 4:
There are more than one wonderful 3:16 verses in the Bible, and we read one of them in chapter 3 yesterday:
2Tim. 3:16 GNT All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching the truth, rebuking error, correcting faults, and giving instruction for right living,
17 so that the person who serves God may be fully qualified and equipped to do every kind of good deed.
GNT Translation notes:
Amo. 1:1 [I am Amos, and I was a shepherd//These are the words of Amos, a shepherd] from the town of Tekoa. Two years before the earthquake, when Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel, God revealed to [me//Amos] all these things about Israel.
2 [I//Amos] said, “The Lord roars from Mount Zion; his voice thunders from Jerusalem. The pastures dry up, and the grass on Mount Carmel turns brown.”
====
2Tim. 4:3 The time will come when people will not listen to sound doctrine, but will follow their own desires and will collect for themselves more and more teachers who will [just] tell them what they are itching to hear.
8 [PET 8 So now the time has almost come for me to receive the victory crown which has been prepared for me. That crown will show that the just Judge, the Lord, acknowledges me as a person who has lived rightly. I long for that day of victory when I meet Him and receive that crown. And the crown of victory isn’t prepared just for me but also for everyone who longs for the day of His return.//GNT And now there is waiting for me the victory prize of being [totally] put right with God, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that Day—and not only to me, but to all those who wait with love for him to appear.]
15 Be on your guard against him yourself, because he [is//was] violently opposed to our message. 21 Do your best to come before winter. Eubulus, Pudens, Linus, and Claudia send their greetings, and so do all the other [brothers and sisters in Christ//Christians].
JOEL 2:28-3:
An attack by an army of locusts must be so frightening! What descriptions! And even worse when God is bringing the attack as an act of judgement. Yet Joel offers hope. He encourages the people to come back to God and beg for the Lord’s help. We will pick up today re-reading the famous part of Joel 2.
ISAIAH 44b:
In the first part of this chapter God said:
Is. 44:3 NLT For I will pour out water to quench your thirst
and to irrigate your parched fields.
And I will pour out my Spirit on your descendants,
and my blessing on your children.
4 They will thrive like watered grass,
like willows on a riverbank.
5 Some will proudly claim, ‘I belong to the LORD.’
Others will say, ‘I am a descendant of Jacob.’
Then God gave a lecture on the futility of idols. I love the irony in the verses we read today:
Is. 44:19 NLT The person who made the idol never stops to reflect,
“Why, it’s just a block of wood!
2TIMOTHY 3:
We heard the wonderful encouragements to Timothy in chapter 2. Note that Paul did not explain everything to Timothy, but invited him to ponder what he had said. I urge all of us to similarly ponder and spend time meditating on what Paul said.
Note what Paul says about God’s Word in contrast to his being in chains: “The word of God cannot be chained.” Yay, God! May your Word accomplish what you have sent it to do!
GNT Translation notes:
2Tim. 3:8 As Jannes and Jambres were opposed to Moses, so also these people are opposed to the truth—people whose minds do not function and [what they believe doesn’t even make sense//who are failures in the faith].
10 But you have followed my teaching, my conduct, and my purpose in life; you have observed [how I believe//my faith], my patience, my love, my endurance,
15 and you remember that ever since you were a child, you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through [believing//faith] in Christ Jesus.
JOEL 1:I feel the need to comment about chapter 9 of Esther and how the Jews “got rid” of their enemies. Remember that those Jews were not Christians. (I know how silly that sounds, but it is actually a common supposition among naive Christians.) The revelation of God’s will did not come all at once, and the Jews did not have the pleasure of knowing what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount or other pertinent NT passages. They most certainly did NOT ‘get rid’ of their enemies, except in the short run. All the relatives of the enemies slain raised up succeeding generations of people who hated the Jews even more fiercely than the first enemies did. We Christians must read Esther 9 remembering how the Jews had been slaughtered and then taken away from their land by force put into slavery in Babylonia. It is just amazing to me how the cycle of ‘getting rid of enemies’ has continued, right up to Hitler (the modern Haman), and right up to the conflicts in the middle east today. The cycle will stop and real peace will only happen when the True King returns.
Joel is the second book of the minor prophets in the Old Testament. We read the first one— Hosea, about two months ago. From now until the end of the year, we will start every day with a reading in the minor prophets. Joel’s name means “Yahweh is God.” It is quite possible that Joel is one of the earliest of the prophets. He is called the ‘prophet of Pentecost’, since Peter quoted from Joel in his speech in Acts 2. The occasion of Joel’s message was a devastating plague of locusts which foreshadows the ‘Day of the Lord’— a time not for comfort for God’s people, but for punishment because of their sins.
ISAIAH 44a:
According to the NLT, in Is. 43:14 God said,
43:14 NLT “For your sakes I will send an army against Babylon,
forcing the Babylonians to flee in those ships they are so proud of.”
This is a very difficult verse to translate, and GNT’s translation can also be defended:
43:14 GNT Israel's holy God, the Lord who saves you, says,
“To save you, I will send an army against Babylon;
I will break down the city gates,
and the shouts of her people will turn into crying.
God said that the people of Israel had become tired of God and tired of bringing sacrifices. God will do something new:
43:25 NLT “I—yes, I alone—will blot out your sins for my own sake
and will never think of them again.
These frequently quoted words are from the beginning of the chapter:
43:1b NLT “Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you.
I have called you by name; you are mine.
2 When you go through deep waters,
I will be with you.
When you go through rivers of difficulty,
you will not drown.
When you walk through the fire of oppression,
you will not be burned up;
the flames will not consume you.
2TIMOTHY 2:What was the spiritual gift that Timothy received when Paul placed his hands on him? Paul wanted Timothy to fan that gift into flame. (2Tim. 1:6) Is there a clue to what the gift was in the next verse?—
2Tim. 1:7 NLT “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.”
Paul says,
2Tim. 1:12 “I know the one in whom I trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until the day of his return.”
What has Paul entrusted to the Lord? Is it a clue when Paul says,
2Tim. 1:14 “Through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives within us, carefully guard the precious truth that has been entrusted to you.”
GNT Translation notes:
2Tim. 2:21 Those who make themselves clean from all [the evil taught by false teachers//those evil things], will be used for special purposes, because they are dedicated and useful to their Master, ready to be used for every good deed.
22 [Run away to escape from//Avoid] the passions of youth[.//, and] Strive for righteousness, [full belief//faith], love, and peace, together with those who with a pure heart call out to the Lord for help.
26 And then they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the Devil, who [0//had] caught them and made them obey his will.
ESTHER 9-10:We have heard how Esther’s request was granted, the king and Haman came to the second banquet, where Esther revealed her identity. The eunuch Harbona just happened to have pertinent information about Haman’s plans for Mordecai, and Haman was killed and impaled/hanged on the pole he had planned to use for Mordecai. Mordecai, coming into possession of the king’s signet ring, wrote an edict that allowed for the Jews to organize and defend themselves against their enemies.
ISAIAH 43:
In Isaiah 42 we heard twice about ‘the servant of the Lord’. The first passage is quoted in the New Testament about Jesus. However in the second, the servant (singular) pictures the people of Israel. Before Christ came, the Jews would have read the first section understanding it also to refer to the people of Israel. This intentional vagueness is one of the ways God used to reveal his message to us in this age and conceal it before the time for revealing had come.
2 Timothy 1:
This is Paul’s final letter, and it is also the last letter from Paul we will read this year. This letter includes some practical instructions for Timothy’s ministry. It also includes precious statements about the inspiration of Scripture and the Lord’s reward for obedience and endurance. I love this letter because it is so very personal. Paul was in a very different imprisonment, not under house arrest. He knew his time on earth was short. So each personal message to ‘his son’ Timothy is moving and precious.
GNT Translation note:
2Tim. 1:5 I remember [how sincerely you believe in Christ//the sincere faith you have], [which reminds me of how your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice believed//the kind of faith that your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice also had]. I am sure that you have it also].
13 [PET Hold firmly to the true teaching that I taught you[, (GNT) as the example for you to follow]. Keep believing in Christ, and live with the love we obtain because of being one with Him.//GNT Hold firmly to the true words that I taught you, as the example for you to follow, and remain in the faith and love that are ours in union with Christ Jesus.]
ESTHER 7-8:
In Esther 5 Haman planned to impale Mordecai on a pole in the NLT, or just hanged in the GNT. (Given the period of time, I think that the impaling method is more likely to be right.) But on the same night that Haman planned for that murder, God caused the king to have a sleepless night and read in the annals of the kingdom about Mordecai. Haman came before the king at just the right time to get assigned the task of honoring Mordecai.
ISAIAH 42:
In Isaiah 41 we again heard God predict the future, and challenge Israel’s idols to prophesy or do anything at all.
2THESSALONIANS 3:
The Thessalonians must have wondered how they would hear of Jesus’ return— given that Jesus would touch down so far from them at Jerusalem. We will be able to anticipate Jesus’ return by whether the ‘man of lawlessness’ has appeared, has drawn away many people by working powerful miracles, and has usurped God’s position in the temple. Note that God has not given us the order or timing of these events in relation to what was foretold in 1st Thessalonians.
GNT Translation notes:
2Thes. 3:8 We did not accept [food from anyone//anyone's support] without paying for it. Instead, we worked and toiled; we kept working day and night so as not to be an expense to any of you.
9 We did this, not because we do not have the right to [receive such//demand our] support; we did it to be an example for you to follow.
10 While we were [still] with you, we used to tell you, “Whoever refuses to work is not allowed to eat.”
15 But do not treat them as enemies; instead, warn them as [beloved fellow] believers.
ESTHER 5-6:
In Esther 3-4 Haman cast lots (purim) to find out that March 7 was the lucky date to exterminate the Jews. Mordecai requested that Esther intercede directly to the king. And since she hadn’t been called for, the only way to do that would endanger Esther herself, since no one was allowed to approach the king in the inner court uninvited.
ISAIAH 41b:
Did you notice in yesterday’s reading, we heard a description of a king that sounded similar to one described in the book of Daniel?
Is. 41:2 GNT “Who was it that brought the conqueror from the east and makes him triumphant wherever he goes? Who gives him victory over kings and nations? His sword strikes them down as if they were dust. His arrows scatter them like straw before the wind.
3 He follows in pursuit and marches safely on, so fast that he hardly touches the ground! Who was it that made this happen?
4 Who has determined the course of history? I, the Lord, was there at the beginning, and I, the Lord, will be there at the end.
Because of the amazingly fast progress of this king being like the description of Alexander the Great (the male goat) in Daniel 8, I previously thought that Isaiah was also describing Alexander. But Alexander came from the west. Instead, this is the same king as mentioned in verse 25 of today’s reading, and scholars say that he is most likely Cyrus. In a few chapters he will be mentioned by name, and chapter 41 is not the only time Isaiah alludes to him without mentioning his name.
2THESSALONIANS 2:
In preparing for his topic of Christ’s return, in 2Thessalonians chapter 1 Paul mentioned the punishment of people who refuse to obey the Good News about Christ. They will ‘suffer’ or ‘pay the penalty of eternal destruction’. Note that if people are going to be burned up in hell, or if God’s punishment was simply that people would cease to exist, it would not be called ‘suffer eternal destruction’. This understanding is not just a doctrine. It turns out that this gives great comfort to those who are suffering persecution, and gives a great motivation to all of us for sharing the Good News.
GNT Translation notes:
2Thes. 2:2 not to be so easily confused in your thinking or upset by the claim that the Day of the Lord has [already] come. Perhaps it is thought that we said this while prophesying or preaching, or [they may claim] that we wrote it in a letter.
3 Do not let anyone deceive you in any way. For the Day [of the Lord’s return] will not come until the final Rebellion takes place and the Wicked One appears, who is destined to hell.
7 The Mysterious Wickedness is already at work, but what is going to happen will not happen until the one who [is holding//holds] it back is taken out of the way.
10 and [he will] use every kind of wicked deceit on those who will perish. They will perish because they did not welcome and love the truth so as to be saved.
13 We must thank God at all times for you, friends, you whom the Lord loves. For God chose you as the [very beginning//first] to be saved by [the purifying work of His Spirit//the Spirit's power to make you his holy people] and by your [belief//faith] in the truth.
ESTHER 3-4:
Yesterday we heard how Esther became the queen, and how she continued to keep her Jewish background a secret. We also heard how Mordecai, her uncle, was promoted to a palace official after uncovering a plot to assassinate king Xerxes.
Today we are introduced to the villain of the story— Haman. The Jews always read the book of Esther in the celebration of Purim. Whenever Haman’s name is read they boo and shake rattles or noisemakers to drown out his name.
ISAIAH 41a:
The shift to such beautiful poetry that occurs in chapter 40 of Isaiah is one of the things that has made people think the last part of this book was authored by someone else. But that is the silly. As I have pointed out as we have gone along, Isaiah has written beautiful and memorize-able verses from the beginning of this book. And Isaiah’s amazing predictions about the Messiah are not just found in chapter 53, as we heard again yesterday.
2 THESSALONIANS 1:Did you notice yesterday that the little book of Philemon is a picture of the Gospel? Philemon is in the place of God. Paul is an advocate like Jesus. Picture yourself in the position of a runaway slave. I give a hint here for digging deeper in Philemon: There is a wonderful play of words that happens twice based on the name Onesimus.
I hope that you recall that we read 1st Thessalonians several months ago. 2nd Thessalonians seems to have been written soon after the first letter, around 51 AD. Paul was evidently still at Corinth. And the letter seems to have been written to clarify a very important point about Christ’s second coming. This letter contains some of the clearest teaching about the antichrist— although Paul does not use that term.
Constable’s notes say, “Paul wrote to encourage the Thessalonian believers to continue to persevere in the face of continuing persecution (1:3-10). He also wanted to clarify events preceding the day of the Lord to dispel false teaching (2:1-12). Finally, he instructed the church how to deal with lazy Christians in their midst (3:6-15).” Constable’s notes can be found at Lumina.bible.org.
GNT Translation notes:
Est. 4:7 NLT Mordecai told him the whole story, including the exact amount of money Haman had promised to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews.//GNT Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him and just how much money Haman had promised to put into the royal treasury if all the Jews were killed.
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2Thes. 11 That is why we always pray for you. We ask our God to make you worthy of the life he has called you to live. May he fulfill by his power all your desire for goodness and complete [every good deed that you do because of your belief in Christ//your work of faith].
ESTHER 1-2:In the final two chapters of Nehemiah, we heard of the culmination of Nehemiah’s work— the ceremony for the dedication of the wall. The people proved that the wall could stand up to more than just a fox walking on it. Then Nehemiah went back to Babylon. When he came back to Jerusalem, he needed to right several wrongs, as the people had allowed a deterioration in the temple worship.
We now turn to the book of Esther, which may have been written by Mordecai (a major character in the book), or by Ezra or Nehemiah, who would have known this story. The king Xerxes was defeated in a famous naval battle against Greece. From the historian Herodotus we find that the feast mentioned in the first chapter of Esther was the occasion for planning that battle. Esther has been compared to Joseph and David. She also started out as just an ordinary person, but God planned something great for her.
ISAIAH 40b:
The three memorable musical compositions in Handel’s Messiah that quote from this chapter are taken from just verses 1-11. We will find more memorable verses in today’s reading.
PHILEMON:
In chapter 4 of Colossians we heard Paul encourage alertness in prayer and making the most of every opportunity to share the Good News. Our speech should be— when literally translated, ‘seasoned with salt’. NLT does a nice job translating that meaningfully as ‘attractive’, and GNT also get’s right to the point with ‘interesting’.
Along with other people, Onesimus was mentioned at the end of Colossians. He was the slave of Philemon. It is likely that the letter Paul mentioned “from Laodicea” at the end of Colossians was the letter that we will read now! I wish that we knew if Onesimus was so attracted to the Gospel after over-hearing Paul speak at Philemon’s house that he ran away to search for Paul during the time when he was under house arrest in Rome. Or did Onesimus just run away as any ordinary slave might do and just ‘happen’ to ‘end up’ in prison with Paul in Rome? Each story would be fascinating!
GNT Translation notes:
Est. 1:3 In the third year of his reign he gave a banquet for all his officials and administrators. The [military commanders//armies] of Persia and Media were present, as well as the governors and noblemen of the provinces.
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5 For I hear of your love for all of God's people and [your full belief//the faith you have] in the Lord Jesus.
NEHEMIAH 12-13
In yesterday’s chapters in Nehemiah, we heard the names of the various religious and civil leaders who signed the statement of commitment to follow Moses’ Law, which was almost certainly penned by Ezra. Then there was a listing of the various leaders and clans that volunteered or were chosen by lot to live in Jerusalem.
ISAIAH 40a:
I am always very disappointed with Hezekiah when he does not pray and ask the Lord to not allow Jerusalem to be conquered by Babylon and not to allow his sons to become eunuchs in Babylon’s palace. God had already responded amazingly to him in answering his prayers. The New Testament teaches us to be alert in prayer, and I think that includes being alert to what to pray for.
Today we start the glorious final section of Isaiah, with favorite words set to music in Handel’s Messiah.
COLOSSIANS 4:Our resurrection to a new life because of being one with Christ, is not just being raised from death to live again on this earth. We get raised right to heaven. Our true spiritual life is found in our unity with Christ who is in heaven at God’s side. Literally Paul expressed this as ‘your life is hidden with Christ in (unity with) God’. The picture continues with our bodies and evil desires being pictured like clothes. We put off the old life like old clothes and put on the new life like new clothes.
Yesterday’s chapter ended with instructions for wives, husbands, children, fathers, and slaves. Today’s chapter continues with the instruction to masters.
GNT Translation notes:
Neh. 12:26 These people lived during the time of Joiakim, the son of Joshua and grandson of Jehozadak, and [during my time as//the time of Nehemiah the] governor, and the time of Ezra, the priest who was a scholar of the Law.
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Col. 4:12 Greetings from Epaphras, another member of your group and a servant of Christ Jesus. He always prays fervently for you, asking God to make you stand firm, as mature and fully convinced [believers//Christians], in complete obedience to God's will.
NEHEMIAH 10-11:
The returned exiles showed how sincere they were in following the Lord! They gathered together for the express purpose of hearing the Law. By this time their language had changed so much that they needed 13 Levites to explain what was said in the readings. The people wept because they realized how far they were from obeying the Law of Moses, and also for joy in hearing it. One month later, the leaders gathered to explore the Law in more detail, and they found that Israel had always neglected celebrating the Festival of Shelters. They did that for the prescribed week with great joy. Ezra read the Law to the people every day. Then afterward, there was a meeting for confessing their sins including the long prayer in chapter 9. This seems to have been an extra event, about one week after the Festival of Shelters was over. After that prayer,
Neh. 9:38 NLT The people responded, “In view of all this, we are making a solemn promise and putting it in writing. On this sealed document are the names of our leaders and Levites and priests.”
ISAIAH 39:
After the prophet Isaiah told Hezekiah that he would die, in 2nd King’s 20 we are told that Isaiah only managed to get to the middle courtyard when the Lord’s message came answering Hezekiah’s prayer. Fifteen years were added to Hezekiah’s life, and he received the promise that the Assyrian king would not conquer Jerusalem. In his poem of thanks, Hezekiah said:
Is. 38:15 NLT But what could I say?
For [God/he] himself sent this sickness.
Now I will walk humbly throughout my years
because of this anguish I have felt.
COLOSSIANS 3:
Note the distinction about old Jewish religious laws that Paul made in chapter 2, comparing them with the right standing true believers obtain by union with Christ. We’re not in a religion anymore, we’re in a new relationship with God through Christ. Those old religious regulations had no ability to help one conquer our persistent evil desires. Following the teachings in the New Testament does indeed allow us to be freed from bondage to evil desires. One important way this deliverance happens when we understand, believe, and meditate upon spiritual realities such as those found in 2:13-15, and 20-23. We read other keys recently in Philippians 3-4. And if you are interested in more on this topic, I encourage you to follow the reading plan I posted in Youversion/Bible.com called Buckling the Belt of Truth.
GNT Translation notes:
Neh. 10:1 [I, Nehemiah son of Hacaliah, was the first to sign,//The first to sign was the governor, Nehemiah son of Hacaliah,] and then Zedekiah signed. The following also signed:
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Col. 3:18 Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, for that is what [is appropriate for you who live in union with Christ.//you should do as Christians.]
20 Children, [0//it is your Christian duty to] obey your parents [in everything they tell you//always], for that is what pleases [the Lord//God].
NEHEMIAH 8-9:
Nehemiah 7 dealt with listing the various families and temple workers who came back after exile. The last verse in that chapter is the transition to the next events. It is so much of a transition that NLT has verse 73 end with an incomplete sentence. Here is that transition verse in the GNT:
7:73 GNT The priests, the Levites, the Temple guards, the musicians, many of the ordinary people, the Temple workers—all the people of Israel—settled in the towns and cities of Judah.
ISAIAH 38:
In chapter 37 yesterday, we heard of Hezekiah’s triumph through his prayer. As we have seen before in Isaiah (and not just in Isaiah’s message to the king), this defeat was prophesied, and we heard the fulfillment yesterday.
COLOSSIANS 2:
After that wonderful poem in Colossians chapter 1— which I can barely resist reading to you a second time, Paul says these things:
Col. 1:21 GNT At one time you were far away from God and were his enemies because of the evil things you did and thought.
22 But now, by means of the physical death of his Son, God has made you his friends, in order to bring you, holy, pure, and faultless, into his presence.
Then in talking about the revelation of the Good News, he says,
1:26 NLT This message was kept secret for centuries and generations past, but now it has been revealed to God’s people.
27 For God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.
GNT Translation notes:
Neh. 8:9 When the people heard what the Law required, they were so moved that they began to cry. So [I,] Nehemiah, [0//who was] the governor, Ezra, the priest and scholar of the Law, and the Levites who were explaining the Law told all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God, so you are not to mourn or cry.
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Col.2:7 Keep your roots deep in him, build your lives on him, and [keep on becoming//become] stronger in your [belief in in Jesus//faith], as you were taught. And be filled with thanksgiving.
12 For when you were baptized, you were buried with Christ, and in baptism you were also raised with Christ through your [belief//faith] in the active power of God, who raised him from death.
21 “Don't handle this,” “Don't taste that,” “Don't touch [that other thing//the other]”?
NEHEMIAH 7:Yesterday we read how Nehemiah stood up for all the common people in their financial difficulty. The nobles were rich, but everyone else was suffering— some even having no option but to sell their own children into slavery. Amazingly, he succeeded in convincing the nobles to forgive debts, and forced them take a solemn oath about that. The wall was finished in just 52 days, but Nehemiah was getting more and more threats from Sanballat and his cronies.
ISAIAH 37:
We heard the challenge and mocking of the Assyrian chief of staff— who brought the Assyrian King’s message to Jerusalem with a huge show of force. The challenge was shouted out in Hebrew for all the people to hear. (I always wonder how it was that the Assyrian commander was fluent in Hebrew!) What a thing to happen to a king that 2Kings 18 praises with these words:
2Kings 18:5 [NLT] Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before or after his time.
COLOSSIANS 1:
We finished the wonderful book of Philippians yesterday. I count three great promises in that 4th chapter. But note: This time I feel that all of them are really conditional promises— even the last one. If we are going to have God’s peace guarding our hearts and minds, and if we want God to supply our needs, then we must give attention to how Paul told the Philippians to live and how they were giving to support Paul’s mission.
I encourage everyone to spend more time looking at the treasures of Philippians, and the same goes for the book we start today— Colossians.
Colossians was written around the same time as Philippians, and Philemon was a member of this church. This letter has another wonderful poetic portion in chapter one exalting Christ. In most of my presentations in Indonesian seminaries, I introduce our translation by reading Colossians 2. The things Indonesians don’t understand in their Bibles— and the things I hope you will understand in the GNT or NLT, are spiritual realities. These are things that are true of us spiritually which cannot be seen with physical eyes. If you understand spiritual realities, you get the opportunity to believe them. If you believe them, meditate on them. If you meditate on them, you will find them working powerfully in your life to transform you and release you from sinful desires.
GNT Translation notes:
Col. 1:4 For we have heard of your [belief//faith] in Christ Jesus and of your love for all God's people.
5 When the true message, the Good News, first came to you, you heard about the hope it offers. So your [belief//faith] and love are based on what you hope for, which is kept safe for you in heaven.
NEHEMIAH 5-6:
Yesterday Nehemiah gave a listing of the people who rebuilt the wall. This included Shallum and his daughters, and two named goldsmiths, merchants, priests and Levites. The residents of the land opposed to the construction were threatening violence, so the people armed themselves and had men on guard at all times. Nehemiah and his men stayed fully armed at all times, and in the last verse of chapter 4 NLT says ‘even when they went for water’— which I take as a euphemism for going potty. That little phrase is very obscure in Hebrew, and GNT translates it in a different way.
ISAIAH 36:
It was interesting to find this verse near the beginning of Isaiah’s beautiful chapter 35:
35:3 GNT Give strength to hands that are tired
and to knees that tremble with weakness.
This verse was probably in the mind of the writer of Hebrews in chapter 13. And in fact, the Holy Highway and its destination is very much like the ‘place’ we ‘come to’ in Hebrews 13!
Today we start on the prose portion of Isaiah from chapters 36-39.
PHILIPPIANS 4:
I have found deep meaning and great spiritual help from the portion around verse 13 in chapter 3. And I am certainly not alone in that. Here are some of the most quoted verses in this letter:
Php. 3:13 NLT No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved [perfection//it], but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead,
14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.
15 Let all who are spiritually mature agree on these things...
I would like to point out that twice in this chapter Paul points us to heaven. One is in the verses I just quoted, and the other in verse 20, where he says, “We are citizens of heaven.” Note that he calls all of us to keep our focus forward and lengthen our stride as we run toward heaven. All of us! There is no other destination for believers ever mentioned in the Bible. Wherever Jesus is, that’s where we’ll be. And that’s why Paul says repeatedly, dying is better and would simply bring him nearer Christ. If as Revelation portrays, the New Jerusalem comes down to earth, then that is heaven and that’s where we will be. There is no such thing as a Purgatory. And neither is there a separation of believers, where the really holy ones get to go to heaven and the not so good ones stay on earth. There is only hell and heaven. And if you are a believer in Christ, you are a citizen of heaven and you will be right where Jesus is.
NLT Translation note:
Php. 4:8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about [such/these] things that are excellent and worthy of praise.
NEHEMIAH 3-4:After Nehemiah’s wonderful prayer for Jerusalem, more than three months went by before the king noticed him looking sad. He says he had never before looked sad, so he must have waited. God must have been in the timing, because the king wonderfully agreed to help Nehemiah in every way. And the leaders in Jerusalem also were enthusiastic in their acceptance of his proposal to rebuild the walls.
ISAIAH 35:Yesterday we heard that the land of Edom would become an eternal wasteland and a home for owls and other creatures. The land of Edom is in modern-day Jordan, and GoogleMap almost nothing green in that whole area.
PHILIPPIANS 3:Yesterday we heard Paul’s wonderful poem of praise about Christ’s humility and subsequent exaltation to the highest place.
And we heard this promise:
Php. 2:13 GNT because God is always at work in you to make you willing and able to obey his own purpose.
GNT Translation note:
9 [PET And I just want to remain joined as one with Him. The way I’m made right before God is not based my efforts to obey the Law. Instead I am made right in God’s sight only because of Christ! I fully believe in what Christ has done, and through that belief alone I am made right in God's sight.//GNT and be completely united with him. I no longer have a righteousness of my own, the kind that is gained by obeying the Law. I now have the righteousness that is given through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is based on faith.]
NEHEMIAH 1:Yesterday we heard how the returned exiles responded to Ezra’s shock and demonstration of his sorrow, and his prayer of repentance. The book ended with the names of those who were found guilty of forbidden marriages. Note that these are not just names of the guilty, but names of those who repented and sacrificed to God. They are the names of the forgiven. In some ways— and not all, this shows the kind of seriousness with which church discipline spoken of in the New Testament should be conducted. (Matthew 18, 1 & 2 Corinthians)
As I said just a few days ago, the book of Nehemiah was— according to Jewish tradition, written by Ezra, and this book was at some early time bundled with the book of Ezra. Nehemiah and Ezra had to have been close friends. If Ezra wrote the book of Nehemiah, he did so as one writing Nehemiah’s testimony, since Nehemiah speaks in the first person throughout the book. Nehemiah is a wonderful example of a man living in prayerful trust of the Lord, and a man willing to take on huge tasks because of his full belief in God. He is a wonderful example of a leader who does not take advantage of his position to enrich himself, but works for the good of all the people.
ISAIAH 34:
Yesterday, amid the statements of judgment for Assyria in chapter 33, we still heard amazing prophecies in Isaiah. Here are two of them:
Is. 33:17 GNT Once again you will see a king ruling in splendor over a land that stretches in all directions.
24 No one who lives in our land will ever again complain of being sick, and all sins will be forgiven.
PHILIPPIANS 2:Here is a promise to claim from the first chapter of Philippians:
Php. 1:6 GNT And so I am sure that God, who began this good work in you, will carry it on until it is finished on the Day of Christ Jesus.
GNT Translation notes:
Php. 2:7 [PET But He humbled Himself and left everything.
Then He took the lowliest status of a servant to serve us,
and came to this world as a normal human being.
And as a human being,//GNT Instead of this, of his own free will he gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness.]
17 [PET You fully believe in Him, and so you sacrifice your lives to serve God. So even if I have to give my own blood along with your sacrifice— meaning if I’m killed in the fight to maintain our belief in Christ,* I’ll still rejoice. And I want you also to feel that joy along with me.//GNT Perhaps my life's blood is to be poured out like an offering on the sacrifice that your faith offers to God. If that is so, I am glad and share my joy with you all.]
18 [PET Yes, join in being happy with me and be full of joy with me!// GNT In the same way, you too must be glad and share your joy with me.]
EZRA 9-10:
Yesterday we heard how Ezra introduced himself. Note that he spoke of himself in the 3rd person, but finally resorted to ‘I’. King Artaxerxes was certainly impressed by Ezra! Ezra was given everything he could have wanted, guaranteeing full government support of the temple worship in every way. Note how methodical Ezra was, making sure that he took Levites and temple servants along. His total party must have been at least 1,000 men. So with women and children, it would have been quite a group. And evidently others were coming back separately as well.
ISAIAH 33:
Having eyes to see and ears to hear is a theme in Isaiah, and remember what Jesus always said, “You got ears, don’t ya? Well then use them!” (My translation.) So this part of yesterday’s reading bears repeating:
Is. 32:1 NLT Look, a righteous king is coming!
And honest princes will rule under him.
2 Each one will be like a shelter from the wind
and a refuge from the storm,
like streams of water in the desert
and the shadow of a great rock in a parched land.
3 Then everyone who has eyes will be able to see the truth,
and everyone who has ears will be able to hear it.
PHILIPPIANS 1:
Remember how Paul in 2nd Corinthians showed clearly that he loved the Corinthian believers. Now in Philippians, written around the year 61 when Paul was under house arrest in Rome, we have a love letter to the Philippian church. However unlike 2nd Corinthians, in this letter there is no scolding. This is a prison letter. Paul has suffered so much! Yet there is such a tone of joy in this letter from beginning to end. One is reminded that it was in Philippi where Paul and Silas were unjustly beaten and put in the lowest dungeon, but were singing praises in the middle of the night.
This letter includes Paul’s wonderful poem of praise about the humility of Christ and the final outcome of his self-sacrifice. And Paul exhorts us to imitate Christ in his humility. This also means that we should forgive one another and strive for unity. Note the example of the Euodia and Syntyche in chapter 4. And this letter of Philippians holds some of the most precious promises in Scripture. Let’s find them and claim them!
GNT Translation notes:
Php. 1:15 Of course [there are some people who//some of them] preach Christ because they are jealous and quarrelsome, but others from genuine good will.
16 [Those in that last group//These] do so from love, because they know that God has given me the work of defending the gospel.
17 The others[, however,] do not proclaim Christ sincerely, but from a spirit of selfish ambition; they think that they will make more trouble for me while I am in prison.
25 I am sure of this, and so I know that I will stay. I will stay on with you all, to add to your progress and joy in [fully believing in Christ//the faith],
27 Now, the important thing is that your way of life should be as the gospel of Christ requires, so that, whether or not I am able to go and see you, I will hear that you are standing firm with one common purpose and that with only one desire you are fighting together for [belief in the gospel of Christ//the faith of the gospel].
EZRA 7-8:
Yesterday we read of how King Darius completely sided with the Israelites seeking to reestablish the temple worship. Note that the letter to Darius from the government officials was rather complementary and not threatening loss to the king’s interests as the letter from the earlier officials. Remember also that this King Darius is the one who was duped into putting Daniel into the lions’ den, and who then issued a decree that everyone must respect Daniel’s God.
ISAIAH 32:
Isaiah’s prophecy in yesterday’s reading certainly came true!
Is. 31:8 NLT “The Assyrians will be destroyed,
but not by the swords of men.
The sword of God will strike them,
and they will panic and flee.
That happened on the night recorded in 2Kings 19 where the Lord put to death 185,000 men.
2Ki. 19:35b NLT “When the surviving Assyrians woke up the next morning, they found corpses everywhere.”
2CORINTHIANS 13:
Yesterday we read the reasons why Paul boasted about his weaknesses— something that is utterly unintuitive for worldly people to understand. Then Paul continued to speak about what he hoped NOT to find on his upcoming visit to the Corinthian believers.
Chapter 13 is another good place to tout the virtues of a good meaning based translation. Paul uses the word ‘test’ in three different senses in this chapter. This makes several verses hard to understand in a literal translation. The NLT and the GNT have done a good job helping the reader understand the different senses in which Paul used that word.
Let’s continue from the last paragraph of chapter 12.
GNT Translation notes:
2Cor. 13:4 For even though it was in weakness that he was put to death on the cross, it is by God's power that he lives. In union with him we also are weak; but in our relations with you we shall share God's power in [Christ’s//his] life.
5 Put yourselves to the test and judge yourselves, to find out whether you are living in [full belief in Christ//faith]. Surely you know that Christ Jesus is in you[, don’t you?]— unless you [completely fail in that test of belief.//have completely failed.]
6 I trust you will know that we are not failures [in proving apostolic power//as apostles of Christ//0].
EZRA 5-6:When the Israelites returned from exile, they were determined to get worship started again, and they made great progress, not waiting for the temple to be repaired in order to start sacrifices on an altar built upon the old location. They made a fast start to building too. But then opposition developed, and several Persian kings later the progress was halted.
ISAIAH 31:
One of the great verses from yesterday’s reading was this:
15 GNT The Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says to the people, “Come back and quietly trust in me. Then you will be strong and secure.” But you refuse to do it.
And here is a good summary verse:
18 GNT And yet the Lord is waiting to be merciful to you. He is ready to take pity on you because he always does what is right. Happy are those who put their trust in the Lord.
2CORINTHIANS 11:30—12:
Paul took his gloves off yesterday and was forced to talk like a madman. I like how some of Paul’s statements drip with irony in that section. And you gotta believe that is hard to translate!
The part we are about to read about Paul’s weakness is one of my favorites. We’ll start with re-reading the last four verses from chapter 11.
GNT Translation note:
2Cor. 12:2 I know a certain [fellow believer in Christ//Christian man] who fourteen years ago was snatched up to the highest heaven (I do not know whether this actually happened or whether he had a vision—only God knows).
EZRA 3-4:Ezra, a scribe and priest, doesn’t start speaking about himself until chapter 7. Ancient copies of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah were written on the same scroll, and Jewish tradition holds that Ezra wrote both of them. The dates of writing are somewhere between 458 and 420 BC. I kind of doubt that Ezra was the author for both books, because the writer of Nehemiah starts out right away using the first person pronoun ‘I’. The two book deal with two periods of time: Ezra deals with the rebuilding of the temple, and Nehemiah deals with the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem.
Yesterday in Ezra we heard about Cyrus’ decree to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, the return of the temple treasures that were taken to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, and the first large wave of returning exiles and their gifts to God.
ISAIAH 30:Yesterday’s reading in Isaiah 29 included several verses quoted in the New Testament about Israel’s hypocrisy. Then at the end, did you catch who Isaiah was talking about?
29:18 NLT In that day the deaf will hear words read from a book,
and the blind will see through the gloom and darkness.
20 The scoffer will be gone,
the arrogant will disappear,
Isaiah was NOT talking about the healing of just any ordinary deaf and blind people, but those people previously mentioned: The Israelites who refused to open their ears or open their eyes— who refused to read a book given to them, and yet were arrogant scoffers.
If you are NOT reading a good meaning-based translation, then it is very likely that you will misunderstand today reading in Isaiah 30 verse 7. The Rahab mentioned is NOT the woman that received Joshua’s spies!
2CORINTHIANS 11:
Up to yesterday’s reading, Paul has been more reserved in criticising the men who have come masquerading as apostles. Those men have been more forceful speakers than Paul, and it has seemed that Paul is only bold in his letters. He said,
10:12 NLT Oh, don’t worry; we wouldn’t dare say that we are as wonderful as these other men who tell you how important they are!
But we will see that Paul takes his gloves off as we go forward. Yet, what he boasts about follows that verse he quoted from Jeremiah:
17 NLT As the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the LORD.”
EZRA 1:
Before going to Ezra, I want to say that one can do a whole lot of digging deeper in the last two chapters of Daniel. History tells about those kings, and we know from what Jesus said and what is written in Revelation, that God plans for history to repeat itself. The main ‘take-away’ points are clear, just as they are in Revelation: Blessed are those who endure and live wise and holy lives.
It is a great time now to return to those three small remaining books of history remaining for us to read this year: Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. These books allow us to see the fulfilment of prophecies we have read about. King Cyrus was one of the kings served by Daniel and alluded to in his prophetic visions. Now, in Ezra, we will read Cyrus’ proclamation, which is in accordance with Jeremiah’s prophecy about the 70 year duration of the exile in Babylonia. And we haven’t read it yet, but Isaiah specifically names Cyrus twice— writing about him some 150 to 200 years before Cyrus was born.
ISAIAH 29:
The advantage of reading a meaning based translation like the GNT/NLT is that you readers and listeners had the pleasure of understanding the mocking of Isaiah (or God, in the NLT) by the people of Israel, and Isaiah and God’s mocking response (28:7-13). Then in that context, it is shocking to find the famous verses quoted in the New Testament:
Is. 28:16 NLT Therefore, this is what the Sovereign LORD says:
“Look! I am placing a foundation stone in Jerusalem,
a firm and tested stone.
It is a precious cornerstone that is safe to build on.
Whoever believes need never be shaken.
The New Testament quotes this verse three times. In all three, the last line has the object “believes in him” (Jesus) because Paul and Peter quoted from the Septuagint, the ancient translation of the OT into Greek.
2CORINTHIANS 10:
The heart of what Paul was teaching about in chapter 9 about the practice of Christian charity is this:
2Cor. 9:6 GNT Remember that the person who plants few seeds will have a small crop; the one who plants many seeds will have a large crop.
8 And God is able to give you more than you need, so that you will always have all you need for yourselves and more than enough for every good cause.
15 Let us thank God for his priceless gift!
Just like Philippians 4, it should never be forgotten that the promise of God providing (such as v.8) is found in the context of people who are already unselfishly supporting God’s work.
GNT Translation note:
2Cor. 10:3 It is true that we live in the world, but we do not fight [with worldly motives or methods//from worldly motives].
DANIEL 10:20—12:
In yesterday’s reading, we heard Daniel’s sincere prayer. Note that he had been seeking the Lord with limited fasting for 3 weeks. Then the angel Gabriel is again sent with a message for Daniel. Note that the phrase ‘anoint the Most Holy Place’ is probably referring to what we read about in Hebrews recently— that which our High Priest Jesus did in heaven. Gabriel’s message about seventy sets of seven, or seventy weeks and 62 weeks, are both a difficult translational problem and a prophetic mystery. If we could solve the prophetic mystery, then we would know how to translate it.
Then in chapter 10, Daniel saw the awesome angel, and Daniel was so overcome that he needed to be strengthened in order to hear and understand the angel’s message. Note that the angel knew that Daniel’s prayers and humbling himself through fasting and other means were for the purpose of gaining understanding.
ISAIAH 28:
Yesterday’s chapter was again full of contrasts. Israel is God’s fruitful vine, and he slays the great sea serpent (which pictures Satan) for his vine. But then God also calls Israel a stupid nation and vows that they will not escape the punishment they deserve.
2CORINTHIANS 9:
Today we read the second of two chapters encouraging the Corinthian church to participate in the monetary help that Paul and his friends were proposing for the believers back in Judea. In chapter 8 Paul used the example of the Macedonian believers to spur the Corinthian church on. He also praised the Corinthians for being the first to think of this project. Now he urges them to do what they planned. Then he showed how this gift would be faithfully administered, and simultaneously put pressure on the Corinthian church with the arrival of men who were designated to be responsible for delivering the gifts. Verse 9 is a major motivation for giving generously to any cause the glorifies Christ:
2Cor. 8:9 GNT You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ; rich as he was, he made himself poor for your sake, in order to make you rich by means of his poverty.
GNT Translation notes:
Is. 28:16 This, now, is what the Sovereign Lord says: “I am placing in Zion a foundation that is firm and strong. In it I am putting a solid cornerstone on which are written the words, ‘[Belief//Faith] that is firm is also patient.’
[This important phrase is also translated as:
NIV84 the one who trusts will never be dismayed.
HCSB the one who believes will be unshakable.
If you noticed the omission of the object ‘in Him’, the reason the NT has that is because this verse is always quoted from the Greek translation called the Septuagint.]
DANIEL 9-10:
Yesterday in Daniel, we heard of the vision of four beasts representing four kingdoms. After the fourth would be the start of the rule of One whose kingdom would last forever. This vision was explained, then Daniel had a second and more detailed vision. It is a major amazing sign of God’s sovereignty over human governments that Alexander the Great is so clearly portrayed, and then the iron kingdom of Rome. Just as certain as these things happened, our Savior’s reign will one day come to earth.
And I have been referring to Daniel 7 all year, to the section where a man came who looked like a ‘human being’ (in the GNT) surrounded by clouds. The words ‘human being’ are literally in Hebrew ‘son of man’, an expression which simply means a normal-looking human being. It is the same title God so frequently used for Ezekiel and which was translated as ‘Mortal man.’ Listen again about this unique Son of Man:
Dan. 7:14 GNT “He was given authority, honor, and royal power, so that people of all nations, races, and languages would serve him. His authority would last forever and his kingdom would never end.”
ISAIAH 26:20—27:
There were beautiful verses in yesterday’s reading, too many to review. I choose to highlight verses 2-4:
Is. 26:2 GNT Open the city gates and let the faithful nation enter,
the nation whose people do what is right.
3 You, Lord, give perfect peace
to those who keep their purpose firm
and put their trust in you.
4 Trust in the Lord forever;
he will always protect us.
I found it interesting that Israel’s suffering was compared to a woman in childbirth, but unlike a childbirth, Israel produced nothing:
Is. 26:18 GNT We were in pain and agony, but we gave birth to nothing. We have won no victory for our land; we have accomplished nothing.
Israel was supposed to share the knowledge of the Lord with other peoples, but they neglected to do that.
2CORINTHIANS 8:
Yesterday we heard of the terrible time of suffering Paul and his companions faced in Macedonia, where he had gone to find Titus. But when Titus came, it brought wonderful joy, because he brought such encouraging news about the Corinthian believers.
GNT Translation note:
2Cor. 8:7 You are so rich in all you have: in [your full belief in Christ//faith], speech, and knowledge, in your eagerness to help and in your love for us. And so we want you to be generous also in this service of love.
DANIEL 7-8:
In Daniel yesterday, we heard the famous ‘writing on the wall’ chapter. That is where that idiom in English comes from! While that was happening with King Belshazzar, the Medes and Persians were outside the wall and the prophecies of Ezekiel, Isaiah and Jeremiah all happened. Daniel was to be proclaimed the third ruler because Belshazzar was in fact the second ruler under his absentee father, Nabonidus. Then under King Darius, Daniel was thrown to the lions. I am estimating that Daniel would have been around 70 years old at that time.
ISAIAH 26:
Yesterday’s reading in Isaiah was not primarily dark with the sun piercing the darkness momentarily, but was a sunny psalm of praise. We heard even of the marriage supper of the Lamb, and there were glorious verses like this:
Is. 25:4 NLT But you are a tower of refuge to the poor, O LORD,
a tower of refuge to the needy in distress.
You are a refuge from the storm
and a shelter from the heat.
But at the end of yesterday’s chapter, gloomy clouds blew in with a word about the nation of Moab.
2CORINTHIANS 6:11—7:
In our first reading in chapter 6 we have already heard what it meant practically for Paul and his fellow apostles to be led as ‘captives’ or ‘prisoners’ in Christ’s victory parade.
2Cor. 2:14 GNT But thanks be to God! For in union with Christ we are always led by God as prisoners in Christ's victory procession. …
The Greek does not actually have a word that corresponds to ‘prisoner’, but that seems to be Paul’s meaning when one factors in what Paul said in chapter 6. So being in this parade doesn’t mean a life of ease. Even though in chapter 5 he says they are Christ’s ambassadors, they are ambassadors that carry precious treasure in earthen vessels— very aware that the earthly tent (their bodies) could be destroyed at any time. It cost them so much to deliver this message:
2Cor. 6:1 NLT As God’s partners, we beg you not to accept this marvelous gift of God’s kindness and then ignore it.
2 For God says,
“At just the right time, I heard you.
On the day of salvation, I helped you.”
Indeed, the “right time” is now. Today is the day of salvation.
DANIEL 5-6:
Yesterday we heard two stories: That of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue of gold and the exciting way God delivered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And the second story was Nebuchadnezzar himself sharing about his dream and how he was later humbled.
ISAIAH 25:
Yesterday’s reading in Isaiah talked of the destruction of the whole earth, but here again as typical in Isaiah, the sun was allowed to break through the clouds. We look forward to a city where God himself will outshine the sun.
2CORINTHIANS 5:14—6:13:
Here is part of Paul’s discussion about the earthly tents/bodies we all have, and heavenly bodies we will one day have:
2Cor. 5:6 GNT So we are always full of courage. We know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord's home.
7 For our life is a matter of [believing//faith], not of [seeing//sight].
8 We are full of courage and would much prefer to leave our home in the body and be at home with the Lord.
9 More than anything else, however, we want to please him, whether in our home here or there.
Paul returns to his theme about the the apostolic ministry that God has given to him and his companions, and especially now their commission to share the message of reconciliation with God.
GNT Translation notes:
2Cor. 5:18 [PET And the source of all of those life-changes is God Himself— who by Christ’s mediation has made us at peace with Him again. Then He sent us out to tell about that offer of peace.//GNT All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us the task of making others his friends also.]
19 [PET What we tell is that God— through the death of Christ, has opened the way for each person in this world to be at peace with Himself. For those of us who are joined in union with Christ, God no longer counts our sins and wrongdoings against us. That’s the news of restored peace that God entrusted to us!//Our message is that God was making all human beings his friends through Christ. God did not keep an account of their sins, and he has given us the message which tells how he makes them his friends.]
20 [PET It means that we’ve become messengers of Christ— our King. Through us God is inviting and calling each of you to listen to this message: In Christ Jesus’ name be restored to peace with God!//GNT Here we are, then, speaking for Christ, as though God himself were making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ's behalf: let God change you from enemies into his friends!]
[I decided to use our Plain English Translation for the three verses above. In verse 18, using the words ‘making others his friends’ sounds a bit like Paul and the apostles would be twisting people’s arms. But in verse 19 GNT makes the reconciliation that God offers sound like universal salvation to all human beings. (This means that everyone would be saved without the need for repentance and following Christ. This heresy is still around in the world, and that is not what Paul meant here.)]
2Cor. 6:9 [We are treated] as unknown, yet we are known by all; [people act] as though we were dead, but, as you see, we live on.
DANIEL 3-4:
Matthew Henry describes the parts of the statue in Daniel 2:
- The head of gold signified the Chaldean empire, then in being. 2. The breast and arms of silver signified the empire of the Medes and Persians.
- The belly and thighs of brass signified the Grecian empire, founded by Alexander.
- The legs and feet of iron signified the Roman empire. The Roman empire branched into ten kingdoms, as the toes of [the//these] feet [of the statue]. Some were weak as clay, others strong as iron. Endeavours [were made] to unite them, for strengthening the empire, but in vain. The stone cut out without hands, represented the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, which [will//should] be set up in the kingdoms of the world, upon the ruins of Satan's kingdom in them. This was the Stone which the builders refused, because it was not cut out by their hands, but it is become the head stone of the corner. Of the increase of Christ's government and peace there shall be no end. The Lord shall reign, not only to the end of time, but when time and days shall be no more. As far as events have gone, the fulfilling this prophetic vision has been most exact and undeniable; future ages shall witness this Stone destroying the image, and filling the whole earth.
ISAIAH 24:
Yesterday we heard the oracle against the proud seafaring city-state of Tyre.
2CORINTHIANS 4:10—5:15:One of the hard things about 2 Corinthians for a translator is that ‘we’ in Greek is just like ‘we’ in English. The two languages do not distinguish between ‘we-speakers-excluding-listeners’ and ‘we-inclusive-of-listeners’. So which is it in places like this? Well, primarily in chapter 4, I think that Paul is talking about ‘we apostles’ in this section. (Notice how the ‘we’ contrasts with ‘you/your’ in verses 12 and 15.) Note that analyzing Paul’s meaning that way does not mean that we can’t take what Paul says about himself and his friends and apply it to us as our ideal. Let’s determine to be like Paul in things like “fixing our gaze on things we cannot see.”
But in chapter 5, I believe Paul’s use of ‘we’ is inclusive of his hearers. We all have bodies that Paul pictures as our ‘earthly tent’.
GNT Translation notes:
Dan. 3:17 [NLT If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us. He will rescue us from your power, Your Majesty.//GNT If the God whom we serve is able to save us from the blazing furnace and from your power, then he will. [And see the footnote in the GNT.]
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2Cor. 5:7 For our life is a matter of [believing//faith], not of [seeing//sight].
13 Are we really insane? [If so,] It is for God's sake. Or are we sane? Then it is for your sake.
DANIEL 2:
In the first chapter of Daniel, we heard how Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were faithful to God in not wanting to be defiled by the king’s food, and later they were found better than their companions and chosen for service to King Nebuchadnezzar.
ISAIAH 23:
Yesterday we heard two dramatic messages. One was about the failure of Jerusalem to appropriately respond to God’s impending judgment (which was remarkably like Nero fiddling while Rome burned). Then there was the message to Shebna, the palace administrator. Eliakim would take his place and be like a nail firmly driven in a wall, and the holder of the key to David’s house. He can be understood as a figure of Christ.
2CORINTHIANS 3:12—4:
We’ll start reading today by reviewing the greater glory of the new covenant Paul spoke of at the end of chapter 3.
GNT Translation notes:
2Cor. 3:14 Their minds, indeed, were closed; and to this very day their minds are covered with the same veil as they read the books of the old covenant. The veil is removed only when a person is joined [in union with//to] Christ.
4:12 This means that death is at work in us [apostles], but life is at work in you.
13 The scripture says, “I spoke because I believed.” In the same spirit of [belief//faith] we also speak because we believe.
DANIEL 1:
Yesterday in Ezekiel, the land was divided in horizontal bands across the entire width of Israel. We will see the 12 gates of the New Jerusalem again in Revelation.
We start the little but immensely important book of Daniel today. Daniel wrote this sometime between 540 and 530 BC. As Daniel will relate, he was an exile to Babylon starting from 605 BC. For comparison, Ezekiel tells us that he was deported to Babylonia in 597 (and his location beside the Chebar river might have been 75 miles southeast of Babylon). So Daniel would have come to Babylon only 8 years earlier.
Daniel is a wonderful example of what God can do with someone completely surrendered to the Lord. Note Daniel’s devotional habits and how he and his friends completely trusted in God.
The book has two clear sections. The first narrates history, and contains the famous stories we all love. The second is prophecy and revelation. Again, like Ezekiel, much of Daniel reappears in the book of Revelation. And as for the question if Daniel was a real prophet, note that Jesus thought he was!
ISAIAH 22:
Yesterday’s prophecies dealt with Babylon, Edom, and Arabia.
2CORINTHIANS 2:14—3:
I want to emphasize the precious verses from the end of chapter 2, and these verses are important for understanding the beginning of chapter 3.
GNT Translation note:
Dan. 1:2 The Lord let him capture King Jehoiakim and seize some of the Temple treasures. He took some prisoners back with him to the temple of his gods in Babylon, and put the captured treasures in the temple storerooms [there in Babylon].
EZEKIEL 48:
In the chapters from Ezekiel yesterday, we heard more rules for the prince’s worship and about temple kitchens and a beginning part about the division of the land. Very fascinating in that is the part about the river that comes out from the east side of the temple, including trees that are for healing, bearing fruit every month. We will soon hear about this river and the trees of life in Revelation.
ISAIAH 21:
Yesterday’s chapter in Isaiah was only six verses long. It always seems very unfair to me that Isaiah had to go about naked as a sign about two countries that were not even his own. Surely it was a sign for the people of Israel’s benefit as well. I wonder if Isaiah’s being ‘naked’ was really what we call stark naked. In some cultures, if a man is wearing a loin cloth, he is still called naked. Just as the description states, a person in a loin cloth will have their buttocks exposed.
2CORINTHIANS 1:23—2:
At the beginning of chapter 2, Paul is still telling about his change of plans and showing why he doesn’t want to be misunderstood in his motives concerning that. I will read 23 in the NLT and 24 in the PET:
23 (NLT) Now I call upon God as my witness that I am telling the truth. The reason I didn’t return to Corinth was to spare you from a severe rebuke.
24 (PET) My purpose and that of the other apostles of Christ isn’t to command how each of you in the Corinthian church live out your beliefs. We are certain that each of you will keep standing firm in your belief. We just want to work with you so that your joy keeps on increasing because of living according to your beliefs.
GNT Translation notes:
Ez. 48:30-34 There are twelve entrances to the city of Jerusalem. Each of the four walls measures 2,520 yards and [each wall has three gates//has three gates in it], each named for one of the tribes. …
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2Cor. 2:4 I wrote you with a greatly troubled and distressed heart and with many tears; my purpose was not to make you sad, but to make you realize how much I love [all of you//you all].
EZEKIEL 46-47:
Yesterday we heard regulations for the priests and Levites, about foreigners, and about the prince of Israel. Also there was the fascinating detail about the eastern gate, which must remain shut.
ISAIAH 20:
Yesterday we heard the prophecy against Egypt, but again it ends with a note of hope for Egypt.
2 CORINTHIANS 1:
Yesterday we finished the book of Hebrews. I would encourage anyone to camp out for a longer time in the 12th and 13th chapters. There is deep insight hidden there.
Here at the end of the year, we will be touring through some of the deepest writing of the New Testament— like what we experienced in Hebrews. 2nd Corinthians is such a letter. It is actually called “Paul’s hard letter.” And from a Bible translator’s experience, it is the hardest book in the New Testament to translate. This is because Paul shares his feelings deeply and in doing so he often draws fine distinctions— not wanting to be misunderstood. It is those fine shades of feelings that are so hard to translate.
2nd Corinthians is a book where Paul shares in an intensely personal way. First he shares about ministry setbacks and discouragement. In sharing these things, Paul also gives us golden keys to unlock comfort and encouragement in our lives. Then Paul shares several personal stories because he feels forced to. That is, because of comparisons drawn between him and false teachers, the Corinthian church needs to know information about Paul’s apostleship and relationship with Christ that Paul would prefer not to boast about.
Paul also urges the Corinthian church to complete their desire to minister financially to the needy fellow believers in Jerusalem. In teaching about ministering with Christian kindness, Paul gives valuable examples to us about the proper motivation for Christian charitable work and appropriate fund raising.
GNT Translation notes:
2Cor. 1:21 It is God himself who makes us, together with you, sure of our life in union with Christ; it is God himself who has [anointed us (with his Spirit to make us capable to serve Him),//set us apart,]
24 We are not trying to dictate to you what you must believe; we know that you stand firm in [our true beliefs//the faith]. Instead, we are working with you for your own happiness.
EZEKIEL 44-45:
In the vision of the ideal temple yesterday, we heard of the buildings of rooms for the priests and offerings, the altar, the glory of God coming to this temple, and the reason for this vision.
ISAIAH 19:
Yesterday in Isaiah we heard the prophecy about the defeat of the Ethiopians, and at the end of that message, there was a note of hope for that nation.
HEBREWS 13:
Yesterday (and even the day before) we returned to the place of rest which was the theme of chapters 3-4. Did you notice?! Compare the last verse of chapter 4 with the place where we ‘have come’ to in 10:22-24.
GNT Translation notes:
Heb. 13:1 Keep on loving one another as [brothers and sisters in the Lord//Christians].
7 Remember your former leaders, who spoke God's message to you. Think back on how they lived and died, and imitate [the way they lived out their beliefs//their faith].
8 [Christ Jesus//Jesus Christ] is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
[The correct order is ‘title’ then ‘name’ in English. We always say words like ‘president’, ‘senator’, and ‘doctor’ before a person’s name in that role. Greek can do the order either way. This is important because there are people in the world that think that ‘Christ’ is Jesus’ last name. The order is reversed in v.21 also.]
9 Do not let all kinds of strange teachings lead you from the right way. It is good to receive inner strength from [appreciating God’s gracious kindness//God's grace], and not by obeying rules about foods; those who obey these rules have not been helped by them.
EZEKIEL 42-43:
In yesterday’s tour of the ideal temple we viewed the sanctuary and Most Holy Place.
ISAIAH 18:
Yesterday we heard of Damascus and Syria and Israel.
HEBREWS 12:
After recounting the more victorious heroes of faithful believing, the author spoke about all those unnamed people who victoriously suffered because of fully believing. The Faith Chapter ends with this:
Heb. 11:39 NLT All these people earned a good reputation because of their [fully believing//faith], yet none of them received all that God had promised.
40 For God had something better in mind for us, so that they would not reach perfection without us.
GNT Translation note:
Heb. 12:2 Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom our [believing//faith] depends from beginning to end. He did not give up because of the cross! On the contrary, because of the joy that was waiting for him, he thought nothing of the disgrace of dying on the cross, and he is now seated at the right side of God's throne.
EZEKIEL 41:
Yesterday we started Ezekiel’s account of his long vision about the future and ideal temple of God, and this is another vision that is referred to in the book of Revelation. The reason for this vision is given in chapter 43:
Ez. 43:10 NLT “Son of man, describe to the people of Israel the Temple I have shown you, so they will be ashamed of all their sins. Let them study its plan,
11 and they will be ashamed of what they have done.
ISAIAH 17:
Yesterday we finished the two chapter oracle concerning Moab. It was really not so much a prophecy of condemnation, but a lament for the people.
HEBREWS 11b:
The Faith Chapter of Hebrews is an exposition of the verse quoted from Habbakuk 2:
Heb. 10:38 NLT And my righteous ones will live by [fully believing in Me//faith].
But I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away.”
It is unfortunate that the King James Version of the first verse of Hebrews 11 doesn’t make good sense but is still so often quoted as the definition of faith. The KJV says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for …” But how can I use that idea of ‘substance’? This became the definition that is quoted, but no one can figure out what to do with it after quoting it. No one can— so to speak, put their finger on that ‘substance’. The Greek word translated as ‘substance’ can also be translated ‘confidence’. And using that word, our definition makes sense.
GNT Translation notes:
Heb. 11:17 It was [Abraham’s belief in God’s promise//faith] that [moved him to//made Abraham] offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice when God put Abraham to the test. Abraham was the one to whom God had made the promise, yet he was ready to offer his only son as a sacrifice.
13 [All these people kept on fully believing until they died.//It was in faith that all these persons died.] They did not receive the things God had promised, but from a long way off they saw them and welcomed them, and admitted openly that they were foreigners and refugees on earth.
20 [It was Isaac’s belief in God’s promises that moved him to promise//It was faith that made Isaac promise] blessings for the future to Jacob and Esau.
21 [It was Jacob’s belief in God’s promises that moved him to//It was faith that made Jacob] bless each of the sons of Joseph just before he died. He leaned on the top of his walking stick and worshiped God.
22 [It was Joseph’s belief in God’s promises that moved him— when he was about to die, to//It was faith that made Joseph, when he was about to die,] speak of the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and leave instructions about what should be done with his body.
23 [Moses’ parents believed in God’s promises. And that is what moved them to hide//It was faith that made the parents of Moses hide] him for three months after he was born. They saw that he was a beautiful child, and they were not afraid to disobey the king's order.
24 [When Moses had grown up, it was his belief in God’s promises that moved him to//It was faith that made Moses, when he had grown up,] refuse to be called the son of the king's daughter.
27 [It was his belief in God’s promises that moved him to lead the people of Israel out of//It was faith that made Moses leave] Egypt without being afraid of the king's anger. As though he saw the invisible God, he refused to turn back.
28 [The same beliefs moved him to//It was faith that made him] establish the Passover and order the blood to be sprinkled on the doors, so that the Angel of Death would not kill the first-born sons of the Israelites.
29 [It was the Israelites’ belief in God that enabled them//It was faith that made the Israelites able] to cross the Red Sea as if on dry land; when the Egyptians tried to do it, the water swallowed them up.
30 [It was the Israelites’ belief in God that//It was faith that] made the walls of Jericho fall down after the Israelites had marched around them for seven days.
31 [It was Rahab’s belief in God that kept her//It was faith that kept the prostitute Rahab] from being killed with those who disobeyed God, for she gave the Israelite spies a friendly welcome.
33 [Their belief in God enabled them to be overthrow other kingdoms.//Through faith they fought whole countries and won.] They did what was right and received what God had promised. They shut the mouths of lions,
34 put out fierce fires, [and] escaped being killed by the sword. They were weak, but became strong; they were mighty in battle and defeated the armies of foreigners.
35 [By means of their full belief in God,//faith] women received their dead relatives raised back to life.
Others, refusing to accept freedom, died under torture in order to be raised to a better life.
39 What a record all of these have won by [means of their full belief in God and his promises!//their faith!] Yet they did not receive what God had promised,
EZEKIEL 40:
In chapter 38-39 we heard of the kingdoms of Gog and Magog, which point to future kingdoms in the north. Like Ezekiel’s prophecies against the kings of Tyre and Babylon, Gog and Magog also refer to spiritual entities beyond this world, and we will hear of them again in Revelation chapter 20. And today we begin hearing of something else that appears in Revelation.
ISAIAH 16:
Today’s chapter is the continuation of the prophecy against Moab.
HEBREWS 10:35—11a:
As I have told you again and again this year, because of a quirk in English, the tight connection between the noun ‘faith’ and the verb ‘believe’ has been broken. These two words have the same root in Greek. It would have been better had English preserved the connection such as between ‘confidence’ and ‘confident’. The reason I mention that again here is because this is the famous ‘faith chapter’ of Hebrews. Note that this chapter is actually expounding on a quote from the end of chapter 10, so that’s where we begin today.
GNT Translation notes:
Heb 10:39 We are not people who turn back and are lost. Instead, we [are those people who keep or believing//have faith] and are saved.
11:1 To [believe means//have faith is] to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see.
2 It was by their [believing//faith] that people of ancient times won God's approval.
3 [By means of our believing//It is by faith] that we understand that the universe was created by God's word, so that what can be seen was made out of what cannot be seen.
4 It was [Abel’s believing//faith] that [moved him to//made Abel] offer to God a better sacrifice than Cain's. [It was by means of his believing that//Through his faith] he won God's approval as a righteous man, because God himself approved of his gifts. By means of his [believing//faith] Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.
[and etc.]
13 [All these people kept on fully believing until they died.//It was in faith that all these persons died.] They did not receive the things God had promised, but from a long way off they saw them and welcomed them, and admitted openly that they were foreigners and refugees on earth.
17 It was [Abraham’s believing God’s promise//faith] that [moved him to//made Abraham] offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice when God put Abraham to the test. Abraham was the one to whom God had made the promise, yet he was ready to offer his only son as a sacrifice.
EZEKIEL 38-39:
Yesterday we heard the famous ‘dry bones’ chapter of Ezekiel. Again the prophecy is that David will rule over the nation of Israel, which is like a nation of bones brought back to life. The references to David of course point to his heir, Christ.
Starting in this chapter we hear of the kingdoms of Gog and Magog. These names point to future kingdoms in the north (in Turkey or farther north). Like Ezekiel’s prophecies against the kings of Tyre and Babylon, Gog and Magog point to spiritual entities beyond this world, and we will hear those names coming up again in Revelation. I doubt that these names pointed to a specific kingdom in Ezekiel’s day, but if they did, the knowledge about that is lost.
ISAIAH 15:
Yesterday’s reading in Isaiah started out like Ezekiel, talking of Israel’s return from exile and slavery. Then we heard another portion where the king of Babylon is clearly portraying Satan. That section starts with these words:
Is. 14:12 NLT “How you are fallen from heaven,
O shining star, son of the morning!
You have been thrown down to the earth,
you who destroyed the nations of the world.
13 For you said to yourself,
‘I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God’s stars.
…
HEBREWS 10b:
In the first part of chapter 10, the writer is still speaking of the advantages and greater glory of the new covenant, proving this with a reference to Psalm 40 and returning to the extended quote from Jeremiah 31.
GNT Translation notes:
Heb. 10:22 So let us come near to God with a sincere heart[, with full belief, and// and a sure faith,] with hearts that have been purified from a guilty conscience and with bodies washed with clean water
39 We are not people who turn back and are lost. Instead, we [are those people who keep or believing//have faith] and are saved.
EZEKIEL 36-37:
In chapter 34, we heard the passage that many Jews would have thought of when they heard Jesus say, “I am the good shepherd. I give my life for the sheep.” In Ezekiel 34, God promised to take away corrupt shepherds, saying that He would replace them with only one shepherd— namely David's descendant who will shepherd of the flock of God forever.
ISAIAH 14:
Like we heard in Ezekiel and in Isaiah, and will hear in Revelation, Babylon will be judged. That kingdom was God’s tool to execute judgment, but they themselves will feel God’s judgment.
HEBREWS 10a:
In chapter 9 of Hebrews, details about rituals under the first covenant were given. The writer was showing by contrast how Jesus entered a greater, permanent, holy, divinely made Most Holy Place with the one-time-only sacrifice of his own blood. In our time, I think the details also show us the impossibility of our ever rebuilding a system like the Mosaic covenant. I take this opportunity to share my opinion— which I recognize will not be shared by all listeners. But here it is: Those who want to add old covenant observances to our Christian faith just add accretions of man-made ritual. It is better to study and understand how much better the new covenant is, rather than to add empty and powerless ritual and symbolism from the old to the new.
GNT Translation note:
Heb. 10:22 So let us come near to God with a sincere heart[, with full belief, and// and a sure faith,] with hearts that have been purified from a guilty conscience and with bodies washed with clean water.
EZEKIEL 34-35:
In Ezekiel yesterday, we heard of how Pharaoh was to be mocked in the world of the dead. Then we heard of God’s justice, which he showed by the illustration of Ezekiel as a watchman for a city.
ISAIAH 13:
Yesterday’s reading in Isaiah was a psalm of praise including these poetic lines:
Is. 12:2 NLT The LORD GOD is my strength and my song;
he has given me victory.”
3 With joy you will drink deeply
from the fountain of salvation!
…
Tell the nations what he has done.
Let them know how mighty he is!
HEBREWS 9:
Important conclusions from yesterday’s reading include:
Heb. 8:6 GNT But now, Jesus has been given priestly work which is superior to theirs, just as the covenant which he arranged between God and his people is a better one, because it is based on promises of better things.
13 By speaking of a new covenant, God has made the first one old; and anything that becomes old and worn out will soon disappear.
EZEKIEL 32-33:Again, as seen in the messages to Tyre and to Egypt, God was not just speaking to one king or about one kingdom, but was also speaking against the kingdom/city of Man or the world system under the rulership of Satan.
ISAIAH 12:
In yesterday’s reading we again heard of the righteous Branch, a shoot growing from David’s root. And we heard these famous words which I give here from the NLT:
Is. 11:2 NLT And the Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
3 He will delight in obeying the LORD.
He will not judge by appearance
nor make a decision based on hearsay.
4 He will give justice to the poor
and make fair decisions for the exploited.
The earth will shake at the force of his word,
and one breath from his mouth will destroy the wicked.
5 He will wear righteousness like a belt
and truth like an undergarment.
HEBREWS 8:
In yesterday’s reading, the writer of Hebrews showed many similarities between Melchizedek and Christ, including that they are kings of righteousness and peace, they live forever, and are higher in position and better than Abraham and Moses. Christ is also better than the Levitical priests because he received his priesthood by an oath from God and because he holds his office as priest forever. These things are amazingly confirmed by that prophetic verse in Psalm 110. And very significantly, Jesus thus being our High Priest signifies a change in the Law— something that the original Jewish audience would have found surprising and controversial. Note how skillfully the writer wove in that controversial topic— which he brings to a conclusion in today’s chapter.
EZEKIEL 30-31:
As the Lord was pronouncing doom upon the Prince of Tyre in Ezekiel 28, did you notice how the language shifted to talking about things that the human prince could not have done. The spirit-world ruler behind the prince of Tyre is really in mind— that is, Satan. The tirade against the King of Egypt could also be similarly interpreted.
ISAIAH 11:
Isaiah recorded in yesterday’s portion that Assyria’s army would come to Judah, but that Judah would be different from the other nations that Assyria conquered. And it did indeed happen like that!
HEBREWS 7:
Yesterday the author of Hebrews reminded us of Abraham and Melchizedek. We ought to have great confidence in our hope, because the God— who cannot lie, has given us both a promise and an oath. The last verse of Hebrews 6 introduces again the topic of Melchizedek:
Heb. 6:20 On our behalf Jesus has gone in there before us (that is, into the heavenly sanctuary) and has become a high priest forever, in the priestly order of Melchizedek.
EZEKIEL 28-29:
So why were there two whole chapters against the city-state of Tyre in yesterday’s reading, plus one more today?! I think we see the answer in Revelation. Tyre is very like the picture of Babylon (which in that book is a picture of Rome). All the way through the Bible— starting with the Tower of Babel, we see a contrast between the ‘city of man’ and the ‘city of God’. The world powers will be utterly defeated, along with all the wealth of commerce that supports them now.
In Ezekiel 14:15 and 20 and 28:3, GNT followed the liberal side of Biblical scholarship in identifying Daniel the prophet as Danel, the Ugaritic mythical hero. Daniel was a contemporary of Ezekiel who arrived in Babylon only 8 years before Ezekiel was in exile at the Chebar river. Even so, I think it very plausible that Daniel’s miraculous deeds (publicized even in the king’s proclamations) would have made him famous in that day. And the remote Ugaritic figure named Danel was not famed to be wise, as would be necessary in today’s passage. See these articles for more information.
Article: Did Ezekiel know Daniel?
Wallace: Who is Ezekiel’s Daniel?
ISAIAH 10:
Yesterday’s reading included wonderful prophecies concerning Jesus that are quoted in the Gospels and in Handel’s Messiah:
Is. 9:2 NLT The people who walk in darkness
will see a great light.
For those who live in a land of deep darkness,
a light will shine.
and
6 For a child is born to us,
a son is given to us.
The government will rest on his shoulders.
And he will be called:
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
HEBREWS 6:
Jesus is our High Priest, not in the order of Aaron, but Melchizedek. This chapter picks up where the last left off. Yesterday’s chapter ended with the call for spiritual maturity:
Heb. 5:12b NLT “You are like babies who need milk and cannot [yet] eat solid food.”
GNT Translation notes:
Heb. 6:1 NLT [So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from evil deeds and [believing in God//placing our faith in God].//GNT Let us go forward, then, to mature teaching and leave behind us the first lessons of the Christian message. We should not lay again the foundation of turning away from useless works and believing in God;]
4 For how can those who abandon their [beliefs//faith] be brought back to repent again? They were once in God's light; they tasted heaven's gift and received their share of the Holy Spirit;
6 And then they abandoned their [beliefs//faith]! It is impossible to bring them back to repent again, because they are again crucifying the Son of God and exposing him to public shame.
10 God is not unfair. He will not forget the work you did or the love you showed for him in the help you gave and are still giving to other [of God’s holy people//believers//Christians].
EZEKIEL 26-27:
Yesterday we heard a second word picture of Jerusalem as a cooking pot. This was not good news. Then Ezekiel received word that his treasure— his wife, would die. And he was commanded not to mourn as a sign of what the people would do when they heard about the slaughter in Jerusalem. Then there were messages of punishment for the nations of Ammon, Moab, Edom, and Philistia.
ISAIAH 9:
In yesterday’s reading, God gave Isaiah the name of his son, which pictures the conquest of Judah by the Assyrian army. Then there was a wonderful and often quoted part that in the New Testament identifies Jesus as the stumbling stone:
Is. 8:12 GNT “Do not join in the schemes of the people and do not be afraid of the things that they fear. 13 Remember that I, the Lord Almighty, am holy; I am the one you must fear. 14 Because of my awesome holiness I am like a stone that people stumble over; I am like a trap that will catch the people of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel and the people of Jerusalem. 15 Many will stumble; they will fall and be crushed. They will be caught in a trap.”
HEBREWS 5:Chapter 4 contains the wonderful verse about God’s word being living and active, and the encouragement to come boldly with our prayers before the throne of God.
The Greek for 4:9 literally says, “There remains a sabatismos for the people of God.” GNT translated that word as “‘a rest like God's resting on the seventh day.” Sabatismos— a word evidently coined by the writer, could mean God resting on the 7th day or the Sabbath day observance, or both. Here is verse 9 in our PET translation, which shows how we made the concept of a ‘place/land of rest’ clear in Indonesian:
Heb. 4:9 PET So this shows that there is still an opportunity for us— the people of God, to enter God’s ‘land of rest’— which is a spiritual calmness that can be pictured as like stopping work on the Sabbath Day.
EZEKIEL 24-25:
Yesterday in Ezekiel we heard the shockingly graphic story of the two adulterous sisters, which were really the cities of Samaria and Jerusalem.
ISAIAH 8:
In yesterday’s reading, Isaiah was sent to Ahaz, and the message to the king contains a prophecy that probably had two fulfillments— one in King Ahaz’ time and another at Jesus’ birth: “The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).” Had the New Testament not explicitly stated that Jesus’ birth was a fulfillment of this verse, the similarity would be considered just an interesting coincidence.
HEBREWS 4:
In chapter 3 we read about God promising another day for the fulfillment of giving Israel a place of rest. And that other day is called ‘today’!
GNT Translation notes:
Heb. 4:2 For we have heard the Good News, just as they did. They heard the message, but it did them no good, because when they heard it, they did not [fully believe it//accept it with faith].
[In our Plain English Translation, we gave the full meaning of the coined word ‘sabatismos’ found in verse 9. The word is coined by the writer from the word for Sabbath. Here is verse 9 in our PET translation, which shows how we made this concept clear in Indonesian:]
9 So this shows that there is still an opportunity for us— the people of God, to enter God’s ‘land of rest’— which is a spiritual calmness that can be pictured as like stopping work on the Sabbath Day.
11 Let us, then, do our best to receive that rest, so that no one of us will fail as they did because of their lack of [belief//faith].
EZEKIEL 23:
In yesterday’s reading, we heard the Lord promise that he would refine Israel as purifying silver in a crucible. And then we heard the famous and poignant words:
Ez. 23:30 GNT I looked for someone who could build a wall, who could stand in the places where the walls have crumbled and defend the land when my anger is about to destroy it, but I could find no one. //NLT “I looked for someone who might rebuild the wall of righteousness that guards the land. I searched for someone to stand in the gap in the wall so I wouldn’t have to destroy the land, but I found no one.
ISAIAH 7:
Yesterday we heard the story of Isaiah’s vision of the glory of the Lord in the temple. Isaiah’s lips were purified with a coal from the altar. Then after hearing the Lord’s call, he said the famous words, “Here I am. Send me!” And the Lord revealed that his messages would not be received.
Rereading HEBREWS 3:
Yesterday we heard the quote from Ps. 95 that forms the basis for this section. It is because I want the quoted content of this chapter firmly in our minds that I scheduled this chapter to be read twice. The failure of the Israelites was their refusal to believe in the Lord and what He told them. Believing is a volitional act.
GNT Translation notes:
Is. 7:3 The Lord said to [me//Isaiah], “Take your son Shear Jashub, and go to meet King Ahaz. You will find him on the road where the cloth makers work, at the end of the ditch that brings water from the upper pool.
13 To that [I//Isaiah] replied, “Listen, now, descendants of King David. It's bad enough for you to wear out the patience of people—do you have to wear out God's patience too?
====
Heb. 3:1 My [dear fellow believers//Christian friends], who also have been called by God! Think of Jesus, whom God sent [as his representative, and whom we profess as our High Priest// to be the High Priest of the faith we profess].
7 So then, as the Holy Spirit says, “[When//If] you hear [the Lord’s//God's] voice today,
8 do not be stubborn, as your ancestors were when they rebelled against [me//God], as they were that day in the desert when they put [me//him] to the test.
|19 We see, then, that they were not able to enter the land, because they [refused to//did not] believe.
EZEKIEL 22:
Yesterday we heard of the sword of the Lord, which was to come to Jerusalem, actually in the form of the army of the king of Babylon. And there would be punishment also for the Ammonites.
ISAIAH 6:
In yesterday’s reading, we heard one of the famous chapters that relate to Israel as the Lord’s vine. This would have been in the minds of those who listened to Jesus when he gave his teaching about the vine bearing fruit in John 15. God said yesterday, “They will go into exile because they do not know me.”
HEBREWS 3:
In Hebrews 2 we heard the first of the writer’s warnings. The writer’s increasingly strong warnings are a persistent theme in this book. And for the first time we heard that Jesus is our perfect High Priest. Jesus is perfect for that position because he fully shared our human existence, and he suffered and defeated the devil’s power over death.
GNT Translation note:
Heb. 3:1 My [dear fellow believers//Christian friends], who also have been called by God! Think of Jesus, whom God sent [as his representative, and whom we profess as our High Priest// to be the High Priest of the faith we profess].
7 So then, as the Holy Spirit says [quoting God’s words], “If you hear [my//God's] voice today,
8 do not be stubborn, as your ancestors were when they rebelled against [me//God], as they were that day in the desert when they put [me//him] to the test.
19 We see, then, that they were not able to enter the land, because they [refused to//did not] believe.
EZEKIEL 21:
Yesterday we saw that the Lord was quite offended when unrighteous leaders of Israel came to ask for a message from the Lord! And Ezekiel begged to not have to give a highly figurative message because the people complained that he was always speaking in riddles.
ISAIAH 5:
Yesterday there was a temporary break in the clouds in Isaiah, and we heard the first hint about the Righteous Branch who was to come.
HEBREWS 2:
Yesterday we heard the amazing prologue in the first chapter of Hebrews. Angels are nowhere approaching the majesty of Jesus. And Jesus was given many glorious promises.
GNT/NLT Translation notes:
[Heb. 2:5 is one of the most frequently misunderstood verses in this book! (To show the misunderstanding, I quote the NLT below. The GNT fixes the problem for both readers and listeners.) People are so used to understanding the title ‘the Son of Man’ as referring to Jesus, that they they don’t realize that that is NOT the meaning here! I believe that this is the only place in the New Testament where the main Hebrew meaning of ‘son of man’ is used— which simply means ‘an ordinary human’ (or ‘mortal man’ as God calls Ezekiel in the GNT). In this chapter, the author was highlighting the difference between us and angelic beings.]
5 NLT And furthermore, it is not angels who will control the future world we are talking about. 6 For in one place the Scriptures say,
“What are mere mortals that you should think about them,
or a son of man [— an ordinary human,] that you should care for him?
[Note that NLT has ‘son of man’ without capitals. But only one actually viewing the text can see the capitals. Listeners can’t see them.]
7 GNT Yet you made them [— humans,] only a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.
8 You gave them authority over all things…”
Now when it says “all things,” it means nothing is left out. But we have not yet seen all things put under [the authority of mankind//their authority].
EZEKIEL 20:
In yesterday’s reading in Ezekiel, the Lord refuted the saying that the Israelite’s were using, “The parents have eaten sour grapes, but their children’s mouths pucker at the taste.” And then Ezekiel conveyed two poems about the kings of Judah, spoken of symbolically as two lion cubs and like a vine.
ISAIAH 3:24—4:
Isaiah, like Ezekiel, also spoke of Israel like a vine, and in yesterday’s reading the Lord and Isaiah characterized Israel as a pampered, vain, and spoiled woman.
HEBREWS 1:In heaven, I hope to find out who it was who wrote the book of Hebrews. The book doesn’t show signs of Pauline authorship. Important in this, there is no salutation like in all of Paul’s letters. Also, the writer does not claim to have been an eyewitness of Christ (2:3), as Paul claimed. The letter was probably written somewhat before AD 70, because even though the author talks much of the temple, he never mentions its destruction.
Mears points out that the word ‘better’ occurs 10 times, signalling a theme that Christians have been given a better way. In the first chapter the theme is that Christ is supreme and far superior to angels.
For many years I wondered why the writer did not return to his theme of our ‘place of rest’, which he gives in chapters 3-4. Now I think that he does in fact return to that theme! See if you can find it as we read through! And here’s a hint: Note that Israel’s ancestors failed to enter the place of rest because of their refusal to believe God. Hebrews 11 (which is called the Faith Chapter) shows that we enter that place of rest through fully believing God. (That is what faith is!)
EZEKIEL 18-19:
Yesterday in Ezekiel we read the riddle of the two eagles, portraying Israel’s king breaking his sworn covenant with Babylon. There is a lesson here for us. Normally Babylon would be considered the enemy, and getting free from the enemy would be considered a good thing. But NOT SO if the country has made a promise of loyalty sealed by a vow taken in God’s name! Faithfulness to oaths and promises in God’s name take precedence over ‘business as usual’.
ISAIAH 3:
These famous words from yesterday’s chapter in Isaiah bear repeating today:
Is. 2:2 GNT In days to come
the mountain where the Temple stands
will be the highest one of all,
towering above all the hills.
Many nations will come streaming to it,
3 and their people will say,
“Let us go up the hill of the Lord,
to the Temple of Israel's God.
He will teach us what he wants us to do;
we will walk in the paths he has chosen.
For the Lord's teaching comes from Jerusalem;
from Zion he speaks to his people.”
4 He will settle disputes among great nations.
They will hammer their swords into plows
and their spears into pruning knives.
Nations will never again go to war,
never prepare for battle again.
JUDE:
We come today to the little epistle from Jude, the brother of Jesus. But, significantly, he doesn’t call himself Jesus’ half-brother. He calls himself the Slave of Christ Jesus. Jude wrote his letter around the same time as 2 Peter, sometime around AD 60-80. I think that Peter borrowed material from Jude, rather than the other way around. One thing that makes me think this is that Jude uses more material from extra-biblical sources than Peter does in 2 Peter 2. Jude and Peter were writing in a very difficult time for Christians, and Jude calls us to contend for the ‘faith’— the teachings that God has given to us to fully believe.
GNT Translation notes:
Jud. 3 My dear friends, I was doing my best to write to you about the salvation we share in common, when I felt the need of writing at once to encourage you to fight on for [our beliefs— the true teachings//the faith] which once and for all God has given to his people.
20 [PET But my beloved Brothers and Sisters, each of you should strengthen one another so that you continue to fully believe in the holy teachings you have received. Keep on praying with the help of the Holy Spirit.//GNT But you, my friends, keep on building yourselves up on your most sacred [beliefs//faith]. Pray in the power of the Holy Spirit,]
EZEKIEL 17:
Yesterday’s chapter graphically portrayed how God considers idolatry like the adultery of a faithless wife. Jerusalem (as Judah’s capital) was compared— in a very unflattering way, to her two sister cities, Samaria and Sodom.
ISAIAH 2:
In the first chapter of Isaiah, we heard the Lord compare Israel to Sodom and Gomorrah. And we heard how the Lord hates false religious rituals, including the sacrifices that were specified in the Law. If these are done without a corresponding attempt to live in God’s will, they are a stench to Him.
MATTHEW 28:
Yesterday’s reading ended with Jesus’s body wrapped in a shroud and laid in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb. The tomb was sealed and Roman soldiers were standing guard.
GNT Translation note:
Mat. 28:1 After the Sabbath, as Sunday morning was dawning, Mary[— the one from the village of Magdalene//Magdalene] and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
EZEKIEL 16:This book should make modern day ‘prophets’ reconsider what they do in the Lord’s name. In this book we have heard again and again that the Lord will punish those who prophesy falsely. And in the part about the wood of a vine being useless in yesterday’s reading, there is only one useful thing a grape vine does, and this is bear grapes. And God was saying that since Israel did not bear the proper fruit, He would judge them, and do this without delay. The complaints become even more graphic in today’s reading.
ISAIAH 1:For a number of years now, Isaiah has marked the end of my year. We will be reading Isaiah in our poetry portions until day number 365. Since I start my readings anew every January 1st, I always enjoy the preparation Isaiah gives for Christmas, and also the correspondences with Revelation in the New Testament, which we also will read at the end of our reading calendar.
Isaiah was written between 739 and 681 BC. I am of the opinion that the break in material at chapter 40 does not signal a different author. Isaiah simply was older and the Lord gave him different messages at the end of his life. Isaiah was a man of royal blood and of high standing.
In the New Testament, Isaiah is the most frequently quoted OT book. Isaiah has 66 chapters and the Bible has 66 books. Further, Isaiah dIvides just where the testaments break, with 40 corresponding to Matthew in the NT. The first part of Isaiah deals with God’s judgment on Judah and on other nations. The senselessness of idolatry is preached against all the way through Isaiah. In Isaiah we can also see two comings for Christ, with Isaiah giving the wonderful 53rd chapter about the suffering Servant (Christ), and his coming in power is spoken about in chapter 34.
MATTHEW 27b:
Today we hear the second half of the crucifixion events.
GNT Translation note:
Ez. 16:23 The Sovereign Lord [says//said], “You are doomed! Doomed! You did all that evil, and then
====
Mat. 27:40 “You were going to tear down the Temple and build it back up in three days! [Go on and] Save yourself if you are God's Son! Come on down from the cross!”
56 Among them were Mary [from the village of Magdala//Magdalene], Mary the mother of James and Joseph ([who were Jesus’ half-brothers//0]), and the wife of Zebedee.
EZEKIEL 14-15:
The title that the Lord calls Ezekiel is ‘son of man’, which the Lord is using in the normal sense, meaning ‘ordinary human’. The title for Jesus— ‘Son of Man’, is a special usage. For that, check out Daniel 7.
Note in yesterday’s reading when Ezekiel acted out how King Zedekiah would go into exile, Ezekiel covered his eyes. It was revealed to Ezekiel that Zedekiah would go to Babylon but not see it. This was fulfilled since Zedekiah had his eyes blinded after watching his sons’ deaths. This also fulfilled the prophecy against his sons.
In verses 15 and 20, GNT followed the liberal side of Biblical scholarship in identifying Daniel the prophet as Danel, the Ugaritic mythical hero. Daniel was a contemporary of Ezekiel who arrived in Babylon only 8 years before Ezekiel was in exile at the Chebar river. Even so, I think it very plausible that Daniel’s miraculous deeds (publicized even in the king’s proclamations) would have made him famous in that day. And the remote Ugaritic figure named Danel was not famed to be righteous, as would be necessary in today’s passage. See these articles for more information.
Article: Did Ezekiel know Daniel?
Wallace: Who is Ezekiel’s Daniel?
SONG OF SOLOMON 8:
Yesterday we heard more passionate expressions of love, and today is the final chapter of Solomon’s Song.
MATTHEW 27a:
I imagine that as the high priest tore his clothes and shouted ‘blasphemy’ that his expression was not one of grief, but of triumph. And Peter recognized that Jesus was to be sentenced to death when he denied Christ.
GNT Translation note:
Mat. 27:34 There they offered [to] Jesus wine mixed with a bitter substance; but after tasting it, he would not drink it.
EZEKIEL 12-13:In yesterday’s reading, the vision of the glory of the Lord left the temple. Then God disagreed with what the leaders of the Israelites were saying, that they were safe in the ‘pot’ of Jerusalem.
SONG OF SOLOMON 7:
As we heard yesterday, the bride is captivating in beauty, and so radiant that she is compared to the sun and moon.
MATTHEW 26b:
In yesterday’s reading we heard about these events: the plot to kill Jesus, Jesus being anointed at Bethany, the Last Supper, and Peter vowing that he would never deny Jesus.
GNT Translation notes:
Mat. 26:45 Then he returned to the disciples and said, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look! The hour has come for [me,] the Son of Man[,] to be handed over to the power of sinners.
64 Jesus answered him, “So you say. But I tell all of you: from this time on you will see [me,] the Son of Man[,] sitting at the right side of the Almighty and coming on the clouds of heaven!”
EZEKIEL 10-11:
Yesterday in chapters 8-9 we heard the story of Ezekiel’s being transported to Jerusalem and his awesome vision of our glorious God revealing the idolatry of Israel happening right at the temple. Some of the locations shown are literal, and some are to be taken figuratively. One clearly sees that God has every right to be highly offended. Note that the people sharing God’s grief at this idolatrous situation received a mark on their foreheads.
SONG OF SOLOMON 6:
Yesterday in chapter 5, we heard the young woman relating her dream.
MATTHEW 26a:
Yesterday we heard Jesus’ direct and clear teaching about the final judgment. This was no parable. And note the words, “eternal punishment.”
GNT Translation note:
Mat. 26:14 Then one of the twelve disciples— [Judas, the one from the village of Karioth//the one named Judas Iscariot] —went to the chief priests
24 [I,] The Son of Man will die as the Scriptures say [I//he] will, but how terrible for that man who will betray [me//the Son of Man]! It would have been better for that man if he had never been born!”
EZEKIEL 8-9:
Terrible destruction is prophesied against Judah and Jerusalem. The trumpet will sound the battle call, but no one will get ready, because they are under God’s wrath.
SONG OF SOLOMON 5:
Yesterday the young man extolled the perfection of his bride.
MATTHEW 25b:
Yesterday in Matthew 25, we heard two parables that speak about being ready for Christ’s return. Something that is repeated in the parables on this topic is that, “outside there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Jesus is by that teaching an important idea: That the punishment in hell will be conscious punishment (shown by the weeping), and it will be painful (as shown by the gnashing of teeth).
GNT Translation notes:
[As in other places, I modify the text from verse 31 on so that Jesus talks about himself in the first person instead of the third person. Jesus’ audience by now knew that he was referring to himself as “the Son of Man”. Note that in Ezekiel the Lord often calls Ezekiel in Hebrew “son of man.” If you are reading or listening to the GNT, those words are translated correctly as “Mortal Man.” God was using those words in their normal sense, as it is used in Daniel 7. But every time Jesus used that title He was using it in a special sense— in effect saying, “I am the One Daniel saw.”]
EZEKIEL 6-7:
In yesterday’s reading Ezekiel portrayed the punishment of Israel and the siege on Jerusalem for a total of 430 days. Then he took a razor and cut his hair and divided it into three parts with a little left over. This was used as a demonstration that a third of the people would die in the city from disease and famine. A third will be killed by the enemy outside the city, and the last third will be scattered by the sword. A small remnant will be saved.
SONG OF SOLOMON 4:
Yesterday the woman had an extended speech. Today it is the man’s turn.
MATTHEW 25a:
Yesterday was Jesus’ extended teaching about the end times and His own return, and the parables about our Being READY to receive our Master. And at the beginning of this chapter, we have one of my favorite parables.
GNT Translation note:
Mat. 25:13 And Jesus concluded, “Watch out, then, because you do not know the day or the hour [of my return].
EZEKIEL 4-5:
In Ezekiel 2-3 God commissioned Ezekiel to speak for God to the rebellious people of Israel. God fed Ezekiel a scroll. This tasted sweet, but afterwards I think he would tell us that it produced “bitterness”— as we will see with John who eats a similar scroll in Revelation. God gave these important words to Ezekiel in yesterday’s reading:
Ez. 3:10 NLT …“Son of man, let all my words sink deep into your own heart first. Listen to them carefully for yourself.
SONG OF SOLOMON 3:
As we have seen, this Song of Songs is high poetry. The woman’s stories— such as what we hear today, are better taken as poetic expressions of her deep love than as true narratives.
MATTHEW 24b:
Jesus said, “Immediately after those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will give no light.” Here is a story from 2014, the first year I was recording these podcasts. I wrote: Just three days ago, in the evening, I was with the Orya people at an open-air youth retreat. The pastor pointed out that the Bible says the moon will turn into blood (or be the color of blood). He had come from town and is not an Orya speaker. He told the people that he had seen that morning on the Internet that on that very night there would be a “blood moon”— or a lunar eclipse where the moon would turn red like blood. And while he was speaking about that and other end-times signs, sure enough, it happened! Nothing like God managing a visual presentation for you! I have never seen a more moving sight.
GNT Translation notes:
Mat. 24:15 “You will see ‘The Awful Horror’ of which the prophet Daniel spoke. It will be standing in the holy place.” ([May the one who reads out loud note this and explain it to those who listen!//Note to the reader: understand what this means!])
27 For [when I,] the Son of Man, [come, it will be//will come] like the lightning which flashes across the whole sky from the east to the west.
30 Then the sign of the Son of Man [(my sign)] will appear in the sky; and all the peoples of earth will weep as they see [me//the Son of Man] coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 The great trumpet will sound, and [I//he] will send out [my//his] angels to the four corners of the earth, and they will gather [my//his] chosen people from one end of the world to the other.
37 [My//The] coming [as//of] the Son of Man will be like what happened in the time of Noah.
yet they did not realize what was happening until the flood came and swept them all away.
39 That is how it will be when [I,] the Son of Man[, come// comes].
44 So then, you also must always be ready, because [my coming as] the Son of Man will come at an hour when you are not expecting [me//him].
EZEKIEL 2-3:
Yesterday Ezekiel described his vision of the four cherubim, and the chapter ended just as Ezekiel started hearing a Voice. The last verse ends of chapter 1 says:
Ezk. 1:28b GNT When I saw this, I fell face downward on the ground. Then I heard a voice
SONG OF SOLOMON 2:
Song of Solomon has many speaking parts for the woman, the man, and the chorus parts for people of Jerusalem or the other young women.
MATTHEW 24a:
After a full chapter (chapter 23) of Jesus’ stern and harsh criticism and warning to his enemies— the Pharisees and teachers of religious law, Jesus teaches his disciples about what will happen in the future. Some of these warnings are about what will happen to Jerusalem 40 years after Jesus was crucified. But will those prophecies be the kind that will be re-fulfilled at the end times?
GNT Translation notes:
Mat. 24:10 Many will [stop believing in Me//give up their faith] at that time; they will betray one another and hate one another.
15 “You will see ‘The Awful Horror’ of which the prophet Daniel spoke. It will be standing in the holy place.” ([May the one who reads out loud note this and explain it to those who listen!//Note to the reader: understand what this means!])
27 For [when I,] the Son of Man, [come, it will be//will come] like the lightning which flashes across the whole sky from the east to the west.
30 Then the sign of the Son of Man [(my sign)] will appear in the sky; and all the peoples of earth will weep as they see [me//the Son of Man] coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 The great trumpet will sound, and [I//he] will send out [my//his] angels to the four corners of the earth, and they will gather [my//his] chosen people from one end of the world to the other.
I hope that it will be interesting to you to share 14 verses that rang a bell for me this year. In collecting these verses, until recently I didn’t plan on sharing these with you. Rather, this is more like letting you see verses I wanted to use to preach to myself.
Stay tuned at the end. I would like YOU to share your favorites with me!
Random:GW'20 Proverbs 29:2
2 When righteous people increase, the people ⌞of God⌟ rejoice, but when a wicked person rules, everybody groans.
I’ve heard many groans this year. Remember, by the way, that when the nations of Israel and Judah sinned, one way that the Lord repeatedly punished them was by giving them bad kings.
GW'20 2 Chronicles 26:16
16 But when he became powerful, his pride destroyed him. …
My thought here is that some things have gone well in my life and ministry this year. But I pray that I can avoid pride, because it is such a trap and so dangerous.
How King Uzziah must have regretted going into the temple to burn his own incense during all the remaining years of his life, excluded from visiting the temple, living in a separate house, and receiving reports of how his son was ruling in his place!
PCF Ecclesiastes 10:1
1 One dead fly can make a whole bottle of perfume stink. Even so, a little foolishness can outweigh great wisdom and honor.
I am at the place in my life where I want to finish well. I want to leave behind a good smell (so to speak) when people remember me. The word ‘foolishness’ in Proverbs refers to bone-headed refusal to obey God. The last thing I want to do is to mess up at the finish line. A little stupidity at the end can leave a stench that obliterates a God-honoring testimony.
GW'20 Proverbs 14:14
14 A heart that turns ⌞from God⌟ becomes bored with its own ways, but a good person is satisfied with God’s ways.
When I struggle with impure thoughts, it helps me to think that if I gave myself up to follow the cravings of my lower nature, my joy in that kind of a lifestyle would last about 10 minutes. Boredom would come so quickly, and eventually I am sure I would repent. But the resulting wound of remorse in my heart would never totally heal.
Faith:
PCF/GW Proverbs 23:17-18
17 Do not envy sinners in your heart.
Instead, continue to fear the LORD.
18 There is indeed a future for you,
and your hope will not be crushed.
I picked this verse to use in preaching to myself. I don’t often envy sinners, but just the good fortunes of others. A powerful thing to remember when tempted to envy or lust is that I have a really fantastic future promised by God. The hoped for outcomes there are safe, in that place where moths and rust don’t ruin things. Don’t look back. Keep looking forward! The next verse tells us what we are gazing at.
PCF/NLT 1 Peter 1:8-9
8 You love him,
even though you have never seen Him.
And even though you do not see Him,
you believe in Him
and celebrate with glorious joy
that goes beyond anything words can say,
9 since you are receiving the proper goal of your faith,
namely, the rescue of your lives.
Love Him. Don’t forget your rescue, and the privilege you have in knowing Jesus through all of God’s Word. Keep hold of joy!
PCF/GW Matthew 12:39
39A He responded, “The people of an evil and unfaithful era demand miraculous signs. …
There is a reason why the Lord gives miracles sparingly. Miracles may help give someone's belief an initial nudge, but miracles never grow mature faith. People who seek to go from one miracle to another (if the Lord permits that to happen) continue to need to be spoon-fed. Most of the heroes of faith in chapter 11 of Hebrews did not receive what they trusted God for. They developed a faith that could stand any test
Planning:
NET Luke 14:28
28 Which of you, wanting to build a tower, doesn’t sit down first and compute the cost? …
This verse is leading up to Jesus’ teaching about counting the cost of being his disciple. However, let me make a tangential point: Some people have gotten the idea that Christians shouldn’t plan anything, but just be led by God without planning. I believe that this is totally false. A parent doesn’t want to always have to tell his child to take a bath or to go to bed. God wants his children launched into this world prayerfully making their plans and moving ahead to complete them.
GW'20 Proverbs 16:3
3 Entrust your efforts to the LORD, and your plans will succeed.
Read that several times. So I ask you: What will happen if you don’t make any plans?
It’s a good idea to pray!
NET/PCF Matthew 7:11
11 If you then, though you are so sinful,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
just think how much more your Father in heaven
will give good gifts
to those who ask him!
So I ask again: What will happen if you don’t ask God for good gifts? (And by ‘gifts’ I mean the answer to prayers about plans you have made for glorifying God in your life.)
This is like NET Matthew 7:7
7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you.
I’ll pause in order for you to answer out loud. So what happens if you don’t knock,
don’t seek,
and don’t ask?!
ESV Hebrews 11:6
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
This is the foundation for receiving what you ask God for in prayer.
GW'20 Matthew 6:6
6 Whenever you pray, go to your room and close the door. Pray privately to your Father who is with you. Your Father sees what you do in private. He will reward you.
After those other verses, I might as well follow the same pattern and ask: What will happen if you DON’T go into your private place and pray?
There is a big promise there that I don’t want to fail to cash in on! Consider: We are going before the Almighty King of the Universe. Through Christ Jesus, we have the wonderful privilege to be able to appear before God the Father and make our requests. I take this verse literally and urge you to do so also. That is, actually go into a private room, actually close the door. Realizing that you are entering the throne room of God, do what people did throughout the pages of the Bible: Humble yourself and be reverent! Get down at least on your knees (if you are physically able to do this) or even bow down lower. Pray. Then rejoice in that promise.
ESV/PCF Psalms 145:18
18 The LORD is near to all who cry out to Him, to all who cry out sincerely.
The ESV says, ‘to all who cry out in truth.’ To me this means that we will not be just going through the motions, saying the right words, but not really meaning them. This is why I translate ‘in truth’ as ‘sincerely’. Sincere prayer is also believing prayer, like James 1 tells us.
I wrap up all that I have shared with this verse, Eccl 12:11. The ‘wise advisor’ in this verse is Solomon, and definitely not me. However we can extend the idea to the Lord being the wisest advisor.
The translation of this verse is my translation of how this verse comes out in the Plain Indonesian Translation.
PET Eccl. 12:11
The teaching of a wise advisor is like a shepherd’s stick
that is used to guide and direct his sheep.
May every saying given by this advisor and shepherd be nailed into the mind of every learner and guide them in living rightly.
Please pray for my visa to Indonesia to be granted, so that I can go there on November 2. If it is granted, I will need to quarantine for eight days in a hotel before being released to live like I normally do in Jakarta. Exciting things are happening there with the use of the Plain Indonesian New Testament.
Sometime before the end of the year I want to publish a podcast with YOU reading your favorite verse from this year. Here’s what to do: Use a voice recording app on your phone to record your favorite verse. Then say something about why that verse spoke to you. Try to limit your explanation to 3-5 sentences. I recommend going into an echo-free room, like maybe your clothes closet, and hold the phone away from where it will catch explosions of air when you say some words. Send the audio file to me at phil.fields@pbti.org.
May the Lord bless you ‘real good’.
Phil
EZEKIEL 1:
Yesterday in the last chapter of 2nd Chronicles, we heard of the quick succession of the kings of Judah at the very end before the exile to Babylon: Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. And after the fall of Jerusalem, chapter 36 also told of the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy about Cyrus, who gave the decree to rebuild the Temple of God. While Jeremiah prophesied about the fall of Babylon and specified the 70 year duration of the exile, it was Isaiah who mentioned King Cyrus by name— one of the most stunning of all prophecies.
Ezekiel was not only a prophet, but also a priest. When he was 25 years old, he was carried into exile in Babylon along with the upper class of people in 597 BC. Ezekiel was no doubt a pupil of Jeremiah before Ezekiel was taken into exile. The 48 chapters of this book are divided right in the middle.
*1-24 Pre-siege, prophecies about the destruction of Jerusalem.
*The second half can also be divided into two parts: Chapters 25-32 talk about after the fall of Jerusalem, prophecies dealing with the punishment of Judah’s enemies.
*33-48 Prophecies about the restoration of Judah.
Ezekiel is a book that is highly important for understanding the book of Revelation in the New Testament, because things that Ezekiel saw, John also saw.
SONG OF SOLOMON 1:
In this book Solomon extols how wonderful love is. This may be a series of wedding songs. (And Solomon needed such songs frequently!) The main question is: Is this book merely a series of songs calling for sexual faithfulness to one’s spouse? The well-known allegorical interpretation goes back at least to the Puritan period, but probably much farther to the church fathers. However, it seems to me that making this about Christ and the church is a bit forced. Certainly Solomon would not have written this with Christ and the church in mind. However it is possible that the Holy Spirit inspired Solomon to write things with allegorical meanings beyond his own understanding.
MATTHEW 23b:
Yesterday we heard the first part of Jesus’ invective against the Pharisees and teachers of religious law. Jesus told the truth. In a way, it was a loving act— to warn them. He already knew that these were the very men who would crucify him.
2CHRONICLES 36:
Josiah’s Passover celebration showed wonderful ability to get everyone to work together and great organizational talent. It is the capstone of the revival that he led. Unfortunately, he was stubborn about going to war with Pharaoh Neco, which cost him both his own life and his son’s life.
ECCLESIASTES 12:
Yesterday’s short chapter recorded proverbial advice to young and old, and that theme continues in today’s reading.
MATTHEW 23a:
In yesterday’s reading Jesus roundly defeated the Sadducees, telling them that they did not know the Scriptures or the power of God. He answered the question about the most important Law, and he asked the question no one could answer.
GNT Translation notes:
Ecc. 12:8 Useless, useless, [says I,//said] the Philosopher. It is all useless.
9 But because [I,] the Philosopher [have been//was] wise, [I//he] kept on teaching the people what [I know//he knew]. [I//He] studied proverbs and honestly tested their truth.
10 [I have//The Philosopher] tried to find comforting words, but the words [I have written are at least//he wrote were] honest.
2CHRONICLES 35:
It is simply amazing that we have books like Deuteronomy, since we see that it (or perhaps Leviticus) was almost lost. And it shows how far Judah had slipped that they didn’t know of any copies. Josiah sincerely repented after hearing God’s Word.
ECCLESIASTES 11:
Yesterday’s chapter of Ecclesiastes was mainly separate proverbs. As an example I quote verse 3, which I like in the NLT:
Ecc. 10:3 NLT You can identify fools just by the way they walk down the street!
MATTHEW 22b:
Jesus told a pointed parable yesterday in the one about the King’s wedding feast for his son. And the people sent by the Pharisees with friends of King Herod failed miserably to trap Jesus. And why did the man at the wedding feast get thrown out for not wearing wedding clothes? If you don’t know the answer, there’s a golden treasure there waiting for you to find it.
GNT Translation notes:
2Chr. 35:15 [NET The musicians, the descendants of Asaph, manned their posts, as prescribed by [King] David, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun the king’s prophet.// GNT The following musicians of the Levite clan of Asaph were in the places assigned to them by King David's instructions: Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, the king's prophet.] The guards at the Temple gates did not need to leave their posts, because the other Levites prepared the Passover for them.
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Ecc. 11:3 GNT Their stupidity will be evident even to strangers they meet along the way; they let everyone know that they are fools.
[One can be sure that ESV is overly literal with the last phrase, “he says to everyone that he is a fool.” I’ve met plenty of fools, and such a person doesn’t actually “let everyone know” (GNT) that he/she is a fool. CEV is also correct that ‘walking’ might best be taken in its other more general meaning of ‘live’.]
3 CEV Fools show their stupidity by the way they live; it’s easy to see they have no sense.
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Mat. 22:1 NLT That same day Jesus was approached by some Sadducees— [who are] religious leaders who say there is no resurrection from the dead. They posed this question:// GNT That same day some Sadducees came to Jesus and claimed that people will not rise from death.]
45 If, then, David called him ‘[my] Lord,’ how can the Messiah [just] be David's descendant?”
2CHRONICLES 34:
We are definitely in the back-and-forth pendulum period of Judah. After one fantastic king, the next two were terrible. And now Josiah is again like David.
ECCLESIASTES 10:
Here is a highlight from yesterday’s reading:
Ecc. 9:11 GNT I realized another thing, that in this world fast runners do not always win the races, and the brave do not always win the battles. The wise do not always earn a living, intelligent people do not always get rich, and capable people do not always rise to high positions. Bad luck happens to everyone.
MATTHEW 22a:
With the parable of the two sons and the parable of the evil farmers, we are in the portion of Jesus’ teaching where he both warns and confronts his enemies, showing divine wisdom that none can refute.
2CHRONICLES 33:
The account in 2 Chronicles of Hezekiah’s victory through prayer over the vast Assyrian army is summarized. It is much more dramatically related in 2nd Kings. Hezekiah’s experience with the envoys from Babylon can also be used as a spiritual parable for us. We need to be careful what we just accept as fate, without asking God for something better.
ECCLESIASTES 9:
A nugget of exceptional wisdom from Solomon was in yesterday’s reading, and it brings with it a problem in translation. I like how GNT made the overall pessimistic meaning clear by including quote marks in 12-13. NLT does not interpret that part as an argumentative quote and casts the meaning in an optimistic light.
Ecc. 8:11 GNT Why do people commit crimes so readily? Because crime is not punished quickly enough.
12 A sinner may commit a hundred crimes and still live. Oh yes, I know what they say: “If you obey God, everything will be all right,
13 but it will not go well for the wicked. Their life is like a shadow and they will die young, because they do not obey God.”
14 But this is nonsense. Look at what happens in the world: sometimes the righteous get the punishment of the wicked, and the wicked get the reward of the righteous. I say it is useless.
MATTHEW 21b:
In yesterday’s reading in chapter 21, we heard of the triumphant entry, Jesus cleansing the Temple and cursing the fig tree, and the question about what right he had to do such a thing like cleansing the Temple.
NLT/GNT Translation note:
Mat. 21:32 [NLT For John the Baptist came and showed you the right way to live, but you didn’t believe him, while tax collectors and prostitutes did. And even when you saw [that miraculous thing//this] happening, you refused to believe him and repent of your sins.//GNT For John the Baptist came to you showing you the right [way to live//path to take], and you would not believe him; but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. Even when you saw [that miraculous thing//this], you [refused to believe him and repent did not later change your minds and believe him.]
2CHRONICLES 32:
Following that special Passover, the people went home and destroyed all the pagan shrines. And a good summary of chapter 31 is the last verse:
2Chr. 31:21 He was successful, because everything he did for the Temple or in observance of the Law, he did in a spirit of complete loyalty and devotion to his God.
ECCLESIASTES 8:
Yesterday’s chapter of Ecclesiastes included quite a variety of Solomon’s proverbs, including:
Ecc. 7:5 GNT It is better to have wise people reprimand you than to have stupid people sing your praises.
20 There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake.
MATTHEW 21a:
The first will be last, the last first. I think we will be amazed at the justice of God’s rewards. And in some sense, we all will receive “a fair day’s pay.” The meaning of that parable was matched and furthered by the story of the mother of James and John and what Jesus said to them.
GNT Translation note:
Mat. 21:1 As Jesus and his disciples approached Jerusalem, they came to Bethphage at the Mount of Olives. There Jesus sent two of [us//the] disciples on ahead
16 So they asked Jesus, “Do you hear what they are saying?” “Indeed I do,” answered Jesus. “Haven't you ever read this scripture [when the writer said to God]? ‘You have trained children and babies to offer perfect praise.’”
2CHRONICLES 31:
A sign of how far Judah and Israel had wandered from the Lord was that even the Passover was not celebrated. When Hezekiah reinstituted the Passover celebration, it was the start of a real revival.
ECCLESIASTES 7:
I find it interesting that Solomon would say that everything has been decided beforehand. GNT certainly implied Who it was who decided beforehand, but NLT makes that explicit:
Ecc. 6:10 NLT Everything has already been decided. It was known long ago what each person would be. So there’s no use arguing with God about your destiny.
Not about the issue of destiny, but about another key point presented in chapter 6, I think that Solomon would have taken back some of his words if he could have listened to what Jesus taught in yesterday’s reading in Matthew.
MATTHEW 20:
In yesterday’s reading, Jesus taught how evil divorce is, He blessed children (because they are so close to the kingdom of God), and He taught about the difficulty for rich people in this world to enter the Kingdom of God. And at the end of chapter 19, he gave that promise that all missionaries love, the one about the eternal rewards that will be given to those who leave their families and possessions for the Kingdom of God.
GNT Translation notes:
Mat. 20:7 ‘No one hired us,’ they answered. ‘Well, then, you go and work in [my//the] vineyard,’ he told them.
16 And Jesus concluded, “[Even so, at the end//So] those who are [now] last will be first, and those who are first will be last.”
17 As Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took [us,] the twelve disciples[,] aside and spoke to [us//them] privately, as [we//they] walked along.
18 “Listen,” he told [us//them], “we are going up to Jerusalem, where [I,] the Son of Man[,] will be handed over to the chief priests and the teachers of the Law. They will condemn [me//him] to death
19 and then hand [me//him] over to the Gentiles, who will make fun of [me//him], whip [me//him], and crucify [me//him]; but three days later [I//he] will be raised to life.”
22 “You don't know what you are asking for,” Jesus answered the [two] sons. “Can you drink the cup of suffering that I am about to drink?” “We can,” they answered.
28 [For even [I,] the Son of Man,//like the Son of Man, who] did not come to be served, but to serve and to give [my//his] life to redeem many people.”
32 Jesus stopped and called [to] them [to come and then asked them,//.] “What do you want me to do for you?” [0//he asked them.]
2CHRONICLES 30:
Hezekiah led a wonderful spiritual revival which included the reopening and cleansing of the temple and the resumption of sacrifices. And he wasted no time in doing those things.
ECCLESIASTES 6:
Solomon gave wonderful conclusions about happiness in yesterday’s reading. And he also observed that we leave the world as naked and empty-handed as when we came into the world.
MATTHEW 19:
Yesterday’s portion of Matthew 18 included the important parable about the king and the forgiven servant who did not forgive the debt of his fellow servant.
GNT Translation notes:
Mat. 19:13 Some people brought children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and to pray for them, but [we//the] disciples scolded the people.
25 When [we//the] disciples heard this, [we//they] were completely amazed [and asked]. “Who, then, can be saved?” [0//they asked.]
26 Jesus looked straight at [us//them] and answered, “This is impossible for human beings, but for God everything is possible.”
28 Jesus said to [us//them], “You can be sure that when [I,//the] Son of Man [sit on my//sits on his] glorious throne in the New Age, then you twelve followers of mine will also sit on thrones, to rule the twelve tribes of Israel.
2CHRONICLES 29:
Ahaz’s rule was one of the darkest chapters in Judah’s history. The people didn’t even bury him in the royal cemetery. He closed the temple and put up places to worship Baal all over the country. Even when under severe punishment from the Lord, he never turned to the Lord for help.
ECCLESIASTES 5:
In yesterday’s chapter, I really like the passages that talk of having the companionship of 2 (or perhaps 3) people. And that idea was echoed by Jesus’ teaching about 2-3 gathered to promote Jesus’ cause.
MATTHEW 18b:
Yesterday we heard the passage that deals with following Jesus with child-like faith. And we heard instructions for restoring broken relationships, and what to do if reconciliation is not achieved.
GNT Translation note:
Ecc. 5:6 Don't let your own words lead you into sin, so that you have to tell God's priest that you didn't mean [something//it]. Why make God angry with you? Why let him destroy what you have worked for?
9 Even [the//a] king depends on the harvest.
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Mat. 18:20 For where two or three [of you] come together [because you want to glorify Me//in my name], I am there with [you//them].”
2CHRONICLES 28:
Yesterday we heard of the reign of Uzziah (who suffered a terrible punishment for his pride) and the reign of his son, Jotham. Both were basically good kings.
ECCLESIASTES 4:
Yesterday we heard the famous chapter of Ecclesiastes which starts with
Ecc. 3:1 (like NLT) For everything (turn, turn, turn) there is a season, (turn, turn, turn) a time for every activity under heaven.
GNT is very perceptive in bringing out some implicit information that would have been understood by Solomon’s audience, but which modern readers could easily miss in NLT’s translation, namely that God sets the seasons:
Ecc. 3:1 GNT Everything that happens in this world happens at the time God chooses.
2 He sets the time for birth and the time for death,
the time for planting and the time for pulling up,
MATTHEW 18a:
Yesterday in Matthew 17 we heard the story of the mount of transfiguration, the shorter story of the healing of the demon possessed boy right afterward, and we ended with Peter catching a fish to pay the temple tax for him and Jesus.
GNT Translation notes:
Mat. 18:1 At that time [we//the] disciples came to Jesus, asking, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?”
2 So Jesus called a child to come and stand in front of [us//them],
6 “If anyone should cause one of these little ones to [stop believing//lose his faith] in me, it would be better for that person to have a large millstone tied around his neck and be drowned in the deep sea.
7 How terrible for the world that there are things that make people [stop believing in me//lose their faith]! Such things will always happen—but how terrible for the one who causes them!
8 “If your hand or your foot makes you [stop believing//lose your faith], cut it off and throw it away! It is better for you to enter life without a hand or a foot than to keep both hands and both feet and be thrown into the eternal fire.
9 And if your eye makes you [stop believing//lose your faith], take it out and throw it away! It is better for you to enter life with only one eye than to keep both eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.
20 For where two or three [of you] come together [because you want to glorify Me//in my name], I am there with [you//them].”
2CHRONICLES 26-27:
King Joash didn’t end so well, did he?! He killed Jehoiadah’s son Zechariah. When Jesus mentioned killing prophets A through Z, that Zechariah was the Z that he mentioned by name. Time and time again Judah’s kings needed to learn not to be proud, and that certainly happened to Joash’s son Amaziah, who was assassinated like his father.
ECCLESIASTES 3:
Chapter 2 ended with a significant conclusion or two:
Ecc. 2:24 GNT The best thing we can do is eat and drink and enjoy what we have earned. And yet, I realized that even this comes from God.
25 How else could you have anything to eat or enjoy yourself at all?
26 God gives wisdom, knowledge, and happiness to those who please him, but he makes sinners work, earning and saving, so that what they get can be given to those who please him. It is all useless. It is like chasing the wind.
MATTHEW 16:24—17:
Yesterday we heard the words that remind me of Jim Elliot’s words, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” We’ll start by re-reading those words of Jesus at the end of chapter 16, so that we get a good transition to chapter 17.
2CHRONICLES 24-25:
Yesterday we heard of Ahaziah’s one year reign, and then his mother Athaliah’s reign. The baby Joash was the only royal descendant of David saved from slaughter. He was raised in the temple by Jehoiada and Jehosheba. When he reached only seven years old, Jehoiada mounted a dangerous coup, which succeeded.
ECCLESIASTES 2:
In yesterday’s reading, Solomon sought to find meaning in life through pleasure, folly, wine, and hard work. But both the wise man and the fool share the same fate (as far as Solomon could see).
MATTHEW 16:
In yesterday’s reading, Matthew gave more than one hint that Jesus’ work would benefit more than just the Jews. Note that the baskets used in the feeding of the 5,000 were different than the baskets used for the feeding of the 4,000. In the first miracle, the smaller Jewish basket was used. But in the feeding of the 4,000, the larger Gentile basket was used. (This was the same size basket that was used to lower Paul down from the wall at Damascus.)
GNT Translation notes:
Mat. 16:3 And early in the morning you say, ‘It is going to rain, because the sky is red and dark.’ You can predict the weather by looking at the sky, [so how come you aren’t able to//but you cannot] interpret the signs concerning these times[?]!
8 Jesus knew what [we//they] were saying, so he asked [us//them], “Why are you discussing among yourselves about not having any bread? [How little you believe in me!//What little faith you have!]
[Other third person references to the disciples in this chapter changed to 1st person plural to indicate that Matthew was present.]
13 Jesus went to the territory near the town of Caesarea Philippi, where he asked his disciples, [“What role do people say that I, the Son of Man, am fulfilling?//Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”]
14 “Some say [the role of] John the Baptist,” they answered. “Others say Elijah, while others say Jeremiah or some other prophet.”
15“What about you?” he asked them. “[What role do you say that I am fulfilling//Who do you say I am?]”
16 [Peter— also called Simon//Simon Peter] answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
19 I will give you the keys [to//of] the Kingdom of heaven; what you prohibit on earth will be prohibited in heaven, and what you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.”
23 Jesus turned around and said to Peter, “Get away from me, Satan! You are an obstacle in my way, because these thoughts of yours don't come from God, but from [a human point of view//human nature].”
27 NLT For [I,] the Son of Man will come with [my//his] angels in the glory of [my//his] Father and will judge all people according to their deeds.//GNT For the Son of Man is about to come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will reward each one according to his deeds.]
28 I assure you that there are some here who will not die until they have seen [me, the victorious Son of Man, coming to rule as king.//the Son of Man come as King.]”
2CHRONICLES 22-23:
Yesterday we heard of Jehoshaphat’s famous victory, accomplished only by prayer, worship, and the power of the Lord. Then his son Jehoram might possibly be Judah’s worst king, except for several at the very end of that kingdom.
ECCLESIASTES 2a:
Yesterday the theme of Ecclesiastes was given in these words:
Ecc. 2:2 NLT “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!”
15 What is wrong cannot be made right.
What is missing cannot be recovered.
18 The greater my wisdom, the greater my grief.
To increase knowledge only increases sorrow.
MATTHEW 15b:
In yesterday’s reading, the confrontation with the Jewish religious leaders about traditions of hand washing before eating led to Jesus’ revolutionary teaching about what defiles a person. It is what comes out of the heart that defiles people.
GNT Translation note:
Mat. 15:37 They all ate and had enough. Then [we//the] disciples took up seven [large] baskets full of pieces left over.
2CHRONICLES 20-21:
Yesterday we heard of Jehoshaphat wisely appointing judges, and he also travelled all over Israel personally encouraging people to follow the Lord.
ECCLESIASTES 1:
The book of Ecclesiastes is the record of Solomon seeking to find God in a worldly way. This is a book of worldly wisdom. Solomon repeatedly uses the key theme word ‘useless’ to describe our lives on earth. God had not given clear promises about how all mankind will live after death, and Solomon considers the afterlife an open question. Had he known what we know, his opinions on many things would have changed. He does finally come to the same conclusion found in Proverbs— namely that the best thing is to fear God and keep his commands.
MATTHEW 15a:
Yesterday we heard of John the Baptist’s beheading. Jesus retreated to the countryside, but a huge crowd followed him. Then he worked several powerful miracles— all of which hold clear symbolic meanings for us. It is worth the time to meditate on Jesus’ miracles!
GNT Translation notes:
2Chr. 20:8-9 [We, their descendants,//They] have lived here and have built [this//a] temple to honor you, knowing that if any disaster struck [us//them] to punish [us//them]—a war, an epidemic, or a famine—then [we//they] could come and stand in front of this Temple where you are worshiped. [We//They] could pray to you in [our//their] trouble, and you would hear [us//them] and rescue [us//them].
====
Mat. 15:8 ‘These people, says God, honor me with their words, but their heart[s are// is] really far away from me.
12 Then [we, his//the] disciples came to him and said, “Do you know that the Pharisees [were offended//had their feelings hurt] by what you said?”
14 “Don't worry about them! They are blind [people leading other blind people//leaders of the blind]; and when one blind man leads another, both fall into a ditch.”
15 Peter spoke up, “Explain [to us what you said about things that defile people.//this saying to us.]”
16 Jesus said to them, “CEV Don't any of you know what I am talking about by now?//You are still no more intelligent than the others.]
2CHRONICLES 19:
Yesterday we heard the story of how Jehoshaphat helped Ahab in battle. God had already spoken through a prophet that Ahab would meet his downfall and how the dogs would lick up his blood. This happened, as we already read in 1Kings 22, when they took his chariot back to Samaria.
PROVERBS 31b:
Speaking of a capable and virtuous wife, this chapter says:
Pro. 31:28 GNT Her children show their appreciation, and her husband praises her.
29 He says, “Many women are good wives, but you are the best of them all.”
MATTHEW 14:
Yesterday we heard of the final judgment at the end of time in two parables that spoke about a separation of humanity. And we heard of the pearl and the treasure— illustrating the joy of finding our salvation in Christ.
GNT Translation notes:
Mat. 14:3-6 Herodias —> Herodiana, as this makes her name sound like a woman’s name.
31 At once Jesus reached out and grabbed hold of him and said, “[How little you believe in me!//What little faith you have!] Why did you doubt?”
2CHRONICLES 18:Woops. Asa didn’t end nearly as well as he started. And his son Jehoshaphat starts out well, but makes unfortunate alliances.
PROVERBS 31a:
Today and tomorrow are our last two days in Proverbs. Verses 10-31 of chapter 31 comprise a Hebrew acrostic poem; each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Our highlighted verse today is verse 10. I like NLT’s translation better because the Hebrew word describing a good wife means more than just capable. It also includes valor and virtue.
Pro. 31:10 [NLT Who can find a virtuous and capable wife?
She is more precious than rubies.
//GNT 10How hard it is to find a capable wife! She is worth far more than jewels!]
MATTHEW 13b:
Yesterday we heard the first two major parables in Jesus’ teaching, and the reason why He spoke in parables.
GNT Translation notes:
Mat. 13:37 Jesus answered, “The man who sowed the good seed is [Me,] the Son of Man;
41 [I,] the Son of Man will send out [my//his] angels to gather up out of [my//his] Kingdom all those who cause people to sin and all others who do evil things,
42 and [the angels//they] will throw them into the fiery furnace, where they will cry and gnash their teeth.
58 Because they did not [believe in Him//have faith], he did not perform many miracles there.
2CHRONICLES 16-17:
Judah’s kingdom was truly blessed by Asa’s wise reign. The Lord rewarded the country for returning to Him.
PROVERBS 30b:
Today’s highlighted verse is
Pro. 30:20 NLT An adulterous woman consumes a man,
then wipes her mouth and says, “What’s wrong with that?”
MATTHEW 13a:
Jesus gave a stinging reply to his critics in yesterday’s reading. The part about a demon leaving a person and then returning with seven demons is often used to teach that there cannot be a spiritual vacuum in a person. But really, the main thing Jesus is ‘on about’ is illustrating what will happen to his critics.
2CHRONICLES 14-15:
Yesterday we heard the conclusion of Rehoboam’s reign, and the writer classed him as a wicked king. Then his son, King Abijah gave a truly amazing speech before his epic victory over Israel.
PROVERBS 30a:
Today I chose to highlight two verses:
Pro. 30:5 [NLT Every word of God proves true.
He is a shield to all who come to him for protection.
//GNT “God keeps every promise he makes. He is like a shield for all who seek his protection. ]
6 If you claim that he said something that he never said, he will reprimand you and show that you are a liar.”
MATTHEW 12b:
How ironic that the religious leaders would make a problem about picking and eating a few heads of wheat, or healing a man with just a word and no actions on the Sabbath, then on the Sabbath they went out and plotted to kill Jesus. That, is the kind of work that God forbids— not just on the Sabbath but any day of the week! Note that this wasn’t casual opposition.
GNT Translation notes:
Mat. 12:29 [NLT For who is powerful enough to enter the house of a strong man like Satan and plunder his goods? Only someone [like Me, who is] even stronger—someone who [can//could] tie him up and then plunder his house.//GNT “No one can break into a strong man's house and take away his belongings unless he first ties up the strong man; then he can plunder his house.]
32 Anyone who says something against [Me,] the Son of Man[,] can be forgiven; but whoever says something against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven—now or ever.
40 In the same way that Jonah spent three days and nights in the big fish, so will [I,] the Son of Man[,] spend three days and nights in the depths of the earth.
2CHRONICLES 12-13:
Yesterday we heard of David’s grandson, Rehoboam, and the unfortunate start to his reign. The northern tribes revolted and went with Jeroboam. Rehoboam seems to have made wise choices after that, at least for a short time.
PROVERBS 29b:
Today’s highlighted verse:
Pro. 29:23 GNT Arrogance will bring your downfall, but if you are humble, you will be respected.
MATTHEW 12a:
Yesterday’s reading included the judgements against the cities that refused to repent even though they witnessed Jesus’ miracles. Chapter 11 also includes Jesus’ prayer of thanksgiving, and closes with Jesus’ famous words:
Mat. 11:28 “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”
GNT Translation note:
Mat. 12:1 Not long afterward Jesus was walking through some wheat fields on a Sabbath. [We,] His disciples were hungry, so [we//they] began to pick heads of wheat and eat the grain.
4 He went into the house of God, and he and his men ate the bread offered to God, even though it was against the Law for them to eat it—only the priests [are//were] allowed to eat that bread.
8 for [I,] the Son of Man [am//is] Lord of the Sabbath.”
2CHRONICLES 10-11:
Yesterday we completed the story of Solomon’s achievements.
PROVERBS 29a:
A highlight for today:
Pro. 29:11 GNT Stupid people express their anger openly, but sensible people are patient and hold it back.
MATTHEW 11b:
Yesterday we heard Jesus’ teaching about John the Baptist.
GNT Translation notes:
Mat. 11:19 [But now I, the Son of Man have come, and I eat and drink (normally), and everyone says,//When the Son of Man came, he ate and drank, and everyone said,] ‘Look at this man! He is a glutton and wine drinker, a friend of tax collectors and other outcasts!’ God's wisdom, however, is shown to be true by its results.”
23 And as for you, Capernaum! Did you [think you would be lifted//want to lift yourself] up to heaven? You will be thrown down to hell! If the miracles which were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would still be in existence today!
25 At that time Jesus said, [NLT “O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding these things from those who think themselves wise and clever, and for revealing them to the childlike. //GNT “Father, Lord of heaven and earth! I thank you because you have shown to the unlearned what you have hidden from the wise and learned.]
26 [NLT Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way!//GNT Yes, Father, this was how you were pleased to have it happen.]
27 “My Father has given me all things. No one knows [Me, the Son,//the Son] except the Father, and no one knows the Father except [Me, his Son,//the Son] and those to whom [I choose//the Son chooses] to reveal him.
2CHRONICLES 9:
Yesterday we heard God’s famous response to Solomon, which is so often applied as a promise to America. It is stretching it past the breaking point to apply that promise to America. First of all, our country does not have a personal relationship with God like that of Israel in Solomon’s time. We also skate over all the conditions of humbling ourselves, turning from wicked ways, and praying. And we are not in the position of having made corporate sacrifices to the Lord.
PROVERBS 28b:
Here is today’s highlighted verse:
Pro. 28:26 GNT It is foolish to follow your own opinions. Be safe, and follow the teachings of wiser people.
MATTHEW 11a:
Jesus’ instructions to the disciples in chapter 10 show that He wants total commitment— even if it means dying in his service.
Mat. 10:38 NLT If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. 39 If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.
GNT Translation note:
Mat. 11:19 [But now I, the Son of Man have come, and I eat and drink (normally), and everyone says,//When the Son of Man came, he ate and drank, and everyone said,] ‘Look at this man! He is a glutton and wine drinker, a friend of tax collectors and other outcasts!’ God's wisdom, however, is shown to be true by its results.”
2CHRONICLES 7-8:
Yesterday we heard Solomon’s famous prayer at the dedication of the temple. He understood that the people would need forgiveness from the Lord, and requested the Lord’s mercy.
PROVERBS 28a:
Another favorite:
Pro. 28:8 NLT Income from charging high interest rates
will end up in the pocket of someone who is kind to the poor.
MATTHEW 10b:
Yesterday we heard the list of the twelve apostles, and the beginning of the instructions to them. It is clear that Jesus gave this message for all of us, not just the twelve. The word ‘apostle’ (which is a word transliterated from Greek) means ‘one sent with a message’ or a ‘representative’. This happens to be the exact meaning of a word transliterated from Latin: missionary.
GNT Translation notes:
2Chr. 8:4 GNT and fortified the city of Palmyra in the desert. He rebuilt all the cities in Hamath that were centers for storing supplies.
[GNT uses the name Palmyra is called by today, which comes from its Greek name. In the Hebrew and most translations, it is named Tadmor. Both names mean ‘Palm Tree’.]
====
Pro. 28:2 When a nation sins, it will have one ruler after another. But a nation will be strong and endure when it has intelligent, [and] sensible leaders.
====
Mat. 10:4 Simon the Patriot, and Judas[, from the village of Karioth//Iscariot], who betrayed Jesus.
23 When they persecute you in one town, run away to another one. I assure you that you will not finish your work in all the towns of Israel before [I,] the Son of Man[, come//comes].
25 So a pupil should be satisfied to become like his teacher, and a slave like his master. If [I,] the head of the family[, have been//I] called Beelzebul, the members of [my//the] family will be called even worse names!
2CHRONICLES 6:
Yesterday we heard of the various things that Huram-abi made under Solomon’s direction for the temple, and of the dedication of the temple. In today’s (not reverent) language, we might say that the Lord ‘showed up’ for that dedication, just like He did for the dedication of the tabernacle.
PROVERBS 27b:
Our hightlighted verse for today:
Pro. 27:21 [GNT Fire tests gold and silver; a person's reputation can also be tested. //NLT
Fire tests the purity of silver and gold,
but a person is tested by being praised.]
MATTHEW 10a:
Many stories were brought together by Matthew in chapter 9, including the calling of Matthew— who is most likely the writer of this book. Note that opposition is ramping up against Jesus from the religious teachers and the Pharisees. Like at the end of John 4, Jesus spoke of the need for God to send workers into the spiritual harvest.
GNT Translation notes:
Mat. 10:4 Simon the Patriot, and Judas[, from the village of Karioth//Iscariot], who betrayed Jesus.
23 When they persecute you in one town, run away to another one. I assure you that you will not finish your work in all the towns of Israel before [I,] the Son of Man[, come//comes].
25 So a pupil should be satisfied to become like his teacher, and a slave like his master. If [I,] the head of the family[, have been//I] called Beelzebul, the members of [my//the] family will be called even worse names!
2CHRONICLES 4-5:
Yesterday we heard of the preparations for building the temple, and then the dimensions and the beginning of the construction starting in the 4th year of Solomon’s reign.
PROVERBS 27a:
Today’s first verse is very like the advice of James in the New Testament:
Pro. 27:1 GNT Never boast about tomorrow. You don't know what will happen between now and then.
MATTHEW 9:
Yesterday we heard of several powerful healings and the miracle of calming the storm. One of the one-becomes-two instances is in the Gadarene demon possessed man, called Legion in the other Gospels. If Matthew was present, as I posited before, it would be before the story of his joining the disciples in this chapter.
GNT Translation notes:
Mat. 9:2 where some people brought to him a paralyzed man, lying on a bed. When Jesus saw how [they fully believed that he could heal the paralyzed man//much faith they had], he said to [him//the paralyzed man], “Courage, my son! Your sins are forgiven.”
6 I will prove to you, then, that [I,] the Son of Man[, have//has] authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, pick up your bed, and go home!”
14 Then the followers of John the Baptist came to Jesus, asking, “Why is it that we [often fast, and so do the Pharisees//and the Pharisees fast often,] but your disciples don't fast at all?”
[My change was so that one doesn’t get the impression that John’s disciples and the Pharisees had prayer and fasting meetings together.]
22 Jesus turned around and saw her, and said, “Courage, my daughter! Your [belief in Me//faith] has made you well.” At that very moment the woman became well.
28 When Jesus had gone indoors, the two blind men came to him, and he asked them, “Do you believe that I can heal you?” “Yes, sir! [We do!]” they answered.
2CHRONICLES 2-3:
In yesterday’s reading we returned to the books of Chronicles, and picked up the story following King David, with the beginning of Solomon’s reign. Solomon gave 1,000 burnt offerings to the Lord, then the Lord appeared to him. Solomon requested wisdom to rule Israel, and the Lord was pleased with his request.
PROVERBS 26b:
Today’s highlighted verse:
Pro. 26:23 GNT Insincere talk that hides what you are really thinking is like a fine glaze on a cheap clay pot.
MATTHEW 8:
We completed reading the Sermon on the Mount yesterday with the parable of building a house on sand or on a rock. Building a house on sand is easier. But let’s be those who persevere and lay a good foundation.
GNT Translation notes:
Mat. 8:10 When Jesus heard this, he was surprised and said to the people following him, “I tell you, I have never found anyone in Israel with [full belief (in Me)]//faith] like this.
20 Jesus answered him, “Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but [I,] the Son of Man[, have//has] no place to lie down and rest.”
26 “Why are you so frightened?” Jesus answered. “[How little you believe in Me!//What little faith you have!]” Then he got up and ordered the winds and the waves to stop, and there was a great calm.
30 [Not far away[, a large herd of pigs were feeding.//there was a large herd of pigs feeding.]
2CHRONICLES 1:
Yesterday we heard Hosea’s final and heart-felt warning. At the end of his book, Hosea penned rather short apology on behalf of the people, and request for forgiveness. God responded lovingly, pleading that the people of Israel to stay away from idols. And now we return to the story we interrupted in the books of Chronicles.
PROVERBS 26a:
A highlighted verse for today is verse 12, which I like in both the NLT and the GNT.
Pro. 26:12 NLT There is more hope for fools
than for people who think they are wise.
MATTHEW 7b:
Yesterday’s reading included one of the most often quoted but most poorly understood verses of the Bible. Check yourself before telling someone, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged.” If you are saying that in order to deflect criticism against yourself, you are doing what a hypocrite does. And ironically, not being a hypocrite is main point of the passage. Nor is the meaning that we Christians must not judge other people at all. We must not judge hypocritically, but the Bible shows us how to judge rightly and fairly— as is necessary for us in this world.
GNT Translation note:
Pro. 26:14 Lazy people [just keep turning//turn] over in bed. They get no farther than a door swinging on its hinges.
HOSEA 13-14:
Yesterday’s reading had this significant prophecy, prefaced by the words that God would not come to totally destroy:
Hos. 11:10 NLT For someday the people will follow me.
I, the LORD, will roar like a lion.
And when I roar,
my people will return trembling from the west.
11 Like a flock of birds, they will come from Egypt.
Trembling like doves, they will return from Assyria.
And I will bring them home again,”
says the LORD.
PROVERBS 25b:
Interesting and varied proverbs today include this:
Pro. 25:20 GNT Singing to a person who is depressed is like taking off a person's clothes on a cold day or like rubbing salt in a wound.
MATTHEW 7a:
Yesterday’s reading in the second half of chapter 6 dealt with the subject of complete trust in God for all that we need, seeking first the kingdom of God (meaning putting God’s will as your top priority), and not bowing down at the altar of money or material gain.
A part of that chapter which is often glossed over is this:
Mat. 6:22 NLT “Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light.
23 But when your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!
In Biblical culture, an ‘evil’ or ‘bad’ eye was one that is greedy. So this figurative speech is actually right on topic for this section. Note that our eye will be full of light if we keep our eyes on Jesus— like we read in Philippians 3.
HOSEA 11-12:
In yesterday’s reading, as the Lord was pleading with Israel and using agricultural metaphors, He said,
Hos. 10:12 GNT I said, ‘Plow new ground for yourselves, plant righteousness, and reap the blessings that your devotion to me will produce. It is time for you to turn to me, your Lord, and I will come and pour out blessings upon you.’
13 But instead you planted evil and reaped its harvest. You have eaten the fruit produced by your lies.
PROVERBS 25a:
Today’s highlighted proverb:
Pro. 25:11 NLT Timely advice is lovely,
like golden apples in a silver basket.
MATTHEW 6b:
Yesterday’s three-times emphasis was “Don’t be like the hypocrites.” And we heard the Lord’s prayer. The first line of the Lord’s prayer, ‘hallowed be Thy _name_’ can be taken as a metonymy for the person of the Father, not just his name. So I translate this famous verse like this: “Our Father in heaven, [may all people honor You as the Holy God//may You always and everywhere be regarded as holy].” Even so, we must bear in mind that God shows great concern for his name in the Old Testament— beginning in the Ten Commandments. If that phrase is translated with that in mind, it could also be translated, “May your name always be spoken with respect befitting your holiness.” Both ideas may be in view in that first line of the prayer.
GNT Translation note:
Mat. 6:30 It is God who clothes the wild grass—grass that is here today and gone tomorrow, burned up in the oven. Won't he be all the more sure to clothe you? [How little you believe in Him!//What little faith you have!]
HOSEA 9-10:
In the first paragraph of chapter 6, Hosea or the Lord quoted the people saying, “Let’s return to the Lord! He has hurt us, … but he will bandage our wounds won’t he? In two or three days he will revive us…” But following that there are three chapters where the Lord tells why Israel’s returning is always fickle and insincere.
PROVERBS 24b:
Just one of many neat nuggets of truth in today’s reading:
Pro. 24:26 NLT An honest answer is like a kiss of friendship.
MATTHEW 6a:
Yesterday’s reading had five ‘You have heard it said … But I tell you …’ And they included some of the hardest ones for us to obey.
GNT Translation notes:
Mat. 6:9 This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven: May [all people honor You as the Holy God//your holy name be honored];
[I have pointed out in many other places that ‘name’ is often used as a metonymy that stands for God’s whole personhood, not just his name. GNT introduces another potential problem, making it sound like God has more than one name, and just the holy name should be honored. I have suggested above that this be translated as a metonymy, but even so, we must bear in mind that God shows great concern for his name in the Old Testament— beginning in the Ten Commandments. If that phrase is translated with that in mind, it could also be translated, “May your name always be spoken with respect befitting your holiness.” Both ideas may be in view in that first line of the prayer.]
10 may [You come to set up your kingdom here on earth//You come to rule here on earth as king//your Kingdom come]; may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
[In most of the world’s languages a ‘kingdom’ cannot come or move. Instead it is more natural to say that a King will come to rule.]
HOSEA 6-8:
In yesterday’s reading, Hosea bought back his wife from prostitution. And the Lord drew analogies in his speech to Israel.
PROVERBS 24a:
Favorite verses:
Pro. 24:5 GNT Being wise is better than being strong; yes, knowledge is more important than strength.
6 After all, you must make careful plans before you fight a battle, and the more good advice you get, the more likely you are to win.
MATTHEW 5b:
Yesterday we read the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, including the famous and memorizable Beatitudes. We also heard the first instance of “You have heard it said… but I say …”
NLT Translation note
Pro. 24:30 I walked by the field of a lazy [man/person],
the vineyard of one with no common sense.
====
Mat. 5:15 No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed [up] on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house.
34 But I say, do not make any vows! Do not [swear/say], ‘By heaven!’ because heaven is God’s throne.
35 And do not [swear/say], ‘By the earth!’ because the earth is his footstool. And do not [swear/say], ‘By Jerusalem!’ for Jerusalem is the city of the great King.
36 Do not even [swear/say], ‘By my [own] head!’ for you can’t turn one hair white or black.
43 “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and [people have added, “]hate your enemy.[”] 44 But I say, love your enemies!
HOSEA 3-5:
Beautifully interwoven word plays or metaphors were constructed using the names of Hosea’s three children. And verses of yesterday’s reading, are quoted in Romans 9 and 1Peter 2. The last verse ended:
Hos. 2:23 NLT “I will show love
to those I called ‘Not loved.’
And to those I called ‘Not my people,’
I will say, ‘Now you are my people.’
And they will reply, ‘You are our God!’”
PROVERBS 23b:
As you may have noticed yesterday, this chapter is much more thematic than chapters 10 through 22. The second half of chapter 23 is the words of a father to his son.
This verse is so true and wise!
Pro. 23:23 GNT Truth, wisdom, learning, and good sense—these are worth paying for, but too valuable for you to sell.
MATTHEW 5a:
Today we start the chapters called the Sermon on the Mount, and these are the crowning jewels of Jesus’ teaching. Note the times when Jesus says, “You have heard it said/taught… but I say to you.” These statements are one reason why the people reacted that “Jesus taught with authority.” Note also how often Jesus tells us that the Father sees what is done in secret.
HOSEA 1-2:
We have already heard that God considers the sin of idolatry to be parallel and just as offensive as a wife being unfaithful to her husband. Hosea is told by God to actually live out this situation. He is told to marry Gomer, a prostitute. Through Hosea, God shows just how ready He is to restore and be reconciled with His wayward people. Hosea prophesied to the Northern kingdom during the same time that Amos, Isaiah, and Micah were prophesying in the Southern kingdom. This was during the reign of Jeroboam the 2nd. Hosea was not a professional prophet trained in a school for prophets, but an ordinary man. I imagine his ministry must have been very lonely.
PROVERBS 23a:The Book of Proverbs doesn’t always support that being rich is better. Consider v.4 in the NLT:
Pro. 23:4 Don’t wear yourself out trying to get rich.
Be wise enough to know when to quit.
MATTHEW 4:Yesterday we heard of the ministry of John the Baptist, and Matthew is the only Gospel that records Jesus’ reply to John, “This (baptising me) should be done, for we must carry out all that God requires.”
GNT Translation notes:
[It sounds very odd in English for Hosea to be telling such a personal story about himself using the third person. Like the CEV, I have altered the pronouns in chapter 1 in verses 2-4, 6, and 9-10 so that Hosea speaks of himself using the pronoun ‘I’ rather than ‘he’. Similarly, I have made it so that God speaks of himself using the pronoun ‘I’ rather than the third person.]
Hos. 2:13 I will punish her for the times that she forgot me, when she burned incense to Baal and put on her jewelry to go chasing after her lovers. [I, the Lord, have//The Lord has] spoken.
====
Mat. 4:23 Jesus went all over Galilee, teaching in the synagogues, preaching the Good News about the Kingdom, and healing people who had all kinds of disease[s] and sickness[es].
1CHRONICLES 29:
Yesterday we heard of the military commanders and officials under David, and the leaders of 13 tribes. Then we heard David’s instructions to Solomon. And it is always amazing to me the detail with which David planned for the temple, and also his generosity.
PROVERBS 22b:
Halfway through this chapter we begin a section where more of the proverbs are arranged in short paragraphs. That section begins at verse 17, just three verses after we begin today’s reading. Verse 20 introduces 30 sayings that follow.
MATTHEW 3:
Yesterday we heard of the coming of the learned men from the east. While they brought three symbolic gifts, it didn’t say that there were just three men who came. And prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus being taken to Egypt, then at the family’s return, their move to Nazareth.
1CHRONICLES 27-28:
Yesterday we heard of the assignments of Levites as musicians, judges, and temple gate keepers.
PROVERBS 22a:
Our highlighted verse for today:
Pr. 22:14 NLT The mouth of an immoral woman is a dangerous trap; those who make the LORD angry will fall into it.
MATTHEW 2:
[Correction!] As I noted yesterday, most commentators say that the genealogy in Matthew follows Joseph’s line. You can find an interesting comparative display of the two genealogies of Jesus in the Wikipedia article entitled Genealogy of Jesus.
GNT Translation note:
Pro. 22:13 Lazy people stay at home; they say[, “A//a] lion might get [me if I//them if they] go outside[!/.]
1CHRONICLES 25-26:
There was a rather important shift in Israel’s religious life that happened with David and his plans for temple worship rather than the older pattern of worship at the Tabernacle: It was that the priests and Levites were re-organized into groups appropriate to the new state of affairs, and no longer strictly based on the original family lines. This reordering was still in effect in the beginning of the New Testament, where we read that Zechariah was a member of the priestly division of Abijah. So we have precedent for not always ‘doing it’ the way it was done in the past.
PROVERBS 21b:
Today’s highlighted verse:
Pro. 21:30 GNT Human wisdom, brilliance, insight—they are of no help if the Lord is against you.
MATTHEW 1:
Matthew’s Gospel was perhaps written as early as 50 AD, and some material was based on Mark’s Gospel. Matthew was probably written by Levi Matthew, the tax collector and the disciple of Jesus. He does not identify himself (similarly to John in John’s Gospel), but if he did, he would have started to do so in chapter 9.
It is clear that Matthew was written for the Jewish audience, and indeed, at the time it was written, the Gospel had not yet gone far among the non-Jews. Again and again Matthew points to fulfillments of Scripture. And at times, especially near the end, he does not bother to use the words “This fulfilled …” but just includes a couple of words that would have been obvious allusions to Scripture for his audience. An odd feature of this gospel is that sometimes ‘one’ thing or person in other Gospels switches to ‘two’ in Matthew. My own original opinion on that feature is this: Every assertion according to the Law needed to be maintained by at least two witnesses. At the times 1 becomes 2, I think Matthew is dropping the hint that he was an eyewitness.
I saved Matthew for the last of the Gospels to be read in our reading calendar because I wanted to group together several New Testament books written to the Jewish audience.
Today we will hear the genealogy of Jesus. [Correction] Many commentators think that Matthew traces Jesus’ genealogy through Joseph, while Luke traces through Mary. There are hidden treasures to look for in both genealogies.
GNT Translation note:
Mat. 1:18 This was how the birth of Jesus Christ took place. His mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they were married, she found out that she was going to have a baby [supernaturally caused] by the Holy Spirit.
[The meaning is not that the Holy Spirit told Mary about her pregnancy, but that she conceived the baby by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can rightly be called the Father of the baby, but this was not fathership through a sexual union of any sort with God the Spirit.]
1CHRONICLES 23-24:
Yesterday we heard a rather odd story about how “Satan rose up against Israel and caused David to take a census.” But in 2Samuel 24:1 we read that “Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, ‘Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.’” So who was it— Satan or the Lord? And if the problem was caused by someone else, why was David and all Israel punished?!
I think, in a place like this, we have to go back to what we learned in Job. God brought up a topic to Satan, Satan responds predictably, and God gives him permission to tempt and sets the boundaries. In other words, both God and Satan are involved. God does not tempt people to do evil, and God is in ultimate control. Satan is like a dog on a leash. And about that punishment: God arranges events in such a way that man (in this case David) is still in control and responsible for his choices.
Why was the census considered a sin? This seems to be founded on the idea that Israel— according to God’s promise, was to be as many as the stars in the sky and the sand on the sea shore, in other words, uncountable. When Moses conducted a census, there was a money offering given for every male counted. Making a military census would also show that David was trusting in numbers instead of God’s power. (See 1Chron 27:23-24.)
PROVERBS 21a:
Here is the verse I chose to highlight today:
Pro. 21:13 GNT If you refuse to listen to the cry of the poor, your own cry for help will not be heard.
TITUS 3:
We continue today with more true teaching for our spiritual health. We might consider 2:14 as a heading for all of today’s reading. That verse says,
Tit. 2:14 GNT He gave himself for us, to rescue us from all wickedness and to make us a pure people who belong to him alone and are eager to do good.
GNT Translation note:
Tit. 3:15 All who are with me send you greetings. Give our greetings to our friends [who share our belief in true teachings//in the faith]. God's grace be with you all.
1CHRONICLES 21-22:
Yesterday we heard the part where the writer of Chronicles skated over where David had his affair with Bathsheba. But we heard of the military victories and especially the misunderstanding that became the reason for the war with the Ammonites.
PROVERBS 20b:
Our highlighted verse for today:
Pro. 20:24 GNT The Lord has determined our path; how then can anyone understand the direction his own life is taking?
Another proverb with deep significance is:
27 The Lord gave us mind and conscience; we cannot hide from ourselves.
TITUS 2:A theme of this book is literally ‘healthy faith’ and ‘healthy teaching.’ These figures boil down to believing in true teachings.
GNT Translation notes:
Tit. 2:1 But you must teach what agrees with [true teaching//sound doctrine].
2 [NLT Teach the older men to exercise self-control, to be worthy of respect, and to live wisely. They must [fully believe our true teachings//have sound faith] and be filled with love and patience.//GNT Instruct the older men to be sober, sensible, and self-controlled; to be sound in their faith, love, and endurance.]
13 as we wait for the blessed Day we hope for, when [our Savior Christ Jesus returns. At that time his glory as all-powerful God will be seen in the this world.//great God and Savior Jesus Christ will appear.]
[The translation for 13 above is like the PET. Greek is somewhat ambiguous as to whether only One Person is ‘appearing’— namely Jesus, or if both the Father and Son will appear. Most commentators say that the most natural meaning is that Jesus is the One appearing, and that means that Paul is also directly designating Jesus as all-powerful/great God. Identifying Jesus directly as God happens many other times— including John 1:1; John 10:30; Rom. 9:5; Plp. 2:6; 2Ptr. 1:1; 1Jhn. 5:20.]
1CHRONICLES 19-20:
Yesterday we heard about one of David’s greatest hours, and I think David would rank this as better than the killing of Goliath. It was the time when he wanted to build a house for God, and instead God promised to build his house— making for him an everlasting dynasty. Then we heard of his leading in even more amazing military victories.
PROVERBS 20a:
Today’s highlighted verse:
Pro. 20:3 GNT Any fool can start arguments; the honorable thing is to stay out of them.
TITUS 1:
Commentators say that Paul wrote his letter to Titus in about the year 66, and that evidence from chapter 3:12 reveals that Paul may have written this in Nicopolis in Epirus, where he spent the winter. The letter has much in common with 1 Timothy which was written around the same time. Paul had given Titus a difficult pastoral assignment, and this letter includes advice that has been so helpful to many pastors. And personally and to my own shame, I always remember this epistle as the location of my worst argument with one of my translation consultants. Recently in Proverbs 18 we read a proverb that applies to that situation, it is this:
Pro. 18:19 NLT An offended friend is harder to win back than a fortified city.
Arguments separate friends like a gate locked with bars.
GNT Translation notes:
1 [To Titus, my true son because of our unity in believing in Christ: From Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Christ Jesus. I was sent in order to help God’s chosen people to ever more fully believe in Christ and to know true teaching— the true teaching that leads us to live according to God’s will.//From Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. I was chosen and sent to help the faith of God's chosen people and to lead them to the truth taught by our religion, …
4 I write to Titus, my true son in the faith that we have in common. May God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior give you grace and peace.]
9 He must hold firmly to the message which can be trusted and which agrees with [true teaching//the doctrine]. In this way he will be able to encourage others with [0//the] true teaching and also to show the error of those who are opposed to it.
12-13 It was a Cretan himself, one of their own prophets, who spoke the truth when he said, “Cretans are always liars, wicked beasts, and lazy gluttons.” For this reason you must rebuke them sharply, so that they may [believe in true teachings//have a healthy faith]
1CHRONICLES 17-18:
Yesterday we heard of the careful moving of the Ark, this time successfully. We heard exactly which men played what instruments. Then there was a sample of their praise. The psalm in chapter 18 is made of quotes from Psalms 105 and 96 and some other isolated verses.
PROVERBS 19b:
Our highlighted verse:
Pro. 19:17 GNT When you give to the poor, it is like lending to the Lord, and the Lord will pay you back.
1THESSALONIANS 5:
Before reading chapter 5, let’s review the resurrection portion of chapter 4, starting with verse 13.
GNT Translation notes:
1Th. 4:14 We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will [bring//take] back with Jesus [all] those who have died believing in him.
5:8 But we belong to the day, and we should be sober. We must wear [our belief in Christ//faith] and love as a breastplate, and our hope of salvation as a helmet.
5:12 We beg you, our friends, to pay proper respect to those who work among you, who [lead you and warn you against doing wrong//guide and instruct you in the Christian life].
1CHRONICLES 15-16:
Yesterday we heard about the first attempt to move the Ark, more about David’s family, and his defeat of the Philistines.
PROVERBS 19a:
A highlight from today’s chapter in Proverbs:
Pro. 19:14 GNT A man can inherit a house and money from his parents, but only the Lord can give him a sensible wife.
1THESSALONIANS 4:
Paul and his companions prayed, and God answered: The Thessalonian believers stayed strong in their believing in the Gospel.
GNT Translation notes:
1Chr. 16:29 Praise the [Lord for his glorious reputation//Lord's glorious name]; bring an offering and come into his Temple. Bow down before the Holy One when he appears;
43 [NLT Then all the people returned to their homes, and David turned and went home to bless his own family.//GNT Then everyone went home, and David went home to spend some time with his family.]
====
1Th. 4:14 We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will [bring//take] back with Jesus [all] those who have died believing in him.
1CHRONICLES 13-14:
Yesterday we heard of mighty men who joined David in war, and the roll call of people who joined him politically to become king. And today we hear more about important events under David’s leadership.
PROVERBS 18b:
A highlighted verse for today:
Pro. 18:22 GNT Find a wife and you find a good thing; it shows that the Lord is good to you.
1THESSALONIANS 3:
Yesterday Paul reminded the Thessalonians of the way he, Silas, and Timothy lived among them, and they definitely loved them like family. And at the end of the chapter Paul compares them to a crown (or like the crowning achievement in their ministry) which he longs to bring before Christ at His second coming. Paul’s statement that “God’s anger has come down on” the Jews, shows that events were moving toward the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD.
GNT Translation note:
1Th. 3:2 while we sent Timothy, our brother who works with us for God in preaching the Good News about Christ. We sent him to strengthen you and [encourage you in your fully believing in Christ//help your faith],
5 That is why I had to send Timothy. I could not bear it any longer, so I sent him to find out [whether you were still fully believing in Christ//about your faith]. Surely it could not be that the Devil had tempted you and all our work had been for nothing!
6 Now Timothy has come back, and he has brought us the welcome news [that you still fully believe in Christ and show love to one another//about your faith and love]. He has told us that you always remember us fondly and that you want to see us just as much as we want to see you.
7 So, in all our trouble and suffering we have been encouraged about you, friends. It was your [fully believing//faith] that encouraged us,
10 Day and night we ask him with all our heart to let us see you personally and supply what is needed [in order to strengthen your belief//in your faith].
NLT Translation note:
1Th. 3:10 Night and day we pray earnestly for you, asking God to let us see you again to fill the gaps in your [believing/faith].
1CHRONICLES 11-12:
In yesterday’s reading, we heard of the people who returned after the exile. Then, starting with the genealogy of King Saul, we jumped to the story of how he died. This prepares us for the stories about King David.
PROVERBS 18a:
Our highlighted verse today:
Pro. 18:10 [GNT The Lord is like a strong tower, where the righteous can go and be safe.//The name of the LORD is a strong fortress;
the godly run to him and are safe.]
[The GNT translates the Jewish metonymy of ‘the Lord’s name’ correctly. This way of translating will prevent readers who don’t understand how metonymy works in Scripture from supposing that Christians should use the name of the LORD (‘YHWH’) as a magic charm.]
1THESSALONIANS 2:
Chapter 1 ended with Paul saying what other people were saying about the Thessalonians:
1Th. 1:10 NLT And they speak of how you are looking forward to the coming of God’s Son from heaven—Jesus, whom God raised from the dead. He is the one who has rescued us from the terrors of the coming judgment.
1CHRONICLES 9-10:
Today we begin with chapter 9 of 1st Chronicles, which is the last name chapter in the first part of this book. This brings us up to the time of the returning exiles. At the end of chapter 9, king Saul’s genealogy is given, which introduces the story about Saul related in chapter 10.
PROVERBS 17b:
For me and my family, this verse from Proverbs 17 brings back golden memories of an old chorus we used to sing every Sunday evening with fellow missionaries in Indonesia.
Pro. 17:22 NLT A cheerful heart is good medicine,
but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength.
1st THESSALONIANS 1:
Today we begin Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonian church. The book of Revelation has the reputation of being about the second coming of Christ, but our doctrines about the second coming come much more from the two letters to Thessalonica. Every chapter in 1st Thessalonians includes a reference to the second coming. And the second coming is mentioned 20 times in these two little letters. Paul, Timothy and Silas spent only three Sabbath days in Thessalonica, and Timothy returned to teach the believers. It’s natural that they would have questions. Some were worried about believers who had died or would die before Christ’s return. Others were thinking Jesus would return so soon that they need not do any work now. This is a highly personal letter to people who had become dear to Paul in a very short time, and one of his earliest letters, written around 51 AD.
1CHRONICLES 8:
Today we read 1st Chronicles 8. Hang on! We’re almost through with the names chapters!
PROVERBS 17a:
Before we open to chapter 17 of Proverbs, I have to say that it is hard to choose just one verse to highlight in today’s reading!
Pro. 17:9 NLT Love prospers when a fault is forgiven,
but dwelling on it separates close friends.
Re-reading EPHESIANS 6:
Once when I had long been in Indonesia and needed spiritual counsel, I received wise counsel from an experienced missionary. He encouraged me to ‘pray on’ the armor of God every day. So I prayed rather literally through the list of armor, asking for God to clothe me with each piece. And, even though not doing this with much understanding, I felt like it was sort of helpful. But then I began to get more and more uncomfortable. It was like I was just repeating a mantra of magic words. So how do we put on the armor, and do we need to put it on daily? Later in translating this passage, I found that the imperative verbs here are second aorist in tense. This means that the commands to put on each piece indicate a one-time action. The armor is not uncomfortable to wear like physical armor would be. We aren’t supposed to take it off. The pieces of armor are like the pillars of your identity in union with Christ.
So how do you put them on? When I discuss this passage in my presentations to groups in Indonesia, I will often ask someone in one of the front, “Are you wearing the helmet of salvation?” And usually they will be rather embarrassed at being put on the spot and say, “Uh, I don’t know.” Then I say, “Do you believe that Jesus has saved you?” With a smile of relief they say, Yes. Then I say to the whole group, “He believes that Jesus saved him, so he is wearing the helmet of salvation!” Now with that example, I challenge you to figure out what you need to believe in order to wear the other pieces of armor!
1CHRONICLES 7:
Yesterday we heard about Levite and priestly genealogies and their allotment of towns. The pace quickens as today we hear of six tribes.
PROVERBS 16b:
Today’s highlighted verse is this:
Pro. 16:18 GNT Pride leads to destruction, and arrogance to downfall.
EPHESIANS 6:
This is another chapter break that interrupts the flow. Yesterday we started a new topic with the words “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” We have heard about the husband-wife relationship under this, and now we hear of two more relationship pairs.
GNT Translation notes:
Eph. 6:1 Children, it is your [duty as the Lord’s followers//Christian duty] to obey your parents, for this is the right thing to do. [The command,]
4 Parents, do not treat your children in such a way as to make them [bitter//angry]. Instead, raise them with [the discipline and instruction approved by the Lord//Christian discipline and instruction].
16 At all times carry [belief in Christ//faith] as a shield; for with it you will be able to put out all the burning arrows shot by the Evil One.
23 [Dear brothers and sisters, my prayer is that//May] God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give [you peace, love and full belief//to all Christians peace and love with faith].
1CHRONICLES 6:
Yesterday we heard details about the leaders of three tribes, Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh.
PROVERBS 16a:
Today’s collection of Proverbs contains a famous one:
Pro. 16:3 GNT Ask the Lord to bless your plans, and you will be successful in carrying them out.
Re-reading EPHESIANS 5:
Although today’s chapter does not contain an instance of the theme words “joined with Christ”, this chapter contains the highest example and explanation of that oneness.
1CHRONICLES 5:
In yesterday’s reading, we heard of important ancestors of the tribes of Judah and Simeon. In Ezra’s time, I can imagine that it was important to figure out who was who and what their relationship was, as this would determine the redistribution of land to the exiles who were returning.
PROVERBS 15b:
I wish I was more like this proverb:
Pro. 15:23 NLT Everyone enjoys a fitting reply;
it is wonderful to say the right thing at the right time!
EPHESIANS 5:
There is no topic change at the first of this chapter. Paul is still giving instructions about our new life in union with Christ. Chapter 4 ended with this:
Eph. 4:30 GNT And do not make God's Holy Spirit sad; for the Spirit is God's mark of ownership on you, a guarantee that the Day will come when God will set you free.
31 Get rid of all bitterness, passion, and anger. No more shouting or insults, no more hateful feelings of any sort.
32 Instead, be kind and tender-hearted to one another, and forgive one another, as God has forgiven you through Christ.
1CHRONICLES 4:
In yesterday’s reading we started with David’s sons, then for the descendants of King Solomon, only the kings were listed. So we jumped up to the period of the exile to Babylon.
PROVERBS 15a:
Here is a favorite verse from today’s group of proverbs:
Pro. 15 NLT 17 A bowl of vegetables with someone you love
is better than steak with someone you hate.
Re-reading EPHESIANS 4:
This chapter has only one instance of the words I translate as ‘joined as one with Christ’, but the chapter is all about that oneness. Let me share this translation note about the verse mentioning baptism:
5 NLT [We all worship//There is] one Lord, [we all fully believe in Christ/one faith], [we all have been baptized as his followers/one baptism],
In Indonesia ‘one baptism’ has been misunderstood by people on both sides of the main baptism debate. One side says, “One baptism means you should only be baptized once (so if you were baptized as a baby, don’t get baptized again anywhere else!)” The other side says, “One baptism means there is only one way to be baptized, and that is by immersion.” Both sides miss the point because this passage is about things that unify us, not divide us!
GNT Translation notes:
1Chr. 4:21 Shelah was one of Judah's sons. His descendants included [six groups. First,] Er, who founded the town of Lecah; [Second,] Laadah, founder of the town of Mareshah; [third,] the clan of linen weavers, who lived in the town of Beth Ashbea;
22 [Fourth,] Jokim and the people who lived in the town of Cozeba; [And fifth and sixth,//and] Joash and Saraph, who married Moabite women and then settled in Bethlehem. (These traditions are very old.)
====
Pro. 15:13 [NLT A glad heart makes a happy face; a broken heart crushes the spirit.
//GNT When people are happy, they smile, but when they are sad, they look depressed.]
====
Eph. 4:12 He did this to prepare all God's people for [his//the work of Christian] service, in order to build up the body of Christ.
13 And so we shall all come together to that oneness in our [believing//faith] and in our knowledge of the Son of God; we shall become mature people, reaching to the very height of Christ's full stature.
22 So[, like throwing away old clothes,] get rid of your old self, which made you live as you used to—the old self that was being destroyed by its deceitful desires.
24 and [like putting on new clothes,] you must put on the new self, which is created in God's likeness and reveals itself in the true life that is upright and holy.
1CHRONICLES 3:
So far we have traced Jakob/Israel’s descendants into the time of David, and today’s reading picks up with David himself.
PROVERBS 3b:
Here is a quote from today’s group of proverbs:
Pro. 3:20 NLT The poor are despised even by their neighbors,
while the rich have many “friends.”
EPHESIANS 4:
Paul’s letters are usually divided into two parts, with the ethereal and theological part first, followed by the practical part. Yesterday we concluded the ethereal and theological part with Paul’s incredible prayer for his readers and for us at the end of chapter 3. And now we enter the practical part of his letter.
GNT Translation notes:
Eph. 4:13 And so we shall all come together to that oneness in our [believing//faith] and in our knowledge of the Son of God; we shall become mature people, reaching to the very height of Christ's full stature.
22 So[, like throwing away old clothes,] get rid of your old self, which made you live as you used to—the old self that was being destroyed by its deceitful desires.
24 and [like putting on new clothes,] you must put on the new self, which is created in God's likeness and reveals itself in the true life that is upright and holy.
1CHRONICLES 2:
Yesterday we traced from Adam to Noah and the genealogy to Abraham. Then we heard of Abraham’s two other families, those descending from Keturah and the sons and rulers descended from Esau. So now we take up Jacob’s descendants, but in this book, he is frequently called by his other name, Israel. (GNT has used ‘Jacob’ instead in this chapter, as it is more understandable for modern readers.)
PROVERBS 14a:
This chapter has one of my all-time favorite proverbs:
14:4 NLT Without oxen a stable stays clean,
but you need a strong ox for a large harvest.//
GNT Without any oxen to pull the plow your barn will be empty,
But with them it will be full of grain.]
Re-reading EPHESIANS 3:
There are two instances of ‘joined with Christ’ in this chapter. This brings the total to 13 so far in this letter.
GNT Translation note:
1Chr. 2:47 (A man named Jahdai [whose relationship was not specified] had six sons: Regem, Jotham, Geshan, Pelet, Ephah, and Shaaph.)
1 CHRONICLES 1:
Jewish and Christian traditions hold that Jeremiah was the author of 1&2 Kings, which were originally one book. And that Ezra, the priest, wrote 1&2 Chronicles, which are also one book in Hebrew. It may be that Ezra wrote these books after his return to Jerusalem. The Greek Septuagint names this book Paraleipomena, which means ‘things left over’. This book does supplement things not found in other books. Compared to the books of Samuel and Kings, Chronicles focuses more on the spiritual misdeeds of the kings and the importance of worshiping the Lord properly through the ministry of the priests and the Temple. This fits well with Ezra being the author. So we turn from the Prophets and return to the books of history.
PROVERBS 13b:
Here is a favorite verse from today’s reading:
Pro. 13:16 NLT Wise people think before they act;
fools don’t—and even brag about their foolishness.
EPHESIANS 3:
At the first of chapter 1, Paul mentioned God’s “secret plan he had already decided to complete by means of Christ. This plan … was to bring Everything together with Christ as the head.” At the end of chapter 2, we learned that specifically, through our union with Christ, all believers are made one— no matter if they are Jews or non-Jews. Paul restates God’s secret plan in a more concise and clear way in today’s chapter as he moves to this letter’s second major prayer.
There are two instances of ‘joined/in union with Christ’ in this chapter.
GNT Translation notes:
Eph. 3:12 In union with Christ and through our [believing//faith] in him we have the boldness to go into God's presence with all confidence.
17 and I pray that Christ will make his home in your hearts through [your believing//faith]. I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love,
LAMENTATIONS 4-5:
In yesterday's reading, the sun pierced the dark clouds with this glorious section:
Lam. 3:22 GNT The Lord's unfailing love and mercy still continue,
23 [GNT Fresh as the morning, as sure as the sunrise.//NLT Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.]
24 The Lord is all I have, and so in him, I put my hope.
25 The Lord is good to everyone who trusts in him,
I have only quoted the most famous part. There are many other precious verses there.
PROVERBS 13a:
Here is a favorite proverb from today’s reading:
Pro. 13:7 NLT Some who are poor pretend to be rich;
others who are rich pretend to be poor.
Re-reading EPHESIANS 2:
We have an important spiritual reality expressed in verse 6: Because we are joined as one with Christ, we are already seated with Him, reigning together with Him, in heaven. We don't wait to die to find out if we will get into heaven! We’re already there! In my speaking about this in Indonesia I often say, “We’re not sitting on plastic folding chairs in heaven.” Understanding and believing this spiritual reality should transform our prayers. Imagine how your spirit is seated with Christ right now, and pray from your heavenly position.
GNT Translation notes:
5:8 NLT [Slaves have now become our masters; there is no one left to rescue us.//Our rulers are no better than slaves, and no one can save us from their power.]
15 Happiness has gone out of our lives; grief has taken the place of our [dancing//dances].
Eph. 2:2 At that time you followed the world's evil way; you obeyed the [commander of the powers in the unseen world (NLT)//ruler of the spiritual powers in space], the spirit who now controls the people who disobey God.
6 In our union with Christ Jesus he raised us up with him [to sit beside him on his throne//to rule with him] in the heavenly world.
8-9 For it is by God's grace that you have been saved through [believing//faith]. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God's gift, so that no one can boast about it.
11 You Gentiles by birth—called “the uncircumcised” by the Jews, who call themselves the circumcised (which refers to [a physical ceremony performed upon the bodies of men//what men do to their bodies])—remember what you were in the past.
LAMENTATIONS 3:
A warning for the modern times is here in chapter 2:
Lam. 2:14 NLT Your prophets have said
so many foolish things, false to the core.
They did not save you from exile
by pointing out your sins.
Instead, they painted false pictures,
filling you with false hope.
The last so poignant line from yesterday’s reading was,
22 … “The enemy has killed all the children
whom I carried and raised.”
Today Jeremiah again speaks in the first person.
PROVERBS 12b:
A favorite verse to introduce today’s proverbs:
Pro. 12:23 GNT Smart people keep quiet about what they know,
but stupid people advertise their ignorance.
EPHESIANS 2:
The first chapter has 4 instances of ‘joined with Christ’, and this chapter has seven.
In his first chapter, Paul wrote in a formal style and showed his enthusiasm for his topic by his use of long sentences in Greek. Verse 3-14 are one long sentence, with a cascade of phrases modifying other phrases. And verses 15-23 are another long sentence. Long sentences like that seem clearer to me in Greek than they do in English. Another notable place Paul does this is in Colossians.
GNT Translation notes:
Eph. 2:6 In our union with Christ Jesus he raised us up with him [to sit beside him on his throne//to rule with him] in the heavenly world.
8-9 For it is by God's grace that you have been saved through [believing//faith]. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God's gift, so that no one can boast about it.
11 You Gentiles by birth—called “the uncircumcised” by the Jews, who call themselves the circumcised (which refers to [a physical ceremony performed upon the bodies of men//what men do to their bodies])—remember what you were in the past.
LAMENTATIONS 1-2:
In the early chapters of his book, Jeremiah spoke several times of his tears. Lamentations will help us to understand how this ‘weeping prophet’ felt, and how God mourned also. This book has been a comfort to many who mourn. Light breaks through in the middle— in chapter 3, with words that are used in one of our greatest hymns. The book ends with poignant questions to God.
PROVERBS 12a:
A favorite verse to introduce today’s proverbs:
12:12 NLT Thieves are jealous of each other’s loot,
but the godly are well rooted and bear their own fruit.
Rereading EPHESIANS 1:
This chapter has four instances of ‘joined in a union’ with Christ.
I want to give a note about how Paul calls the Ephesians “God’s holy people” (in the NLT), or in the KJV and the ESV it is ‘saints’. The problem with both of these ways of translating the Greek is that most of us Christians do not see ourselves as saints or ‘holy people’. In our translation work in Indonesia we found the same problem. The solution we found is to translate that we are ‘people who have been made Holy by God’. That is the meaning! The people in Ephesus were ordinary humans, and were not holy because of their own efforts. God makes us holy when we fully believe in the Good News about Christ that is proclaimed in this letter. And again I want to highlight that believing what God says about our identity is key in being able to live appropriately in that identity.
GNT Translation notes:
Lam. 2:13 O Jerusalem, beloved Jerusalem, what can I say? How can I comfort you? No one has ever suffered like this. Your disaster is [as] boundless as the ocean; there is no possible hope.
15 People passing by the city look at you in scorn. They shake their heads and laugh at Jerusalem's ruins: [They mock,] “Is this that lovely city? Is this the pride of the world?”
====
Eph. 1:1 [To our brothers and sisters in Ephesus— who believe fully in Christ Jesus and are made holy by Him, from Paul— who by God's will is an apostle of Christ Jesus.//From Paul, who by God's will is an apostle of Christ Jesus— To God's people in Ephesus, who are faithful in their life in union with Christ Jesus:]
14 [NLT The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.//GNT The Spirit is the guarantee that we shall receive what God has promised his people, and this assures us that God will give complete freedom to those who are his. Let us praise his glory!]
15 For this reason, ever since I heard of your [believing//faith] in the Lord Jesus and your love for all of God's people,
JEREMIAH 52:We come to the addendum to Jeremiah— seemingly written by someone else, perhaps Baruch.
I commented yesterday how chapter 51 foreshadows Revelation 18. Jeremiah was prophesying the downfall of the real city of Babylon. What he foretold happened around 70 years later. His prophecy includes details about the enemies being from Media, about the drunkenness of Babylon’s leaders, and God proclaims more than once that Babylon will become a desert for all time to come. The famous hanging gardens of Babylon would never be restored, even though Sadam Hussein wanted to see that happen. Observe how all this fits with a theme that runs all the way through Scripture: We see the City of Man going all through the Bible, represented by Babel, Nineveh, Babylon, Rome (figuratively called Babylon), and finally Babylon in Revelation. Guess which city we are all living in (figuratively) today?!
PROVERBS 11b:
I’m going to repeat this today: An important thing about the book of Proverbs is that it contains principles, not promises. This particularly needs to be remembered for verses that talk about prosperity. There will be times, such as what Jeremiah experienced, when no amount of Godly living will bring us wealth.
EPHESIANS 1:
In verse 1 of the ascription of this letter, the words ‘in Ephesus’ are missing from the best manuscripts. It is believed that this was a circular letter and every church who received it would fill in their location name.
H.C. Mears says of Ephesians:
In this epistle, we enter the holy of holies in Paul’s writings. Paul speaks in 2Corinthians 12:2 of being “caught up to the third heaven.” Here [in Ephesians], as it were, he gives his report, and he seems to be carried away as he tells about it. It is the greatest revelation of truth that God has given to us, the revelation of a mystery that [was//has been] hidden from before the foundation of the world.
An important theme in Ephesians is one I have often highlighted this year. It is the idea of being (in literal translations) ‘in Christ’. This idea is also important in John’s writings, like the chapter we heard yesterday. Remember the vine and branches metaphor in John 15. ‘In Christ’ doesn’t mean inside. It means being joined to Christ or one/in union with Christ like a branch is with the vine.
This is the letter where we hear of the Christian’s armor. I believe that a key part of the belt of truth is to believe what God says about us believers— is true.
GNT Translation notes:
Pro. 11:16 NLT [A gracious woman gains respect,
but ruthless men gain only wealth.
//GNT A gracious woman is respected, but a woman without virtue is a disgrace.
Lazy people will never have money, but aggressive people will get rich.]
[The reason I like the NLT better is that it follows the Hebrew only, without adding a number of words that come from the ancient Septuagint translation into classical Greek. But no matter which translation you use, Solomon is not promoting the idea that we be ruthless in order to get rich. Look at the parallelism: Women in Jewish culture were very much in an inferior position, but here a woman would gain the lasting blessing of respect, a quality that would last beyond her life in this world. Whereas a ruthless man would only get money, and he will be lucky if that will last to his dying day.]
Eph. 1:1 [To our brothers and sisters in Ephesus— who believe fully in Christ Jesus and are made holy by Him, from Paul— who by God's will is an apostle of Christ Jesus.//From Paul, who by God's will is an apostle of Christ Jesus— To God's people in Ephesus, who are faithful in their life in union with Christ Jesus:]
14 [NLT The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.//GNT The Spirit is the guarantee that we shall receive what God has promised his people, and this assures us that God will give complete freedom to those who are his. Let us praise his glory!]
15 For this reason, ever since I heard of your [believing//faith] in the Lord Jesus and your love for all of God's people,
JEREMIAH 51:
Today the Lord continues the long prophecy against Babylon. This chapter foreshadows what will happen to figurative Babylon in Revelation 18.
PROVERBS 11a:
An important thing I didn’t mention before is that these proverbs represent principles, not promises. This particularly needs to be remembered for verses that talk about prosperity. There will be times, such as what Jeremiah experienced, when no amount of Godly living will bring us wealth. However, the principles hold true.
1JOHN 4.15—5:
John has been giving us important keys that will unlock assurance and victory in our spiritual lives. This also will provide confidence and power in our prayers.
GNT Translation notes:
1Jn. 5:4 because every child of God is able to defeat the world. And we win the victory over the world by means of our [believing//faith].
6 Jesus Christ is the one who came [showing the signs of water and blood//with the water of his baptism and the blood of his death]. He came not only with the water, but with both the water and the blood. And the Spirit himself testifies that this is true, because the Spirit is truth.
[This verse and the two following have been the subject of hot debate since at least the time of Erasmus! (Please note: The added words found in the KJV in verses 7-8 were definitely not part of the original Greek text.) In verse 6, I particularly don’t agree with the GNT translators adding the words ‘of his baptism’, even though I happen to be a member of a Baptist church. Now finally, about how to actually understand this verse, I hope you remember my comments on the Gospel of John in chapter 19. Seek the treasure, and you will find it!]
10 So those who believe in the Son of God have this testimony in their own heart; but those who do not believe God, [make him out to be a liar//have made a liar of him], because they have not believed what God has said about his Son.
JEREMIAH 50:
Finally after hearing messages prophesying against so many nations, always telling or implying that the Babylonians would be God’s instrument to punish them, now this long chapter tells how Babylon will finally be judged as well, and God will return to take pity on Israel.
PROVERBS 10b:
Here is an example of Hebrew parallelism from today’s 2nd half of
Proverbs 10:
Pro. 10:23 NLT Doing wrong is fun for a fool,
but living wisely brings pleasure to the sensible.
‘Fool’ and ‘the sensible’ oppose each other. “Doing wrong is fun for a fool,” and it seems like ‘fun’ would only be temporary. Whereas the sensible who live wisely receive ‘pleasure’, which is much longer lasting than the ‘fun’ the fools get.
1JOHN 3:19—4:
Chapter 3 of 1John circles around the theme of being children of God. There are important verses at the end of chapter 3 which can provide assurance and power when we pray. If our consciences do not condemn us— which is strongly related to living the way John has urged us in this chapter, then we can boldly come to God in prayer and have courage to ask for ‘whatever’. I have met people with overactive consciences. If you are the kind of person who always feels guilty even though you have just finished asking God for forgiveness, this passage helps you too! Verse 20 says “God is greater than our conscience and he knows everything.” He knows if you are having trouble believing that Jesus would forgive you, or if evil spirits are whispering false guilt messages to you. Read the chapter again and see how you are doing in the areas John mentions. Pray to ask the Holy Spirit to remove false guilt, or to reveal any reason you keep feeling guilty. Here is just one of many: If there are people you have harmed, make restitution. THEN, when you have done this homework, pray with boldness, because you have done everything needed to have a clear conscience.
GNT Translation notes:
1Jn. 4:2 This is how you will be able to know whether [such a person has//someone has//it is] God's Spirit: anyone who acknowledges that Jesus Christ came as a human being has the Spirit who comes from God.
3 But anyone who denies this about Jesus does not have the Spirit from God. The spirit that he has is from the Enemy of Christ; you heard that [the Enemy//it] would come, and now [his representatives are//it is] here in the world already.
JEREMIAH 49:
Having heard bad news about Egypt, Philistia, and Moab, we now hear the bad news for the nations of Ammon and Edom, the city of Damascus, and the nations of Kedar, Hazor, and Elam.
PROVERBS 10a:
From here on in Proverbs, we’ll go a bit slower, by half chapters, because each verse is a separate gem of wisdom. Almost all of these verses are examples of Hebrew parallelism. This means that the two lines of a couplet mutually comment on each other. Let’s take verse 2 as an example:
Pro. 10:2 NLT Tainted wealth has no lasting value,
but right living can save your life.
‘Tainted wealth’ in the first line is a contrast with ‘right living’ in the second. Solomon shows by this that doing things to obtain wealth dishonestly must not be considered ‘right living’. ‘No lasting value’ and ‘can save your life’ also comment on each other in an opposing way. Not only will tainted wealth quickly disappear, but it is dangerous for your life. You could get killed trying to get tainted wealth. And matching the lines in the opposite direction, if you want to gain lasting profit and prosperity, the way is by ‘right living’.
1JOHN 3:
At the close of chapter 2, John was speaking to us about living like God’s children. We’ll begin by reviewing the last two verses of chapter 2.
GNT Translation notes:
Jer. 49:32 [I, the Lord, say,] “Take their camels and all their livestock! I will scatter in every direction those people who cut their hair short, and I will bring disaster on them from every side.
1Jn. 3:8 Whoever continues to sin belongs to the Devil, because the Devil has sinned from the very beginning. The Son of God appeared for this very reason, to destroy what the Devil [has//had] done.
14 We know that we have left death and come over into life; we know [that//it] because we love others. Those who do not love are still under the power of death.
JEREMIAH 46-47:
After finally being able to give a comforting message (“Stay here in Judah and don't go to Egypt. The Lord will take care of you”), the people not only ran off to Egypt but took Jeremiah with them. (Or did he go along willingly?) Perhaps he thought that in Egypt the Lord's message to stop worshiping idols would have some traction. But again, alas... No. Then yesterday we heard the short special message to the official Baruch, Jeremiah’s faithful secretary. In today’s reading, the Lord begins giving oracles about different nations.
PROVERBS 8b:
Lady Wisdom continues to speak.
1JOHN 1:
It is believed that John wrote this letter later in his life, somewhere between AD 85 and 95, and perhaps from Ephesus. He addresses everyone as his ‘children’. Like the emphasis of John’s gospel, this little book focuses on the word ‘believe’. And the word ‘know’ is used over 30 times in this short book. And it is because of that very word that this letter is famous for giving an assurance— especially to any who have trouble accepting that God would choose or love them.
JEREMIAH 44-45:
After all Jeremiah's messages of doom, he was able to give a comforting message to the Judeans who had been through so much. He might have thought, “At last I get to preach good news.” The Lord said through him, “I feel sorry for all you have had to suffer. Stay here. I will make the king of Babylon take pity on you. Don't fear the Babylonians.” That's the very thing the people had longed to hear for years. But even at this point, they break their promise and don’t listen to Jeremiah! After that, when he had been forcibly taken off to Egypt with the others, Jeremiah predicted that Nebuchadnezzar would come and defeat Egypt also.
PROVERBS 8a:
For the last two days, we heard the wisdom of a father to his sons. Today Lady Wisdom speaks.
1CORINTHIANS 16:
Yesterday we finished the Resurrection Chapter, and today we see glimpses of the life of the early church through Paul’s final words.
GNT Translation note:
1Cor. 16:13 Be alert, stand firm in [believing in Christ//the faith], be brave, be strong.
Mat. 5:17 “Do not think that I have come to do away with the Law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets. I have not come to do away with them, but to make their teachings come true.
JEREMIAH 42-43:
I have always found it fascinating what Jeremiah experienced in the aftermath of the fall of Judah's kingdom to the king of Babylon. It is interesting to me that he was led away in chains along with everyone else captured. But the king of Babylon had heard of him and left instructions about him. And it is a shame what happened to Gedaliah. Evidently, Jeremiah was not around at that point to warn him.
PROVERBS 7:
The father instructing his son continues from yesterday’s reading. This is one of the most colorful chapters in God’s Word. If you haven’t read this before, prepare yourself to be shocked!
1CORINTHIANS 15b:
Yesterday we read the first part of this famous Resurrection Chapter. The first part displays Paul's rigorous logic about the fact of Christ’s resurrection. The second part deals with the kind of body we will have after the Resurrection. All of this chapter holds wonderful promises for us.
Let’s consider a few verses we will reread today dealing with being baptized for deceased people: We do not find evidence that the practice was widespread or that it continued. Constable’s Notes for this section (lumina.bible.org) cites information that there was a pre-Christian mystery religion in the area of Corinth that practiced proxy baptism on behalf of dead relatives. Some early Corinthian Christians may have carried this practice over into their new faith, or Paul may simply have been using this local pagan religious practice as an example in order to say, “What is the point of doing that if the dead will not be raised to life?” Paul does not mention this practice in order to encourage it but to strengthen his point: The resurrection of all believers is a promise that follows logically from Christ’s resurrection.
GNT Translation notes:
1Cor. 15:1 And now I want to remind you, my friends, of the Good News which I preached to you, which you received, and on which [you stand//your faith stands firm].
2 GNT That is the gospel, the message that I preached to you. You are saved by the gospel if you hold firmly to it—unless [unless you think now that it was useless to believe it in the first place.//it was for nothing that you believed]. NLT 2 It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you[. 1) Otherwise, it was useless that you became believers in the first place! //2) —unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place.//3) unless you never believed it in the first place.]
[This is a difficult place to interpret what Paul meant, and I think at least 3 possibilities deserve consideration, and all seem to me to be equally possible.]
21 For just as death came by means of a man, [(Adam,)] in the same way the rising from death comes by means of a man[, ([Christ])].
32 If I have, as it were, fought “wild beasts” here in Ephesus simply from human motives, what have I gained? [0//But] if the dead are not raised to life, then, as the saying goes, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die.”
29 Now, what about those people who are baptized for the dead? What do they hope to accomplish? If it is true, as some claim, that the dead are not raised to life, why are [these people bothering to be//those people being] baptized for the dead?
33 Do not be fooled. [As the saying goes,] “Bad companions ruin good character.
55 [As the Scripture says,] “Where, Death, is your victory? Where, Death, is your power to hurt?”
Mat. 5:11 “Happy are you when people insult you and persecute you and tell all kinds of evil lies against you because you are my followers.
12 Be happy and glad, for a great reward is kept for you in heaven. This is how the prophets who lived before you were persecuted.
JEREMIAH 40-41:Yesterday we heard of Jeremiah being put in a dry but muddy well, and being rescued by the faithful official, Ebed-Melech. And we heard the terrible and painful result of Zedekiah's cowardly failure to do as repeatedly instructed by the Lord.
Ezekiel— who was about 20 years younger than Jeremiah, prophesied about Zedekiah:
Ezek. 12:12 NLT “Even Zedekiah will leave Jerusalem at night through a hole in the wall, taking only what he can carry with him. He will cover his face, and his eyes will not see the land he is leaving.
13 Then I will throw my net over him and capture him in my snare. I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Babylonians, though he will never see it, and he will die there.
PROVERBS 6:
In yesterday’s chapter we heard a clear theme:
Prov. 5:15 NLT Drink water from your own well—
share your love only with your wife.
The teaching in today’s passage is insistent:
Prov. 6:20 NLT My son, obey your father’s commands,
and don’t neglect your mother’s instruction.
1CORINTHIANS 15a:
In yesterday’s reading of chapter 14, Paul wrapped up the theme about spiritual gifts that he started in chapter 12. Note that at the end he became vehement and insistent, signaling that he knew there would be people who would argue with him. I want to underline: Paul was the apostle of the Lord who wrote 13 books of our New Testament. Every church and Christian fellowship should take these instructions seriously. If we don't, we fall into the trap of thinking we are wiser than Paul (and we can even say the Holy Spirit). However, those who seek spiritual gifts in a way that is not self-glorifying will find that the Spirit of the Lord still gives authentic gifts.
GNT Translation notes:
1Cor. 15:1 And now I want to remind you, my friends, of the Good News which I preached to you, which you received, and on which [you stand//your faith stands firm].
2 That is the gospel, the message that I preached to you. You are saved by the gospel if you hold firmly to it—unless [unless you think now that it was useless to believe it in the first place.//it was for nothing that you believed].
[This is a difficult place to interpret what Paul meant, and I think at least 3 possibilities deserve consideration, and all seem to me to be equally possible.]
NLT 2 It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you[. Otherwise, it was useless that you became believers in the first place! //—unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place.//unless you never believed it in the first place.]
21 For just as death came by means of a man, [(Adam,)] in the same way the rising from death comes by means of a man[, ([Christ])].
32 If I have, as it were, fought “wild beasts” here in Ephesus simply from human motives, what have I gained? [0//But] if the dead are not raised to life, then, as the saying goes, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die.”
Mat. 5:10 “Happy are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires;
the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them!
JEREMIAH 38-39:
Yesterday we heard of persecution against Jeremiah, his being imprisoned so that he had his secretary, Baruch conveys his messages, and then his being imprisoned in the dungeon at Jonathan’s house. And today he is put in a muddy cistern.
PROVERBS 5:
Today’s chapter of Proverbs has a clear theme. Here is a verse from the middle that typifies that theme:
Prov. 5:15 NLT Drink water from your own well—
share your love only with your wife.
1CORINTHIANS 14:
This chapter gives Paul’s conclusions about spiritual gifts— the theme he started in chapter 12.
GNT Translation notes:
1Cor. 14:8 And if the [soldier//one] who plays the bugle does not sound a clear call, who will prepare for battle?
32 The gift of proclaiming God's message [is//should be] under the speaker's control,
JEREMIAH 34-35:
In yesterday’s reading, Jeremiah bought a field according to the Lord’s instructions. Under the circumstances, that seemed a futile thing to do. He prayed, and the Lord used the situation as a backdrop for wonderful promises to the nation of Israel.
I highlighted a verse earlier in Jeremiah where the coming Righteous King was named, ‘The Lord Our Salvation.’ In yesterday’s reading it was the city of Jerusalem that is so named.
Jer. 33:16 GNT The people of Judah and of Jerusalem will be rescued and will live in safety. The city will be called ‘The Lord Our Salvation.’
There is no conflict in this. The Lord is emphasizing something! Keep it in mind.
PROVERBS 4a:
Proverbs 3 extolled the virtues of Lady Wisdom and ended with various nuggets of wisdom. Here are verses that stood out to me from that chapter:
NLT Prov. 3:21 My child, don’t lose sight of common sense and discernment.
Hang on to them,
…
24 You can go to bed without fear;
you will lie down and sleep soundly.
25 You need not be afraid of sudden disaster
or the destruction that comes upon the wicked,
26 for the LORD is your security. …
1CORINTHIANS 12:
Yesterday’s chapter has two clear parts. The second section is the often-quoted teaching about the Lord’s supper. My opinion is that ‘discerning the body’ is about recognizing the symbolism of the Lord’s body in the communion elements, not about the church as the ‘body of Christ’.
The first section of chapter 11 has to do with visually portraying the God-ordained hierarchy of leadership within the main church worship services. (Note: Paul was not talking about general dress everywhere else, but just the worship services.) There is good information about the head ‘covering’ in a NET footnote. (See lumina.bible.org.) That note shows why long hair cannot be considered to be the head covering Paul was talking about. (That is a frequent misunderstanding.) I do NOT think we may just dismiss what Paul teaches here by saying that our culture does not visually portray male/female roles in the same way as the Judeo/Roman culture of Paul’s day. Yes, our cultures are so different. But rather than dismissing Paul’s ideas, I challenge us to explore how we may visually display the same spiritual considerations in our worship services in a way that makes sense in our cultures. Remember that he closes with these emphatic words:
1Cor. 11:16 NLT But if anyone wants to argue about this, I simply say that we have no other custom than this, and neither do God’s other churches.
I think it is a good idea to pay attention any time Paul becomes emphatic.
GNT Translation notes:
Jer. 34:6 Then I gave [that//this] message to King Zedekiah in Jerusalem
====
1Cor. 12:9 One and the same Spirit gives [full belief//faith] to one person, while to another person he gives the power to heal.
11 But it is [the] one and the same Spirit who does all this; as he wishes, he gives a different gift to each person.
14 For [any body//the body itself] is not made up of only one part, but of many parts.
20 As it is, [in the body of Christ,] there are many parts but one body.
27 All of you are Christ's body, and each one [of you] is a part of it.
JEREMIAH 32-33:
In yesterday’s reading we heard some of Jeremiah’s most important words:
Jer. 31:33-34 NLT … this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day,” says the LORD.
“I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. … I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”
When you think about it, what God has always wanted is rather simple: He would like to be our God, and He would like us to be— and act like, His people.
PROVERBS 3b:
Let’s read verses 5-8 as a reminder because these represent the core of Proverbs.
Prov. 3:5 GNT Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Never rely on what you think you know.
6 Remember the Lord in everything you do, and he will show you the right way.
7 Never let yourself think that you are wiser than you are; simply obey the Lord and refuse to do wrong.
8 If you do, it will be like good medicine, healing your wounds and easing your pains.
1CORINTHIANS 11:
In chapter 10 Paul wrapped up his discussion about food offered to idols. And an important part is to learn from what happened to Israel. Finally, he summarized:
1Cor. 10:31 NLT “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
32 Don’t give offense to Jews or Gentiles or the church of God.”
GNT Translation note:
1Cor. 11:20 When you meet together as a group, it [turns out not to be//is not] the Lord's Supper that you eat.
JEREMIAH 30-31:
Yesterday we heard more of Jeremiah’s struggle against false prophets. Just like in this day, the false message is what people desire to hear, even though the truth is actually better for us and much better for our preparation. An often quoted verse from yesterday’s reading is Jer. 29:11:
Jer. 29:11 NLT For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. 12 In those days when you pray, I will listen.
I think it good to bear in mind that this was NOT spoken to the Jews left behind in Israel's land, but was part of the letter to the exiles in Babylon.
PROVERBS 3a:
In yesterday’s reading we heard that following the path of wisdom is the way of common sense, and that leads one to avoid reckless sin of all kinds. It is best to follow the example of godly men. Lady Wisdom appears again in today’s chapter in verses 13-18, although, for naturalness sake in English, the GNT does not make use of personification like the Hebrew.
1CORINTHIANS 10:
In chapter 8, we heard that Christians who have ‘superior wisdom’ sometimes need to give up their ‘rights’ for the sake of not causing their brothers and sisters to fall or be tempted. (Often not really ‘rights’, but privileges we get too possessive about.) And that led Paul in chapter 9 to talk of the rights he and Barnabas had given up for the Gospel.
GNT Translation notes:
1Cor. 10:2 In the cloud and in the sea they were all baptized[— so to speak,] as followers of Moses.
23 [Some people will say,] “We are allowed to do anything,” [0//so they say.] That is true, but not everything is good. [Okay!] “We are allowed to do anything”—but not everything is helpful.
29 that is, not your own conscience, but the other person's conscience. “Well, then,” someone [will ask//asks], “why should my freedom to act be limited by another person's conscience?
JEREMIAH 28-29:
In yesterday's reading we moved from more poetic content to the story of Jeremiah being opposed by priests, other prophets, and royal officials. Remember that God has promised that he will protect Jeremiah in the face of opposition, and this certainly was put to the test. At the end of yesterday's reading, we heard how Jeremiah prophesied that more valuable articles would be taken away from the Temple, and that they would be brought back eventually. When we read the book of Ezra, we will hear that this prophecy was fulfilled.
PROVERBS 2:
Yesterday's reading in Proverbs contained the first speech of Lady Wisdom, the personification of God's wisdom. Just as an incidental point and because we have 1-2 Indonesian listeners, I would like to explain: Because personification is shown by ‘she’ and ‘her’ in English, these portions come out poorly when translated literally into Indonesian, which doesn't keep track of masculine/feminine gender. An added problem is that the Indonesian language seems to never use personification. But even in English, it does seem weird when the abstract noun Wisdom builds a house, calls out to people who pass by and does other human actions.
1CORINTHIANS 9:
In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul began his explanation about whether Christians can eat food left over from sacrifices to idols. To me, it is another sign of inspiration and God-given wisdom that Paul did not just give the rule to answer this question.
GNT Translation notes:
Jer. 28:15 [After telling Hananiah that, I added,//Then I told Hananiah this, and added,] “Listen, Hananiah! The Lord did not send you, and you are making these people believe a lie.
1Cor. 9:22 Among the weak [0?//in faith] I become weak like one of them, in order to win them. So I become all things to all people, that I may save some of them by whatever means are possible.
[Greek lacks the words ‘in faith’ here. The meaning seems to be weak in regard to believing the full implications of how Christ fulfilled the Jewish law for those who are joined as one with him.]
I have been back from Indonesia for over a month now, and my life has slowly calmed down to the point where I can make a podcast again. If you listened to my last update, sent from my hotel room in Jakarta, and prayed for me, I want to say Thank You! The Lord answers prayers! If you would like to see a follow-up to my prayer requests from my last update, a link to our recent prayer letter is here in the episode notes. LINK
Heads up, people: I have some cool downloads for this episode. You can see all the links to those in the episode notes.
In my last update, I mentioned that I would share something about my article in Indonesian which started out with the title, The Heritage of the King James Version. After John Wycliffe, the first famous English Bible translator, I learned a bit more about William Tyndale. He fled for his life, and finally was betrayed and cruelly martyred in 1536. But his work greatly influenced Bible translations after him. One estimate says that 84% of the KJV shows influence from Tyndale. Beyond that, through subsequent translations, Tyndale’s influence is still felt. Bringing this home to the present day, if you read the ESV, Tyndale’s influence is discernible in that Bible. How amazing and I think this shows God’s fingerprints: The first Bible translator martyred is still influencing our Bible translations.
Before the KJV, there were two English translations of note: The first is the Great Bible, authorized by Henry the VIII. This was translated by Miles Coverdale. It was called ‘great’ because of its size. King Henry's Secretary of State, Thomas Cromwell, directed the clergy to provide “one book of the Bible of the largest volume in English, and the same set up in some convenient place within the said church that ye have care of, whereas your parishioners may most commodiously resort to the same and read it.” Note that this means that Cromwell and the king did not consider that parishioners might want their own copy! Coming only three years after Tyndale’s incomplete translation, Coverdale primarily revised and corrected Tyndale’s work. Coverdale translated the remaining books of the OT from the Latin Vulgate, not from the Hebrew.
The second precursor to the KJV that I want to mention is the Geneva Bible. It was published in 1560, 51 years before the KJV. Under the reign of Mary Queen of Scotts, when protestants were persecuted and more than 300 were martyred, many protestant theologians fled to various places in Europe. In particular, many fled to Geneva, where John Calvin was in the later years of his life. In 1557 they formed a committee to translate the Bible. Just a year later, Queen Elizabeth I gained the throne of England, and the dedication of the Geneva Bible was addressed to her.
The Geneva Bible scored an amazing number of FIRSTS:
- It was the first English Bible translation that was translated entirely from the original languages, Hebrew and Greek.
- It was the first Bible translated by a committee instead of by a lone individual.
- The Geneva Bible was the first to be printed in an easy to read Roman font.
- The Geneva Bible was the first study Bible, with Bible maps, and explanatory notes on every page. Note also that these notes were written by leading scholars of the Reformation.
- This was the first printed Bible with chapter and verse numbers.
- The Geneva Bible was the first one to use italic font for words that were added to complete English grammar, differentiating those words from all those that were direct translations of the source text.
- This Bible was printed in versions that were small enough to be easily carried and inexpensive enough that ordinary believers could own a copy.
The Geneva Bible (and not the KJV) is the Bible that was used by William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John Knox, John Donne, and John Bunyan (the writer of The Pilgrim’s Progress, 1678). This is the Bible that in 1620 was carried to America on the Mayflower. Twenty-four copies of this Bible are housed in libraries and museums in America. If you are interested in the Puritans and what the protestant reformers believed, get the Geneva Bible.
Facsimile copies of the Geneva Bible are available to buy, one of the 1560 edition, and the second of the 1591 edition. I have already given away my facsimile of the 1560 edition. However I have found a complete PDF that contains the complete 1560 edition, and the link for downloading it is here in the episode notes. (This PDF is only 259 MB because it is a black and white scan.) If you don’t want to learn to read the antique font in the PDF, Biblegateway displays the Geneva Bible complete with its footnotes.
However, when King James came to the throne of England, he did not like the Geneva Bible. One of the issues was those excellent study notes I mentioned above. You see, some of the notes contain critical remarks about what ‘kings or queens shouldn’t do’. (This is no wonder, seeing what the authors had been through!) James decreed that the new translation would not have any study notes.
It is an odd quirk of history, that the KJV has so dominated in its influence, because in its time it was
- not considered the most exact translation,
- not considered poetic in its style,
- not considered as the only authoritative Bible.
But it became the dominant Bible in England and eventually in the USA partly because its printing was authorized by the Crown, thereby suppressing the printing of the Geneva Bible. However, beyond doubt, the King James Bible has been, and still is, the world's most influential book. I will not take the time here to list its many influences over our English language and culture (as such praises can be found all over the Internet), but I highlight one influence not normally mentioned: The KJV has exerted a huge influence over Bible translations into the world’s languages.
Most of the time, Bible readers of this time do not realize that what is sold as a King James Version they use is not really the same as the original KJV. That is why a better name for the modern editions of the KJV is the Authorized Version. You can download a PDF of the whole KJV 1611 first edition here. (The whole Bible is 1.8 GB because this scan is in color.) [naked link: https://archive.org/details/1611TheAuthorizedKingJamesBible/page/n5/mode/2up]
One of the differences between the normal Authorized Version and the real 1611 KJV is that the Authorized Version won’t contain the Preface entitled The Translators to the Reader. If you think that you’re good at understanding King James English, I challenge you to read the original Preface. To make it easier to download, I have linked a copy of just the preface HERE. When you discover how difficult it is to read the original font and spelling, I have linked a PDF that contains the KJV Preface with modern spelling HERE. Unfortunately, what we need is a modern language translation of this important document, with footnotes explaining references to events, literary figures, or customs common to that era that leave modern readers in the dark.
Back in the 1980s, I wrote a letter to a special friend and supporter because he and his family had joined the King James Only movement. My short article with quotes from the Preface was later reprinted and used by Wycliffe Bible Translators. The letter is linked HERE, and it explains why the King James translators themselves would not have agreed with the King James Only movement.
There is so much more to discuss about the history of Bible translation up to our times, which will someday be in the article I was writing in Indonesian. For now I want to jump to a notable Bible translator who is now largely forgotten. His name is Richard Francis Weymouth (1822-1902). Weymouth was a school teacher, an authority on literature, a published linguist, and a published Greek scholar. His NT in Modern Speech was published posthumously by his secretary in 1903.
Weymouth was WAY ahead of his time. He realized that all the English translations published up to 1900 retained the wooden literalisms of Tyndale, making them hard to understand. He set out to make the first ever natural-sounding English translation, that is a translation that would make it sound like Paul and other NT writers had written in English, instead of Greek.
So Weymouth made the first ‘meaning based translation’, although that term and terms like ‘dynamic equivalence’ had not yet been coined. His NT in Modern Speech is wonderfully accurate and still sounds amazingly modern, given that it was first published in 1903. It was not until 1966 that the Good News Translation appeared. The Weymouth NT was published in two forms, one with footnotes, one without. If you are going to read this NT, be sure to get a copy with the footnotes. It is not hard to find used copies. You can download a copy here for free (9.7 MB), complete with the footnotes. (It is available in the MyBible app, but without the footnotes.) A prettier copy, evidently in higher resolution is found here (48.2 MB). Recordings of ten books of the Weymouth NT are read quite dramatically and available for free download through LibreVox.
Now turning to news about the NLT side of the Daily Bible Reading Podcast: Tyndale House Foundation changed their years-old copyright policies, so that they now have a policy for podcasts. I am thrilled that they have granted permission for my NLT Daily Bible Readings to still be made available. As per their request, the complete copyright notice has been placed at the end of the episode notes for every podcast. I will read it here:
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations in these podcasts are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
I will be slowly adding brief audio summaries of the notice to every podcast.
I give a shout out to my volunteer secretary, Vicky Pool, who has done the job of putting that copyright notice at the end of 365 episode notes. She’s also the one who makes sure that episodes are published every single day. So thank you to Vicky!
I have been thinking about the wonderful privilege God gives us in listening to our prayers. Here are some verses that I have been thinking about:
Hebrews 11:6 Without faith, it is impossible to please God, for anyone who approaches Him
must believe that He exists
and that he rewards those who seek Him.
Psalm 145:18 The LORD is near to all who call out to Him,
to all who call out to Him sincerely.
Matthew 6:6 When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Psalm 95:6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
The Bible also tells us to “pray without ceasing.” So we can’t always be praying in our secret room and can’t always be kneeling while praying. However, when we have important things to pray about, I think it is a good idea to do just what these verses say. Our God is awesome, and we should approach Him in full reverence and with the utmost honor and respect.
Gale and I send our greetings to you and say:
May the Lord bless YOU ‘real good’!
JEREMIAH 26-27:In yesterday’s reading, some important points were revealed: The people the Lord was about to send into exile to the North would return to Him wholeheartedly and God would bring them back to their land. God would put it into their hearts to return to him! Those remaining in the land at the point of exile and their king would be scattered, cursed, and vanish. The exiles would come back after 70 years, and afterward Babylon would have its turn to be punished and would remain a ruin forever— as in fact it is! That 70 year time was important to the prophet Daniel when he discovered it when reading this book!
PROVERBS 1:In our poetry readings this year, we started with Job, then Psalms, and now we enter the wisdom literature with Proverbs. Solomon wrote and compiled these proverbs around the year 950 BC, in the height of Israel’s golden age. We will hear the theme statement of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes today in verse 7 (NLT), “Fear of the LORD is the foundation of true knowledge.” There is a clear division in the organization of this book. The first 9 chapters are highly thematic and are especially directed to giving wisdom to Solomon’s sons. Then there are proverbs giving every-day advice to everyone, followed by advice to rulers. The very last chapter is the one that extols the blessedness of having a wise wife.
1CORINTHIANS 8:
Summarizing important points about our position that we have heard in 1 Corinthians 6-7: Remember that we are joined as one with Christ— as in the vine and branch metaphors. We are ‘of one spirit with the Lord’. (6:17) We each have become the ‘temple of God's Spirit’. (6:19) We are in the humble yet honored position of being ‘slaves’ of the Lord, the King of Kings. (7:22) We are not our own. We have been bought with a high price. (6:20 and 7:23)
GNT Translation notes:
Jer. 27:16 Then I told the priests and the people [what//that] the Lord had said: “Do not listen to the prophets who say that the Temple treasures will soon be brought back from Babylonia. They are lying to you.
19 King Hezekiah and the people of Judah did not put Micah to death. Instead, Hezekiah honored the Lord and tried to win his favor. And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he said he would bring on them. Now [if we do what you say, we’ll//we are about to] bring a terrible disaster on ourselves.”
====
Prov. 1:28 Then you will call for [me,] wisdom, but I will not answer. You may look for me everywhere, but you will not find me.
====
ICor. 8:9 Be careful, however, not to let your freedom of action make those who are weak in [their belief in Christ//the faith] fall into sin.
13 So then, if food makes a believer sin, I will never eat meat again, so as not to make a [fellow] believer fall into sin.
JEREMIAH 24-25:A stunning prophecy was given in yesterday's reading:
Jer. 23:5 GNT The Lord says, “The time is coming when I will choose as king a righteous descendant of David. That king will rule wisely and do what is right and just throughout the land.
6 When he is king, the people of Judah will be safe, and the people of Israel will live in peace. He will be called ‘The Lord Our [GNT Salvation/NLT Righteousness].’
How amazing it is that this identity of ‘The Lord Our Salvation/Righteousness’ is specifically linked with the Righteous Descendant— whom we now know is Jesus! Yesterday's reading also contained the interesting command about not calling the Lord's message a ‘burden’.
Some Christian leaders today would do well to note God’s angry statements about the prophets who pan off prophecies that just come from their own imaginations as coming from the Lord. I would not like to be in their shoes at the judgment day!
PSALM 150:The exuberant finale to the psalms!
1CORINTHIANS 6:17—7:Yesterday's reading in 1 Corinthians started out with Paul rebuking the Corinthian Christians for taking their fellow believers to court before secular judges. Paul returned briefly the theme of sexual sin. Then, in supporting his points, Paul gave some of the most amazing verses in all Scripture about our position in unity with Christ. Let’s review the last four verses of chapter 6 to make the connection with chapter 7.
GNT Translation notes:
1Cor. 7:1 Now, to deal with the matters you wrote about. [Like someone there has said, “] A man does well not to marry. [”]
5 Do not deny yourselves to each other, unless you first agree to do so for a while in order to spend your time in prayer; but then resume normal marital relations. In this way you will be kept from giving in to Satan's temptation[s] because of your lack of self-control.
16 How can you be sure, Christian wife, that you will not save your husband[ if you remain living together]? Or how can you be sure, Christian husband, that you will not save your wife[ if you continue to live together]?
35 I am [saying these thing//giving this advice//saying this] because I want to help you. I am not trying to put restrictions on you. Instead, I want you to do what is right and proper, and to give yourselves completely to the Lord's service without any reservation.
JEREMIAH 23:
In yesterday's reading, we heard how king Zedekiah sent two men to Jeremiah to ask him for help to pray for a miracle. And God made it ever so clear that no miracle of deliverance would be given. Jeremiah repeatedly tells the king what he needs to do, but Zedekiah just couldn’t bring himself to do it. The area of giving justice was especially prominent in yesterday's readings.
PSALM 149:
We old saints should not despise all of the new songs of the young saints. Yet I totally understand the desire to avoid change. Here we see that Scripture commands that we sing new songs. And this whole psalm can be taken as a prelude to what we will see in the book of Revelation.
1CORINTHIANS 6:
A few days ago I challenged you to find out what was special about the quote in John 19 about none of Jesus’ bones being broken. In yesterday’s reading in 1Corinthians 5, we heard several metaphors relating to that based on Jesus being our Passover Lamb. And now as we start chapter 6, we have a chapter break at the right place, as Paul starts a new topic.
GNT Translation notes:
Jer. 23:18 [Jeremiah speaks//I said], “None of these prophets has ever known the Lord's secret thoughts. None of them has ever heard or understood his message, or ever listened or paid attention to what he said.
====
1Cor. 6:3 Do you not know that we shall judge the angels? How much more, then, [should we be able to judge] the things of this life!
9 Surely you know that the wicked will not possess God's Kingdom. Do not fool yourselves; people who are immoral or who worship idols or are adulterers or [both kinds of male homosexuals//homosexual perverts]
JEREMIAH 21-22:These verses from Jeremiah 20 have been often quoted as a reason for memorizing Scripture:
Jer. 20:9 NLT But if I say I’ll never mention the LORD
or speak in his name,
his word burns in my heart like a fire.
It’s like a fire in my bones!
I am worn out trying to hold it in!
I can’t do it!
Remember the priest Pashur who put Jeremiah in stocks. The Passhur that time was the son of Immer. Today it is evidently a different Passhur who visits Jeremiah, the son of Malchiah.
PSALM 148:The ending psalms just keep getting more and more exuberant in praise!
1CORINTHIANS 4:14—5:Paul is about to drop a bombshell in chapter 5, and it is good to see the transition from chapter 4.
GNT Translation notes:
Ps. 148:5 Let them all praise [Him//the name of the Lord]! He commanded, and they were created;
11 Let them all praise [Him//the name of the Lord]! His name is greater than all others; his glory is above earth and heaven.
====
1Cor. 4:17 For this purpose I am sending to you Timothy, who is my own dear and faithful son in the Christian life. He will remind you of the [way of living//principles] which I follow [, and which is appropriate for all of us who are joined in union with Christ Jesus.//in the new life in union with Christ Jesus] [0//which] I teach [these principles] in all the churches everywhere.
JEREMIAH 19-20:In yesterday’s reading, we again heard some often-quoted verses. These verses come just after verses in chapter 17 where the Lord himself beautifully paraphrased Psalm 1:
Jer. 17:9 GNT “Who can understand the human heart?
There is nothing else so deceitful;
it is too sick to be healed.
10 I, the Lord, search the minds
and test the hearts of people.
I treat each of them according to the way they live,
according to what they do.”
Then in chapter 18, we also heard the famous passage about the Lord being like a potter, which Paul refers to in Romans 9.
PSALM 147:Again this is quite a contrast with Jeremiah’s feelings which we just read! This is our second Hallelujah psalm. And hallelujah has been translated according to its meaning here as “Praise the LORD.” This psalm has incredible depth.
1CORINTHIANS 3:10—4:21Paul is still ‘going on about’ the same thing. He is going to return to the subject of himself and Apollos in chapter 4— which summarizes the division in the Corinthian church. To give the connection, let’s start reading at chapter 3 verse 10.
GNT Translation notes:
1Cor. 3:16 Surely you know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you!
17 God will destroy anyone who destroys God's temple. For God's temple is holy, and [we— all of God’s people//you yourselves] are his temple.
[Translations in English often fail to make clear that ‘you’ in Greek is plural here. The Corinthians as a group are being built into the temple of God— as Paul says in Ephesians 2. It seems a bit more natural or complete in English for Paul to include himself in the body of Christ, so it is possible to use ‘we’ and a modifying phrase, as I have suggested above. There is another verse we will soon read where Paul says that we each individually are a sanctuary/temple of the Holy Spirit.]
21 No one, then, should boast about what human beings can do. [(Implicit info:) Because of being joined as one with Christ,] Actually everything belongs to you:
22 [So that includes] Paul [and] Apollos, and Peter; this world, life and death, the present and the future—all these are yours,
4:1 You should think of us [apostles//0] as Christ's servants, who have been put in charge of God's secret truths.
17 For this purpose I am sending to you Timothy, who is my own dear and faithful son in the Christian life. He will remind you of the [way of living//principles] which I follow [, and which is appropriate for all of us who are joined in union with Christ Jesus.//in the new life in union with Christ Jesus] [0//which] I teach [these principles] in all the churches everywhere.
JEREMIAH 17-18:
One catches so clearly how trapped Jeremiah was in the time of God’s judgment, and how hot God’s anger was against Judah. Jeremiah’s audience would not have appreciated him telling them where the Lord said they could ‘go’! No wonder he so often weeps and cries out in despair. God’s verdict in 15:2, which shows his sovereign choices, is repeated in Revelation:
Jer. 15:1 GNT Then the Lord said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel were standing here pleading with me, I would not show these people any mercy. Make them go away; make them get out of my sight.
2 When they ask you where they should go, tell them that I have said:
Some are doomed to die by disease—
that's where they will go!
Others are doomed to die in war—
that's where they will go!
Some are doomed to die of starvation—
that's where they will go!
Others are doomed to be taken away as prisoners—
that's where they will go!
PSALM 146:This is the first of five Hallelujah Psalms. In the GNT, ‘hallelujah’ is translated, “Praise the Lord.”
1CORINTHIANS 3:The topic of this chapter is still related to that verse from Jeremiah that Paul quoted about boasting, but only boasting about knowing the Lord. And this chapter builds on what Paul has just said about wisdom, as he moves into discussing how to think about different Christian leaders.
GNT Translation note:
Jer. 17:6 [They are like bushes//He is like a bush] in the desert, which [grow//grows] in the dry wasteland, on salty ground where nothing else grows. Nothing good ever happens to [them//him].
====
1Cor. 3:1 As a matter of fact, my friends, I could not talk to you as I talk to people who have the Spirit; I had to talk to you as though you belonged to this world, as children in the Christian _faith_.
[I just want to point out that here I don’t feel the need to translate ‘faith’ as ‘way of believing’. Since there is a modifying word, ‘faith’ is no longer fuzzy. The literal is “infants in Christ.”]
16 Surely you know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you!
17 God will destroy anyone who destroys God's temple. For God's temple is holy, and [we— all of God’s people//you yourselves] are his temple.
[Translations in English often fail to make clear that ‘you’ in Greek is plural here. The Corinthians as a group are being built into the temple of God— as Paul says in Ephesians 2. It seems a bit more natural or complete in English for Paul to include himself in the body of Christ, so it is possible to use ‘we’ and a modifying phrase, as I have suggested above. There is another verse we will soon read in 2Corinthians where Paul says that we each individually are a sanctuary/temple of the Holy Spirit.]
21 No one, then, should boast about what human beings can do. [(Implicit info:) Because of being joined as one with Christ,] Actually everything belongs to you:
22 [So that includes] Paul [and] Apollos, and Peter; this world, life and death, the present and the future—all these are yours,
JEREMIAH 15-16:
Yesterday the dialog between the Lord and Jeremiah continued. We heard of the drought. And the Lord forbid Jeremiah to pray for the people of Judah.
PSALM 145:This is an acrostic psalm in Hebrew, and it gives us a great place to start when praising God.
1CORINTHIANS 1:18—2:Let’s not allow the chapter division here to interrupt what Paul teaches us about God’s wisdom! So let’s start reading in chapter 1 verse 18.
GNT Translation note:
Jer. 15:10 What an unhappy man I am! Why did my mother [ever] bring me into the world? I have to quarrel and argue with everyone in the land. I have not lent any money or borrowed any; yet everyone curses me.
====
Ps. 145:21 I will always praise the Lord; let all [your//his] creatures praise [You//his holy name (metonymy)] forever.
[Again in this psalm in the podcast I will rephrase some verses so that all of this psalm becomes a prayer to God. Third person to first person changes occur in verses 3, 13-14, and 17-21.]
====
1Cor. 1:19 [God says in scripture//The scripture says], “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and set aside the understanding of the scholars.”
2:5 Your [believing//faith], then, does not rest on human wisdom but on God's power.
JEREMIAH 13-14:In yesterday’s reading, Jeremiah complained to the Lord,
12:1 GNT “Lord, if I argued my case with you,you would [be shown//prove] to be right.Yet I must question you about matters of justice.Why are the wicked so prosperous?Why do dishonest people succeed?
And the Lord replied in an answer that bears reading in context and needs some thinking about,
5 “Jeremiah, if you get tired racing against people,how can you race against horses?If you can't even stand up in open country,how will you manage in the jungle by the Jordan?
PSALM 144:This poem is quite a contrast with what we have just heard in Jeremiah. This is the joyful prayer of a king who is leading his people according to the will of God.
1Corinthians 1:In Paul’s day, Corinth was a metropolis on the Mediterranean Sea with a population of between one hundred and fifty thousand and three hundred thousand Roman citizens and about 460,000 slaves. There was evidently a healthy criminal population, and the city was a center of banking, so there were incredibly wealthy people there. The city was full of idol shrines of deities from Egypt, Greece, and Rome, and there was cult prostitution.
Some commentators claim that 1 Corinthians contains parts of two letters from Paul so that 2nd Corinthians might actually be a third or fourth letter. I don’t buy that.
Key topics of the letter include the divisions in the church, the obstacles to sharing the Gospel, God’s wisdom as it appears to Greeks and Jews, partnership among apostles of Christ, vice in the church, various instructions about marriage, the Lord’s supper, food sacrificed to idols, Paul not cashing in on his rights as an apostle, spiritual gifts and the spiritual fruit of love, and the resurrection of Christ.
GNT Translation note:Ps. 144:15 [O Lord our God,//0] Happy is the nation of whom this is true; happy are the people [who worship You!//whose God is the Lord!][As in other Psalms, I read verses 1-2 and 15 as a prayer made directly to God, rather than using the third person in talking to the Lord.]
JEREMIAH 11-12:Yesterday we heard important verses in chapter 9:23-24, verses that Paul quotes more than once:
9:23 NLT “Don’t let the wise boast in their wisdom,or the powerful boast in their power,or the rich boast in their riches.24 But those who wish to boastshould boast in this alone:that they truly know me and understand that I am the LORD …
PSALM 143:It seems that prayer is very neglected these days. Oh yes, we might hear something vague about praying for victims right after some tragedy strikes. But it seems that every church has trouble keeping a prayer meeting going. I myself have trouble keeping my prayer life going. David shows in this psalm that he has learned secrets of effective prayer. Note how his prayer is very like how Jeremiah felt in the two chapters we just read.
JOHN 21:This is one of my favorite chapters. John again tells us important information not given in the other gospels. Note that there is a famous exegetical fallacy here. John does use two different words for ‘love’ in the dialog between Jesus and Peter. But this should NOT be taken— as has been so frequently taught, as showing a play on words, or that John was intending different shades of meaning. Instead, the use of synonyms is just a feature of John’s style in writing. John does this for poetic variation, like the parallelism in Hebrew poetry. Another example of this in this same passage is the variation of ‘little lambs’ and ‘sheep’.
GNT Translation notes:Jer. 12:1 “Lord, if I argued my case with you, you would [be shown//prove to] be right. Yet I must question you about matters of justice. Why are the wicked so prosperous? Why do dishonest people succeed?====Ps. 143:9 I [come//go] to you for protection, Lord; rescue me from my enemies.
JEREMIAH 9-10:Being a prophet is not exactly an easy job. In 7:27 God told him,
7:27 NLT “Tell them all this, but do not expect them to listen. Shout out your warnings, but do not expect them to respond.”
We’ll find that God told the same thing to more than one prophet around this same time.
PSALM 142:When you are discouraged, here is a psalm to pray!
JOHN 20:There are so many fulfillments of Scripture that happen in the crucifixion chapters in the Gospels that many times the authors didn’t take the time to highlight each one of them. The Jewish readers would have picked up on them without the need for an explanation. In verse 36, John highlighted one fulfillment, saying, “This was done to make the scripture come true: ‘Not one of his bones will be broken.’” I hope you remember what that was about! See Ps. 34:20, Ex. 12:46, Num. 9:12. If you don’t know, I hope this teaser will encourage you, because this is a golden gem. And Jesus’ death did not mean that he stopped fulfilling Scriptures.
GNT Translation note:Jer. 9:22 Dead bodies are scattered everywhere, like piles of manure on the fields, like grain cut and left behind by the reapers, grain that no one gathers. [And] This is what the Lord has told me to say.”====John 20:1 Early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary [— the one from the village of] Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been taken away from the entrance.2 She went running to [Peter— who was also called Simon//Simon Peter] and the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!” [In the podcast recording, I reduced the other double-name instances later in the chapter to just Mary/Peter. The context makes it clear who is being referred to, and doing so is more natural in English.]13 [One of them asked her,//0] “[0//Woman,] why are you crying?” [0//they asked her.] She answered, “They have taken my Lord away, and I do not know where they have put him!” 15 “[0//Woman,] why are you crying?” Jesus asked her. “Who is it that you are looking for?” She thought he was the gardener, so she said to him, “If you took him away, sir, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and get him.”31 But these have been written in order that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through your [believing//faith] in him you may have life.
JEREMIAH 7-8:In this and several other prophetic books, it is important to observe where quotes begin and end, and who is speaking. The section headings are also very helpful to our understanding. Modern translators and editors use the heading to help modern readers understand such things as ancient poetic imagery.
Yesterday's reading had this ironic statement spoken by the Lord:
5:19 When they ask why I did all these things, tell them, Jeremiah, that just as they turned away from me and served foreign gods in their own land, so they will serve strangers in a land that is not theirs.”
PSALM 141:David received the answer to his prayer in verse 5, if this was written before his affair with Bathsheba. Nathan did what David prayed for here. This psalm contains gems that are well worth digging for and meditating on.
JOHN 19b:I believe that John saw, and wanted us to feel, the extreme irony in many events that we have read. The ironic events and statements also didn’t happen by accident. It was not an accident that the mob who came to arrest Jesus stumbled back and fell when he said, “I am He.” That was— and still is, a sign from God. All of the statements of Pilate and the chief priests drip with irony which they could not see, but which we can. “I find no fault with this man!” “Behold your king!” “We have no king but Caesar!” “What is truth?” “Don’t release him, we want Barabbas!”
GNT Translation notes:John 19:30 [After Jesus tasted//Jesus drank] the wine and said, “It is finished!” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.31 Then the Jewish authorities asked Pilate to allow them to break the legs of the men who had been crucified, [so that they would die quickly and their bodies could be taken//and to take the bodies] down from the crosses. They requested this because it was Friday, and they did not want the bodies to stay on the crosses on the Sabbath, since the coming Sabbath was especially holy.35 ([I,] The one who saw this happen [have now//has] spoken of it, so that you also may believe. What [I//he] said is true, and [I know that I speak//he knows that he speaks] the truth.)
JEREMIAH 5-6:God, speaking through the prophets, frequently says how he feels about idolatry. He considers it just like the faithlessness of a wayward wife. It is moving that Jeremiah could so clearly see what would happen— the anguish of the people when his prophecies are fulfilled and they will be attacked by armies from the north.
PSALM 140:This is a prayer for anyone who fears the imminent attack of wicked enemies.
JOHN 18:28—19:27:The chapter break here interrupts the story of Jesus’ trial before Pilate. Jesus has already told Pilate that he is a king, but his kingdom is not of this world. Then when Jesus said, “I was born and came into the world for this one purpose, to speak about the truth. Whoever belongs to the truth listens to me.”— Pilate asked his famous rhetorical question,
38“And what is the truth?” Then Pilate went back outside to the people and said to them, “I cannot find any reason to condemn him. 39 But according to the custom you have, I always set free a prisoner for you during the Passover. Do you want me to set free for you the king of the Jews?”40 They answered him with a shout, “No, not him! We want Barabbas!” (Barabbas was a bandit.)
JEREMIAH 3-4:From yesterday’s reading, I highlight 1:12b, where God says,
1:12b GNT “I am watching to see that my words come true.”
In Hebrew, the word ‘watching’ is a play on words.
Yesterday we also read Jeremiah 2:13, which is one of the most frequently quoted verses from this book. Look at it in context starting at verse 11:
Jer. 2:11 GNT No other nation has ever changed its gods,even though they were not real.But my people have exchanged me,the God who has brought them honor,for gods that can do nothing for them.12 And so I command the sky to shake with horror,to be amazed and astonished,13 for my people have committed two sins:they have turned away from me,the spring of fresh water,and they have dug cisterns,cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all.
PSALM 139:What a contrast with what we just read! Our God searches us out and knows all about us. This psalm has been a great comfort to many.
JOHN 18b:
Jesus knew he was walking inexorably to the cross. To me it is interesting that in Jesus’ short time with the governor of the land, he brought the focus to the concept of ‘truth’.
GNT Translation notes:
Jer. 4:2 [NLT Then when you swear by my name, saying,‘As surely as the LORD lives,’you could do sowith truth, justice, and righteousness.Then you would be a blessing to the nations of the world,
and all people would come and praise [Me//my name[//GNT it will be right for you to swear by my name. Then all the nations will ask me to bless them, and they will praise me.”][I was going to bet that the NLT added the words, “As surely as the Lord lives” in order that the idea of ‘swear’ing not be taken in the sense of taking the name of the Lord in vain. That can also be called ‘swearing’ in English. But I find that my assumption was wrong! It seems that GNT left out the Hebrew words ‘YHWH live’, and even literal versions translate the two words like NLT. I think this may be one of the few places where one could defensibly say that GNT made a mistake, and the CEV translators must have simply have followed it without checking the Hebrew.] ====Ps. 139:18 If I counted them, they would be more than the grains of sand. [And] When I awake, I am still with you.==== John 18:33 Pilate went back into the palace and called Jesus.[and asked him,] “[So,] Are you the king of the Jews?” [0//he asked him.]37 So Pilate asked him, “Are you a king, then?”
Jesus answered, “[NIV You are right in saying I am a king.//You say that I am a king.] I was born and came into the world for this one purpose, to speak about the truth. Whoever belongs to the truth listens to me.”38 “And what is truth?” Pilate asked.Then Pilate went back outside to the people and said to them, “I cannot find any reason to condemn him.
JEREMIAH 1-2:The book of Jeremiah was written between 627 and 580 BC. Counting the number of verses, Jeremiah is longer than all other books of the Old Testament except Genesis and Psalms. Jeremiah is often called the weeping prophet, and his other book is Lamentations. It is possible that he is the son of the high priest Hilkiah who brought the book of the Law to the attention of king Josiah. Having just heard in 2 Kings an overview of what happened during the last days of the kingdom of Judah, we now will hear the poems and sermons of a sensitive man living through it all. Mears says, “No other prophet bares his soul to his readers as does Jeremiah. Although Jeremiah announced the coming destruction of Judah, he looked beyond this judgment to a day when everyone would know the Lord personally through the forgiveness of his or her sins (Jer. 31-34). This new kind of relationship with the Lord would be part of the “new covenant” the Lord would establish with his people (Jer. 31:31).”
PSALM 138:
This is the first of a series of eight psalms where the psalmist speaks in the first person singular. This psalm includes an important declaration in verse two, which ESV translates like this:
Ps. 138:2 I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.
NLT and CEV have done a good job translating the meaning, and I particularly like the second phrase in NLT.
JOHN 18a:
As John said in chapter 13, “Jesus, having always loved his disciples, he loved them to the end.”
GNT Translation notes:Ps. 138:2 [NLT I bow before your holy Temple as I worship. I praise [you//your name] for your unfailing love and faithfulness; for your promises are backed by all the honor of your name.//CEV I worship at your holy temple and praise you for your love and your faithfulness. You were true to your word and made yourself more famous than ever before.//GNTD I face your holy Temple, bow down, and praise your name because of your constant love and faithfulness, because you have shown that your name and your commands are supreme.]====John 18:10 [Peter— whose other name was Simon, had a sword. He//Simon Peter, who had a sword,] drew it and struck the High Priest's slave, cutting off his right ear. The name of the slave was Malchus.
JONAH 3-4:Running from God didn’t work for Jonah. When saved from the ocean, Jonah grudgingly obeys God.
For most of my life, I have been fooled by Jonah's prayer in chapter 2, and I am not alone, because others have called it, “One of the great prayers in the Bible.” For most of the prayer, Jonah simply borrowed verses from the Psalms. And there is nothing wrong with that! However, if you look closer, Jonah prayed a me-centered and self-righteous prayer. The worst thing about it is there is no hint of repentance or asking forgiveness.
PSALM 137:As a musician, I can imagine what the musician who wrote this felt. The imprecation at the end should be taken in view of God’s justice. Compare the thought here with Rev. 6:9 and following verses (the cry of the saints under the altar), and also the ending chapters of Revelation that portray the vengeful judgment against ‘Babylon’— which in that book is used as a figurative name.
Rereading JOHN 17:Note again the importance of the organic bond of union between the Father, the Son, and we who believe in Jesus. Again note the bond of love. Note that our Savior actually prays for us. And this is because we live in a world that is not our home.
GNT Translation notes:Ps. 137:4 How can we sing a song to [You, Lord,//the Lord] in a foreign land?====John 17:1 After Jesus finished saying this, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to [Me,] your Son, so that [I//the Son] may give glory to you.2 For you gave [Me//him] authority over all people, so that [I//he] might give eternal life to all those you gave [Me//him].3 [I, the writer, agree and add that, “//And] eternal life means to know you, the only true God, and to know [Christ Jesus//Jesus Christ], whom you sent.[” Jesus was still praying,]21 I pray that they may all be one. Father! May they be [joined as one with//in] us, just as you are [joined with//in] me and I am [joined with//in] you. May they be one, so that the world will believe that you sent me. 23 I [— joined as one with//in] them and you [— joined with//in] me, so that they may be completely one, in order that the world may know that you sent me and that you love them as you love me.26 I made you known to them, and I will continue to do so, in order that the love you have for me may be in them, and so that I also may be [one with//in] them.”
JONAH 1-2:For quite a few years when I was just reading the Bible without a set reading plan, I enjoyed a break from reading the books of history after Second Kings, moving to the prophets. And our first is Jonah, who was mentioned back in 2 Kings 14.
Note that the little story of Jonah is masterfully written. Little details poke out everywhere. Jonah has a downward journey. He goes down from Jerusalem to Joppa, then down again into the hold of the boat, and then down into the underworld of the ocean. He wasn't just being disobedient. He was saying, “I'm turning in my prophet's mantle.”
Bob Deffinbaugh: “Let’s face it, don’t you find that our text has reversed the heroes and the villains? … we would have expected Jonah to be the hero, while the heathen sailors would certainly have been expected to be the villains. This was certainly the perspective of Jonah, and of the Israelites, whom he typified. Yet in our text, it is the sailors who pray, while Jonah does not. The sailors sought to deal with sin on the ship, not Jonah. The sailors end up worshiping God, [Jonah grumbled against God//not Jonah]. The sailors have compassion on Jonah, while he seems to have little concern for the danger in which he has put them. Clearly, this chapter turns our expectations inside-out.”
Even the fish comes out better than Jonah. He obeyed. The pagans of Nineveh and their king also come out looking better than Jonah. They repent.
PSALM 136:This is the most famous antiphonal psalm. If it won’t bother anyone around you while you are listening, I invite you to join me on the antiphonal response: His love is eternal.
JOHN 17:Jesus’ high priestly prayer is considered the pinnacle of the upper room discourse.
GNT Translation notes:Jon. 1:16 [NET The men feared the Lord greatly, and earnestly vowed to offer lavish sacrifices to the Lord.//This made the sailors so afraid of the Lord that they offered a sacrifice and promised to serve him.]====John 17:3 [I, the writer, agree and add that, “//And] eternal life means to know you, the only true God, and to know Jesus Christ, whom you sent.[” Jesus was still praying,]21 I pray that they may all be one. Father! May they be [joined as one with//in] us, just as you are [joined with//in] me and I am [joined with//in] you. May they be one, so that the world will believe that you sent me. 23 I [joined as one with//in] them and you [joined with//in] me, so that they may be completely one, in order that the world may know that you sent me and that you love them as you love me.26 I made you known to them, and I will continue to do so, in order that the love you have for me may be in them, and so that I also may be [one with//in] them.”
2KINGS 24-25:In yesterday’s reading, we heard of Josiah’s reforms, leading the people to renew the covenant with God. That chapter had this telling comment about the Passover:
2Kings 23:22 There had not been a Passover celebration like that since the time when the judges ruled in Israel, nor throughout all the years of the kings of Israel and Judah.
Many times I think people make the naive assumption that the people of Israel customarily performed all sorts of difficult commands in the Law— like the one about the Year of Jubilee. In my opinion, no way!
PSALM 135:Olsen’s book gives the title for the chapter on this psalm as, “What kind of God do you have?” That’s a great question to ask to introduce this psalm!
JOHN 16:At the end of chapter 14, Jesus mentioned leaving that ‘place’— the upper room, but Jesus’ teaching in chapters 15-16 fit so well with chapter 14 that they may have taken place in the upper room. This chapter includes more important teaching about the Holy Spirit— our Advocate, and important key concepts about prayer.
GNT Translation notes:
Ps. 135:1 Praise the Lord! Praise [him//his name], you servants of the Lord,
3 Praise the Lord, because he is good; sing praises to [him/his name], because he is kind.
14 [You,O Lord//The Lord] will defend [your//his] people; [You//he] will take pity on [your//his] servants.====
John 16:13 When, however, the Spirit comes, who reveals the truth about God, he will lead you into [the full//all the] truth. He will not speak on his own authority, but he will speak of what he hears and will tell you of things to come.23 “When that day comes, you will not ask me for anything. I am telling you the truth: the Father will give you whatever you ask of him [for the sake of my glory//in my name]. 24 Until now you have not asked for anything [to glorify me//in my name]; ask and you will receive, so that your happiness may be complete.26 When that day comes, you will [begin to//0] ask [the Father directly for things that glorify me//him in my name]; [You won’t need me to//and I do not say that I will] ask him on your behalf, 33 I have told [all these things to you who are joined as one with me, so that you will have peace.//you this so that you will have peace by being united to me.] The world will make you suffer. But be brave! I have defeated the world!”
2KINGS 23:Hilkiah found the book of the Law in the temple while repairs were being carried out as ordered by King Josiah. When Josiah heard the book of the Law, he instituted reforms. And God again is glorified in fulfilling a prophecy we heard in 1 Kings.
PSALM 134:I would like to have been one of the Levitical temple musicians who had the duty of singing praises to God at night. This is the last of the Psalms of Ascent.
JOHN 15:18—16:15:We are still in the upper room. I have chosen to reread the last verses of chapter 15, in order to help us make the connection with chapter 16.
GNT Translation notes:John 16:1 “I have told you this, so that you will not [fall away from your belief in me//give up your faith].8 And when he comes, he will prove to the people of the world that they are wrong about sin and about [the way people are made right in God’s sight//what is right] and about God's judgment.9 [First about sin: He will make them aware that they sin if//They are wrong about sin, because] they do not believe in me; 10 and about the way people are made right in God’s sight: The Helper will make them aware that I have opened the way for people to become right in God’s sight,//they are wrong about what is right,] because I am going to the Father and you will not see me any more; 11 and about the final judgment: He will make them aware that the final judgment will happen,//and they are wrong about judgment,] because the ruler of this world has already been judged.13 When, however, the Spirit comes, who reveals the truth about God, he will lead you into [the full//all the] truth. He will not speak on his own authority, but he will speak of what he hears and will tell you of things to come.
2KINGS 21-22:The Assyrian king mocked the God of Israel at the end of chapter 18. We heard God's answer yesterday in chapter 19, and we were introduced to the prophet Isaiah. Hezekiah asked to live for a longer time, and his request was granted. I have heard that there is actually scientific proof of the long day miracle that was given to Hezekiah. What a shame that he did not ask God not to send his sons to Babylon!
PSALM 133:This Psalm of Ascent comes at a very fitting time in relation to our readings yesterday and today in John. If we are _one_ with Jesus, then we are _one_ with one another.
Rereading JOHN 15:Today we hear again about our vital relationship of oneness with Jesus. We didn’t actually choose Him! Before we chose Him He had already chosen us. If you are one who has difficulty believing that there is anything good about you, let your identity and worth be based on this passage! Here also we find the promise repeated of answered prayers when we pray for the sake of Jesus’ name— which is to say, for his cause or for his glory. Note that this is not just ‘dropping or using Jesus’ name’. God realizes when we are praying selfish prayers, and He is not fooled by our tacking on ‘in Jesus name’ at the end.
GNT Translation note:
2Kings 21:4 He built pagan altars in the Temple, the place that the Lord had said was where [he, the Lord//he] should be worshiped.
====John 15:4 Remain [joined as one//united] to me, and I will remain [joined as one//united] to you. A branch cannot bear fruit by itself; it can do so only if it remains [joined to//in] the vine. In the same way you cannot bear fruit unless you remain [joined to//in] me.
5 “I am the vine, and you are the branches. Those who remain [joined to//in] me, and I [with//in] them, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me.
6 Those who do not remain [joined with//in] me are thrown out like a branch and dry up; such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire, where they are burned.
7 If you remain [joined to//in] me and my words remain in you, then you will ask for anything you wish, and you shall have it.16 You did not choose me; I chose you and appointed you to go and bear much fruit, the kind of fruit that endures. And so the Father will give you whatever you ask of him [for the sake of my glory//in my name].
2KINGS 19-20:The writer of 1 & 2 Kings was very brief about the sins of the people of Israel (in both kingdoms) until what we heard yesterday. He seems to have saved the moral of the story until chapter 17. And then we have the wonderful contrast with Hezekiah in chapter 18. Then the Assyrian king mocked the God of Israel at the end of chapter 18. We hear God's answer today.
PSALM 132:It would appear that Solomon wrote this Psalm of Ascent, as part of it was quoted by him at the dedication of the temple.
JOHN 15:Yesterday we heard Jesus promise that He would send our Advocate/Comforter/Helper, the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the one who literally ‘comes along beside’ and will lead us into all truth and be with us forever. And I think it is really due to Him that we can have “a peace that the world cannot give or understand.”
GNT Translation notes:
Ps. 132:14 [He says,] “This is where I will live forever; this is where I want to rule.====John 15:4 Remain [joined as one//united] to me, and I will remain [joined as one//united] to you. A branch cannot bear fruit by itself; it can do so only if it remains [joined to//in] the vine. In the same way you cannot bear fruit unless you remain [joined to//in] me.
[When talking of the organic unity of a branch and a vine, we don’t say a branch ‘in’ a vine, do we?! Greek says it that way. But it is much more natural in English to say a branch is ‘joined’ or is ‘connected’, and various other words. Because of this, we also tend to miss out on the meaning of ‘in Him/Christ’ that comes up so often in the New Testament. The meaning is NOT that we are ‘inside’ Him, but that we are joined as one with him.]5 “I am the vine, and you are the branches. Those who remain [joined to//in] me, and I [with//in] them, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me. 6 Those who do not remain [joined with//in] me are thrown out like a branch and dry up; such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire, where they are burned. 7 If you remain [joined to//in] me and my words remain in you, then you will ask for anything you wish, and you shall have it.16 You did not choose me; I chose you and appointed you to go and bear much fruit, the kind of fruit that endures. And so the Father will give you whatever you ask of him [for the sake of my glory//in my name].
2KINGS 17-18:Yesterday we again heard quite a few names of kings, especially on the Israel/Northern side. And this culminated with Tiglath-pileser of Assyria deporting the people of Israel. Because of a heavy bribe, Judah avoided this by becoming a vassal state of Assyria. Actually, this was probably wise on king Ahaz's part. Judah was not always so wise in interpreting the signs of the time.
PSALM 131:God’s grace requires that we receive from the Lord, not insisting on our working to gain good standing by ceaselessly trying to earn points with God. We can learn from children.
JOHN 14b:In John 14 yesterday, we read one of Jesus’ most important and often quoted statements: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
GNT Translation notes:John 14:10 Do you not believe, Philip, that I am [joined as one to//in] the Father and the Father is [joined to//in] me? The words that I have spoken to you,” [all of you//Jesus said to his disciples,] “do not come from me. The Father, who remains [joined with//in] me, does his own work [through me//0].11 Believe me when I say that I am [joined as one with//in] the Father and the Father is [one with//in] me. If not, believe because of the things I do.13 And I will do whatever you ask for in [order to bring glory to me//my name], so that the Father's glory will be shown through the Son.14 If you ask me for anything [for the sake of my glory//in my name], I will do it.20 When that day comes, you will know that I am [joined as one with//in] my Father and that you are [one with//in] me, just as I am [one with//in] you.22 Judas (not [the one from the village of Carioth//Judas Iscariot]) said, “Lord, how can it be that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?”26 The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send [for the sake of my glory//in my name], will teach you everything and make you remember all that I have told you.
2KINGS 15-16:Readers and listeners are frequently confused by the names of the kings in yesterday’s reading in 2nd Kings. Judah’ king, Joash, died at the end of chapter 12. Then on the Israel (10 tribes) side, we heard of Jehoahaz's reign, and then the reign of his son, Johoash. He was helped by Elisha’s final prophecy.
Also in yesterday’s reading we heard about of the reign of Joash’s son, Amaziah, in Judah. Amaziah was very unwise to insist on war with Israel’s king Jehoash.
PSALM 130:This Psalm of Ascent is one of the most beautiful of all the psalms, and an expression of hope for anyone in despair.
JOHN 14a:In John 13 we heard of Jesus taking the role of a servant and washing the disciples’ feet. Judas left the upper room, and Peter was told that he would deny knowing Jesus three times.
GNT Translation notes:John 14:10 Do you not believe, Philip, that I am [joined as one to//in] the Father and the Father is [joined to//in] me? The words that I have spoken to you,” [all of you//Jesus said to his disciples,] “do not come from me. The Father, who remains [joined with//in] me, does his own work [through me//0].11 Believe me when I say that I am [joined as one with//in] the Father and the Father is [one with//in] me. If not, believe because of the things I do.13 And I will do whatever you ask for in [order to bring glory to me//my name], so that the Father's glory will be shown through the Son.14 If you ask me for anything [for the sake of my glory//in my name], I will do it.20 When that day comes, you will know that I am [joined as one with//in] my Father and that you are [one with//in] me, just as I am [one with//in] you.
2KINGS 13-14:
Yesterday we heard of Athaliah's seven-year reign over Judah, of how Joash was saved from being killed, and of Jehoida's successful plot to end Athaliah's reign. Josh turned out to be sorta good, but disappointing at the end of his reign. And it is interesting to note that the people who worked on restoring the temple evidently had more integrity than the priests.
PSALM 129:
This is another Psalm of Ascent and another nationalistic psalm. In this year’s readings, in just a few days we will begin hearing the parts of Israel’s history where this psalm writer could have received the scars on his back. (I like how the GNT shows that the scars on the back might be taken figuratively for the whole race, instead of personally for just the writer. But one just listening to a reading of this chapter will probably not pick up on that detail.) In our time, this psalm gives us permission to pray that the Lord’s enemies do not prosper.
JOHN 13b:
John spends several chapters in the upper room, and this is the first. We hear the most complete account here about Judas, and only here do we find the story of Jesus washing the disciple's feet. This is another time where we see Jesus consciously acting out a parable for us. And because of that event, the interchange with Peter is more poignant, although John takes pity on Peter and does not include details of that conversation that are found elsewhere.
GNT Translation notes:
2Kings 13:23 but the Lord was kind and merciful to them. He would not let them be destroyed but helped them because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. [The Lord//He] has never forgotten his people.====Ps. 129:8 No one who passes by [those people (enemies of ours)//0] will say, “May the Lord bless you! We bless you in the name of the Lord.”====John 13:24 Simon Peter motioned to him and said, “Ask him whom he is talking about.”
31 After Judas had left, Jesus said, “Now [My glory as the Son of Man//the Son of Man's glory] is revealed; now God's glory is revealed through [Me//him].
32 And if [My Father, God’s//God's] glory is revealed through [Me//him], then God will reveal [my glory as the Son of Man//the glory of the Son of Man in himself], and he will do so at once.
2KINGS 11-12:
Yesterday's story was of Jehu, anointed on Elisha's orders, and who executed the Lord's vengeance on Ahab and his whole family, and even his friends and the worshipers of Baal. However, after that, he still didn't follow the Lord but continued the idolatry of Israel.
PSALM 128:
Today’s Song of Ascent has a similar theme about the Lord’s blessings for families as yesterday’s psalm, Psalm 127.
JOHN 13a:
Jesus’ words often have a double meaning. An example was heard yesterday when He said, “when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.”
GNT Translation note:
13:2 Jesus and his disciples were at supper. The Devil had already put into the heart of Judas[0//, the son of Simon Iscariot,] the thought of betraying Jesus. [He was the son of Simon, (the one) from the village of Carioth.//0]
2KINGS 9-10:Yesterday we heard one of my favorite Old Testament stories: The one about the three lepers and the famine in Samaria. Elijah's prophecy was so dramatically fulfilled, and the scoffing officer could be a parable for modern times. Then we heard how the woman from Shunem returned and was blessed a second time. The narrative switched briefly to the kingdom of Judah and Ahaziah's reign.
PSALM 127:About ‘children/sons’ in v. 3, NET’s note says this:
Some prefer to translate this word with the gender-neutral “children,” but “sons” are plainly in view here, as the following verses make clear. Daughters are certainly wonderful additions to a family, but in ancient Israelite culture, sons were the “arrows” that gave man security in his old age, for they could defend the family interests at the city gate, where the legal and economic issues of the community were settled.
This psalm would not be considered politically correct in today’s world. Let’s understand it with a historical perspective learn from it.
JOHN 12b:Following the raising of Lazarus, the Jewish leaders became even more firm in their plans to kill Jesus.
GNT Translation note:
2Kings 9:22 “Are you coming in peace?” Joram asked him. “How can there be peace,” Jehu answered, “when we still [hold on to//have] all the witchcraft and idolatry that your mother Jezebel started?”
28 His officials [put//took] his body [in a chariot and took it//0] back to Jerusalem [0//in a chariot] and buried him in the royal tombs in David's City.
====
Ps. 127:2 It is useless to work so hard for a living, getting up early and going to bed late. For the Lord provides for those he loves, [even] while they are asleep.3 [Sons//Children] is a gift from the Lord; they are a real blessing.====
John 12:24 I am telling you the truth: a grain of wheat remains no more than a single grain unless it [falls//is dropped] into the ground and dies. If it does die, then it produces many grains.25 Those who love their [life in this world//own life] will lose it; [but] those who [have no regard for//think nothing of (NLT)//hate] their [0//own] life in this world will keep it for life eternal.
42 Even then, many Jewish authorities believed in Jesus; but because of the Pharisees, they did not talk about it openly, so as not to be expelled from the synagogue[s].
2KINGS 7-8:Yesterday we heard two more chapters containing fascinating miracles performed by Elisha. The story about Gehazi getting the gifts from Naaman, and the vision about the chariots of fire both have interesting spiritual significance to ponder.
We come back to the story from chapter 7 where the Aramean army is surrounding Samaria. The famine is severe. The king has sent an executioner to kill Elisha. And then:
2Kings 7:32 NLT Elisha was sitting in his house with the elders of Israel when the king sent a messenger to summon him. But before the messenger arrived, Elisha said to the elders, “A murderer has sent a man to cut off my head. When he arrives, shut the door and keep him out. We will soon hear his master’s steps following him.”
33 GNT He had hardly finished saying this, when the king arrived and said, “It's the Lord who has brought this trouble on us! Why should I wait any longer for him to do something?”
PSALM 126:Laughter, joy, and tears are in this often quoted psalm.
JOHN 12a:In yesterday's reading, Jesus worked his biggest miracle so far in the story— the raising of Lazarus and the Jewish leaders became even firmer in their plans to kill Him.
GNT Translation notes:John 12:4 One of Jesus' disciples, Judas[— who was from the village of Carioth, and//Iscariot—] the one who was going to betray him—said, He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief.6 He carried the [disciples’] money bag and would help himself from it. 24 I am telling you the truth: a grain of wheat remains no more than a single grain unless it [falls//is dropped] into the ground and dies. If it does die, then it produces many grains.25 Those who love their [life in this world//own life] will lose it; those who [think nothing of (NLT)//hate] their [0//own] life in this world will keep it for life eternal.
2KINGS 5-6:Yesterday we heard of the many miracles done by Elisha, supplying water for three armies on their way to Moab for war, helping the widow of a prophet, blessing the woman from Shunem, purifying Jericho's water, and miraculously transforming food.
PSALM 125:The first verse of this psalm is one that our family has sung for years. Gale and I learned this song from a cassette tape that came from a Canadian church called St. Margaret’s, a place we have never been to. At that time (around 1977) we were teachers in Papua New Guinea and our David was two. Those who trust in the Lord are secure!
JOHN 11b:Reminding us of what we heard in John 10: Our Shepherd calls us by name. He knows us thoroughly, just like He and the Father know each other. He goes before us and leads us into a rich and satisfying life. He is our great and good Shepherd because He was willing to sacrifice his life for us.
2KINGS 3-4:Yesterday we heard of the final amazing prophecies of Elijah, and then how he took leave of the prophets and particularly, his successor Elisha. Elisha quickly showed that he was Elijah's successor.
PSALM 124:I keep being amazed how people (and particularly those in America) don’t seem to learn anything from the amazing things that are happening in our times. The last verse of this psalm expresses the lesson that I think we should have learned by now.
JOHN 11a:Reminding us of what we heard in John 10: Our Shepherd calls us by name. He knows us thoroughly, just like He and the Father know each other. We hear his voice and recognize him. He goes before us and leads us into a rich and satisfying life. He is our great and good Shepherd because He was willing to sacrifice his life for us.
2KINGS 1:Yesterday we heard stories which show that King Ahab indeed “sold himself to evil,” including the story of Naboth's vineyard. And also we heard of Ahab's friendship with King Jehoshaphat of Judah. Finally, we heard how the prophecies against Ahab were fulfilled.
PSALM 123:This psalm has an important similarity with Ps. 121 which said,
Ps. 121:1 NLT I look up to the mountains— does my help come from there?2 My help comes from the LORD,who made heaven and earth!
Today’s psalm tells us how to ‘look’.
JOHN 10b:In John 9, with the formerly blind man standing there, Jesus said,
9:39 NLT “I entered this world to render judgment—to give sight to the blind and to show those who think they see that they are blind.”40 Some Pharisees who were standing nearby heard him and asked, “Are you saying we’re blind?”41 “If you were blind, you wouldn’t be guilty,” Jesus replied. “But you remain guilty because you claim you can see.
I think the formerly blind man would have been greatly comforted to find out that the Son of Man was now his shepherd and the gate for the sheep. John 10:10 is a frequently memorized verse because of Jesus’ promise: Life in all its fullness.
GNT Translation note:
John 10:38 Again there was a division among the people because of these words. We know that what the scripture says is true forever; and God called those people gods, the people to whom his message was given. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, you should at least believe my deeds, in order that you may know once and for all that the Father is [united with//in] me and that I am [united with//in] the Father.”
1KINGS 21-22:What a cruel surprise it must have been for Elijah to bring about such an irrefutable display of God's power before the people, but then to have to flee for his life because of Queen Jezebel! Note that God deigned to speak twice to King Ahab. And the reason was: God wanted it known to Ahab and to us that He is not a territorial God. God also gave amazing, symbolic revelations of Himself in the story of His appearing to Elijah at Mount Sinai. Finally, in yesterday’s reading, Elijah's successor, Elisha, was introduced.
PSALM 122:Consider how exciting it would have been to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. And let’s all keep ‘marching to Zion’.
JOHN 10a:This is a place where our chapter divisions in our Bibles probably do not serve us well. In the original manuscript by John, there would not be any separation between what Jesus said to the Pharisees to answer their question about spiritual blindness, and this chapter. In fact, in John’s day they didn’t even have spaces between words. So in all likelihood, there was not even a new line to start this teaching. So let’s envision Jesus giving this teaching while the previously blind man and the Pharisees were listening.
1KINGS 19-20:The story we read yesterday in this book is one of the most dramatic in all of Scripture: The time the prophet Elijah confronted King Ahab. Remember that in the New Testament James used this story to encourage us that we are no different than Elijah and that we should pray fervently like him.
PSALM 121:This is another psalm that is frequently sung, even today. Often this whole psalm is set to music. As Olsen says, this psalm lifts the fog from our eyes.
Re-reading JOHN 9:Remember that in John 8 there was a tense standoff between Jesus and the religious leaders. The people took up stones to kill Jesus. John places this story here to illustrate again the opposition to Jesus.
One of the hardest verses to translate is the very last one in this chapter. That is Jesus’ answer when the Pharisees give this incredulous or rebuking response, “Surely you don't mean that we are blind, too?” The Greek can be translated as in literal versions, “If you were blind, you would have no [sin//guilt]...” To say someone has no sin, in English, would mean that they are totally sinless, and that is NOT what Jesus was meaning.
GNT/NLT translation note:
John 9:41 NLT Jesus replied, “If you were blind, you wouldn’t be guilty [of still sinning], but you remain guilty because you claim you can see.//GNT Jesus answered, “If you were blind, then you would not [be sinning now//be guilty]; but since you claim that you can see, this means that you are [still guilty of sinning//still guilty].”]
GNT Translation notes:John 9:7 and told him, “Go and wash your face in the Pool of Siloam.” ([The name of the pool//This name] means “Sent.”) So the man went, washed his face, and came back seeing.22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish authorities, who had already agreed that anyone who said he believed that Jesus was the Messiah would be expelled from the synagogue[s].33 Unless this man came from God, he would not be able to do [such] a thing.”34 They answered, “You were born and brought up in sin—and you are trying to teach us?” And they expelled him from the synagogue[s].41 [based on NLT: Jesus replied, “If you were blind, you wouldn’t be guilty [of still sinning], but you remain guilty because you claim you can see.//GNT Jesus answered, “If you were blind, then you would not [be sinning now//be guilty]; but since you claim that you can see, this means that you are [still guilty of sinning//still guilty].”]
1KINGS 17-18:We've arrived at the narrative of the different kings of Judah (which now includes the smaller tribe of Benjamin) and the kings of Israel (consisting of the 10 other tribes, sometimes called the Northern Kingdom). The kings on Israel’s side changed more rapidly and were 100% bad, while there was a mixed record among the kings of Judah. It will help your understanding to observe the section headings (which I normally do not read), and to try to remember which kingdom is being talked about. Note in yesterday's reading how prophecy was fulfilled again and again. And although Baasha fulfilled the murderous prophecy against the house of Jeroboam, in chapter 16 verse 7, in God’s view the murders he committed were still counted against Baasha as sin. God’s sovereignty and omniscience do not conflict with our own personal responsibility for sin.
PSALM 120:Psalm 120 is the first of the Songs of Ascent. The HCSB Study Bible says this about the Songs of Ascent:
These psalms were designed for pilgrimage processions to celebrate seasonal feasts in Jerusalem. The hymns contain numerous references to Jerusalem or Zion, the temple, Israel, peace, and adversity. The 15 songs, adapted from ancient hymns heralding the blessings and salvation of Zion, may have been sung on the 15 steps leading up to the temple.
JOHN 9:Ever since I was in high school this has been my favorite chapter of the Bible. This dates from the time that I found a track from the American Bible Society in the rack in the foyer of our church. So in Indonesia also, I have made this chapter into a little book containing our translation. I like giving this chapter out to people I meet. Why? It is not because it answers people’s questions. It is because this chapter makes people ask the most important questions.
GNT Translation note:1Kings 18:31 He took twelve stones, one for each of the twelve tribes named [after//for] the sons of Jacob, the man to whom the Lord had given the name Israel.====John 9:7 and told him, “Go and wash your face in the Pool of Siloam.” ([The name of the pool//This name] means “Sent.”) So the man went, washed his face, and came back seeing. 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish authorities, who had already agreed that anyone who said he believed that Jesus was the Messiah would be expelled from the synagogue[s].34 They answered, “You were born and brought up in sin—and you are trying to teach us?” And they expelled him from the synagogue[s].
1KINGS 15-16:I think yesterday's story of the ‘man of God from Judah’ and the ‘old prophet from Bethel’ to be one of the most fascinating in the Bible. Prophets who lie will certainly be judged harshly by God! And we will see in 2nd Kings that the prophecy of the unnamed man of God from Judah was completely fulfilled. Also in yesterday’s reading, we heard Ahijah's prophecy against Jeroboam. We also heard of the end of the reign of Rehoboam, Solomon's son. And do you think that Shishak took the ark of the covenant to Egypt?
PSALM 119:161-176:This our last reading in this Psalm.
I marked the last two verses from yesterday’s reading:
Ps. 119:159 GNT See how I love your instructions, Lord.Your love never changes, so save me!160 GNT The heart of your law is truth,and all your righteous judgments are eternal.//NLT The very essence of your words is truth;all your just regulations will stand forever.
JOHN 8b:The story of the woman caught in adultery shows so many things: Jesus' authority, his wisdom in defeating the Pharisees, his mercy, and that being forgiven does not give one license to continue in sin. Yesterday we also read one of Jesus' seven great ‘I am’ statements found in this Gospel: “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”
GNT Translation notes:
John 8:33 [Some there said,] “We are the descendants of Abraham,” [0//they answered,] “and we have never been anybody's slaves. What do you mean, then, by saying, ‘You will be free’?”
48 They [said//asked Jesus], “Were we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon in you?”
[It seems unnatural in English to use ‘asked’ when the question is rhetorical.]
1KINGS 13-14:Solomon was the wisest of men. So how could he make such stupid choices?! Part of the answer is the corruption caused when one has too much power. And there is something truly sticky about sexual sin. The Lord’s judgment is evident in what happened with the division of the country, and what happened in the northern kingdom. Note also how the people Judah followed all the bad parts of Solomon’s example, which again will lead to judgment.
PSALM 119:145-160:I like the last three verses of yesterday’s reading:
Ps. 119:142 GNT Your righteousness will last forever,and your law is always true.143 I am filled with trouble and anxiety,but your commandments bring me joy.144 Your instructions are always just;give me understanding, and I shall live.
JOHN 8a:The temple guards were ordered to arrest Jesus, but when they came back empty handed they simply said, “We have never heard anyone speak like this.”
There is a fascinating little detail I just saw in John 7:37-38 as translated by GNT. Jesus said,
7:37 GNT “Whoever is thirsty should come to me, and
38 whoever believes in me should drink. As the scripture says, ‘Streams of life-giving water will pour out from the _his_ side.’”
First I want you to know that the word translated ‘side’ can be translated as belly or intestines. But since that word was also used as the seat of emotions, it can also be translated into English as ‘heart’— which is the word we used for the seat of emotions. But for now, let’s keep the word ‘side’. Streams of life-giving water will pour out from ‘his side’. Whose side is Jesus meaning?! Here’s one of those double meanings I mentioned as a feature of this Gospel. As most often understood and translated, streams of living water will flow from the believer’s inner being. But when Jesus was stabbed by the spear in chapter 19, John made a big deal that he saw both water and blood flow out. The ‘his side’ that Jesus could be meaning in this OT quote could be his own side! Jesus could have meant either, or He could have intentionally given one of the most precious double meanings of all! In either case, the water is a sign for the Holy Spirit.
GNT Translation notes:
11 “No one, sir,” she answered. “Well, then,” Jesus said, “I do not condemn you either. Go, but do not sin again.”]
1KINGS 11-12:Yesterday we heard interesting glimpses of Solomon's international relations and commerce. Notably, the queen of Sheba came to listen to Solomon's wisdom and to ask questions of him.
PSALM 119:129-144:How precious the Word of God is to us! A favorite verse from yesterday’s portion is verse 127: “I love your commands more than gold, more than the finest gold.
JOHN 7b:We left the story in John 7 yesterday with Jesus already having some hot exchanges with the people at the Festival of Shelters. Today we will hear Jesus shouting to the crowds at the festival, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’” It is likely that Jesus waited for the climax of the festival to give that message— when water was poured out before the Lord.
1KINGS 9-10:The temple was completed! And yesterday we heard Solomon’s very wise prayer asking God to fulfill his promises and help the people of Israel. In his prayer, he recognized that the people of Israel would not be able to remain faithful to the Lord, but that they would sin and then need to repent. Solomon asked God to forgive and to hear the people in situations of sin and desperation because of the Lord's punishment upon them.
PSALM 119:113-128:Yesterday we read one of the frequently memorized verses from this psalm:
Ps. 119:105 Your word is a lamp to guide my feetand a light for my path.
JOHN 7a:I hope you noticed the deep meaning in John 6:56 and the application which Jesus’ listeners could not understand— that is to the Lord's Supper. Jesus says,
John 6:56 NLT “Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains [joined to//united with//in] me, and I [remain joined to//united with//in] him.”
This is the same meaning of ‘in Him’ that we will see in John chapter 15. And Jesus also said,
58 I am the true bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will not die as your ancestors did (even though they ate the manna) but [anyone who eats this bread] will live forever.”
And Peter made one of his best and most quotable statements when Jesus asked the twelve if they also would leave:
68 … Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life.
69 We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.”
1KINGS 8:Yesterday we heard lots and lots of details about the building of the temple. A man from Tyre, Huram, must have been an efficient and artistic technician in working with bronze casting. He corresponds to the two craftsmen who designed and constructed the first tabernacle.
PSALM 119:97-112:Again we are focussing on what God’s Word means to us. A favorite verse from yesterday’s portion is verse 89:
Ps. 119:89 GNT “Your word, O Lord, will last forever; it is eternal in heaven.”
JOHN 6b:There is an important play on words between Jesus and the crowd in Capernaum which does not come out clearly in either the NLT or the GNT. It involves the word ‘work’. Observe verses 27-29:
John 6:27 GNT Do not work for food that spoils; instead, work for the food that lasts for eternal life. This is the food which the Son of Man will give you, because God, the Father, has put his mark of approval on him.”
28 So they asked him, “What [work] can we do in order to do [the work//what] God wants us to do?”
29 Jesus answered, “[The work//What] God wants you to do is to believe in [me,] the one [whom] he sent.”
The irony captured in this play on words is that normally the act of believing is not considered a ‘work’. In fact, in later NT writings, there is a strong contrast between working for salvation vs. believing for salvation. (As we have said before, this is not really a contradiction.) I bring this up to remind us that ‘believing’ is an act of the will. It is something one can choose to do, and therefore it can be called a ‘work’.
GNT Translation notes:
John 6:33 PET I am that bread from heaven, because I came down from heaven to give true life to the people in this world.”
46 [PET There is no one who has ever seen the Father except Me, who came from Him. I am the only one who has seen Him.//This does not mean that anyone has seen the Father; [I who have come from God am//he who is from God is] the only one who has seen the Father.]
53 Jesus said to them, “I[— the Son of Man] am telling you the truth: if you do not eat [my/the] flesh [0//of the Son of Man] and drink [my/his] blood, you will not have life in yourselves.
56 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood live in [union with] me, and I live in [union with] them.
[Another word that might be used is ‘joined to’. We are talking of the kind of union that a branch has with a tree, like in John 15.]
65 And he added, “This is the very reason I told you that [[no one among you//no people] can come to me unless the Father makes it possible for [you//them] to do so.”
1KINGS 6-7:Yesterday we heard of the incredible size and wealth of Solomon's dominion. His wisdom in the organization is evident. During his reign, Israel was prosperous as never before or afterward. Solomon contracted with King Hiram of Sidon to get the materials needed for the construction of the temple.
PSALM 119.81-96:God is telling us how important His Word is! Here are two favorite verses from yesterday’s reading:
Ps. 119:72 GNT The law that you gave means more to me than all the money in the world.
78 May the proud be ashamed for falsely accusing me; as for me, I will meditate on your instructions.JOHN 6a:In John yesterday we heard of Jesus' relationship with God, His Father, and that God has given authority to the Son to judge all mankind. The Son has also been given the authority to give life after death. Jesus talked about the various entities who witness or give testimony about Himself. This is important because, in Jewish Law and culture, assertions needed to be supported by at least two witnesses. The witnesses who support Jesus are John the Baptist, his miracles, his teachings, and in the background, his Father and Moses.
GNT Translation notes:
John 6:28 Jesus answered, “What God wants you to do is to believe in [Me,] the one He sent.”
1KINGS 4-5:Yesterday we heard David's final instructions to Solomon. They contained a few messy details, and Solomon managed to finish all of those issues. David noted Solomon's wisdom as he gave him those instructions, and later Solomon (at his finest hour) asked God for wisdom to rule the nation of Israel well, and God gave it to him.
PSALM 119:65-80:God is telling us how important His Word is! I highlight this verse (62) from yesterday’s portion, “In the middle of the night I wake up to praise you for your righteous judgments.”
JOHN 5b:Yesterday we heard of Jesus healing a man who had been sick for 38 years. Persecution ramped up because this healing was done on the Sabbath. Jesus replied to his critics, “My Father is always working, and so am I.”
GNT Translation notes:John5:28 Do not be surprised at this; the time is coming when all the dead will hear [the voice of the Son of Man, my voice,//his voice]
1KINGS 2-3:Yesterday we heard of Adonijah’s almost successful bid to become the next king. The prophet Nathan’s intervention saved the day.
PSALM 119:49-64:God is telling us how important His Word is! In yesterday’s reading I find NLT’s rendering of this verse interesting:
Ps. 119:45 I will walk in freedom,for I have devoted myself to your commandments.
Note that following God’s commandments does not violate freedom.
JOHN 5a:To me, it was meaningful to read yesterday that, “The fields are already ripe for harvest. The harvesters are paid good wages, and the fruit they harvest is people brought to eternal life.” The fields are certainly ripe. And I note, with a wink and a wry smile, that Jesus is talking of _heavenly wages_ because we missionaries don’t get top wages here on earth. But we remember that Paul said, “The difficulties we face on earth are nothing to be compared with the glories that await us.”
About the meeting between Jesus and the official, I want to give this observation: Observe how often it happens that Jesus speaks about or encourages believing in Him before his miracles of healing. The implication is clear: Belief is important in healing.
GNT Translation note:John 5:28 Do not be surprised at this; the time is coming when all the dead will hear [the voice of the Son of Man, my voice,//his voice]
1KINGS 1:Like 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles were originally each one book instead of two. The books of Kings and Chronicles have many similarities. One difference is that the books of Kings seem a bit more secular in their outlook, whereas Chronicles seems to have been written by a priest. Henrietta Mears says that both sets have these things in common: 1. They begin with King David and end with the king of Babylon. 2. They open with the building of the Temple and end with the burning of the Temple. 3. They open with David’s first successor to the throne, Solomon, and end with David’s last successor, Jehoiachin, released from captivity by the king of Babylon.
Mears also gives these three rather odd meta-messages in these books. I think they might be interesting to look for as we go through:
- God does not show favoritism. Acts 10:34
- When our all is on the altar, God never keeps us waiting for the fire.
- The final captivity was because of disobedience to God. This was clearly prophesied long before.
PSALM 119:33-48:God is telling us how important His Word is! A favorite verse from yesterday’s reading is verse 18: “Open my eyes, so that I may see the wonderful truths in your law.”
JOHN 4b:When I have opportunities to pray a blessing over people in Indonesia, I often have prayed John 4:14 for them. Jesus said, “those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”
And John 7 says: “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’”
GNT Translation notes:
John 4:45 [Yet surprisingly,] When he arrived in Galilee, the people there welcomed him, because they had gone to the Passover Festival in Jerusalem and had seen everything that he had done during the festival.50 Jesus said to him, “[You may go.//Go;] your son will live!” The man believed Jesus' words and went.
2SAMUEL 24:Yesterday we heard David’s final words and the listing of the 38 mighty warriors who loyally helped David in his victories. Note that Uriah the Hittite was so poignantly included at the end of the list. And this 24th chapter seems like a postscript.
PSALM 119:17-32:Yesterday’s reading included two of the most famous verses from this psalm:
11:9 NLT How can a young person stay pure?By obeying your word.11 I have hidden your word in my heart,that I might not sin against you.
JOHN 4:Yesterday in John 3 we heard the words of John the Baptist at what I consider his finest hour. That was where he said, “He (Jesus) must grow greater and greater, and I must become less and less.” This is a worthy goal for all of us.
GNT Translation notes:John 4:10 Jesus answered, “If you only knew what God gives and who [I am who//it is that] is asking you for a drink, you would ask [Me, and I//him, and he] would give you life-giving water.”21 NLT Jesus replied, “Believe me, [0//GNT woman//NLT dear woman], the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem.[I don’t think there is any good equivalent in English for the Greek here. GNT runs the risk of sounding terribly rude, while NLT runs the risk of misunderstanding the ‘dear’ness of the woman to Jesus.]
2SAMUEL 23:Yesterday we read David’s long poem of praise for God giving him victory and deliverance from his enemies.
PSALM 119a:This psalm is famous for being the longest chapter in the Bible, and it is an acrostic psalm with a difference. In this psalm, every line of each stanza starts with the same letter of the alphabet, instead of every line with a different letter. The psalm has 22 stanzas, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And this psalm has a clear theme: God’s Word— or a synonym for it, is mentioned in almost every verse.
Re-reading JOHN 3:One of the features of John's Gospel is that he breaks in with commentary without warning. Because of the lack of quote marks in ancient Greek, there were no overt signs marking the end of Jesus' speech and John's comment, or at the end of this chapter, John the Baptist's speech and John's comment. I personally don't think that John 3:16 is Jesus' words about himself, but is the start of John's explanation of Jesus' enigmatic words: “as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so [I,] the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in [Me/him] will have eternal life.” We have read that story in Numbers 21. Imagine that all one had to do to be healed of a snake bite was to look at the bronze snake which Moses had put up on a pole. Do you think any of the people who were bitten refused to look up at that bronze snake? (Don’t miss that the shape this cast would have been very much like the shape of a cross.)
GNT Translation notes:John 3:13 And no one has ever gone up to heaven except [Me,] the Son of Man, who came down from heaven.”|14 As Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the desert, in the same way [I,] the Son of Man[,] must be lifted up, [Exegetes and commentators disagree on where to stop Jesus’ quoted conversation with Nicodemus. Ancient Greek didn’t have mark quotes. GNT stops the quote at the end of 13, which is quite early compared with other translations. Note that inserting unmarked parenthetical comments or teachings is a feature of John’s style. To me, I feel it makes most sense that John 3:16 is John’s explanation of Jesus’ very figurative saying in verse 14-15. There is another example of the difficulty of placing quote marks in this chapter. I think that John the Baptist’s quote ends at verse 30 not at the end of the chapter. So I differ with NLT’s quote marks for the last paragraph.]20 Those who do evil things hate the light and will not come to the light, because they do not want their evil deeds to be [revealed//shown up].[The meaning is definitely not the newer ‘show up’ meaning (surpass)!]32 He tells what he has seen and heard, yet [so few accept//no one accepts (hyperbole)] his message.
2SAMUEL 22:We near the end of David’s story. God gave him victory over Sheba and the house of Saul. The killing of seven of the descendants of Saul seems harsh and past the ‘statute of limitations’ to us. But God arranged that revenge in response to untold injustices that were wrecked by Saul against the Gibeonites. Note: God takes notice of covenants made and wants us to do what we promise in His name.
I am thankful for an email that I received today, June 14, 2020, from a listener in Trivandrum, India. I previously said that chapter 22 of 2Samuel was not based on any one Psalm. That was very wrong! David’s song of praise in chapter 22 closely follows Psalm 18. Because of this long poetic section today, we skip a day reading from the Psalms.
JOHN 3:John’s Gospel is unique in having the story of the wedding at Cana, which we heard yesterday in chapter 2. The coming to Galilee and working a miracle there seems to have been significant for John, as he later highlights when this happens a second time. John moved the story of the cleansing of the temple to the beginning of his Gospel. I think that this is because he wanted to highlight the conflicts between Jesus and ‘the Jews’. Note that in verse 19, Jesus doesn't say, “I will destroy...” but “Destroy” (imperative), as a challenge to the Jewish leaders. NET's note indicates that this is a form that reminds one of some words of the prophets.
GNT Translation notes:John 3:14 As Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the desert, in the same way [I,] the Son of Man[,] must be lifted up,
[Exegetes and commentators disagree on where to stop Jesus’ quoted conversation with Nicodemus. Ancient Greek didn’t have mark quotes. GNT stops the quote at the end of 13, which is quite early compared with other translations. Note that inserting unmarked parenthetical comments or teachings is a feature of John’s style. To me, I feel it makes most sense that John 3:16 is John’s explanation of Jesus’ very figurative saying in verse 14-15. There is another example of the difficulty of placing quote marks in this chapter. I think that John the Baptist’s quote ends at verse 30 not at the end of the chapter. So I differ with NLT’s quote marks for the last paragraph.]
32 He tells what he has seen and heard, yet [so few accept//no one accepts (hyperbole)] his message.
2SAMUEL 21:The story of David being welcomed back ended poorly with arguments. Sheba attempted to mount a revolt. He died even though surrounded by his clan members because there was a wise woman in the town where he had taken refuge.
Before that, David had decided to promote national reconciliation by appointing Amasa as a military commander. But Joab— who had grown too powerful, shamefully put an end to Amasa's career.
PSALM 118b:This is an antiphonal psalm. Imagine a leader and a chorus of voices saying a series of refrains. Today we will hear verse 22, which is the Old Testament verse most frequently quoted about the Messiah in the New Testament. And I have quoted verse 23 at the beginning of a number of podcasts.
Re-reading John 2:In chapters 1-2, John has already started to tell us what Jesus was like. He was able to enter in fully in a wedding feast, he was stern about not turning the temple into a marketplace, and he miraculously knew about people. In chapter 1 verse 24 in the NLT says that he knew “all about people.” The GNT is closer to the Greek with “He knew them all.” Jesus had a miraculous knowledge about people like we have seen in chapter 1 with Nathanael.
2SAMUEL 20:Yesterday we heard the story of how David sent out his army under three commanders, Joab, Abishai, and Ittai. He gave them orders to deal gently with Absalom. Joab— who was always pragmatic, didn't do this. Along with Absalom, 20,000 men died in the civil war. Joab stopped David’s mourning for his son and ordered him to go out to encourage his troops. And finally the people decided to bring David back as their king.
PSALM 118a:This is one of the antiphonal psalms. Imagine a leader and all the congregation saying the refrain. One of the most often quoted verses about the Messiah is found in verse 22. And I have quoted verse 24 at the beginning of a number of podcasts.
JOHN 2:John uses simple words, such as light, word, lamb, and door. But the concepts he deals with are anything but simple. The meaning goes deep— so deep that you could spend a lifetime studying the prologue in chapter one alone and never get to the bottom of it. Note also that John very artistically makes use of double meaning— using a word with two meanings simultaneously.
Note how Jesus (and the writer, John) artfully hint at the story of Jacob. Jesus calls Nathanael a true son of Israel. Israel is one of Jacob’s name, and Jacob’s name means ‘cheater’. And then Jesus paradoxically calls Nathanael a man of complete integrity. Finally Jesus didn’t need to make it obvious to his hearers and John didn’t need to explain to his readers that Jesus was quoting from the Jacob’s Ladder story. Just a few words and the previous hint were plenty to imply this: Jesus is claiming to be the Way/Ladder to the Father. The way, the truth, and the life.
2SAMUEL 18-19:Civil war might have been avoided, but Absalom didn’t choose wisely. And I observe that my being bald has advantages in some situations! But seriously, all of the terrible things that happened here are the consequences of David’s sin.
PSALM 117:This is a doxology that one day the whole world will sing.
JOHN 1b:John consciously made an original account and very consciously left out things that are included in the three Synoptic Gospels. Where he does include things the others wrote about, he includes details that the others didn’t mention. Those stories are made to fit his themes. His gospel is thematically arranged, not chronologically arranged.
In John’s poetic opening to this Gospel, he calls Jesus ‘the Word’. ‘Word’ in Greek (logos) usually means more than just one word. Among its several meanings, in this place, its meaning is ‘communication’. Jesus is God’s personal communication or message to the world. And ‘full of grace and truth’ in more traditional translations means that Jesus is all about bringing undeserved kindness (grace) to us and true teachings that are totally worthy of being believed. And this theme is shown again in what Jesus said to Nathanael.
GNT Translation notes:John 1:27 He is coming after me, but I am not good enough [to be the servant who unties//even to untie] his sandals.”40 One of them was Andrew, [whose brother was named Simon, and also called Peter//Simon Peter's brother.]46 [Nathanael said,//0] “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” [0//Nathanael asked.] “Come and see,” answered Philip. 51 And he said to them, “I am telling you the truth: you will see heaven open and God's angels going up and coming down on [Me,] the Son of Man.”
SAMUEL 17:Yesterday we heard how Saul's servant, Ziba, showed his loyalty and helped David on his way. And how Shimei from Saul's family cursed and persecuted David all along the way. No wonder David was exhausted after that hike. David refused to put him to death or to punish him. (But we find out later that he didn't forget about Shimei.) David's friend, Hushai, joined himself to Absalom, as David asked him to do. And Nathan’s prophecy to David was unknowingly fulfilled through Ahithophel’s advice to Absolom.
PSALM 116:This is a poem sharing a personal experience. Though this poem is not attributed to David, what we read here could be his prayer during and following what we are reading about in 2nd Samuel 17-18.
John 1a:I always look forward each year to reading the Gospel of John. John’s Gospel is different from all the other gospels. John was probably very young when he became Jesus’ follower, perhaps 25 years old. But he seems to have waited until very late in life to begin writing, perhaps when he was 85 years old. This was long after the other Gospels and even the epistles were written. The title he gives himself in this book is ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’. This doesn’t mean that Jesus didn’t love the other 11!
GNT Translation notes:
6 [CEV] [How kind You are, Lord!— //You are kind, Lord,] so good and merciful.====John 1:2 From the very beginning [the Person who is called] the Word was with God. 19 The Jewish authorities in Jerusalem sent some priests and Levites to John to ask him, “[Whose position are you assuming?//Who are you?”]21 “[Whose role are taking//Who are you], then?” they asked. “Are you Elijah?” “No, I am not,” John answered. “Are you the Prophet?” they asked. “No,” he replied. 27 He is coming after me, but I am not good enough [to be the servant who unties//even to untie] his sandals.”
2SAMUEL 16:Absolom first stole the hearts of all Israel by being a shrewd politician. Then he mounted a rebellion against his own father. David fled Jerusalem to avoid bloodshed, and as he left, he planted several carefully chosen people to work for him.
PSALM 115:I know I have said it a lot, but can’t help saying it again: This is one of my favorite psalms. Our God is so different than idols. He is in heaven and does whatever He pleases.
ROMANS 16:Having told of his plans to visit Rome on his way to Spain, and how he must first go to Jerusalem, Paul now turns to greet his friends in Rome. I really enjoy this section! There is real closeness in the family of God. When we call each other ‘brother’ or ‘sister’, we really mean it. And our love and bonds of fellowship often span long distances. I enjoy seeing this in every phrase in this chapter.
GNT Translation notes:Rom. 16:17 I urge you, my friends: watch out for those who cause divisions and upset people's [belief in Christ//faith] and go against the teaching which you have received. Keep away from them! 22 I, Tertius, the [secretary who wrote this letter for Paul//writer of this letter], send you Christian greetings.25 Let us give glory to God! He is able to make you stand firm in your [believing//faith], according to the Good News I preach about Jesus Christ and according to the revelation of the secret truth which was hidden for long ages in the past.
2SAMUEL 15:In our last reading, we heard how Joab creatively arranged to persuade David to bring Absalom back from exile. And how eventually David agreed to let Absolom meet him directly.
PSALM 114:This poem praises God for the miraculous deliverance from Egypt.
Re-reading ROMANS 15:Chapter 15 of Romans comes to this summary sentence in verse 13: “May God, the source of hope, fill you with all joy and peace by means of your [believing//faith] in him, so that your hope will continue to grow by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
GNT Translation notes:
Rom. 15:1 We who are strong in [our belief in Christ//our belief in the freedom we have because of our union with Christ//the faith] ought to help the weak to carry their burdens. We should not please ourselves. 2 Instead, we should all please other believers for their own good, in order to build them up in [believing//the faith]. 3 For Christ did not please himself. Instead, as the scripture [quotes the Messiah’s words to God//says], “The insults which are hurled at you have fallen on me.”13 May God, the source of hope, fill you with all joy and peace by means of your [believing//faith] in him, so that your hope will continue to grow by the power of the Holy Spirit.
2SAMUEL 14:There is more than one way in which David did not obey God’s instructions for kings. The big one, of course, is the Bathsheba affair, but God had already said that kings should not have lots of wives. David’s daughter Tamar was raped by her half brother Amnon. And after two years, Absolom (Tamar’s brother) murdered Amnon.
PSALM 113:This is a song praising our incomparable God.
ROMANS 15:Paul continues what he was ‘on about’ in yesterday’s reading. We must accept other believers even though we don’t agree on prohibitions, practices, or rituals. Disputes over these things often come from our differing backgrounds.
GNT Translation note:[The psalmist uses ‘his name’ as a metonymy for God himself. To us in English, it sounds like idolatry to praise a name rather than the Person of God Himself.]Ps. 113:1 Praise the Lord! You servants of the Lord, praise [him//his name]! 2 May his name [be held in reverence//be praised], now and forever.
[Another way is to just go directly to the topic of the metonymy: “May He be praised …”3 From the east to the west [let the name of the Lord be held in reverence//praise the name of the Lord]!====Rom. 15:1 We who are strong in [our belief in Christ//our belief in the freedom we have because of our union with Christ//the faith] ought to help the weak to carry their burdens. We should not please ourselves. 2 Instead, we should all please other believers for their own good, in order to build them up in [believing//the faith]. 3 For Christ did not please himself. Instead, as the scripture , “The insults which are hurled at you have fallen on me.”13 May God, the source of hope, fill you with all joy and peace by means of your [believing//faith] in him, so that your hope will continue to grow by the power of the Holy Spirit.
2SAMUEL 13:Yesterday we heard of David's moral failure with Bathsheba. That sin led to the death of the noble husband of Bathsheba, Uriah. Nathan gave one of his most stunning prophecies. David immediately and utterly repented. Even so, the baby son of Bathsheba and David son died. I mentioned yesterday that sin always has consequences, even when there has been forgiveness. Another lesson from this story is that one sin leads to more sin.
PSALM 112:Like Psalm 111, Psalm 112 carries similar themes with the book of Proverbs. Verse 9 is quoted in the New Testament.
Re-reading ROMANS 14:I am very happy that Paul didn't just give the churches a list of the celebrations and days that Christians were to consider as sacred. He did not give us a list of foods to not eat. That would have been the easy thing to do. To me it is a proof of God's inspiration that Paul does the counterintuitive thing: He tells us each to decide as our conscience dictates before God. Paul was not interested in establishing a man-made religion. The things that matter are “living a life of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” And when choosing our actions, let our conscience be our guide.
GNT Translation notes:Ps. 112:7 He is not afraid of receiving bad news; his [belief in God//faith] is strong, and he trusts in the Lord.====Rom. 14:1 Welcome those who are weak in [their belief//faith], but do not argue with them about their personal opinions. 2 Some people's [beliefs allow//faith allows] them to eat anything, but the person who is weak in [their belief//the faith] eats only vegetables. 8 If we live, it is for the Lord that we live, and if we die, it is for the Lord that we die. So whether we live or die, [(or do anything else,)] we belong to the Lord.15 If you hurt others because of something you eat [— by eating it right in front of them], then you are no longer acting from love. Do not let the food that you eat ruin [a//the] person for whom Christ died!23 But if [you//they] have doubts about what [you//they] eat, God condemns [you//them] when [you//they] eat it, because [your//their] action is not based on [your beliefs//faith]. And anything that is not based on [belief//faith] is sin.
2SAMUEL 11-12:David showed kindness to Jonathan's only living son. Then we heard the story of how suspicion caused offense, which led to all-out war with the Ammonites. And David was victorious again against the Arameans and Ammonites. Today I want to highlight some important realities: God is watching. Our sins may be forgiven, but there will still be consequences.
PSALM 111:This beautiful psalm of praise is an acrostic poem in Hebrew.
ROMANS 14:In yesterday’s reading, Paul taught us to submit to rulers and government officials, then he urged us to love one another and lead holy lives. Now chapter 14 covers the divisive area of rituals and traditions.
GNT Translation notes:Rom. 14:1 Welcome those who are weak in [their beliefs//faith], but do not argue with them about their personal opinions. 2 Some people's [beliefs allow//faith allows] them to eat anything, but the person who is weak in [their belief//the faith] eats only vegetables. 8 If we live, it is for the Lord that we live, and if we die, it is for the Lord that we die. So whether we live or die, [(or do anything else,)] we belong to the Lord.15 If you hurt others because of something you eat [— by eating it right in front of them], then you are no longer acting from love. Do not let the food that you eat ruin [a//the] person for whom Christ died!23 But if [you//they] have doubts about what [you//they] eat, God condemns them when [you//they] eat it, because [your//their] action is not based on [your beliefs//faith]. And anything that is not based on [belief//faith] is a sin.
2SAMUEL 9-10:David realized the incongruity that he was living in a beautiful cedar palace while God's dwelling place was in a tent. Then God gave Nathan the prophet a long message for David. He told him that his dynasty would last forever and that his son would build God’s temple. David’s beautiful prayer of response is recorded for us. Then God gave a string of stunning military victories to David.
PSALM 110:The first verse of this short psalm is one of the most repeated verses of the New Testament. It certainly was very important for the early Christians. And the 4th verse becomes an important theme of the book of Hebrews.
Re-reading ROMANS 13:We are now solidly in the middle of the practical part of this letter. Today we hear the part about obeying government authorities and our obligation to love everyone. I especially like the section at the end contrasting light and dark, and taking up our spiritual weapons.
GNT Translation notes:2Sam. 9:8 NLT Mephibosheth bowed respectfully and exclaimed, “Who [am I,//is] your servant, that you should show such kindness to a dead dog like me?” ====Rom. 13:14 PET Instead, [let us become more and more like the Lord Christ Jesus, so that when people see us, it is like seeing Him.//NLT clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.] And don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires.[The literal is ‘put on the Lord Jesus Christ’. And I’m not ‘putting you on’! This is one case where that English idiom could almost get in the way. I don’t feel that NLT is accurate in adding ‘presence’. It does allow them to keep the clothing figure— but at the expense of significantly changed meaning! Our PET translation drops the clothing figure entirely, but probably is closer to the meaning received by the original readers. The GNT has done a good job also in representing a different interpretation of the meaning.]
NLT Translation note:2Sam. 9:8 Mephibosheth bowed respectfully and exclaimed, “Who [am I,//is] your servant, that you should show such kindness to a dead dog like me?” ====Rom. 13:14 Instead, [let us become more and more like the Lord Christ Jesus, so that when people see us, it is like seeing Him.//clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.] And don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires.[The literal is ‘put on the Lord Jesus Christ’. And I’m not ‘putting you on’! This is one case where that English idiom could almost get in the way. I don’t feel that NLT is accurate in adding ‘presence’. It does allow them to keep the clothing figure, but at the expense of significantly changed meaning. Our PET translation drops the clothing figure entirely, but probably is closer to the meaning received by the original readers.]
2 SAMUEL 7-8:At last, David became the king of all Israel, then the Lord gave him two great military victories over the Philistines. Then, after a botched attempt, David moved the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. He danced with all his might before the Lord.
Psalm 109b:When you feel that you are surrounded by people who gang up against you and slander you, then this is the psalm for you. Note that Jesus would have had every right to pray like this from the cross, but He didn’t!
ROMANS 13:Remember my challenge to you about Romans 12:1? Did you discover where the opening ‘Therefore’ goes back to?
Romans 12 is one of the most beautiful of all of Paul’s practical teaching chapters. He deals with the basics, ending with the most basic of all: “Do not let evil defeat you; instead, conquer evil with good.” Chapter 12 teaches us about how to evaluate ourselves and how to use our spiritual gifts, and how to respond to people who do wrong to us. Key to all of this is the first two verses. Let’s remind ourselves of those verses before reading chapter 13.
Romans 12:1-2 PET[The PET (Plain English Translation) is how our Plain Indonesian Translation (TSI) sounds if translated into English.]1 Based on all I have said before now about the various ways God has been so kind to us, it's only proper that we return His kindness! We should all think like this, “Lord, I give my body to you as a sacrifice”— even though we actually continue to live. A decision like that amounts to a holy sacrifice which pleases the Lord.
2 This means that we can no longer follow a bad lifestyle like what has become the habit of worldly people. But let's surrender our bodies as sacrificial offerings to God, and He will renew our minds— so that we can know what His will is for us, and what is best in every situation. By that I mean we can understand and choose what is good and what is most proper for us, along with what pleases the Lord.
GNT Translation notes:
2Sam. 8:18 Benaiah son of Jehoiada was in charge of David's bodyguards, and David's sons were [royal advisers//priests].
2SAMUEL 5-6:General Abner defected to David, but it cost him his life on the same day at the hands of Joab, the commander of David's forces and the brother of the slain Asahel. One result was also that Ishbosheth was murdered by two army captains who thought that they would be rewarded for doing David a favor.
PSALM 109a:If you feel that you are surrounded by people who gang up against you and slander you, then this is the psalm for you. One of the verses in this psalm was quoted by Peter about Judas in Acts 1. You are certainly given permission by this Psalm to pray for vindication and justice, but contrast this with what Romans 12 says about praying for your enemies— which we also read today. Note this: In the NLT, verses 6 through 19 contain a very long quote of slander against the Psalm-writer, David. Or, in GNT, these verses are part of David’s prayer for vindication.
Re-reading ROMANS 12:Chapter 12 marks the beginning of the practical part of Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians. This part packs a big punch, and verses 1-2— which form the topic sentence for this section, are must-memorize verses. If everything that Paul said before now is true, then THIS is the logical and appropriate response of how we are to live. This is how we ought to respond to God's wonderful kindness to us. And these two verses reveal a major truth about how the transformation of our minds takes place, and what must happen if we are to discern God's will in our decisions.
GNT Translation notes:
[God works a miracle in us by renewing our minds. What must we do first? Our PET translation helps readers make the connection:]
Rom. 12:1 PET-Based on all I have said before now about the various ways God has been so kind to us, it is only proper that we return His kindness! We should all think like this, “Lord, I give my body to you as a sacrifice”— even though we actually continue to live. A decision like that amounts to a holy sacrifice which pleases the Lord.
2 PET This means that we can no longer follow a bad lifestyle like what has become the habit of worldly people. But let's surrender our bodies as sacrificial offerings to God, and He will renew our minds— so that we can know what God's will for us is, and what is best in every situation. By that I mean we can understand and choose what is good and what is most proper for us, along with whatever pleases the Lord.
2SAMUEL 2:David heard of Israel’s terrible defeat and of Saul and Jonathan's deaths, and he exacted the death sentence from the lying messenger. David and his men mourned for the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, and David composed a funeral song for them.
PSALM 107b:Yesterday I commented on how quickly our culture forgets about God. After a natural disaster, it becomes popular in the media to talk about praying for the victims. But God is not even mentioned, and soon any pretense of awe or fear of God is dropped. But Psalm 107 speaks of people who see God’s hand at work and make lasting changes. The poem ends with this summary:
NLT The godly will see these things and be glad,while the wicked are struck silent.43 Those who are wise will take all this to heart;they will see in our history the faithful love of the LORD.
ROMANS 11b:Paul comes to the end of a long parenthesis at the end of this chapter. He ends with a conclusion just before a doxology:
NLT 33 Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways34 For who can know the LORD’s thoughts?Who knows enough to give him advice?35 And who has given him so muchthat he needs to pay it back?
2SAMUEL 1:David returned from being sent home from the battle with Israel only to find that his town had been ransacked by the Amalekites. He found strength in God, asked for God to direct him, and succeeded in retrieving everything, and even much more. However in Israel, Saul and his three sons died, and the Israelite army was completely defeated.
PSALM 107a:We come to another of my favorite psalms. In E.C. Olsen’s book on the psalms (which is a transcription of his radio programs), he said that this psalm has a message for America. That message is in the repeated refrain found in this psalm. Then Olsen gave examples of the Great Depression starting in 1929, the Dust Bowl plagues in 1933-34, and the drought of 1936. Olsen observed, “Do you think we heeded [God’s warnings]? Indeed not. … Did we cease our wicked doings? Indeed not.” And I similarly ask about the increasing pace of disasters right now. My observation is that we as a nation turned to God when we confronted the first disasters. But our turning to God lasted only a few days. Now, even as natural disasters multiply, we steadfastly talk of Climate Change and never talk about God. Consequently, we do NOT do like the people we hear about in this psalm.
ROMANS 11a:As Paul said in his topic sentence in this book (Rom. 1:16-17), the way God has revealed for making people right with himself is— from start to finish, by means of fully believing. In chapter 10 we have a great and succinct summation of the content that we are to ‘fully believe’. Our confessing the belief that is in our hearts is also important. At the end of chapter 10 there are a series of Old Testament quotes. Two of those quotes are about the non-Jews. Paul was not changing his topic. He is still talking about Jewish rejection of the Gospel. The two Old Testament prophecies about the non-Jews (19-20) are quoted as a powerful sign to the Jews. This is the topic Paul continues with in chapter 11.
1SAMUEL 30-31:The Philistines mustered their armies for full-scale war with Saul and the Israelites. Saul had already done the right thing in expelling all the mediums from Israel. But, since God had turned from him and would not answer him, he resorted to a medium during his darkest hour. It does not bother me too much to say that God spoke through that medium. It seems so by the evidence. But if so, it was an exception. God's word says to never consult a medium. In fact, mediums are to be stoned to death. David was preparing to go to war in support of Achish, or was he really?!
PSALM 106b:Psalm 106 is a companion to 105, as it again is a historical psalm. I see a very significant correspondence with the section of Romans we are now reading. Can you see it?
Re-reading ROMANS 10, plus 11:1-2a:Some of the most famous and often quoted words of the New Testament are in this chapter. Paul continues to compare and contrast God's way vs. the Jewish default way.
1SAMUEL 28-29:Saul came after David again with 3,000 men, and David showed his integrity again and his daring. But even though Saul repented again, David made the decision to get out of the country so that he would not continually be in danger. He went to Achish the Philistine king in Gath. The part about the raids upon three enemy people groups is not one of the noble chapters of David's life.
PSALM 106a:Psalm 106 is a companion to 105, as it again is a historical psalm. I see a very significant correspondence with the section of Romans we are now reading. Can you see it?
ROMANS 10a:In our second reading in Romans 9 we saw that the differing responses of the Jews vs. the non-Jews to the Good News was already predicted by God. The majority rejection of the Gospel by the Jews was no surprise to God. People today continue to stumble over the ‘great rock’ God has placed in their path.
GNT Translation notes:
Ps.106:26 So he [gave//have] them a solemn warning that he would make them die in the desert====Rom. 10:6 But what the scripture says about being put right with God through faith is this: “You are not to ask yourself, Who will go up into heaven?” (that is, to bring Christ down). 8 What it says is this: “God's message is near you, on your lips and in your heart”—that is, the message [about believing//of faith] that we preach. 10 For it is by our [believing//faith] that we are put right with God; it is by our confession that we are saved.17 So then, [people believe through//faith comes from] hearing the message, and the message [is conveyed//comes] through preaching [about] Christ.18 But I ask: Is it true that [the people of Israel//they] did not hear the message? Of course they did—for as the scripture says: [PET “The sun, moon, and all of the stars speak the news about God to the whole world that He is the one who created everything. So people have no reasonnot to know God.”//“The sound of their voice went out to all the world; their words reached the ends of the earth.”]19 Again I ask: Did the people of Israel not understand? Moses himself is the first one to answer[, when he quotes God’s words]: “I will use a so-called nation to make my people jealous; and by means of a nation of fools I will make my people angry.”20 And Isaiah is even bolder when he , “I was found by those who were not looking for me; I appeared to those who were not asking for me.”
1SAMUEL 26-27:Yesterday we heard the story of the cur Nabal and his intelligent and beautiful wife, Abigail. After Nabal was struck down by the Lord, Abigail became one of David's wives.
PSALM 105b:Today’s psalm is for teaching and reminding each generation of the children of Israel about the great things God has done for the Jewish people.
ROMANS 9b:Note that we have entered a difficult section of Romans. Romans 12 starts with, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercies, …” But if you look back at what goes right before that in chapter 11, that doesn’t seem to be what Paul is going back to with the word ‘Therefore’. Can you find what Paul was going back to and how the sections we will read for the next few days fit together?
GNT Translation notes:
Rom. 9: 30 So we say that the Gentiles, who were not trying to put themselves right with God, were put right with him through [believing//faith];
32 And why not? Because they did not depend on [believing//faith] but on what they did. And so they stumbled over the “stumbling stone”
33 that the scripture speaks of: “Look, I place in [Jerusalem//Zion] a stone that will make people stumble, a rock that will make them fall. But whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.”
1SAMUEL 25:God gave protection and victory to David. In a scene that must have caused Saul's men to roll their eyes several times, Saul was humbled before them as David directly confronted him. But after making peace, they didn't go back to the capital together.
PSALM 105a:Today’s psalm is for teaching and reminding each generation of the children of Israel about the great things God has done for the Jewish people.
ROMANS 9a:What wonderful promises God has given to us in chapter 8 of Romans! That chapter always reminds me of a time when a Christian leader did wrong to me, and then said that it really didn’t matter because it would all turn out OK because of Romans 8:28. That is the ultimate of hypocrisy! It ruined that verse for me for a long time. But God DOES indeed work all things for good for all of us who fulfill the conditions stated. This chapter also reminds me of Eloise Burson— the wife of one of my spiritual fathers, Richard. Some years after her husband's death, she showed me how her Bible— if you just let it fall open, would always open to Romans 8. There is no richer passage to meditate on or to memorize.
Note that we are entering a difficult section of Romans. Romans 12 starts with “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercies, …” But if you look back at what goes right before that in chapter 11, that doesn’t seem to be what Paul is going back to with the word ‘Therefore’ and ‘mercies’. Can you find what Paul was going back to and how the sections we will read for the next few days fit together?
1SAMUEL 23-24:As David fled from Saul, he went for help to Ahimelech the priest. He needed food and wanted to consult with the Lord, and it happened that Ahimelech also gave him Goliath's sword. All this resulted later in Ahimelech's death and the deaths of all of Ahimelech's family— except one.
PSALM 104b:This Psalm starts and ends with the same refrain, and it is the same refrain as in Psalm 103. This psalm expounds on the majesty of God— especially as seen in His creation.
ROMANS 8b:The power behind the new lives that God wants us to live is the Holy Spirit. A side observation here: We can see that the Holy Spirit can equally be called the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ (vs. 9-11). He is the power for transformation in our lives. But having God's Spirit in our lives does not mean that we will not suffer. In the second half of today's reading, note the Holy Spirit's role for us in the midst of our sufferings. Then at the end, note the wonderful promises given to us!
Four times in this chapter Paul refers to us as God’s ‘sons’. GNT translated ‘sons’ as gender-sensitive children, and that is an acceptable translation. But I feel this time to translate using the word ‘sons’ is better, but I will need to explain. Just as men feel a bit squeamish about being included in the ‘bride of Christ’ in Ephesians, I am sure there are some of the women listeners who will not feel comfortable being included as sons. But look for the treasure here! This passage and Ephesians 1:5 show that we are given legal adopted status as sons. In Roman law, the adoption of a son could not be undone. God has made the unchangeable decision that we would be his legally adopted sons and have all the rights and privileges of that status. Thank the Lord for our union with his Son, Jesus! Note that in the middle of the references to ‘sons’, Paul also used the Greek word that means ‘children’. The change between the two words is part of the reason that I think the use of ‘sons’ was important to Paul.
GNT Translation notes:
1Sam. 23:25 Saul and his men set out to look for David, but [David//he] heard about it and went to a rocky hill in the wilderness of Maon and stayed there. When Saul heard about this, he went after David.====
Ps 104:19 You [O Lord,] created the moon to mark the months; the sun knows the time to set. The young lions roar while they hunt, looking for the food that God provides.21 The young lions roar while they hunt, looking for the food that [You provide//God provides].31 [O Lord, may your glory//May the glory of the Lord] last forever!May [You,//the] Lord be happy with what [You have//he has] made! 32 [You look//He looks] at the earth, and it trembles; [You touch//he touches] the mountains, and they pour out smoke. 33 I will sing to [You, O Lord my God//the Lord] all my life; as long as I live I will sing praises to [You//my God]. 34 May [You//he] be pleased with my song, for my gladness comes from [You//him].====Rom. 8:9 But you [no longer//do not] live as your human nature tells you to; instead, you live as the Spirit tells you to—if, in fact, God's Spirit lives in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.14 Those who are led by God's Spirit are God's [sons//children]. 15 For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead, the Spirit makes you God's [sons//children], and by the Spirit's power we cry out to God, “Father! [(Abba)] my Father!”19 All of creation waits with eager longing for God to reveal his [sons//children].23 But it is not just creation alone which groans; we who have the Spirit as the first of God's gifts also groan within ourselves as we wait for God to make us his [sons//children] and set our whole being free.28 We know that in all things God works for [the] good [of//with] those who love him, those whom he has called according to his purpose.
Rom. 8:33 Who will accuse God's chosen people? God himself declares them not guilty!
34 Who, then, will condemn [us//them]? Not Christ Jesus, who died, or rather, who was raised to life and is at the right side of God, pleading with him for us!36 As the scripture [so realistically//truly//appropriately] [admits//says], “For your sake we are in danger of death at all times; we are treated like sheep that are going to be slaughtered.”
37 [No, but//That’s true, but//No,] in all these things we have complete victory through him who loved us!
1SAMUEL 21-22:Yesterday we heard the touching story of David and Jonathan's deep friendship, and how Jonathan realized, at last, the secret plot that his father, Saul, had against David. Jonathan seems to have been a prophet, for he realized that he would not succeed his father as king.
PSALM 104a:This is a companion with Psalm 103. This psalm also starts and ends with the same refrain as the one in Psalm 103. This poem expounds on the majesty of God.
ROMANS 8a:Paul said something in 7:5 that he felt needed to be explained from verse 7 to the end of chapter 7. (Of course there were no chapters or verses when Paul wrote it.) He said that the Law “aroused evil desires.” How could something good seemingly do something evil? Be sure to always link what Paul was saying before this explanation with what comes after it. Give the part after that explanation (chapter 8) priority. Keep in mind that the explanation that Paul makes (along parenthesis (after 7:7) about how evil desires work) is not supposed to be our pattern for living now. Our pattern for living is explained in this chapter!
GNT Translation notes:Rom. 8:9 But you [no longer//do not] live as your human nature tells you to; instead, you live as the Spirit tells you to—if, in fact, God's Spirit lives in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.14 Those who are led by God's Spirit are God's [sons//children]. 15 For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead, the Spirit makes you God's [sons//children], and by the Spirit's power we cry out to God, “Father! [(Abba)] my Father!”19 All of creation waits with eager longing for God to reveal his [sons//children].23 But it is not just creation alone which groans; we who have the Spirit as the first of God's gifts also groan within ourselves as we wait for God to make us his [sons//children] and set our whole being free.
1SAMUEL 20:Yesterday we heard the slow escalation of David's problems stemming from Saul's jealousy. Saul made David his son-in-law, but only because of the hope that David would be killed by the Philistines. For only the first time in yesterday's reading, we heard how Saul was humbled because of the results of acting on his jealousy. But he doesn't learn from it.
PSALM 103:How it must please the Lord when we pray this psalm, which is another favorite! Note that the psalm starts and ends with the same line.
ROMANS 7:8—8:4:The second key to being released from the power of sin is God's Spirit! (v.6) Paul then launched into an exposition of what he meant in verse 5: “When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death.” The explanation that extends from verse 7 to the end of the chapter should NOT be construed to negate what he said in verse 6, in the preceding chapters, and in chapter 8!
Notice that in the second half of chapter 7, Paul stops mentioning Christ. That’s a hint that he is not talking about our life in union with Christ. Also, I found it interesting to do a search of Romans searching for the word ‘Spirit’. Look at the pattern of where the word ‘Spirit’ is used!
GNT Translation notes:
Rom. 8:1 [So then,] There is no condemnation now for those who live in union with Christ Jesus.
1SAMUEL 18-19:In yesterday's story, David showed that he was more concerned with God's reputation than for his own safety. May we all face our imposing enemies with more belief in the unseen God than in the very present enemies!
PSALM 102:This Psalm starts out like the prayer of anyone in distress and trouble calling out to God. As we read further, many see parallels with what our Savior would have prayed in his darkest days on earth.
ROMANS 6:19—7:The last verse of yesterday’s reading shows why it is better to take what we are given, rather than what we have earned! This is a big problem for some. My Dad's “having lived a good life” was one of the biggest blocks to him humbly coming to God and receiving the gift of eternal life. I don't think he ever understood how God would not be so impressed by his supposed integrity. The spiritual reality expressed starting at the beginning of the 6th chapter is a key to place along with a second key that we will hear about in today’s chapter.
GNT Translation notes:[In Hebrew, one can talk directly to God (or a king) as if talking about ‘the Lord’. To keep the feeling of a prayer, English would normally use ‘You’.]Ps. 102:15 Then the nations will tremble before [You,//the] LORD.The kings of the earth will tremble before [your/his] glory.16 For [You//the] LORD will rebuild Jerusalem.[You/He] will appear in his glory.17 [You/He] will listen to the prayers of the destitute.[You/He] will not reject their pleas.23 [You, Lord, have//The Lord has] made me weak while I am still young;[You have//he has] shortened my life.
1SAMUEL 17:God told Samuel to anoint one of Jesse's sons as the next king of Israel. Anointing another king while one is still ruling is rather dangerous. So God told Samuel how to do that without making it public. That story included this memorable quote: “The LORD doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
PSALM 101:This psalm tells the aspirations of a great king.
Re-reading ROMANS 6:Pay attention! Paul is telling us the keys to how the process of transformation takes place whereby we are released from the ‘power of sin’ and ‘death’ to live a new life!
I found this hymn by Thomas Ryder (an American musician who lived in Massachusetts from 1836-1887.) This is not a hymn that I can remember ever singing. It would be a great idea for someone to write new music for it.
Buried with Christ and raised with Him, too,What is there left for me to do?Simply to cease from struggling and strife,Simply to walk in newness of life.RefrainBuried with Christ and dead unto sin;Dying but living, Jesus within;Ruling and reigning day after day,Guiding and keeping all of the way.Risen with Christ my glorious Head,Holiness now the pathway I tread;Beautiful thought from walking therein,He that is dead is freed from all sin.RefrainLiving with Christ, who dieth no more,Following Christ, who goeth before;Not under law, I’m now under grace,Sin is dethroned, and Christ takes its place.Refrain
1SAMUEL 16:Yesterday's reading told the story of Saul's incomplete obedience and the rejection of Saul as king— by both God and Samuel. In the process Samuel said some of the most important statements in Scripture, which I will underline here:
Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice,and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft,and stubbornness as bad as worshiping idols.
A second quote:
He who is the Glory of Israel will not lie, nor will he change his mind, for he is not human that he should change his mind!”
PSALM 100:This psalm probably ranks second in the most-memorized psalms, next to Psalm 23.
ROMANS 6:Mankind can at best only hope for the kind of partial obedience we have seen in Saul. We can't just ‘try harder’ to please God. We always ‘fall short’ of ‘God's glorious standard’— as we have heard before in Romans chapter 3. The only hope for us is for God to recreate us. This is done through our understanding and applying spiritual realities which we cannot see, and one of crucial importance is found in chapter 6.
We have a short reading today. I encourage you to take time to think about the spiritual concepts Paul has been talking about in these last chapters— particularly Romans 5-6. The way to apply unseen spiritual realities in your life is to ask God to help you fully understand and believe them.
1SAMUEL 15:Jonathan saved the day! He and his faithful armor bearer kind of took a leaf out of Gideon's play book and agreed on a sign that would show what God wanted them to do— although they didn't ask for confirmation like Gideon did. They took the adventure God set before them and won an amazing victory, and God worked with them by causing panic among the Philistines. After lapses and dithering at the beginning, Saul went on to be a great military leader. Note that Ahijah, the priest, is Eli's grandson.
PSALM 99:Take off your sandals, because this ground is holy! Enjoy this psalm proclaiming God’s majesty and holiness.
ROMANS 5—6:4:God’s ways are always counter-intuitive for humans. One would think that if one is right with God and at peace with him, that everything would be smooth sailing from then on, with health, wealth, and prosperity. God shows his love for us by treating us like sons and heirs— meaning, He gives us problems and trials to cause us to grow and better reflect his glory. There is a wonderful side to Christ's dying for us and being resurrected: He lives now and is deeply involved in continuing to help us. At the end of the chapter Paul draws important comparisons and contrasts between Adam and Christ.
GNT Translation notes: [I have modified the GNT so that this whole psalm will be understood as speaking to God, as does the CEV.]Ps. 99:1 [You, Lord, are king//The Lord is king],
and the people tremble.[You sit on your//He sits on his] throne above the winged creatures,
and the earth shakes.2 [You, O Lord, are//The Lord is] mighty in Zion;[You are//he is] supreme over all the nations.3 Everyone will praise [your//his] great and majestic name.[You are holy!//Holy is he!]…6 Moses and Aaron were [your//his] priests,and Samuel was one who prayed to [You//him];they called to [You, Lord, and You//the Lord, and he] answered them.7 [You//He] spoke to them from the pillar of cloud;hey obeyed the laws and commands that [You//he] gave them.====Rom. 5:1 Now that we have been put right with God through [believing//faith], we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 He has brought us by [means if our believing//faith] into this experience of God's grace, in which we now live. And so we boast of the hope we have of sharing God's glory! 20 Law was introduced [in order that people might realize how greatly they have sinned//in order to increase [mankind’s awareness of] wrongdoing]; [But as people sinned more and more, God's grace became even more abundant.//but where sin increased, God's grace increased much more. ]
21 [NLT So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God's wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.//So then, just as sin ruled by means of death, so also God's grace rules by means of righteousness, leading us to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
1SAMUEL 14:Hostilities with the Philistines heated up to full war, and Israel was badly outnumbered. The Israelites had been kept down so much that they were basically unarmed for war. Saul and his son's army dwindled down from 3,000 men to only 600, and Samuel doesn't show up for the important before-war sacrifice.
PSALM 98:Another favorite psalm! I love psalms where things like oceans, rivers, or trees clap their hands. I recommend this psalm for anyone who feels that we can only worship God with the good old hymns.
ROMANS 5:Every little detail in the story of Abraham is important. Note in yesterday's reading that Abraham “figured his body was as good as _dead_,” and “Abraham believed in the God who _brings the dead back to life_.” Then we read that we must “believe in [God]— the one who _raised Jesus our Lord from the dead_.” And we will find a new concept related to this theme about death and resurrection later.
GNT Translation notes:Rom. 5:1 Now that we have been put right with God through [believing//faith], we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 He has brought us by [believing//faith] into this experience of God's grace, in which we now live. And so we boast of the hope we have of sharing God's glory!
1SAMUEL 13:In yesterday's story, God's Spirit came powerfully upon the new king Saul, and he succeeded in mobilizing all of Israel's fighting men. They won a stunning victory over king Nahash and the Ammonites. Afterward, Samuel led the people in renewing Israel's call to Saul to be king and then Samuel confronted them all about staying true to the Lord.
PSALM 97:Even though the psalms (and our translations) may cast a verse in the present tense, the intent of the writer may be about future things. Hebrew is very fuzzy as to verb tense. But also we may consider that all times are present to the Lord, and the psalmist may see things as happening or already happening in his vision that refer to future events. We see an example of this in today’s psalm.
ROMANS 4b:The new way of being made right with God by means of fully believing which Paul has been talking about, is it a new religion, or is it based on the past? It is based on the past. We follow Abraham's example of believing, and this also fulfills the prophetic promises given to Abraham. Not only that, but we become heirs to the same promises. And note: Paul uses questions to propel his logical arguments all the way through Romans— just like I did at the start of this paragraph.
GNT Translation notes:Rom. 4:11 He was circumcised later, and his circumcision was a sign to show that because of his [believing//faith] [before he had been circumcised//0] God had accepted him as righteous [0//before he had been circumcised]. And so Abraham is the spiritual father of all who believe in God and are accepted as righteous by him, even though they are not circumcised. 12 He is also the father of those who are circumcised, that is, of those who, in addition to being circumcised, also live the same life of [believing//faith] that our father Abraham lived before he was circumcised.14 For if what God promises is to be given to those who obey the Law, then [our believing//faith] means nothing and God's promise is worthless. 16 And so the promise was based on [believing//faith], in order that the promise should be guaranteed as God's free gift to all of Abraham's descendants—not just to those who obey the Law, but also to those who believe as Abraham did. For Abraham is the spiritual father of us all; 17 as the scripture says, “I have made you father of many nations.” So the promise is [valid//good] in the sight of God, in whom Abraham believed—the God who brings the dead to life and whose command brings into being what did not exist. 20 His [did not waver in his believing//faith did not leave him], and he did not doubt God's promise; his [believing//faith] filled him with power, and he gave praise to God. 22 That is why Abraham, through [believing//faith], “was accepted as righteous by God.”
1SAMUEL 11-12:Yesterday we heard of the way God arranged for Saul to meet Samuel, and how God revealed amazing details to Samuel about what would happen to Saul in the short term. Saul became king. It is such a shame that Saul fulfilled the earlier prophecy given by Samuel a few chapters back, rather than continuing to be humble like he was at the start of his reign.
PSALM 96:EC Olsen’s chapter on this psalm is entitled, “A Psalm which ought to give every living person a thrill!!” He’s right. This psalm is like vitamins for the soul. This is one of the most loved of all psalms.
ROMANS 4a:Yesterday Paul arrived at the first explanation of his main point in 3:23-31. This happens to be a difficult passage to translate. GNT and NLT do a great job making many difficult concepts clear. You might particularly compare verses 23 and 26 with a literal translation.
GNT Translation notes:Rom. 4:3 The scripture says, “Abraham believed God, and because of his [belief//faith] God accepted him as righteous.” 5 But those who depend on [believing//faith], not on deeds, and who believe in the God who declares the guilty to be innocent, it is this [believing//faith] that God takes into account in order to put them right with himself. 6 This is what David meant when he spoke of the happiness of [a//the] person whom God accepts as righteous, apart from anything [the//that] person does:9 Does this happiness that David spoke of belong only to those who are circumcised? No indeed! It belongs also to those who are not circumcised. For we have quoted the scripture, “Abraham believed God, and because of his [belief//faith] God accepted him as righteous.”11 He was circumcised later, and his circumcision was a sign to show that because of his [believing//faith] [before he had been circumcised//0] God had accepted him as righteous [0//before he had been circumcised]. And so Abraham is the spiritual father of all who believe in God and are accepted as righteous by him, even though they are not circumcised. 12 He is also the father of those who are circumcised, that is, of those who, in addition to being circumcised, also live the same life of [believing//faith] that our father Abraham lived before he was circumcised.14 For if what God promises is to be given to those who obey the Law, then [our believing//faith] means nothing and God's promise is worthless. 16 And so the promise was based on [believing//faith], in order that the promise should be guaranteed as God's free gift to all of Abraham's descendants—not just to those who obey the Law, but also to those who believe as Abraham did. For Abraham is the spiritual father of us all; [Here is my new attempt at rendering the meaning of this verse:]
16 So the promise is received by [believing//faith]. It is given as a free gift. And if we become Abraham’s spiritual children by believing like Abraham did, we are certain to receive it— whether or not we live by the Law of Moses. For Abraham is the father of all who believe.]17 as the scripture says, “I have made you father of many nations.” So the promise is [valid//good] in the sight of God, in whom Abraham believed—the God who brings the dead to life and whose command brings into being what did not exist.
1SAMUEL 9-10:In yesterday's reading, Samuel was formally made a judge, and then he led the people of Israel into victory over the Philistines. But when Samuel was old and after the appointment of his two sons as judges in his place, his sons perverted justice for bribes. So the people asked to have a king. God had already long ago said this would happen, in fact, this idea was in Hannah’s prayer. Samuel was displeased, not for the sake of his sons, but because the people were rejecting God as their king.
PSALM 95:This is a gem among the psalms. Note the exuberance of worship in this psalm! And this is balanced by reverence to God. The last half of this psalm is quoted in full in Hebrews and is an important topic in that New Testament book.
ROMANS 3b:In Romans chapter 3 Paul refutes important misunderstanding and wrong teaching in the process of resoundingly proving that Jews cannot save themselves by their own power by means of fulfilling the Law. (In his use of the term ‘the Law’, Paul was following the custom of including other Old Testament books.) In the verses he quoted, he made it very that not even one person can claim to be righteous in God's sight. So God has provided another way to become right in His sight, which is actually foretold in the Law and Biblical prophetic writings.
GNT Translation notes:
Rom. 3:22 [NLT We are made right with God by [(fully) believing//placing our _faith_] in Jesus Christ. [0//And] this is true for [all//everyone] who _believes_[in Christ], no matter who we are.//GNT God puts people right through their _faith_ in Jesus Christ. God does this to all who _believe_ in Christ, because there is no difference at all: 23 [because] everyone has sinned and is far away from God's saving presence.[Here is an excellent example of the point I keep harping on. Note that using the verb form ‘believe’ instead of the abstract noun form makes it clear that the same word is used later in the verse. Cohesion of ideas makes better understanding. Secondly, it is easier for people to ‘do’ a verb than it is to ‘do’ an abstract noun. It is easier to ‘practice’ something than it is to ‘make a practice of’ something. It is easier to ‘eat’ apples than it is to ‘practice the consumption of’ apples. Sometime during this last year, the pastor of our church gave a sermon where one of his main points is that ‘faith’ has an object. And that object he gave is of course that we place our faith in Christ as explained in the Gospel. Note that this major part of his teaching would be unnecessary if we simply start substituting the word ‘believe’ (including ‘belief’/’believing’). One automatically expects to find an object for believing in the context. If you say to someone, “Have faith,” they might say, “How do I do that?” Note that ‘faith’ is not perceived as a volitional act. But ‘believe’ is. To believe is a choice we can make. And that is exactly what Paul is pushing for here.][The same change was made in reading verses 25-26.]30 God is one, and he will put the Jews right with himself on the basis of their [believing//faith], and [he] will put the Gentiles right through their [believing//faith]. 31Does this mean that by this [believing//faith] we do away with the Law? No, not at all; instead, we uphold the Law.
1SAMUEL 7-8:Having won the war with Israel, the Philistines thought their idol Dagon had given them victory. The ark of God was put in Dagon's temple. Then God not only proved that He is greater than Dagon by what happened in the temple, but He also struck the Philistines in all five of their territories with plagues of death, tumors, and rats ravaging the land. The Philistine fortune tellers and priests devised a creative plan to test if these disasters had happened on their own, or because of God's hand was against them. In the story it is clear that the Philistine people knew about the plagues God used against the Egyptians. Once again, God proved that He is God. For any any agnostic or atheist in the audience, this seems to me to be the kind of story that no one would have just made up, especially if you compare this with literature of the same age.
PSALM 94:This is a psalm of trust in the face of injustice. The psalmist asks for God’s vengeance on arrogant and evil leaders. Those who take advantage of others are called ‘stupid fools’. There is a parable that forms an interesting parallel: Luke 12:20, where God says to the rich man, “You fool, this very night your soul will be required of you.”
ROMANS 2:25—3:In chapter 2 of Romans, Paul warned of a coming judgment of God, where God will judge everyone's secret life. The trouble is, however, that we all will be judged guilty of sin. Paul has shown us that it doesn't matter if you are Jew or non-Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, we all need a radical transformation. We need to become a ‘true Jew’, which is “one whose heart is right with God].” What each one of us needs is “a change of heart produced by God’s Spirit.” Paul calls this “circumcision of the heart.”
GNT Translation notes:
Ps. 94:14 [You, O Lord//The Lord] will not abandon [your/his] people; [You//he] will not desert those who belong to [You//him].17 If [You//the Lord] had not helped me, I would have gone quickly to the land of silence.22 But [You, O Lord my God, defend me//the Lord defends me]; [and protect//my God protects] me.23 [You//He] will punish them for their wickedness and destroy them for their sins; [You, O//the] Lord our God[,] will destroy them.====Rom. 3:4 Certainly not! God must be true, even though all human beings are liars. As the scripture says [when David was speaking to God], “You must be shown to be right when you speak; you must win your case when you are being tried.”8 [But] Why not say, then, “Let us do evil so that good may come”? Some people, indeed, have insulted me by accusing me of saying this very thing! They will be condemned, as they should be.
1SAMUEL 5-6:Yesterday we saw the touching way that God revealed to Samuel how to listen for God's voice, and at the same time how He again warned Eli of impending disaster. Eli was incredibly able to recognize the way the Lord works, but at the same time was unconcerned about how God's words applied to him. Let us not be like him! Observe this link to Romans: God's judgment will come to us just as surely as it did to Eli's sons.
PSALM 93:Like the Gettysburg Address, sometimes the noblest thoughts are best expressed with brevity.
ROMANS 2b:In yesterday's reading, Paul continued to prove that man is not “basically good” (which one keeps hearing in Hollywood films and on the television). Not only are we sinful, but we tend to be self-righteous— which in itself is sinful. The ‘bad news’ is compounded in these additional points: “A day of anger is coming, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. … There will be trouble and calamity for everyone who keeps on doing what is evil— especially for the Jews, but also for the non-Jews.”
Verse 12 is difficult so I suggest reading verse 12 from the PET before picking up reading at verse 13.
12 PET So people who already know the Law and break it are just the same as those who've never heard about the law and commit sin. Sinners who don't know the Law will be destroyed. Similarly, people who already know the Law and commit sin will be judged according to the law.
GNT Translation note:Rom 2:28 After all, who is a real Jew[and//,] truly circumcised? It is not the man who is a Jew on the outside, whose circumcision is a physical thing.
1SAMUEL 3-4:Yesterday we heard Hannah's poetic and prophetic prayer of praise. R Then we heard of the contrast between the boy Samuel serving the Lord, while Eli's sons were scoundrels. Finally a “man of God” (a prophet or perhaps even an angel) gave a long prophetic warning to Eli. Today we will see that prophecy come true.
PSALM 92:This is another favorite psalm of praise!
ROMANS 2:Yesterday we heard the first part of some bad news which makes the Good News ‘good’. This reminds me of the movie Second Hand Lions. In the movie, the main character has a lecture on ‘how to be a man’ that he frequently has given in his career. It starts out, “Understand this: All people are basically good.” However, in the movie, all we see in that character's past life and in the current way he lives is that mankind can't be trusted and you gotta’ build high fences around your property, and have your gun and fists ready. According to Scripture and what we will read in Romans, mankind hasn't been ‘basically good’ since the Garden of Eden.
GNT Translation note:
Rom 2:4 Or perhaps you despise his great kindness, tolerance, and patience. [CEV Can't you see how kind he has been in giving you time to turn from your sin?//Surely you know that God is kind because he is trying to lead you to repent.
1SAMUEL 2:Yesterday we heard of the wonderful answer to Hannah’s prayer and of her determination to fulfill a very difficult vow to the Lord. Samuel might have only been 3 years old when Hannah gave him up to stay permanently as a Nazarite serving at the Lord’s tabernacle. Hannah is such an example of a Godly woman. No wonder so many girls are named after her!
I noticed an interesting detail in yesterday’s reading. Elkanah also had a vow. When Samuel was newly born and Hannah did not go with the family to Shiloh for the yearly sacrifices, the GNT drew my attention saying that Elkanah went “to offer to the Lord the yearly sacrifice and the special sacrifice he had promised.” We don’t really know exactly what Elkanah’s special vow would have been. But it is conjectured by commentators that Elkanah was offering a sacrifice in fulfillment of Hannah’s vow about giving birth to a son. According to the Law, a wife’s vow could be revoked by her husband on the day he hears about the vow. But if he doesn’t forbid the wife about the vow on that day, the wife is bound by her vow and it is logical that the husband would share responsibility. As Elkanah left on that year, he told Hannah, “May the Lord make your promise come true.” This is a great example of doing what God commanded about vows. The principle was to always follow through whenever God’s name has been invoked. To do otherwise would be to mar God’s reputation.PSALM 91:This is a favorite psalm, frequently referred to in our hymns and worship songs. It is also the psalm Satan quoted to Jesus to tempt him to jump from the pinnacle of the temple. I feel that the promise that was quoted is not just for Jesus, but is for every believer. I preach to myself here: Let’s memorize and meditate upon this psalm!
ROMANS 1b:Yesterday we saw how the theme of this letter is the Good News, and how believing this message is the center of the way God has designed and revealed for how we are saved— no matter if we are ethnically Jews or non-Jews. The start of this Good News is that our relationship with God has been broken. Understanding this fact is what makes the Good News ‘good’. We don’t start out as ‘nice people’ but as broken people. And Paul will show us in three chapters that this situation obtains for Jews (who think they are so good) and non-Jews (who start out not even having an appearance of ‘good’).
GNT Translation notes:Rom. 1:17 For the gospel reveals how God puts people right with himself: it is through [believing//faith] from beginning to end. As the scripture says, “The person who is put right with God through [believing//faith] shall live.” 18 God's anger is revealed from heaven against all the sin and evil of [0//the] people whose evil ways prevent the truth from being known. 20 Ever since God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen; they are perceived in the things that God has made. So [0//those] [people (or mankind)] have no excuse at all!24 And so God has given [mankind (humans)//those people] over to do the filthy things their hearts desire, and they do shameful things with each other.
1SAMUEL 1:Yesterday we heard the charming conclusion of the story of Naomi, Ruth and Boaz. The words of the town women have prophetic significance: “Praise the Lord, who has now provided a redeemer for your family.” (NLT) The words have a double meaning for us today, as we see them looking forward to Jesus our Redeemer.
Now if you have been listening closely, you didn’t hear the word ‘redeemer’ in the GNT. That word happens 8 times in Ruth, beginning at 2:20. GNT translated the correct meaning as “a close relative of ours, one of those responsible for taking care of us.” The term meant much more than— for instance, redeeming a family member who had been sold into slavery. The nearest kinsman would also revenge a murder or marry a widow of a close family member. The advantage of GNT’s term is that it accurately shows the meaning, but the advantage of translating using the word ‘redeemer’ is that readers will more quickly see the correspondence between what Boaz did with Jesus— who both came from Boaz’ line and is our redeemer.
Continuing the history of Israel, we now move to the transition from the period of judges to the period of kings. The books of 1 and 2 Samuel were originally one book in the Hebrew Scripture. They were separated in the Greek Septuagint. The books are named after Samuel, not written by him. In 1 Samuel, we see that Samuel is not just a judge, but also a prophet, and that he anointed both Saul and David. This book contains many of the favorite Bible stories told to children.
PSALM 90:The traditional titles in the Psalms (given as headings or footnotes in our Bibles) were written centuries afterward by the Rabbis and we need not consider them part of the inspired Word. This title of Psalm 90 may identify Moses as the author, or the Rabbis may have meant that this psalm reflects a Mosaic perspective. No other psalm is labeled like this one. This is a good psalm for meditating on the meaning of our life and our short life-span.
ROMANS 1a:Yesterday in the final chapter of 1 Timothy, Paul continued giving instructions on how to teach particular groups in the church, ending with teachings for slaves and for rich people. Note that those who give generously to help others store up heavenly treasures and “a good foundation for the future.” Paul's closing encouragements to Timothy are moving because we can sense Paul's deep love for Timothy.
We move back in time slightly from 1 Timothy to Romans. Romans was written perhaps 6-9 years before 1Timothy, written at the time that Paul was in Corinth. The topic sentence for Romans is 1:16-17, and the book is an outstanding presentation of this thesis in impeccable logic. As a translator, I often use those two verses as an example of how hard it is to understand a literal translation versus a meaning based translation. I encourage you to compare the NLT with something like the ESV— to see what I mean.
GNT Translation notes:
1Sam. 1:20 The name Samuel actually means ‘name of God’ but has some sounds that are similar to the Hebrew verb ‘asked’. ====Rom 1:8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because the whole world is hearing about your [fully believing in Christ//faith].
12 What I mean is that both you and I will be [mutually encouraged to believe more fully in Christ//helped at the same time, you by my faith and I by yours].
13 [I want you to know//You must remember], my friends, that many times I have planned to visit you, but something has always kept me from doing so. I want to win converts among you also, as I have among other Gentiles.
17 For the gospel reveals how God puts people right with himself: it is through [believing//faith] from beginning to end. As the scripture says, “The person who is put right with God through [believing//faith] shall live.”
RUTH 3-4:In yesterday’s start to the book of Ruth, we saw how Naomi was left all alone, and how one of her two daughters-in-law, Ruth, left her family and idols to accompany Naomi and to follow Naomi’s God. Then it just so happened that Ruth was noticed by a man named Boaz while gathering left-behind grain in his field.
PSALM 89b:Ethan, the psalm-writer was very wise in his prayer. He started his prayer with praise and adoration. Then starting in verse 19 he reminded God of his promises to Israel about the everlasting dynasty of David. But this is all building up to the big problem that Ethan will bring up in verse 38.
1TIMOTHY 6:Yesterday we heard Paul’s instructions to Timothy about widows and about judging cases where church leaders are accused of wrong-doing. The chapter ended with two encouragements to Timothy.
GNT Translation notes:1Tim. 6:10 For the love of money is a source of all kinds of evil. Some have been so eager to have it that they have wandered away from the [believing in true teachings//faith] and have broken their hearts with many sorrows.11 But you, man of God, avoid all these things. Strive for righteousness, godliness, [full belief in true teachings//faith], love, endurance, and gentleness. 12 Run your best in the race of [full belief//faith], and win eternal life for yourself; for it was to this life that God called you when you firmly professed your [belief//faith] before many witnesses. 13 Before God, who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus, who firmly professed his [belief//faith] before Pontius Pilate, I command you 21 For some have claimed to possess it, and as a result they have lost [their belief in true teachings//the way of faith].
God's grace be with you all.
Hello! I’m sending this update to you from Jakarta, where I am in my third day of five in quarantine after arriving here. This audio update is for any of you listeners to the Daily Bible Reading Podcast who would like to hear about my work as a Bible translator. This is not one of the Reader Take Note series where I discuss various topics in God’s Word.
For those of you who are new DBRP listeners who don’t know much about our ministry as Bible translators in Indonesia, here is the back story: Gale and I came to Indonesia as aspiring Bible translators in 1983. After learning the Indonesian language for 6 months, in mid-1984, we chose to work among the Orya language group. That project lasted for 21 years. The Orya New Testament was dedicated in 2005. But even before completing that project, I was convinced that Indonesia’s national language needed a better Bible translation. So in that same year, 2005, we started what eventually was named the Plain Indonesian Translation. In order to publish a Bible translation for Indonesia’s national language, I found it necessary to start a non-profit Bible translation organization. The OurLanguage Bible Organization (which I will refer to as Albata) was started in 2012. Then in 2014, the Plain Indonesian Translation NT was published in its first edition.
Skipping to the present: It is not fun to have to wade through the list of requirements to do international travel these days. One bright spot, however, was that this time the planes were quite empty. All the passengers had extra room on the 12 ½ hour flight from Dallas to Narita (Japan), and the 7 hour flight from Narita coming here. Once on the ground in Jakarta, all the passengers were herded through 8 different checking stations. Normally it would take me around half an hour to get through the immigration check and pick up my luggage. This time it took 2 ½ hours. At the end of the line, in a process supervised by the police, all foreigners coming into the country have to quarantine in a hotel for 5 days at their own expense. During the 5 days I will get two PCR Covid tests. At least, as one fellow passenger observed, the good thing in all this is that Indonesia’s government is trying their best to limit new strains of the Covid virus from entering the country.
So here I am on the 16th floor of a 4-star hotel, all alone, getting 3 very good meals per day, and finding it hard to stay awake and even harder to force myself to exercise in my room.
In November of last year, I started working with four members of our translation team here to revise our Plain Indonesian New Testament. I finished my main part in that revision process just before starting this trip. I am looking forward to what God will do through his Word in this new edition and ask for your prayers.
- For the first time ever, in this third edition, the New Testament will be published using high quality Bible paper and with a more durable cover. Instead of looking like a fat paperback book, this time the New Testament will look like a sacred book should look.
- I am certain that readers will enjoy our more concise and more precise translation with added footnotes.
- Much enthusiasm for the Plain Indonesian Translation has come through a partnering group called the Good Seed Network, which is challenging people to read the whole NT in 90 days. People have been participating from all over Indonesia. We will be giving away thousands of New Testaments this year to people who are in this program.
About a month ago, Balazi, the director of our organization here in Indonesia, brought it to my attention that many Indonesians use the KJV as their final authority when confused by Indonesian Bible translations. Two things have bothered me about that:
- Indonesian students of the Bible need better tools to be able to discover what the Hebrew and Greek source texts actually say. The source language of the Bible is not the English of the KJV.
- And secondly, students of the Bible in Indonesia need better information about how we got our Bible, including information about how the original language texts were preserved for us and what happened in the history of Bible translations, including the far-reaching influence of the KJV.
So I started writing a short history of Bible translation which is now about 80% finished. I have enjoyed discovering so many things I never knew about all this, and I hope to share them with you in one or two Reader Take Note series podcasts, sometime after I get back home (at the end of June).
If you have listened to this so far, I ask you to pray for my time in Indonesia. Here are three prayer requests:
- In four to eight years our Bible translation organization here (Albata) will be able to publish the Plain Indonesian Bible with a complete Old Testament. I hope to live to see that day. But our six team members here are looking farther into the future and asking, “After that, what will we do?” We will be having meetings starting next week to discuss that topic. The answer to that question will tell Albata’s leaders what they need to do in the next few years to prepare for the future. My main concern now is to set operating principles and establish an organizational culture that will help Albata continue as a ministry that the Lord will be pleased to use in the future. Please pray that the Lord will give us his wisdom.
- One of our partner organizations is called Faith Comes By Hearing. They do many of the audio Bible recordings all over the world. They have given us 100 audio Bible players (called Proclaimers) that are for the Orya people. I look forward to being among the Orya people when we start distributing those in June. Now FCBH have promised to give us 400 more Proclaimer units which we will give to people who are unable to read or those who have vision problems. I hope to be present when we distribute a few of those during my trip. The solar powered Proclaimer units are expensive, and we never would be able to afford so many of them. We are so grateful for FCBH’s support! Please give thanks to the Lord for the gift of the 500 Proclaimer units, and pray that the Lord will lead us to those who need and will cherish these.
- Please pray for me in many divine appointments, that I can be the Lord’s representative, speaking with the help of the Holy Spirit.
In family news, our daughter, Hannah, with Brandon and three kids will soon be leaving Jakarta. Brandon has accepted a job directing a ministry to refugees in Greenville, SC. I will only get to eat dinner with them a couple of times before they leave.
Gale will travel from Arkansas to Greenville to see them shortly after they arrive there. Then Gale will drive a rented car from there to visit her Mom in Georgia. Her Mom has been under hospice care for over 6 months now. She is so ready to be in the presence of her Savior.
Thank you for praying for us, and we pray for you that
the Lord will bless you ‘real good’.
Phil
RUTH 1-2:The incident of the Levite and his concubine at Gibeah resulted in the civil war that we heard about yesterday. About 24,000 men died and many women and children as well. In certain things, the army inquired of the Lord, and the Lord gave answers at his sanctuary. In the way, they found wives for the decimated tribe of Benjamin, the men of Israel were repeatedly so concerned that they do not break their vows. Paradoxically, they did many other things without any concern whatsoever about acting according to God’s revealed will. Let’s consider that story as a warning. Beware of the human tendency of myopic obedience to a preferred list of rules, while living like a pagan in other respects. Again the theme statement is repeated in the last verse of the book, “In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.”
And now we turn to the book of Ruth. The Talmud attributes the authorship of this book to Samuel. The story of Ruth took place during the same time as the book of Judges, but the book of Ruth is a big contrast with Judges. Ruth shows that the times were not always as dark and sinful as what is portrayed in Judges. Ruth and her second husband, Boaz, figure in Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew 1.
PSALM 89a:The author of this poem— who was named Ethan, praises God for the covenant the Lord made especially with David. The first 3/4 is beautiful in the recitation of the wonderful promises given to Israel and to David. In these, we readers at this time often see fulfillment in Jesus, the ‘Son of David’. But suddenly at verse 38, the writer claims that God has broken his promises to David. We will hear that contrast tomorrow.
1TIMOTHY 5:In the 4th chapter of 1 Timothy, Paul showed that he considered his era as ‘the last times’. For the Jews, the coming of the Messiah signaled the beginning of the end times. Paul's advice is just as appropriate to us as to Timothy. Half of that chapter was personal advice and encouragement to Timothy in his role as a pastor, and God has passed those words on to all in church leadership today.
GNT Translation note:
1Tim. 5:16 But if any Christian woman has widows in her family, she must take care of them and not put the burden on the church, so that [the church//it] may take care of the widows who are all alone.
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Greetings and welcome to this bonus edition of the Reader: Take Note series, which I am releasing at day number 85. This is an occasional series aimed at providing extra commentary and encouragement for those following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. No matter where you are in the reading calendar, I hope that the things I share in this episode will support the idea that God’s Word has many treasures for us, and it always pays to dig deeper.
My mistake from the last podcast was that I gave an incorrect author name for the book I recommended. The book is entitled How People Grow. One author is Dr. Henry Cloud. The second is Dr. John Townsend, not Towns.
Glenn Lewis gets the prize so far this year for a mistake found in day number 70. I said while summarizing Numbers 3 that The 12,000 Levites were the substitute for Israel’s 12,273 first-born sons. Now the podcast has been corrected to say this: The 22,000 Levites became substitutes for Israel's 22,273 first-born sons. So the difference was between 12,000 and 22,000. Hey, I was only off by 10,000!
If you have questions, comments, or find a mistake for me to correct, my favorite way for you to send messages to me is via the contact button at dailybiblereading.info. I’m always interested to hear your thoughts.
For this episode I am not going to be talking about any of the passages we have read recently. If we were going by episode numbers, I should label this bonus episode as for Day 314 or 315, because the topic today is Daniel chapter 2. After my introduction of the topic, I will play the audio from my pastor’s sermon on that chapter from March the 7th, 2021. I think it is timely to share Dr. Tad Thompson’s sermon with you, as I consider this message so important for the time we are living in. Now, I am thankful for the timelessness of the Bible, so that things that I commented on as early as 2014 in the NLT series podcasts are still relevant. But back then, I had no idea of the huge changes that would take place in our culture, that we have come to see so clearly in the last few months. Tad’s sermon will give some contemporary perspective that I think will be helpful to all of you who listen to my podcasts. His sermon notes are included in the episode notes. The site where you can see recent sermon videos or listen to the audio is linked here in the episode notes: https://www.covenantsiloam.com/sermons
Let me read all of Daniel 2 to you now from the God’s Word translation.
Dan 2:1-6: 1 During the second year of Nebuchadnezzar’os reign, he had some dreams. He was troubled, but he stayed asleep. 2 The king sent for the magicians, psychics, sorcerers, and astrologers so that they could tell him what he had dreamed. So they came to the king.
3 The king said to them, “I had a dream, and I’m troubled by it. I want to know what the dream was.”
4 The astrologers spoke to the king in Aramaic, “Your Majesty, may you live forever! Tell us the dream, and we’ll interpret it for you.”
5 The king answered the astrologers, “I meant what I said! If you don’t tell me the dream and its meaning, you will be torn limb from limb, and your houses will be turned into piles of rubble. 6 But if you tell me the dream and its meaning, I will give you gifts, awards, and high honors. Now tell me the dream and its meaning.”
Dan 2:7-18: 7 Once more they said, “Your Majesty, tell us the dream, and we’ll tell you its meaning.”
8 The king replied, “I’m sure you’re trying to buy some time because you know that I meant what I said. 9 If you don’t tell me the dream, you’ll all receive the same punishment. You have agreed among yourselves to make up a phony explanation to give me, hoping that things will change. So tell me the dream. Then I’ll know that you can explain its meaning to me.”
10 The astrologers answered the king, “No one on earth can tell the king what he asks. No other king, no matter how great and powerful, has ever asked such a thing of any magician, psychic, or astrologer. 11 What you ask is difficult, Your Majesty. No one can tell what you dreamed except the gods, and they don’t live with humans.”
12 This made the king so angry and furious that he gave an order to destroy all the wise advisers in Babylon. 13 So a decree was issued that the wise advisers were to be killed, and some men were sent to find Daniel and his friends and kill them.
14 While Arioch, the captain of the royal guard, was leaving to kill the wise advisers in Babylon, Daniel spoke to him using shrewd judgment. 15 He asked Arioch, the royal official, “Why is the king’s decree so harsh?” So Arioch explained everything to Daniel.
16 Daniel went and asked the king to give him some time so that he could explain the dream’s meaning. 17 Then Daniel went home and told his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah about this matter. 18 He told them to ask the God of heaven to be merciful and to explain this secret to them so that they would not be destroyed with the rest of the wise advisers in Babylon.
Dan 2:19-30: 19 The secret was revealed to Daniel in a vision during the night. So Daniel praised the God of heaven. 20 He said, “Praise God’s name from everlasting to everlasting because he is wise and powerful. 21 He changes times and periods of history. He removes kings and establishes them. He gives wisdom to those who are wise and knowledge to those who have insight. 22 He reveals deeply hidden things. He knows what is in the dark, and light lives with him. 23 God of my ancestors, I thank and praise you. You gave me wisdom and power. You told me the answer to our question. You told us what the king wants to know.”
24 Then Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy Babylon’s wise advisers. Daniel told him, “Don’t destroy Babylon’s wise advisers. Take me to the king, and I’ll explain the dream’s meaning to him.”
25 Arioch immediately took Daniel to the king. He told the king, “I’ve found one of the captives from Judah who can explain the dream’s meaning to you, Your Majesty.”
26 The king asked Daniel (who had been renamed Belteshazzar), “Can you tell me the dream I had and its meaning?”
27 Daniel answered the king, “No wise adviser, psychic, magician, or fortuneteller can tell the king this secret. 28 But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets. He will tell King Nebuchadnezzar what is going to happen in the days to come. This is your dream, the vision you had while you were asleep: 29 Your Majesty, while you were lying in bed, thoughts about what would happen in the future came to you. The one who reveals secrets told you what is going to happen. 30 This secret wasn’t revealed to me because I’m wiser than anyone else. It was revealed so that you could be told the meaning and so that you would know your innermost thoughts.
Dan 2:31-49: 31 “Your Majesty, you had a vision. You saw a large statue. This statue was very bright. It stood in front of you, and it looked terrifying. 32 The head of this statue was made of fine gold. Its chest and arms were made of silver. Its stomach and hips were made of bronze. 33 Its legs were made of iron. Its feet were made partly of iron and partly of clay. 34 While you were watching, a stone was cut out, but not by humans. It struck the statue’s iron-and-clay feet and smashed them. 35 Then all at once, the iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold were smashed. They became like husks on a threshing floor in summer. The wind carried them away, and not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the statue became a large mountain which filled the whole world. 36 This is the dream. Now we’ll tell you its meaning.
37 “Your Majesty, you are the greatest king. The God of heaven has given you a kingdom. He has given you power, strength, and honor. 38 He has given you control over people, wild animals, and birds, wherever they live. He has made you ruler of them all. You are the head of gold. 39 Another kingdom, inferior to yours, will rise to power after you. Then there will be a third kingdom, a kingdom of bronze, that will rule the whole world. 40 There will also be a fourth kingdom. It will be as strong as iron. (Iron smashes and shatters everything.) As iron crushes things, this fourth kingdom will smash and crush all the other kingdoms. 41 You also saw the feet and toes. They were partly potters’ clay and partly iron. This means that there will be a divided kingdom which has some of the firmness of iron. As you saw, iron was mixed with clay. 42 The toes were partly iron and partly clay. Part of the kingdom will be strong, and part will be brittle. 43 As you saw, iron was mixed with clay. So the two parts of the kingdom will mix by intermarrying, but they will not hold together any more than iron can mix with clay.
44 “At the time of those kings, the God of heaven will establish a kingdom that will never be destroyed. No other people will be permitted to rule it. It will smash all the other kingdoms and put an end to them. But it will be established forever. 45 This is the stone that you saw cut out from a mountain, but not by humans. It smashed the iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold. The great God has told you what will happen in the future, Your Majesty. The dream is true, and you can trust that this is its meaning.”
46 King Nebuchadnezzar immediately bowed down on the ground in front of Daniel. He ordered that gifts and offerings be given to Daniel. 47 The king said to Daniel, “Your God is truly the greatest of gods, the Lord over kings. He can reveal secrets because you were able to reveal this secret.”
48 Then the king promoted Daniel and gave him many wonderful gifts. Nebuchadnezzar made Daniel governor of the whole province of Babylon and head of all Babylon’s wise advisers. 49 With the king’s permission, Daniel appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to govern the province of Babylon. But Daniel stayed at the king’s court.
Tad’s sermon highlights what he calls a sandwich structure found in Daniel chapter 2. He wisely didn’t use the technical term, but if he did he would say that Daniel chapter 2 has a chiastic structure. This shows that Daniel carefully constructed this chapter. This sandwich structure of topics, as you will hear, can be represented by the letters A B C B A. (Bread on the top and bottom, and fixings on either side of the meat.) This chiastic structure is also the outline of Tad’s sermon, so I will list the 5 points, to help you follow them: (A) The Absence of Divine Revelation Reveals the Futility of the Pagan Nations (B) God’s People are Blessed with Divine Revelation (C) The Supremacy of a God Who Speaks (B) The Blessing of Divine Revelation is the Only Hope for Pagan Nations (A) Divine Revelation Reveals the Supremacy of the Kingdom of God
Divine Revelation and the Supremacy of the Kingdom of God Tad Thompson Introduction: A Clash of Worldviews • What we see in Daniel Chapter 2 is an epic contest between the gods of the Babylonians and Daniel’s God, who is of course the one true God. • It is a clash of worldviews. Babylonian religion focused on nature. More then 2,500 different gods have been discovered in various texts and records and most of them has some correspondence to an aspect of nature, sun, moon, stars, the rain, wind, and weather. • In the pagan worldview of the ancient world and the rising paganism today have this in common, even though there may have been many gods - these gods were merely personifications of various aspects of nature. So paganism believes only in nature and denies the supernatural. It can be called “oneism • There is an impressive sunken garden in front of the Beinicke Rare Book Library on Yale University’s campus. It is meant to simulate the universe. A large marble pyramid stands in one corner, symbolizing time. Another corner sports a huge doughnut shaped structure standing on its side. It signifies energy. In a third corner is a huge die perched on one tip as if ready to topple any which way. It is the symbol of chance. This is the world view of modern man: ‘a self-existing universe consisting of energy, time and chance.’ And those in Babylon, ancient or modern, don’t know which way the die will fall. Chance is opaque. It is the world of whatever. • Biblical Christians think the Yale garden is a lie. They hold that there is a transcendent God who knows and orders the course of history down through the rise and rubble of nations until the days when he sets up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed (44). We can call the Christian worldview - twoism. There is a transcendent God who is the cause and creator of the universe and everything in it. An not only is he the creator God, but he is a God who speaks, who reveals mysteries. • Think about how unbearably sad Joe and Jane Pagan might be, for they go out their front door in the morning and have no idea where history is heading. This is the same dilemma faced by the wise men of Babylon, they have many gods, but none of them speak or reveal mysteries. • Our story has a structure that develops the main theme. It is an ABCBA structure.
(A) The Absence of Divine Revelation Reveals the Futility of the Pagan Nations (2:1-13) • King N wants his wise men to tell him his dream, he wants them to know his thoughts, he desires more than an interpretation, he desires revelation. • vs. 10-11 is the key to understanding the dilemma of the enchanters - “There is not a man on earth who can meet the king’s demand, for no great and powerful king has asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean. 11 The thing that the king asks is difficult, and no one can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.” • They can’t do it because their gods don’t reveal anything, they do not dwell with flesh, communicate with flesh and they can’t because they are inanimate objects. • We see this is the world today where people choose to worship the created rather than the creator. People have abandoned the notion of twoism - they have no authority outside of self, so they seek to discover truth by looking within and they consistently come up empty handed - there is no absolute truth to be discovered that will satisfy your soul a part from divine revelation.
(B) God’s People are Blessed with Divine Revelation (2:14-19) • The next scene in the story contrasts the worldview of Daniel and his companions with the worldview of the wise men of Babylon. • Daniel wisely asks Arioch for an appointment with the King, and promises that he will be able to tell Neb. his dream - and then what do they do? They pray, they seek mercy from the Lord and believe that he is a God that interacts with his people and has the capacity to reveal hidden mysteries. • Notice that the purpose of asking for this divine revelation is so that they will not be destroyed. • Is this not the heart of the Gospel? That God reveals the mysteries of his grace in the person and work of Jesus Christ that we might escape the wrath of God to come. • You are a Christian because you have been blessed with divine revelation - I Pet 1:23-25 “since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; 24 for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.” • We are people who believe that God has spoken to us, revealed himself to us - this is why we stand upon the inerrancy, sufficiency, and authority of Scripture! It is God’s Word that marks us out as His people!
(C) The Supremacy of a God Who Speaks (2:20-23) • vs. 20-23 is Daniel’s prayer of praise to God for answering his prayer. • This forms the center of the story and ultimate message of chapter 2 - The God of the Bible is Supreme because he is a God who speaks. • Notice some of the core elements of Daniel’s Worldview: a. God is a God of wisdom and might b. God is sovereign over nature and nations c. God is a God who knows all things and reveals all things. The contrast between the pagan notion of oneism is astounding - if your worldview is basically time, energy, and random chance then your life has no intrinsic value, worth or meaning. We are seeing this played out in the world today. We live in a world that is literally destroying every ounce of human dignity left by denying the fact of gender - this is the ultimate form of self worship - it is paganism 101. Daniel praises his God who speaks while the wise men are going - the gods don’t dwell with flesh they got nothing - our God is such a speaking God that he came into the world to take on flesh - as the ultimate word, the ultimate truth - he took on flesh to reveal God to us! To reveal God’s love to us! To offer God’s forgiveness to us!
(B) The Blessing of Divine Revelation is the Only Hope for Pagan Nations (2:24) • vs 24 is paired with 14-19 - God’s people are blessed with divine revelation, therefore divine revelation is the only hope for the pagan nations. • The word of God given to Daniel spares the wise men of Babylon. • This points to the Christian mission of declaring the mysteries of God to the nations. • Paul writes in Col 1:24-29 “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, 25 of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, 26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.”
(A) Divine Revelation Reveals the Supremacy of the Kingdom of God (2:25-49) • This final section is paired with the first - it highlights once again, in graphic detail the futility of the pagan nations and the supremacy of the Kingdom of God. • The purpose of the dream is not for us to figure out which literal nations are being referred to in the dream. The point of the dream is vs. 44-45 - the God of heaven, the God who has given N. his present Kingdom (vs. 37) will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed and will fill the entire earth. • vs 46 - something amazing happens, the most powerful man in the world bows to honor an exiled slave and N. promotes Daniel and his friends. • This is so important for us to remember as we live as exiles in the world - the supremacy of the kingdom of God. • Revelation 5 - One Day Every knee will bow, the knee of every ruler will bow to Jesus - a crucified Jewish carpenter will receive the worship of Kings. Right now, in heaven, there is a multitude of those who have been redeemed from the nations who worship Jesus. How will you live - will you live as one who worships the God who speaks or will you live your life by time, energy, and random chance?
Greetings and welcome to this third edition of the Reader: Take Note series. This is an occasional series of podcasts aimed at providing extra commentary and encouragement for those following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. No matter where you are in the reading calendar, I hope that the things I share in this episode will support the idea that God’s Word has many treasures for us, and it always pays to dig deeper.
In this episode I will discuss
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my mistake in the last Take Note podcast,
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things modern readers may miss in the story of the 10 plagues in Egypt,
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why the descriptions of the construction of the Tabernacle are so hard to visualize,
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which order were the synoptic Gospels written in?
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and two verses that are difficult to translate in Luke.
Did you catch my mistake in the last Take Note podcast? I said that John the Baptist’s father (Zechariah) quoted from Malakai 4, about ‘NLT'07 Malachi 4:6:
6 His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. …
Zechariah actually said,
GW'20 Luke 1:76:76 “You, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High. You will go ahead of the Lord to prepare his way.
His words are reminiscent of Malachi 3-4. But the one who actually quoted Malakai 4:6 was the angel Gabriel, who (speaking to Mary about Jesus) said,
GW'20 Luke 1:17:17 He will go ahead of the Lord with the spirit and power that Elijah had. He will change parents’ attitudes toward their children. He will change disobedient people so that they will accept the wisdom of those who have God’s approval. In this way he will prepare the people for their Lord.”
If you have questions or comments, or corrections to what I have said, my favorite way for you to send messages to me is via the contact button at dailybiblereading.info. I’m always interested to hear your thoughts.
Let’s open to Exodus 3— if you happen to have a Bible handy and are not listening to this while driving. When we were checking our translation of Exodus with a consultant (Norm Mundhenk by name), he showed us several things I had never noticed. In the story of the burning bush:
NLT'07 Exodus 3:2-4:2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in amazement. Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn’t burn up. 3 “This is amazing,” Moses said to himself. “Why isn’t that bush burning up? I must go see it.” 4 When the LORD saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” “Here I am!” Moses replied.
So who is in the bush, the angel or God? The interesting observation here is that Moses seems not to like having the Lord do things that are physical or visible, such as making a bush be on fire. In this story, the angel messenger never speaks, but
GW'20 Exodus 3:5-6:5 God said, “Don’t come any closer! Take off your sandals because this place where you are standing is holy ground. 6 I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.
Another example is found in chapter 14:
NLT'07 Exodus 14:19-20:19 Then the angel of God, who had been leading the people of Israel, moved to the rear of the camp. The pillar of cloud also moved from the front and stood behind them. 20 The cloud settled between the Egyptian and Israelite camps. As darkness fell, the cloud turned to fire, lighting up the night. But the Egyptians and Israelites did not approach each other all night.
The angel of the Lord made the very visible pillar of cloud and fire, but just a few verses later:
NLT'07 Exodus 14:23-25:23 Then the Egyptians— all of Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and charioteers— chased them into the middle of the sea. 24 But just before dawn the LORD looked down on the Egyptian army from the pillar of fire and cloud, and he threw their forces into total confusion. 25 He twisted their chariot wheels, making their chariots difficult to drive. “Let’s get out of here— away from these Israelites!” the Egyptians shouted. “The LORD is fighting for them against Egypt!”
There are Bibles that capitalize the word for Angel in these cases where God is so closely connected with some physical manifestation. In Genesis the same thing happens. When angels appear, they most often speak God’s words directly using the first person for God. Now the word in both Hebrew and Greek that we translate as ‘angel’ means messenger. In later OT books (and especially Daniel) angels are indeed just that, messengers, and sometimes even with names, who speak about the Lord in the third person.
Now let’s look at the 10 plagues that God wreaked upon Egypt. Our consultant, Norm, had us compare the similarities and differences in
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location, at the river, or more likely at the palace?
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Whose staff was used, Moses’ or Aaron’s? Or did God say to lift up their hands, or did Moses just pray?
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the magicians’ reaction, or the reaction of Pharaoh’s officials
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Pharaoh's reaction, in particular, Did Pharaoh harden his own heart, or did God do that?
If you do the analysis, you will notice patterns and a crescendo building toward the 10th plague.
Then there is something I only recently learned from a different source: I perhaps heard in a sermon, but never remember looking into the claim that each of the 10 plagues showed that God is more powerful than Egypt’s gods. Rather than repeating information penned by others, let me suggest that you search on the Internet for ‘ten plagues of Egypt’ and choose the article by GotQuestions.org, or find the link here in the episode notes:
https://www.gotquestions.org/ten-plagues-Egypt.html
This site also has a beautifully done video with the same information as their excellent article.
I find the 9th plague particularly interesting:
“The ninth plague, darkness, was aimed at the sun god, Re, who was symbolized by Pharaoh himself. For three days, the land of Egypt was smothered with an unearthly darkness, but the homes of the Israelites had light.”
“The tenth and last plague, the death of the firstborn males, was a judgment on Isis, the protector of children.”
Remember that Pharaoh’ own son and heir to his throne died on that night. (Ex. 11:5)
Next, have you ever had trouble visualizing the sacred tent or tabernacle? I certainly have! Let’s concentrate on chapter 26:1-6.
Exo 26:1-6: "“Moreover, you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet yarns; you shall make them with cherubim skillfully worked into them. The length of each curtain shall be twenty-eight cubits, and the breadth of each curtain four cubits; all the curtains shall be the same size. Five curtains shall be coupled to one another, and the other five curtains shall be coupled to one another. And you shall make loops of blue on the edge of the outermost curtain in the first set. Likewise you shall make loops on the edge of the outermost curtain in the second set. Fifty loops you shall make on the one curtain, and fifty loops you shall make on the edge of the curtain that is in the second set; the loops shall be opposite one another. And you shall make fifty clasps of gold, and couple the curtains one to the other with the clasps, so that the tabernacle may be a single whole."
One of the problems is that the Lord (or Moses) didn’t organize the material to make it easy to understand for those who didn’t get to see the virtual guided tour or YouTube shown to Moses up on Mount Sinai. (Actually, I am sure that Moses was shown something much better than a YouTube.) First we are told to make ten curtains of linen that are 42 feet by 6 feet. These sheets are called ‘curtains’ by both ESV and NLT. So I ask you, when I say ‘curtain’ do you envision something laying horizontally or hanging vertically? My problem in understanding started here, because these are not curtains that hang vertically, but would be better called sheets of cloth that lay over something. These sheets will lay over a framework to make the roof and hang down over the walls on the north and south, and also on the west. The front door faces east.
Then the text says that the curtains were joined together on ‘one side’. Because of the word curtain, I always imagined joining the long sheets on the short side, and imagined we were making the curtain fence that was made to surround the Tabernacle. That is wrong again. The Hebrew text never clearly says, but these 42 foot long sheets were actually joined on the long side. That's why joining them required 50 clasps. To me, it helps a lot to simply say right from the beginning of the description that all this is to make the roof of the Tabernacle.
There are also other things that are not clear. The Hebrew text doesn’t specifically say that they were to ‘sew’ the 10 sheets into two sets. The Hebrew says they would be ‘joined’ or ‘attached’. The ten sheets were probably sewn together, with five in each set, sewn along the long edge. Each set would then measure 42 feet by 30 feet.
Above the linen layer, there was a slightly bigger goat's hair layer. Over those two layers of cloth, they made a ram’s skin leather layer. The skins were dyed red. Think how many male lambs were sacrificed to make that?! Then a mysterious final layer was placed on top of that. We really don’t know how to translate the material for the top layer. It has been translated as fine goat’s skin, or as sea cow hide. The way we translated it (since no one knows what it was made of) is to say that it was ‘water proof leather’.
Now that you understand about the 4 layers of the roof and walls, let’s take another look at the linen cloth. The NLT says,
NLT'07 Exodus 26:1:1 “Make the Tabernacle from ten curtains of finely woven linen. Decorate the curtains with blue, purple, and scarlet thread and with skillfully embroidered cherubim.
The Hebrew text is not clear that the pattern was applied by embroidering. Think of the 42 by 30 foot long sheets being spread out over a frame that is 15 feet high. Inevitably there would be a lot of rubbing and friction on the decorated surface of the cloth due to frequent disassembly and reassembly. If the design was embroidered, it would quickly become abraded. Instead, I propose that the beautiful designs of blue, purple, and scarlet were woven directly into the fabric. As we worked on this book with our translation consultant, we found evidence that Egyptians of this period had linen cloth with elaborate woven designs. The Hebrew slaves would likely have been involved in this art.
Note also, whether or not the design was woven into the material, it would take a seriously big loom to make 6 foot wide bolts of cloth. Where would the Israelites have gotten all the tools to make bronze castings, and to engrave gemstones, and to weave cloth? Think how magnificent the visual result would have been!
Someone with the initials R W has created 12 wonderful Youtube videos of the Tabernacle construction. You can find them by searching for ‘Youtube 3D Tabernacle The boards’ and especially see ‘Youtube 3D Tabernacle The curtains’. This is a series of 12 videos.
Now I want to shift our attention to the Gospel of Luke. In the last episode in the Take Note series, I mentioned that I was reading a book entitled Perspectives on the Ending of Mark. The last chapter in that book is by David Alan Black. He defended his position supporting the longer ending of Mark based on evidence for the order of the writing of the first three Gospels. Let me very briefly summarize.
According to some ancient sources, Mattew was written first, and written at a time when most believers were from a Jewish background. That Gospel was carried far and wide as Christianity spread.
However, as Paul spread the Gospel among the non-Jews in far away places, the need became increasingly apparent for a Gospel to be told from a Greek world view, instead of the Jewish world view. Luke came with Paul to Jerusalem as one of those who brought financial help to the believers. (Acts 20) He evidently stayed in the area during Paul’s two year imprisonment, which is the most likely time for him to pen his Gospel. One wonders how often Luke came to Caesarea to visit Paul and share about his research, such as interviewing Mary the mother of Jesus, and other early followers of Jesus. It might be that Paul was the one who asked Luke to write his own well-researched account. All the exact details that Luke included would appeal to Greek readers. Luke followed much of the outline of events as given by Matthew, with a notable exception in the accounts of John the Baptist’s and Jesus’ birth.
If Luke took the draft of his Gospel on the voyage to Rome, I wonder how he kept it dry in the shipwreck at Malta! Somehow he must have. The problem, as Black reconstructs the situation, is that a Gospel from a non-witness like Luke would not have been accepted well, so Luke delayed the release of his Gospel. During some part of the time that Paul was in Rome, Peter was there as well, along with Mark. So Black further posits that Paul arranged with Peter to have public lectures in Rome where Matthew’s account of a portion would be read, then Luke’s account, and afterward Peter would give his recollections of the same event. I would have loved to be present at those lectures!
Evidently in Rome, there were scribes that were experts at shorthand. Black again posits that one such person was employed to write down Peter’s words. That account, then could be used by Mark to write his Gospel, which everyone recognizes shows Peter’s influence. This explains why events where Peter was not present (like the birth of Jesus) are not told in Mark’s Gospel. The ordering of Matthew first, Luke second being based on Matthew, and Mark third based on Peter’s reactions to both Matthew and Luke— does a fair job of answering why various details are differently related between the three accounts.
Well, you may remember that I started the Digging Deeper Reading plan with Mark as the first NT book in the year because I said that it was written first. It turns out that there are various theories.
A remark by Augustine of Hippo at the beginning of the fifth century presents the gospels as composed in their canonical order (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), with each evangelist thoughtfully building upon and supplementing the work of his predecessor. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoptic_Gospels#:~:text=A%20remark%20by%20Augustine%20of,hypothesis%20(Matthew%E2%80%93Mark).)
However another wikipedia article under the title of Marcan priority, states that
The tradition handed down by the Church Fathers regarded Matthew as the first Gospel written.[3] This view of Gospel origins, however, began to be challenged in the late 18th century, when Gottlob Christian Storr proposed in 1786 that Mark was the first to be written.[4][5]
Gottlob Storr’s opinion was largely ignored for a while, and then picked up and debated. And by the time of the last century, the Wikipedia article states:
Many scholars in the twentieth century regarded Marcan priority as no longer just a hypothesis, but an established fact.[14]
So it turns out that the theory I took as ‘an established fact’, which I picked up from various sources, was really 20th century opinion. But that opinion was strongly influenced by the scepticism of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Dr. Black’s reconstruction of the order of writing is supported by writings of Eusebius, who is a far earlier source than the experts of just 170 years ago. Eusebius of Caesarea (260/265—339/340 AD), EH6.14.5–7, speaking of (*?no longer extant) writings of Clement (35-99 AD) states
5 Again, in the same books, Clement gives the tradition of the earliest presbyters, as to the order of the Gospels, in the following manner:
6 The Gospels containing the genealogies, he says, were written first. The Gospel according to Mark had this occasion. As Peter had preached the Word publicly at Rome, and declared the Gospel by the Spirit, many who were present requested that Mark, who had followed him for a long time and remembered his sayings, should write them out. And having composed the Gospel he gave it to those who had requested it.
7 When Peter learned of this, he neither directly forbade nor encouraged it. …
I think Eusebius is right, and probably Dr. Black has perhaps filled in too many details, but is pointing us in the right direction. It just goes to show: In the realm of historical information circulating about the Bible, ideas regarded as established facts in our time are often just opinions currently in vogue.
Because I have mentioned reading a book or two, I want to admit that I seldom sit down to read books. But wonder of wonder, I am actually in the process of reading another book. It is How People Grow, by Dr Henry Cloud and Dr. John Towns. I have been so impressed with this book that a few days ago I ordered 5 copies to give away. Lots of authors share how to make your life better or how to become a more effective person. But these two authors have a breadth of counselling experience and they have learned Biblical principles that actually work. It turns out that how people grow is related to how our Creator has made us, plus other principles found in God’s Word. Even at 71 years old, I want to keep growing. I hope you do too.
GW’20Luk 11:34-36: "Your [eyes are//eye is] the lamp of your body. When your [eyes are//eye is] healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when [they are//it is] bad,** your body is full of darkness. 35 Therefore be careful lest the light in you [become//be] darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.”"
**Translation note: The Greek use the singular eye (ὀφθαλμός), but there is no reason to not use plural in our translation, as this is more natural, and Luke would have used plural had he been writing in English.
Footnote in our Indonesian translation:
eyes are bad Literally, “your eyes are evil/diseased.” Jesus was speaking to the Jewish leaders, including the members of the Pharisees and the Law experts. In the context of this chapter, we see that they had seen many miracles which proved that Jesus was sent by God, but it’s as if they became blind to all of those miracles. (11:29-30) In fact, they say that He worked by the devil’s power. Bad eyes are also frequently interpreted as meaning greedy for money, as in Matt. 6:19-24. See Luke also 16:14.
GW'20 Luke 14:34-35:34 “Salt is good. But if salt loses its taste, how will you restore its flavor? 35 It’s not any good for the ground or for the manure pile. People throw it away. “Let the person who has ears listen!”
Many people can’t fathom how salt could lose its flavor. Modern pure white salt crystals never lose their flavor. But when we were living with the Orya people, they had salt that could lose its flavor. Out in the forest, around a hundred miles from the coast, there are salt springs. Back in the early 1980’s when we first were there, the people would still go out to the spring and boil salt water in pans until the water would evaporate and salt would be left. The water was not clean and smoke went into the pan, so the resultant salt was black and gritty with impurities. They kept it wrapped in leaves hanging over their cooking fire, so that it would stay dry. They called it ‘black salt’. In the tropical climate, black salt that wasn’t kept dry would collect moisture and the salt water would drip out. If that happened, all that was left was slightly salty black sand. Just like Jesus said, it is good for nothing and people throw it away.
But what’s the point? Why did Jesus give this teaching about salt? For people groups who have trouble figuring out why Jesus would talk about salt (and who don’t figure out that He is speaking figuratively), translators can explicitly give a hint: “You are like salt.”
ESV Colossians 4:6:6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.
Jesus finished his teaching with a favorite saying of his, and I have found it very hard to translate.
ESV Luke 14:35b:He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
This memorable saying always comes at the end of something Jesus is teaching. It is pointing backwards. In other words: “Listen to that, what I just said.”
Here’s how we translated those verses in Orya and Indonesian:
34 “Each of you who follows Me is like salt. Of course, salt is used to make food tastier. But if its taste has disappeared, the salt won’t be useful at all,
35 either for the field or as fertilizer. In the end such salt is just thrown out.
“Don’t let that last teaching of mine go in your right ear and out your left! Meditate on it.”
Let’s pray:
Truly, Father, please transform us so that we might be called the salt of the earth and lights in this world. Please help us to keep our spiritual eyes clear. When we have opportunities to give a word of testimony about You or don’t know what to say to people, we pray that you would bring to mind what we have read from your Word. Teach us how to keep your Word in mind and to meditate on it. We pray that we would have the joy of feeling your presence as we lean and rely on You.
Amen.
May the Lord bless you ‘real good’.
Reader: take note, for days 15-37
Greetings and welcome to this second edition of the Reader: Take Note series. This is an occasional series aimed at providing extra commentary and encouragement for those following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. No matter where you are in the reading calendar, I hope that the things I share in this episode will support the idea that God’s Word has many treasures for us, and it always pays to dig deeper.
If you have questions or comments, my favorite way for you to send messages to me is via the contact button at dailybiblereading.info. I’m always interested to hear your thoughts.
On day one of our journey I mentioned Solomon in connection to Job. I challenge you to find similarities to Solomon’s writings in Job, in particular, I am most often thinking of Ecclesiastes. Actually, not all commentators think that Solomon was the writer of Ecclesiastes. But that need not concern us. As for Job, I found in a Wikipedia article that scholars consider that Job was written surprisingly late, from the 7th to 4th century BC. However Solomon lived in the 10th century BC. Other writers think the writing of Job to far predate Soloman. So far I have found no one who supports my hypothesis that Solomon wrote the book of Job. Nevertheless, let’s look at some parallels.
Job hated his life and so did Solomon.GW'20 Job 7:16:
16 I hate my life; I do not want to live forever. Leave me alone because my days are so brief.
GW'20 Job 9:21:
21 If I am a man of integrity, I have no way of knowing it. I hate my life!
GW'20 Job 10:1:
1 “I hate my life. I will freely express my complaint. I will speak as bitterly as I feel.
GW'20 Ecclesiastes 2:17:
17 So I came to hate life because everything done under the sun seemed wrong to me. Everything was pointless. ⌞It was like⌟ trying to catch the wind.
GW'20 Ecclesiastes 2:18:
18 I came to hate everything for which I had worked so hard under the sun, because I will have to leave it to the person who replaces me.
Both Job and Solomon complained that life is hard and futile.
GW'20 Job 7:1-4:
1 “Isn’t a mortal’s stay on earth difficult like a hired hand’s daily ⌞work⌟? 2 Like a slave, he longs for shade. Like a hired hand, he eagerly looks for his pay. 3 Likewise, I have been given months that are of no use, and I have inherited nights filled with misery. 4 When I lie down, I ask, ‘When will I get up?’ But the evening is long, and I’m exhausted from tossing about until dawn.
GW'20 Ecclesiastes 1:2-3:
2 “Absolutely pointless!” says the spokesman. “Absolutely pointless! Everything is pointless.” 3 What do people gain from all their hard work under the sun?
Job chapter 9 is full of the idea that it is futile to argue with God, which agrees with Solomon’s complaints.
GW'20 Job 9:14-22:
14 “How can I possibly answer God? How can I find the right words ⌞to speak⌟ with him? 15 Even if I were right, I could not answer ⌞him⌟. I would have to plead for mercy from my judge. 16 If I cried out and he answered me, I do not believe that he would listen to me. 17 He would knock me down with a storm and bruise me without a reason. 18 He would not let me catch my breath. He fills me with bitterness. 19 If it is a matter of strength, then he is the mighty one. If it is about justice, who will charge me with a crime? 20 If I am righteous, my own mouth would condemn me. It would declare that I am corrupt even if I am a man of integrity. 21 If I am a man of integrity, I have no way of knowing it. I hate my life! 22 It is all the same. That is why I say, ‘He destroys ⌞both⌟ the man of integrity and the wicked.’
GW'20 Ecclesiastes 7:13-15:
13 Consider what God has done! Who can straighten what God has bent? 14 When times are good, be happy. But when times are bad, consider this: God has made the one time as well as the other so that mortals cannot predict their future. 15 I have seen it all in my pointless life: Righteous people die in spite of being righteous. Wicked people go on living in spite of being wicked.
Unique in Job: The need for a mediator
Job 9:32-33: "A human like me cannot answer God, ‘Let’s take our case to court.’ There is no mediator between us to put his hand on both of us."
Uncertainty of an afterlife
Job 14:10,14: "But a human dies and is powerless. A person breathes his last breath, and where is he? … “If a person dies, will he go on living? I will wait for my relief to come as long as my hard labor continues."
Eccl 3:19-22: "Humans and animals have the same destiny. One dies just like the other. All of them have the same breath ⌞of life⌟. Humans have no advantage over animals. All ⌞of life⌟ is pointless. All ⌞life⌟ goes to the same place. All ⌞life⌟ comes from the ground, and all of it goes back to the ground. Who knows whether a human spirit goes upward or whether an animal spirit goes downward to the earth? I saw that there’s nothing better for people to do than to enjoy their work because that is their lot ⌞in life⌟. Who will allow them to see what will happen after them?"
The wicked often have seemingly blessed lives
Job 21:7-8,13: "“Why do the wicked go on living, grow old, and even become more powerful? They see their children firmly established with them, and they get to see their descendants. … They spend their days in happiness, and they go peacefully to the grave."
Eccl 8:10: NLT "I have seen wicked people buried with honor. Yet they were the very ones who frequented the Temple and are now praised in the same city where they committed their crimes! This, too, is meaningless."
Eccl 8:14: NLT "And this is not all that is meaningless in our world. In this life, good people are often treated as though they were wicked, and wicked people are often treated as though they were good. This is so meaningless!"
Where is wisdom found?
Job 12:12,16: "“Wisdom is with the ancient one. The one who has had many days has insight. … “God has power and priceless wisdom. He owns ⌞both⌟ the deceiver and the person who is deceived."
Job 28:28: "So he told humans, ‘The fear of the Lord is wisdom! To stay away from evil is understanding.’ ”"
See all of chapter 28.
There are many verses like that in Proverbs 1-9. I will quote only the most famous:
Prov 9:10: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. The knowledge of the Holy One is understanding."
We see in these examples that Job is a book to display the author’s struggle with accepting the boundaries that have been placed on human existence by God. This book is much more than just a debate on why God allows good people to suffer.
For any of my listeners who actually say, “I hate my life,” I beg you to remember these points:
- God has given these books of wisdom to help you, and particularly to tell you that He understands your struggles.
- The writers of the wisdom literature in the Bible did not yet have the wonderful knowledge and promises revealed through Christ.
- I encourage you to be in close fellowship with believers, and especially with older, experienced believers, who will take the time to listen and pray with you.
Turning to Mark
I found some interesting ideas about Mark’s Gospel while doing some other reading. Maurice Robinson reports that Warren A. Gage discovered an Elijah sub-theme in Mark. Unfortunately, Gage’s unpublished research was only summarized by Robinson, and I have not been successful in getting a response from Dr. Gage to get his complete article.
According to Gage, we could say that Mark presents Jesus as the new Elijah. (Evidently there is a similar sub-theme in John’s Gospel with Moses.) Not only does Mark overtly use Elijah’s name 9 times, but he alludes to Elijah around nine more times. Allusions to Elijah frame the beginning and the end of Mark, and the overt mentions occupy a long stretch in the middle of this Gospel.
Mark 1:2 (Mal. 3:1; 4:5)
WEBBE Mark 1:2:
2 As it is written in the prophets, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you:
WEBBE Malachi 3:1:
1 “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, behold, he comes!” says the LORD of Armies.
WEBBE Malachi 4:5-6:
5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”
When Mal 3:1 and 4:5 are paired together, we see that the messenger prophesied to come is identified as Elijah.
By the way, Mal 4:6 should remind you of what John’s father (Zechariah) said a week after John’s birth.
1:6
GW'20 Mark 1:6:
6 John was dressed in clothes made from camel’s hair. He wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey.
In our Indonesian translation, we have a footnote at this verse which says that John’s clothes and food choices would have reminded Jews of his day of Elijah. After all, Elijah spent a long time living alone in the wilderness.
12–14
GW'20 Mark 1:12-13:
12 At once the Spirit brought him into the desert, 13 where he was tempted by Satan for 40 days. He was there with the wild animals, and the angels took care of him.
This can remind us of when Elijah was in the wilderness and ravens brought him food (1Kings 17), and chapter 19 when an angel fed him before Elijah took the long journey to Mt. Horeb.
7:24–25
GW'20 Mark 7:24:
24 Jesus left that place and went to the territory of Tyre. He didn’t want anyone to know that he was staying in a house there. However, it couldn’t be kept a secret.
This can remind us of Elijah, when the stream dried up, and when he then went and a widow in this same area took care of him. Both stories take place in the same Gentile territory. In the case of the widow of Zerephath (1Kings 17), Elijah raised her son from death. In Jesus’ case, He expelled a demon from a Greek woman’s daughter.
————Explicit mentions of Elijah
GW'20 Mark 6:15:
15 Others said, “He is Elijah.” Still others said, “He is a prophet like one of the other prophets.”
GW'20 Mark 8:28:
28 They answered him, “Some say you are John the Baptizer, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.”
GW'20 Mark 9:4:
4 Then Elijah and Moses appeared to them and were talking with Jesus.
Note that Elijah is mentioned first by Mark. Both Matthew and Luke put Moses first.
GW'20 Mark 9:5:
5 Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it’s good that we’re here. Let’s put up three tents—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
GW'20 Mark 9:11-13:
11 So they asked him, “Don’t the experts in Moses’ Teachings say that Elijah must come first?”
12 Jesus said to them, “Elijah is coming first and will put everything in order again. But in what sense was it written that the Son of Man must suffer a lot and be treated shamefully?
13 Indeed, I can guarantee that Elijah has come. Yet, people treated him as they pleased, as Scripture says about him.”
————Another allusion to Elijah
12:1–7
Jesus tells this parable:
GW'20 Mark 12:1,7:
1 Then, using this illustration, Jesus spoke to them. He said, “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, made a vat for the winepress, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to vineyard workers and went on a trip. … 7 “But those workers said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’
This reminds us of 1Kings 21 where Jezebel connived to murder Naboth in order that Ahab could confiscate Naboth’s vineyard. Naboth had refused to sell the property because it was his inheritance.
————————Explicit mention of Elijah
GW'20 Mark 15:34-36:
34 At three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” 35 When some of the people standing there heard him say that, they said, “Listen! He’s calling Elijah.” 36 Someone ran and soaked a sponge in vinegar. Then he put it on a stick and offered Jesus a drink. The man said, “Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down.”
————————Two more allusions to Elijah
16:19
GW'20 Mark 16:19:
19 After talking with the apostles, the Lord was taken to heaven, where he received the honored position— the one next to God the Father on the throne.
GW'20 2 Kings 2:11:
11 As they continued walking and talking, a fiery chariot with fiery horses separated the two of them, and Elijah [was taken up/went] to heaven in a windstorm.
LXX+ Βασιλειών Δ 2:11:
11 καὶ ἐγένετο αὐτῶν πορευομένων ἐπορεύοντο καὶ ἐλάλουν, καὶ ἰδοὺ ἅρμα πυρὸς καὶ ἵπποι πυρὸς καὶ διέστειλαν ἀνὰ μέσον ἀμφοτέρων, καὶ ἀνελήμφθη Ηλιου ἐν συσσεισμῷ ὡς εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν.
RP'2018 Κατά Μάρκον 16:19:
19 Ὁ μὲν οὖν κύριος, μετὰ τὸ λαλῆσαι αὐτοῖς, ἀνελήφθη εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν, καὶ ἐκάθισεν ἐκ δεξιῶν τοῦ ϑεοῦ.
Gage (reported by Robinson) includes
- the allusions to Malachi 3:1 and 4:5 at the beginning of Mark's Gospel;
- the placing of Elijah ahead of Moses in 9:4;
- and the question whether Elijah will come down to rescue Christ from the cross in 15:36,
- where the latter text “anticipates the conclusion of the Gospel wherein Jesus is translated into heaven in a manner remarkably like Elijah (16:19).”
————
Residue: I can’t see why Gage (via Robinson) listed these verses:
**3:22 and 4:41; 14:12–14; 15:25, 31–39
————
GW'20 Mark 16:15-19:
15 Then Jesus said to them, “So wherever you go in the world, tell everyone the Good News. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 “These are the miraculous signs that will accompany believers: They will use the power and authority of my name to force demons out of people. They will speak new languages. 18 They will pick up snakes, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them. They will place their hands on the sick and cure them.” 19 After talking with the apostles, the Lord was taken to heaven, where he received the honored position— the one next to God the Father on the throne.
Jesus passes on his mantle, so to speak, as Elijah did.
- The apostles and other followers will work miraculous signs like Elijah’s successor (Elisha) did.
- Jesus was taken up to heaven like Elijah was, using the same turn of phrase.
Now before I bring an important point about all this, I would like to point out that one of the characteristics of Mark’s Gospel is that he likes to not leave loose ends. As Robinson says,
Mark's consistent habit is to demonstrate the reliability of Jesus' words by narrating their fulfillment, even when that narration is incidental to the flow of the main story.
- In Mark 7:29, for example, Jesus tells the Syrophoenician woman who comes seeking healing for her daughter, “You may go—the demon has left your daughter.” The reader can trust Jesus' words; the pericope can conclude. But it doesn't. Mark 7:30 says, “So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.”
- Similarly, in Mark 10:46–52, Jesus heals blind Bartimaeus. In verse 52a Jesus says, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Surely Jesus' words will come to pass. Yes, we know they come to pass because Mark tells us they do in 52b: “Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.”
Following the same pattern of tying up loose ends, the fulfillment of Mark 14:62 (being seated at God’s right hand) is recorded in other places in the NT, but of the 4 Gospels, only Mark contains the fulfillment. (16:19)
Mk 14:62: NLT "Jesus said, “I AM. And you will see the Son of Man seated in the place of [honor//power] at God’s right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven. ”"
Mk 16:19: NLT "When the Lord Jesus had finished talking with them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand."
(Matt 22:44; 26:64; Luke 20:42; 22:69; Acts 2:33–34; Rom 8:34; Eph 1:20; Col 3:1; Heb 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2; 1 Pet 3:22; cp. the hints in Rev 5:1, 7.)
I didn’t tell you above that the book that I have been reading is Perspectives On The Ending Of Mark, which gives the text of four presentations from a seminar that was given at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2007. The first presentation was given by Dr. Daniel Wallace. I was shocked that this eminently respected scholar, and the driving force behind the New English Translation, represented the view that Mark intended his Gospel to end with chapter 16, verse 8.
I will remind you what Mark 16:8 says:
NET Mark 16:8 NET:
8 Then they went out and ran from the tomb, for terror and bewilderment had seized them. And they said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
I can’t imagine anyone thinking that could be the ending intended by Mark!
Robinson says,
“A Markan intention to end at 16:8, expecting the reader(s) to supply what is “missing” on the basis of subjective reflection, and thereby intuitively filling in gaps in light of a community-based “resurrection faith” or some such concept, requires a sophisticated postmodern viewpoint not typically found within ancient classical literature (even the short Fables of Aesop required moralia to explain the point).”
Remember what I showed above. Mark doesn’t like to leave loose ends. And he is not intending to present a bunch of stories and leave the reader to decide. Had he been doing that, he would not have started his book with
GW'20 Mark 1:1:
1 This is the beginning of the Good News about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Since Mark was presenting a case for Jesus being the Son of God, certainly he would end with Jesus at the place of honor beside the Father (as shown above). And if Mark were presenting Jesus as the new Elijah, then it is a nice touch to say that Jesus was taken up to heaven in words recalling Elijah’s being taken up. And just like Elijah leaving behind his mantle and miraculous gifts for Elisha, Jesus leaves miraculous gifts for his apostles in chapter 16:17-18.
Many other reasons for the authenticity of Mark 16:9-20 are found in my 5th EveryWord podcast from last year.
This is where my reading and study intersected with my desire to give you extra insights to think about in Job and Mark. Before I pray to close this session, I think it fitting to read the last verse of Mark:
NLT Mark 16:20:
20 And the disciples went everywhere and preached, and the Lord worked through them, confirming what they said by many miraculous signs.
I’m thankful that Mark tied up that final loose end, telling us what happened to the disciples. The exciting thing is that this process is still continuing. The Lord Jesus is still working through people who go and preach the Good News. He is still confirming the Gospel in human hearts, bringing people to repentance and new birth, and working in many other miraculous ways. If you tell me that you haven’t seen this happening, then I encourage you to go and start preaching.
Let’s pray:
Our Lord and our God, through your Word which You have preserved for us, we almost are taken up on the holy mountain where we can still hear the echo of your words, “This is my Son, whom I love and in whom I delight.” In our spirits we feel the confirmation of the treasure you have given us in your Word. So our desire is to pay attention to it, as to a light that shines in a very dark place, and we wait with increasing confidence for the day of your coming, when the morning star will fully rise in our hearts. Amen.
And may the Lord bless you ‘real good’.
Greetings and welcome to this first edition of an occasional series of podcasts that I am starting to add extra commentary for those following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. I hope that the things I share in this episode will be relevant to those who have arrived at day number 14.
I have taken the title for this series from Mark 13:14 (GW). As Jesus is prophesying in that chapter about the destruction of Jerusalem, he says, “When you see the disgusting thing that will cause destruction standing where it should not (let the reader take note), those of you in Judea should flee to the mountains.” [God’s Word Translation]
The parenthetical note, “let the reader take note” probably was addressed to the one who read out loud to others. In Mark’s day, not many people in a congregation would know how to read. The Greek word for ‘read’ in this verse actually means ‘to read out loud’. Because of that, some commentators feel that this warning to understand was not just for the reader, but was intended as a plea to the reader to explain to his listeners about Daniel’s prophecy that mentions ‘the disgusting thing that will cause destruction’. So here I am, your reader (for the whole Bible, not just Mark’s Gospel). I thought it might be helpful to you to give some information that doesn’t fit in the daily podcasts, but I still, of course, will not have time to answer all questions. My intent is to encourage you to dig deeper by sharing things I find to be interesting and inspiring in the passages you have read or listened to already in the 3D plan.
If you have questions or comments, my favorite way for you to send messages to me is via the contact button at dailybiblereading.info.
Incidentally, from now on I will quote a lot from the translation called God’s Word for the Nations, because I am personally reading that version in my own devotional readings this year. And this year I personally am reading a real-book Bible. See the godsword.org site linked in the episode notes for information on how you can get a gorgeous GW Bible at a great price. And the newest edition is available in YouVersion and the MyBible app. (GW'20)
The first verse I would like to share about is Genesis 1:1 (NLT). “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Some translations say ‘heaven’ singular, but the Hebrew is actually plural, ‘heavens’. When my team and I translated that into Indonesian, because Indonesians haven’t previously known a concept of plural heavens, we translated this verse as, “… God created the levels of heaven and the sky.”
When Scripture talks of plural heavens, the sky is the lowest layer, and ancient people had the concept that there were three or perhaps seven layers of heaven. Some of you will recall that Paul was caught up to the ‘third heaven’ in 2 Corinthians 12.
It is for this reason that I see verse one as not being a summary of what is to come in Genesis 1-2, but as a hint of acts of creation that we are not told about which happened before the creation of this world. There were principalities and powers and myriads of angels in the heavenly places that were put there before God started counting the six days of creation. To me, it is kind of awesome to think about that.
Now quoting from Genesis 1:14 (NLT), “Then God said, “Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them be signs to mark the seasons, days, and years.”
Instead of ‘seasons’ the God’s Word translation translates ‘religious festivals’.
The word that can mean ‘seasons’ as NLT translated it is normally translated ‘religious festivals’ all throughout the rest of the OT. In our Indonesian translation, we translated it as ‘seasons’ but we provided a footnote to tell readers that this word often is translated as ‘religious festivals’.
Here’s the thing I think that is neat about this: Translators have frequently chosen to translate ‘seasons’ because it is kind of strange to talk of religious festivals when there are not yet any people on earth on the 4th day of creation. BUT consider this: God was preparing all of creation, including the sun and moon, to support humans who would worship Him. We can say that the love and worship of Himself was God’s ultimate goal in the creation of the universe. We exist for his worship.
In Genesis 4:19-21 we read that, “Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah. Adah gave birth to Jabal. He was the first person to live in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal. He was the first person to play the harp and the flute.”
Isn’t it interesting that the harp and flute are mentioned so early in human history! Certainly Jubal not only played the flute and harp, but he invented and constructed the first ones as well. I think this little story shows that God wanted to provide for glorious worship of Himself.
Did you realize that when you hear an instrument play a note, that you don’t just hear that note, but harmonic frequencies above that note. It is the relative strength and weaknesses of the harmonics that lets us hear the difference between the sounds of a harp, flute, trumpet, and all the other instruments.
As I play a low D on the piano, I will help you hear the harmonics.
Fundamental note D, octave D, 5th above that, then the octave again, and then another D, and the last that I will play is a third, F#. That forms a D major chord.
This happens to be the same overtones that can be gotten with a simple flute made of PVC pipe keeping all my fingers down. The natural harmonics of the strings of a harp or piano or guitar, form a major chord. The natural harmonics of well-constructed flutes form a major chord. God built this system right into the atmosphere and physics of our world.
There is a reason why people think songs in major keys are happy sounding. Our ears like the resonance that naturally occurs due to the reinforcement of overtones. I think God intended this beautiful resonance. God created the human ear, in order to give the delight of hearing beautiful music. Note also that God designed the human hand so that simple instruments like a harp and flute can be played easily with our fingers, like when I play a scale on a flute with just 6 finger holes. Then consider how beautiful our voices are when we sing. My friend Arie Scholten says, “When people sing in unison together, we each coordinate 26 muscles together in unity, and the devil hates both the sound and that unity.”
Our Creator is awesome and deserves awesome praise.
Ps 66:1-2: "Shout happily to God, all the earth! Make music to praise the glory of his name. Make his praise glorious."
Now let me explain something that people always ask about:
NLT Genesis 6:1-4:
1 Then the people began to multiply on the earth, and daughters were born to them. 2 The sons of God saw the beautiful women and took any they wanted as their wives. 3 Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not put up with humans for such a long time, for they are only mortal flesh. In the future, their normal lifespan will be no more than 120 years.” 4 In those days, and for some time after, giant Nephilites lived on the earth, for whenever the sons of God had intercourse with women, they gave birth to children who became the heroes and famous warriors of ancient times.
NLT Genesis 6:5:
5 The LORD observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, …
So who are these sons of God? There are many interpretations of what kind of ‘sons’ are intended. Most interpretations can be classified into two alternatives: 1) The children of God intended are fallen angels— those who sided with the devil in his rebellion, then they were punished by God and thrown into this world. Those angels are now called evil spirits or demons. If so, maybe the spirits possessed male humans, and in that way married the girls. 2) Or, the children of God intended are descendants of Seth. This is in accordance with many verses in the OT that call the Israelites— all of whom were descendants of Seth— as ‘sons of God’. In Ex. 4:22, the nation of Israel is also called the ‘firstborn son’ of God.
Personally the 2nd choice seems fanciful and naive to me. It seems that something ugly and evil is implied, so I go with the first choice. I think that we must admit that we do not always have enough information to interpret things like this.
GW'20 Deuteronomy 29:29:
29 Some things are hidden. They belong to the LORD our God. But the things that have been revealed in these teachings belong to us and to our children forever. We must obey every word of these teachings.
The two interpretations I have shared are not harmonious with Job 1:6 and 2:1 where ‘sons of God’ are also mentioned. I don’t think you will find one totally satisfactory conclusion about this that will explain this for both contexts. Whoever the supermen were in Genesis, they were wiped out in the flood.
The two interpretations I just mentioned are not harmonious with Job 1:6-8 or 2:1. I don’t think a harmonious interpretation exists for the ‘sons of God’ in both Genesis and Job.
And so, let’s segue to Job.
GW'20 Job 1:6-8:
6 One day when the sons of God came to stand in front of the LORD, Satan the Accuser came along with them. 7 The LORD asked Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the LORD, “From wandering all over the earth.” 8 The LORD asked Satan, “Have you thought about my servant Job? No one in the world is like him! He is a man of integrity: He is decent, he fears God, and he stays away from evil.”
GW'20 Job 2:1:
1 One day when the sons of God came to stand in front of the LORD, Satan the Accuser came along with them.
The ‘sons of God’ here seem to be angelic princes who never lived on earth and did not participate in the fall. But whatever they are, it makes no difference because they play no part in the story. We just get the impression that the heavenly nobility have assembled for a meeting of the court around God’s throne. These heavenly nobility are part of the principalities and powers, like what I mentioned talking about Genesis 1:1.
Satan makes a crashing entrance here in Job. His name comes up only 14 times in the OT, and all but three times are here in the first 2 chapters of Job. His name means adversary or accuser. He is pictured without a name in other places, such as the ‘serpent’ in the garden of Eden, or is pictured as like the ‘king of Tyre’ in Ezekiel 28, etc. In the NT he is spoken of with his Hebrew name and also with his Greek name, διαβόλου, or the devil. That title or name means the same as the Hebrew name: false accuser, or slanderer.
Considering what an important role Satan plays, it is kind of amazing that his name comes up so infrequently. Our adversary has many names! And actually, he likes to stay anonymous. From start to finish, the Bible portrays a prolonged battle between the forces of Satan and God’s forces. We are living right in the middle of the battle field right now.
In the Garden of Eden the serpent incited Eve to distrust God’s good intent.
What we see in Job is Satan acting according to his name. He accuses Job to God. Then God allows Satan to act, but only with limitations.
GW'20 2 Corinthians 4:4, we see another way of referring to Satan.
4 The god of this world has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. As a result, they don’t see the light of the Good News about Christ’s glory. It is Christ who is God’s image.
Satan does not work all by himself, of course. There are the fallen angels (or demons) working at his command. They are working overtime now to spread spiritual blindness. In believers, they love to whisper accusations against us and to cast doubt on God’s good intentions for us. Let’s keep our spiritual armor on according to Ephesians 6. The spiritual battle is real, but God supplies our armor, and it is powerful and effective. It is important that we don’t start relying on our own power or trusting in our own supposed maturity in this battle.
To some listeners, I may seem really naive to believe that there is a being named Satan, or that demons exist. Let me tell you one of my experiences: I think it was the beginning of the summer of 1970. I was 20 years old, and driving home to Hutchinson, Kansas, from Wichita State University. It was an hour long trip which I made frequently while I was in school there, but on that day, it was the last trip home before the summer vacation. On campus, I was president of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, and probably people thought I had my act together. I was coming home to help out at Kansas Bible Camp, just outside of my hometown. But something very strange happened that made this trip to my hometown different from any other trip on that road. I had a deep sense of shame because I couldn’t control my thought life, and of course that means lust. Girls liked me, and I liked them … too much. So all during that trip I prayed out loud, crying out to God with tears. I couldn’t live with the hypocrite I had become. How could God forgive me when I had to keep asking for forgiveness for the same sins every single day?
Pulling myself together, when I got into town, I stopped to go into a supermarket to buy a couple of things, like soap and shampoo. When I came out, a woman met me, a long-time family friend. This was a woman I had enjoyed looking at since I was old enough to notice women. She had seen me go in and had waited for me to come out. She hugged my arm repeatedly and invited me to come to her house where we could be alone.
What a thing to happen! One might make jokes about the timing, but I won’t. What could I do?! I couldn’t bring myself to go back on all that I had prayed to God. After bearing my soul to God so deeply, how could I take advantage of the perfect opportunity to make a plunge into sin. I stupidly mumbled something about being on my way to the Bible Camp, and turned her down. Too politely, I might add. In fact, I walked her to her car and said, “I’ll come another time.”
When I got back in my car, I couldn’t believe it! First, I was overwhelmed because I knew that this wasn’t just a coincidence. I said to God right there, “I should never doubt that You answer my prayers or that you are watching me!” And then it occured to me also, “Hey, wait a minute! Did God know that I was going to meet a big temptation and move me to pray? Or did Satan know that I was praying and set me up with that temptation to destroy any spiritual progress I was making?”
That summer I certainly had the time to visit that woman at her house, but I never did. God had so clearly forbidden it. For me to do that would be to totally leave any relationship with Him.
So I leave you with these thoughts:
- Do not doubt that Satan and his dark forces exist.
- Satan is out to get you.
- God is watching over YOU more intimately than you realize!
- God hears your prayers.
- Keep asking for God to forgive you. Confess your sins explicitly, not just saying, “Please forgive my sins.” After saying exactly what you have done, ask for insight on how to overcome persistent sin problems. Look for God to help you at just the right time.
Let me pray for you now.
Our Lord God and our King Jesus, thank you for my friend who has listened to me in this podcast. Lord, I ask You to prove yourself to my listener and help him or her to find treasures in your Word that will be like keys unlocking spiritual growth and transformation. Please help us to confess our sins and keep our consciences clear in your sight. Amen.
Greetings friends to this end of the year podcast! Before I share my own stories, I want to give you our last two Listener Stories for 2020, one from Tom and another from Tammy. I think Tammy’s story is especially interesting because the Coronavirus pandemic had a big impact on her. I think her story will resonate with many of you.
Hello, my name is Tammy. I recently retired from being a principal and before that a school teacher, a job I had done and loved for over 30 years. I had oodles of plans for what I was going to do, places I was going to go and things I was really looking forward to doing- like working with children at our church this summer. When COVID hit and closed down school as we knew it on March 13, 2020, my life really changed. I didn’t get to say goodbye to my students, parents and staff, it just all ended that Friday in March. I was really struggling with what to me felt like a major loss. (This is in no way to disrespect those that have had greater losses due to COVID.)
I was talking to my husband explaining how I was feeling such an absence of being needed and like I was just wandering looking for what I was supposed to be doing with my life at this time. My sweet husband said some very wise words to me. He said, “Tammy, I believe God is just giving you this down time to recharge you and prepare you for what He has planned next for you to do for Him. Take this time and use it to its best.” While I knew he was right, I have to say I DON’T do down time well. When you work 60 hours a week for oodles of years and have people consistently needing things from you, to have that come to a screeching halt, really put me off kilter.
I was struggling trying to figure out what God wanted me to do. Then one morning in my devotion time God put on my heart that I have been wanting to complete a read through the Bible in a year program for a long time. Even though it was August, I thought, this doesn’t have to wait until January to be a New Year’s Resolution, it can be my New Life Resolution. What a blessing this decision has been! I looked at all different types of programs. I found Digging Deeper Daily and liked the explanation of how this program was laid out. I wanted to learn about the “threads that unify the message of the Old and New Testaments”. I also like the fact that there were brief devotional notes that I thought would help me see the connections clearer.
I started this journey on August 20th and upon hearing the first reading, I fell in love with this journey. Phil’s voice was so calming and yet assured in what he was saying and reading. The brief stories he shares of his work as a Bible translator make me feel like I have a new friend. This adventure has helped me grow daily in my understanding of God’s word. Being a Christian since a child, I had heard many stories from the bible, now I understand more deeply what was happening before, during and after those isolated events. It has really helped make the Bible come to life for me.
Phil explains how he started this project as a gift to leave his grandchildren. He wanted to read the entire bible to them. I feel his love each morning as I listen to him read and explain the daily passage, its as if for those brief moments I have been adopted into his family. This has not only been a way for me to learn more about the Bible, grow closer to God, but also to feel like I am being gathered into the fold each morning.
The brief explanations at the end of the readings are so helpful. I always look forward to the prayer Phil delivers to close the devotional time. Often, I will replay the prayer a time or two more. At the end of “our time together” I try to conclude with a prayer for Phil and all those doing God’s work to bring His word to the nations that don’t have the Bible yet. This reminder of what a gift the Bible is to us, that I often take for granted because I haven’t known a time without it, has made my daily time with God even more precious.
Early on in the program, Phil was reading to us from Matthew. When He read Matthew 11:28 which says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” I cried. This to me reiterated what my husband told me. I was in need of this passage. When Phil read this verse, with such love in his voice, I felt as if it was God speaking it to me. I needed rest, yet I wouldn’t let myself admit it. Now, each morning I consider my time listening to Phil read God’s word as a time of rest, connection and recharging.
I can’t wait to find out what great adventure God has in store for me next, or where He needs me in this stage of life, what I do know though is that Phil Fields and Digging Deeper Daily will be on that amazing ride with me.
Thanks so much, Tammy, for your story! And with a sincere blush, I also say thanks for your kind words. I am so pleased— more than that— filled with joy, when people are able to look through the kind of one-way mirror that podcasting is, to become my friends and even adopted family.
Thanks to Tom giving me this next story. Tom is mainly a reader (not a regular podcast listener). The 3D YouVersion plan he has followed for 2020 is called Read To Me Daily. (Link given in the episode notes.) Tom is a long time friend, dating back to my music teaching days. There is one odd, totally unplanned, similarity between his story and Tammy’s. I think you will catch it.
My name is Tom and I am a sixty-year-old Arkansan. I have read through the Bible several times using different plans. The last few times, using electronic media, such as Digging Deeper Daily, has aided me greatly through ease of access. Reading the Bible entirely in one year gives one little time for Bible study, but I value the discipline of daily reading which stirs my thoughts and continually whets my appetite to, what else, dig deeper.
I read through the Bible this year using the Amplified Bible, Classic Edition. In the past I have used various translations and even some paraphrases and I may have been wiser to use the recommended New Living Translation or Good News Translation. Instead, however, I wanted to use the AMPC this year to slow me down. The many bracketed words and phrases in the AMPC which are used to further describe a translated word or passage, forced me to ponder over a word or passage and think about how an idea was being explained. I did enjoy the New Living Translation as well as the Good News Translation versions referenced most often in the devotionals. I found multiple translations of the same verses to be quite helpful.
Most years when using a daily reading plan I plowed right past the devotional passages and read only the scripture. This year I was determined to include reading the devotionals, again, to slow me down and to help me think about what I was reading. I enjoyed reading the Digging Deeper Daily devotionals which often gave the translator’s perspective of a passage, citing examples of difficult passages to translate and including real-life examples of working with an indigenous people group to help them understand the Bible. In addition to translation notes, I appreciated the occasional summaries from prior days, reminding me of an important passage, even to the point of repeating some passages over consecutive days for emphasis. I also appreciated being prodded by the devotional to live up to its title to, here it is again, dig deeper into particular passages.
I appreciated how the daily readings were divided up between Old and New Testaments, particularly saving Isaiah for the end of the calendar year with so many relevant passages for the advent season. My favorite passage, personally, occurred late in the calendar year on September 21. Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” (NLT) I am never more at peace than when I surrender to Christ’s yoke.
Finally, while I spent the year in the daily reading plan rather than listening to the daily podcasts, I did enjoy utilizing the audio podcasts through the Old Testament genealogies. 😊
Thanks for those great comments, Tom! I rejoice just as much for those who read the Bible for themselves, as I do for those listening to podcasts.
Before I share my own story, I want to say that I have revised the Read This First site, trying to make it easy to find information helpful to readers and listeners. The Read This First site is prominently linked at dailybiblereading.info.
For this first thing I want to share with you, I am reaching back to 1993. If you are one who reads along while listening, you will have noticed that I have a short list of words I substitute in the Bible text. When the text says ‘faith’, I normally read ‘fully believing’ instead. I have explained this in several podcasts, where I mainly just complain about how fuzzy the term ‘faith’ has become. However today I would like to tell the story of when this truth really came to my attention.
By 1993, we had been in the Orya translation project for 9 years. We had learned the language and translated books like Mark and James. The story I am about to tell happened when I was in the remote village of Guay without my family, and the translation team and I were working on revising Acts. A man I did not know well, Nahe, came up to me on Sunday morning and asked to have a private conversation with me that night. I agreed and he came. He told me this story:
You would not have heard this, but I died and came back to life. This happened in another village out on the coast where I was working. When I came to and started breathing again, the people were already building my coffin. While I was dead, I went to heaven. I saw how the people in heaven were rejoicing and so happy. But I was told to go back and enter into my body again. My body was revolting to me, but somehow I did that and came back.
After his story, ever so sincerely— with a tear and a shaky voice— he said, “I cry everyday because I know that someone like me can’t go to heaven. What do I have to do to get to heaven?”
“Wow,” I thought. “What a perfect opportunity!” I answered from Acts 16, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.”
He said, “But that’s just the problem! How can I tell if I have believed.”
Incredulous, I asked, “Can’t you tell if you have believed?”
He said, “We Orya people don’t think one can know that.”
Several things dawned on me at once. The first was, “This will probably not be the great missionary story I was hoping it would be.” And the second was, “Everything that we have translated will have to be revised, because we obviously haven’t been using the right word for ‘believe’.”
Starting that Monday morning my team and I spent the whole day discussing what the word ‘believe’ is supposed to mean. The conversation I related above is not quite accurate. Here is what actually was said:
Nahe asked, “What do I have to do to get to heaven?”
I answered from our defective translation of Acts 16, “Have faith in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” (I didn’t say “Believe in the Lord Jesus.” I actually said, “Have faith in the Lord Jesus.”)
He said, “But that’s just it! How can I tell if I have faith.”
Incredulous, I asked, “Can’t you tell if you have faith?”
He said, “We Orya people don’t think one can know that.”
The Orya word which they had used ever since at least the 1950’s to translate the concept of ‘believe’ literally means to have ‘inner fruit’. It can be illustrated as like a papaya, because a papaya has inner fruit. All ripe papaya look about the same externally at the market, but if you buy one and cut it open, on the inside it may be either yellow or pink. I prefer the pink ones. So someone explained to me, “We have assumed that when you die, at the gates of heaven you kind of have an operation to see if you have any ‘inner fruit’ in you. If you do, you can go into heaven. If you don’t, you go to the other place.” No one knows if they have any fruit inside them before dying.
The problem is this: In Greek, ‘believe’ and ‘faith’ have the same root word. They are pisteo and pistis (or pisteos). The visual similarity could be compared to the English verb ‘to be certain’ and noun form ‘certainty’. The words for ‘believe’ and ‘faith’ really OUGHT TO look and sound like they belong to each other, but they don’t. By some strange quirk of linguistic perversity, while ‘faith’ and ‘believe’ look and sound similar in Greek, they don’t look and sound similar in Orya, in Indonesian, and in English!
It is precisely because of that lack of root-word similarity in English that the abstract noun ‘faith’ is fuzzy and the meaning wanders all over the place. Faith is not like the word ‘certainty’, which can never wander very far from the verb form to be ‘certain’.
Sleeplessly mulling over my conversation with Nahe, I was amazed when I realized that the English Bible often tells us, “Ya gotta have faith,” but that abstract noun is so fuzzy that people will not know if they have obeyed or not. They will think that they have to wait to find out if they are saved until they are standing at the gates of heaven. This is NOT what God wants!
Here is what I want you to know:
- If you are a believer in Jesus, God wants you to know that you are on your way to heaven. See Romans 10:9-10.
- Believing is a volitional action. You know if you believe something or not.
- The abstract noun ‘faith’ is not a volitional act, so many people don’t really know if they have ‘faith’ or not.
- That is why I think it is important to share the Gospel in terms of ‘believing’, because people can’t really tell where they are in relation to the abstract noun ‘faith’.
- Any time you see the word ‘faith’ in your Bible, you can almost always substitute the words ‘fully believing’.
- If some preacher or prophet starts explaining what ‘faith’ is and he or she doesn’t talk about ‘believing’ what the Bible says, run away. All kinds of rituals or crystal gazing are purported to increase your faith. Don’t believe it. The faith of people who teach such things is just fuzzy sweet-smelling incense.
- Hey, would you like to have bigger faith?! I’m serious! I can tell you right now how to increase your faith! Believe what the Bible says about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and yourself!
By the way: Eventually Nahe died and didn’t come back. His widow is a fine Christian. She told me what I already suspected. She doesn’t think Nahe ever truly believed in Jesus. He got mixed up in false teaching instead.
From EveryWord 001 podcast
Here is a quote from from Pickering, The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken, concerning Mark 1:23.
23 Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, 24 saying: “Hey, what do you want with us, Jesus Natsarene?!13
13 The name of the town in Hebrew is based on the consonants נצר) resh, tsadde, nun), but since Hebrew is read from right to left, for us the order is reversed = n, ts, r. This word root means ‘branch’. Greek has the equivalent for ‘ps’ and ‘ks’, but not for ‘ts’, so the transliteration used a z (zeta) ‘dz’, which is the voiced counterpart of ‘ts’. But when the Greek was transliterated into English it came out as ‘z’! But Hebrew has a ‘z’, ז) zayin), so in transliterating back into Hebrew people assumed the consonants נזר ,replacing the correct tsadde with zayin. Neither ‘Nazareth’ nor ‘Nazarene’, spelled with a zayin, is to be found in the Old Testament, but there is a prophetic reference to Messiah as the Branch, netser—Isaiah 11:1—and several to the related word, tsemach—Isaiah 4:2, Jeremiah 23:5, 33:15; Zechariah 3:8, 6:12. So Matthew (2:23) is quite right—the prophets (plural, being at least three) referred to Christ as the Branch. Since Jesus was a man, He would be the ‘Branch-man’, from ‘Branch-town’. Which brings us to the word ‘natsorean’. The familiar ‘Nazarene’ (Nazarhnoj) [Natsarene] occurs in Mark 1:24, 14:67, 16:6 and Luke 4:34, but in Matthew 2:23 and in fourteen other places, including Acts 22:8 where the glorified Jesus calls Himself that, the word is ‘Natsorean’ (Nazwraioj), which is quite different. I have been given to understand that the Natsareth of Jesus’ day had been founded some 100 years before by a Branch family, who called it Branch town; they were very much aware of the prophecies about the Branch and fully expected the Messiah to be born from among them—they called themselves Branch-people (Natsoreans). Of course everyone else thought it was a big joke and tended to look down on them. “Can anything good . . . ?”
Early this year, when doing the first of the EveryWord podcasts, I found a little golden treasure I had never seen before. In Mark 1:24, the demon called Jesus a ‘Natsarene’ in Wilbur Pickering's translation:
23-24 Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, 24 saying: “Hey, what do you want with us, Jesus Natsarene?!
We all know that Nazarene is normally spelled with a z, but Pickering spells it with ts.
Now Matthew 2:23 states, “So the family (that is Joseph’s family) went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: He (Jesus) will be called a Nazarene.” But the name Nazarene or Nazareth appears nowhere in the Old Testament, so how could this fulfill what plural prophets wrote? Here is the answer to this seeming mistake in God’s infallible Word:
In Hebrew, the word meaning ‘branch’ is netser. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah (plural prophets) refer to the Messiah as the Branch or Shoot. Isaiah 11:1 is one of those places:
Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot — yes, a new Branch (netser) bearing fruit from the old root. (NLT Isaiah 11:1)
We might call the original name for Jesus’ hometown ‘Netser-place’, or Natsereth. But when Natsereth was translated into Greek, the ts became a z, Nazareth. The cool thing about this is that several hundred years before Christ came, someone founded a settlement called Branchville. I don't think this happened by accident. God definitely planned this. But the people who did that may simply have had the desire to remind others that God promised to send a Messiah who was going to be called ‘the Branch’. So it is significant, and a fulfillment of prophecy, that Jesus is called ‘the man from Branchville’.
The other two prophets use a related form of netzer, which is tsemah. Look at the neat correspondences when we put these four verses mentioning the ‘Branch’ together:
NLT'07 Jeremiah 23:5-6:5 “For the time is coming,” says the LORD, “when I will raise up a righteous [branch//tsemah//descendant] from King David’s line. He will be a King who rules with wisdom. He will do what is just and right throughout the land.
6 And this will be his name: ‘The LORD Is Our Righteousness.’ In that day Judah will be saved, and Israel will live in safety.
NLT Jeremiah 33:15-16:15 “In those days and at that time I will raise up a righteous [branch//tsemah//descendant] from King David’s line. He will do what is just and right throughout the land.
16 In that day Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this will be its name: ‘The LORD Is Our Righteousness.’
NLT'07 Zechariah 3:8-9:8 “Listen to me, O Jeshua the high priest, and all you other priests. You are symbols of things to come. Soon I am going to bring my servant, the [Branch//tsemah].
9 Now look at the jewel I have set before Jeshua, a single stone with seven [facets//eyes]. I will engrave an inscription on it, says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, and I will remove the sins of this land in a single day.
NLT'07 Zechariah 6:12-13:12 Tell him, ‘This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: Here is the man called the Branch//tsemah. He will branch out from where he is and build the Temple of the LORD.
13 Yes, he will build the Temple of the LORD. Then he will receive royal honor and will rule as king from his throne. He will also serve as priest from his throne, and there will be perfect harmony between his two roles.’
Isaiah 742-695, 750-695 BCJeremiah 627-580, 628-588 BCZechariah active 520-518 BC, 520-515, 520-510
In line with the two verses from Jeremiah 33 that we just read, the people in the kingdom of Judah were looking for the prophesied King from David’s line. Like what blind Bartemaeus shouted on the road leaving Jericho, people were looking for the ‘Son of David’. But Jesus didn’t call himself that, as far as we know.
What I will share now is a very new insight for me, dating from October. To me this has been a major revelation. It has to do with Jesus’ favorite way of talking about himself, by the title the ‘Son of Man’. I was dissatisfied with the traditional translation of this title into Indonesian. The word for ‘Man’ that has been used in all Indonesian translations before now is ‘manusia’. Unfortunately that word is plural by default, so it comes out as the ‘Son of Mankind’. Or to give you the idea, it means, Son of People/Humanity, and Indonesians have interpreted that to mean Jesus was very humbly claiming to be ‘no one special at all’.
This doesn’t line up with how Jesus used the title the Son of Man. He used it in the following three ways, and supporting Scripture references from Matthew’s Gospel are found in the episode notes:
Jesus used ‘Son of Man’ as a Messianic title:
- He used it when He claimed that he had the right to give divine and kingly decisions in this world: Mat. 9:6; 12:8, 32; 13:37; 16:13.
- He used it when talking of his low status, taking on the role of a servant, and of his self-sacrifice: Mat. 8:20; 11:19; 12:40; 17:9, 12, 22; 20:18; 20:28; 26:2, 24, 45.
- He used it when speaking of his coming again in glory and victory: Mat. 10:23; 13:41; 16:27-28; 19:28; 24:27, 30, 37, 39, 44; 25:31; 26:64.
Jesus was NOT claiming to be ‘nobody special’ when He called Himself the Son of Man!
Well, you listeners to the Daily Bible Reading podcast or those who have read the devotional material know that the title the Son of Man relates to Daniel 7. But there is something there I never saw before this year.
You may remember that God frequently called Ezekiel ‘son of man’. (GNT translates this ‘Mortal man’.) Not just ‘frequently’, but 93 times in that book! That’s almost twice per chapter. But guess what?! Literally in Hebrew the expression is ‘ben adam’ or ‘son of Adam’. Remember that in Genesis, Adam’s name means ‘man’. Biblical Hebrew doesn’t use capital letters to show whether adam is a name or the word man. So beginning in Genesis 3:20, there are verses in the OT where translators differ as to whether ‘adam’ is to be understood as Adam’s name or just the word for man. (Gen. 3:20; Job 31:33; Hos. 6:7)
Readers of the Chronicles of Narnia will remember Mr. Tumus’ question to Lucy, “Pardon me, are you a ‘daughter of Eve?” And the white witch called Edmund a ‘son of Adam’. Really, we can all say that we are sons of Adam or daughters of Eve.
In the short book of Daniel, just like his contemporary Ezekiel, Daniel is called a ‘ben adam’ or ‘son of Adam’ in chapter 8, verse 17. But now let’s take a look a Daniel 7:13-14:
ESV Daniel 7:13-14:
13 “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.
14 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.
But this key verse has a wrinkle I never saw before, and I apologize for this becoming a bit technical here. Parts of Daniel are written in Aramaic, not Hebrew. The all-important 13th verse for defining Jesus’ title is one of those parts. So in Aramaic, Daniel says that he saw ‘one like a son of man’, and Aramaic doesn’t say ‘son of Adam’. However one can say with certainty that the text would say ‘son of adam’ if it had been written in Hebrew. (And it would also have the ambiguity I have mentioned.)
All this made me ask an interesting question: What language did Jesus use when he called himself the Son of Man? Jesus lived in a multilingual situation. Ancient Hebrew would have been taught in synagogues and used for OT quotes or readings, but evidently Hebrew had not been commonly used in daily conversation in Israel for hundreds of years. In Jesus’ day, Aramaic was much more commonly spoken. But by Jesus’ day, people had for 300 years learned the language of their conquerors, first Greek, and more recently probably a smattering of Latin. Many Jews of the time quoted the OT from the Greek Septuagint. But in multilingual situations, people frequently borrow expressions from one language and sprinkle them into their speech in another language. So Jesus could have called Himself ‘son of Adam’ in Hebrew while speaking in Aramaic, or he could have called himself the Son of Man in Aramaic (like Daniel wrote), or could have called himself the Son of Man in Greek (as the Septuagint translates that expression).
In this way, I found that I reached a dead end in the study of the ancient languages. We simply don’t know enough about what languages Jesus used in different contexts to tell us what words He actually said. But remember that I am concerned with translating Jesus’ title meaningfully into Indonesian. Calling Jesus the Son of Humanity didn’t give the right meaning. It turns out that calling him the Son of Adam was rejected by my translation team. BUT Indonesian has an honorific word used for titles. Tacking on that word, the title becomes The Exalted Son of Adam, and that Works!
Finally I get to share the special insight this gave me: What happens if we call Jesus the Prophesied Son of Adam? In Genesis 3 God said to the serpent:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head
and you shall bruise his heel.”
The prophesied Son of Eve, would by normal Jewish practice be called by Eve’s husband’s name. The Prophesied Son of Adam is the One all mankind has been waiting for since the Garden of Eden. Given this link, we find that Jesus’ title doesn’t just relate to Daniel 7, but it also relates all the way back to the first prophecy in the Bible. He is the One who vanquished Satan for us on the cross, who speaks with divine and kingly authority, and who will come again in glory and victorious power. This expansion of the meaning of Jesus’ title has been my biggest insight in 2020.
“Oh, how great are God’s riches! How deep are his wisdom and knowledge.” Rom 11:33
And how deep and amazing is God’s Word. “The word of God is alive and active, and sharper than any double-edged sword.” Heb. 4:12
Gale and I wish you a very happy New Year! May the Lord bless you ‘real good’.
Today I am sharing four listener stories.
Before I do that, I want to respond to Sunny and Nate, who commented on my pronunciation of Bible names in the podcasts. Surely others have wondered about this, so let me explain. Some may, like Sunny, assume that I am saying the names right. (Well after all, one would think a Bible translator ought to know the right pronunciation!) So here’s my (somewhat embarrassed) explanation of what I have done. After studying a few other languages, I consider the standard English pronunciations of the letters a, i, and e, in many Bible names to be ugly. I really wish I could start a trend to pronounce Bible names differently! Basically, what I have done is to take the English spellings and pronounce them with the pure phonetic vowels of the Indonesian language. I don’t like pronouncing the letter a or e in multiple ways like English, so instead of pronouncing the two a’s differently in ‘Ray-h@b’s name, I say her name ‘Rahab’. And instead of Heze’kEYEya, I pronounce his name He’ZEKya when reading the Bible text. When reading my introductions, I try to give the correct English pronunciation. So my pronunciations cannot be called ‘right’ or even consistent, but pronouncing names with the pure vowels of the Indonesian language happens to make some names more like the Hebrew or Greek pronunciation. I strived to be more consistent in my pronunciation choices in the GNT podcast series.
I send my thanks to Catherine and Luisa, who have given us our first two listener stories. Here they are:
Before I play the next two listener stories, I have some listener feedback from Joy. She had a story like Julie from my last podcast with listener stories, but she added this little PS: Along with following another whole reading plan this year, she also read the YouVersion plan named Day by Day with Billy Graham. This is a 366 day reading plan, which often gives a reading of only one verse and a very short and interesting and pointed devotional thought. This has got to be a good one, because it has 50,000 completions. The link to this reading plan is in the episode notes.
Our next story is from Iryna. I couldn’t place her accent, and when I took a guess, I was way wrong. She is from Crimea, which became a Russian territory in 2014. She writes that her name (Iryna) derives from Greek, which is true for many names in Russia and the Ukraine. Her name means peace. Iryna is married to an Australian and they live in Australia.
Many thanks to Iryna. She sent pictures of two of the verses she has illustrated for the walls of their home. These can be seen at the bottom of the home page of the Read This First site. The link for that site is in the program notes, and it is the first link found at dailybiblereading.info.
Next I want to send my thanks to Nicole for this last listener story today. Her testimony wins the prize for being the best recommendation the Daily Bible Reading Podcast has ever received. So thanks, Nicole, for your very kind words.
If you have questions or comments, my favorite way for you to contact me is via the Contact link at dailybiblereading.info.
As I said in the podcast a couple of days ago (Three 3D Stories from Listeners), I will publish a podcast on December 31 which will contain my personal story including insights from my own Bible reading and Bible translation work.
1Ths 5:23-24: GNT “May the God who gives us peace make you holy in every way and keep your whole being — spirit, soul, and body — free from every fault at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you will do it, because he is faithful.”
May the Lord bless you ‘Read Good’!
I am sharing three audio listener stories in this podcast in preparation for a Special Podcast that will be released on December 31. If you started the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan on January 1st this year, I hope you have remembered that this is a leap year. Some of you heard a Christmas day greeting today, that was one day early. Because of leap year, there would be no podcast released for December 31st, so I will release a special edition for that day.
I have received 8 encouraging listener and reader testimonies that I will share in the next days, and these will all be linked on the Read This First site that is linked at dailybiblereading.info. You can easily share these stories by using the share buttons, or all of them will be available all year on the home page of the Read This First site.
Before playing the first listener story, I would like to tell you that my YouTube video entitled How to Study the Bible — for beginners is back on the same page, the home page of the Read This First site. It is also linked in the episode notes for this podcast: https://youtu.be/sPyAp8ZxDBE
Beth started listening to the Daily Bible Reading podcast this year, and she contacted me early in the year. I later enjoyed a video call with Beth and her husband Steve, as they are interested in Beth getting involved in Bible translation. She sent me this message:
Our next listener story is from Julie. I will expand on some of the things Julie mentions. First let’s listen to her message:
Julie is correct, even though some people seem to listen to me for more than one year at a time, I don’t encourage anyone to do this. (Hey, you can always come back after a few years, like Julie will.) I am listing links to the three Bible reading plans I usually mention: Daily Audio Bible with Brian Hardin Bible in One Year 2021 by Nicky Gumbel Daily Radio Bible by Hunter (and I don’t easily find his last name).
If you decide to still follow the Digging Deeper Reading plan, but would like to listen to a different voice for the Bible readings, Julie was right. My favorite option for the audio for the plan is to sign up for the Read To Me Daily YouVersion reading plan, listen to the NIVUK version, which is read by the famous actor David Suche.
Then Julie gives me the opportunity to say this also: There are two meaning-based translations that I hope every Christian reads all the way through at least in their lifetime. They are the New Living Translation (NLT) and the Good News Translation (GNT or GNB, also previously known as the Today’s English Version TEV). Many people fail in their plans to read the Bible in a year if they use a literal translation. Literal translations are great for study, especially when paired with a meaning-based translation. But literal translations are not friendly especially in audio form. That is why I have recorded the Digging Deeper Daily Bible reading plan in two translations: the NLT and the GNT. If you go to dailybiblereading.info, the GNT podcast site is right in the top bar. Here is the link: dailygntbiblereading.info.
Our last listener story is from Laura.
I want to say a big Thank You to Beth, Julie, and Laura.
The podcast on December 31 will contain my own story of things that have been meaningful to me this year, both in my reading and Bible translation work. I also have five more listener stories that I will publish like this in the next few days.
The year has been flying by for Gale and me. For the most part, we have not been too inconvenienced by the pandemic and are healthy. I hope the same for you! How has it gone with you in listening to the Daily Bible Reading podcast, or following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan? I would be very interested in hearing back from you, and for you to tell me about things like this:
- If you are a listener, what podcast app are you using to listen, or do you use our website?
- If you have a favorite app that you would recommend to others, please tell me what you like about it.
- Have you experienced difficulties in finding your next day's podcast?
- Have you experienced any difficulties while using the YouVersion Bible app?
To share with me, just reply to this message. Just before the beginning of next year, I will report back on what I learn from your responses. If you have enjoyed this year's readings or podcasts, please give our website address to your friends: dailybiblereading.info. Many of you who started 2020 with day 1 of our Digging Deeper Daily reading plan have just started an intensive course in Bible prophecy that will run to the end of this year— with readings in Ezekiel, Isaiah, minor prophets and Revelation. I want to touch on just a few important points. One is that human teachers never get their interpretations of prophecy correct. The prophets in Jerusalem didn't know what God was going to do in Ezekiel's day, The Jews didn't get it right about what the Messiah would do. Just the other day I heard a radio preacher teaching an ordering of events for the end times that I think will be proved way wrong. Remember, God possesses all wisdom, and humans predicting what God will do based on prophecy have gotten it wrong time after time. (So I will only dare give a few major points below!) If you are like me, we have joined Paul and John in praying "Come, Lord Jesus!" For a lot of my life, I have wished that I could see the Lord fulfill some prophecies signalling a quickening of the pace toward the return of Jesus. Guess what folks! Things are happening, and now we're saying, "Oh Lord, please stop it!" We all know that we are to avoid any marks on our hands and foreheads that could resemble any interpretation of 666. Those who refuse to receive the mark of the beast won't be able to buy or sell. But I sort of missed the implication that we who don't follow the beast's party line will one day be locked out of social media, sources of impartial news, and probably even the whole Internet. Let's not miss this often-repeated warning: We must learn to trust the Lord and endure in faithfulness to Him no matter what happens. Please consider what God has done in the past. He told Abraham what would happen to the Jews. Then it happened: They were enslaved in Egypt, and then God brought them back to the promised land, just as He said He would. No other God has done something like that! Then God told Moses, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah (and others) about a similarly big thing that would happen. Over and over we read that the Jewish people would be unfaithful and would be exiled to far-away country— to Babylon, as it turns out. But God promised to return them to their country. Then in Isaiah, God even tells the name of the king who would allow the Jews to return to Israel, some hundreds of years before it happened. In that same passage God Himself asks the readers, "What other God has ever done something like that?!" God told the exiled people that he would take care of them in exile, and He did. So, I am sure that God will take care of us in whatever suffering (even tribulation) that we face. “This means that God's holy people must endure persecution patiently and remain faithful.” (Rev. 13:10) We will see in our prophecy readings that many things that God predicts eventually get fulfilled multiple times. One of the chief examples of this is Daniel's prophecy about a king who would oppose the people of God. "The king will do as he pleases, exalting himself and claiming to be greater than every god, even blaspheming the God of gods." Extending from Roman kings, to Hitler, and now into our time, the closer we come to the end, the more like the antichrist our rulers will become. We hate to see this happen! But there is a comforting side: God is in control. He is not surprised by what is happening. The best thing we can do to prepare for the times to come is to study His Word. Use God's Word to answer those who do not know the truth. More and more I pray for God to open minds. 2Cor. 4:3 says that “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. …” In verse 6 Paul says, “For God, who said, ‘Let there be light in the darkness,’ has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.” Just so, I am confident that as YOU lovingly share the simple Good News with people, God will turn on the lights in the minds of some to behold the glory. But as Paul says in verse 7, “We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure.” That's how God wants us to be at this time. Join the club feeling fragile! If you are in the USA, I urge you to know the issues and vote. In Revelation, Jesus' saying, "He that has and ear let him hear," is repeated eight times. And of course, there are many times in the Gospels where Jesus says that. I have been amazed as a Bible translator at how many times I have needed to revise that saying. It is very hard to get that one right! Recently we revised all those verses in our Indonesian translation. Let me tell you that that saying always points backward. Jesus is not telling people to listen to what He's going to say. He's telling people to pay attention to what He's just said. In our Indonesian translation, the problem was that— the way we had expressed it— Jesus was coming off as angry or impolite. We had translated like what I have given as the meaning in the Daily Bible Reading podcast: "Ya got ears, don't ya?! Well listen!" So in searching for an answer, Balazi (the head of our translation program) said, "Ya know, there's something that Indonesian teachers and pastors say frequently, and here it is: Don't let what I've said go in your right ear and straight out your left." In English we say, "Don't let what I said just go in one ear and out the other!" That's our translation of Jesus' saying, except there needs to be one last command: "Meditate on it!" Yes, meditate on it! That's what we need to be doing with all our Bible readings at the end of this year. The Daily Bible Reading podcast has done well in 2020. Our daily downloads are about 50% higher than around February, or on many days are 90% higher than they were last year at this same time. Amazing things are happening in Indonesia. I normally would be there now, but not this year. My next trip will happen the spring of next year, Lord willing. You on this list did not get my updates about our work, but you can see our August letter here and our October letter here. May the Lord bless you ‘real good’! Phil
Welcome to the FIFTH episode of the Every Word Podcast. This is a podcast series for those who enjoy studying details found in God’s Word. In every episode I will read from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s fresh-sounding translation of the New Testament, which he named, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” In today’s episode, I will read and comment on Pickering’s translation of Mark chapter 16.
Dr. Pickering’s translation is based on the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament, which is also called the Byzantine Text.
Beginning in 1881 there was a shift in the Greek text used for English Bible translations, caused by the influence of the Wescott and Hort Greek New Testament, which was based on a very small sampling of manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text Type, that is from Egypt.
[The main two manuscripts they relied on are Codex Sinaiticus (abbreviation א [Aleph] or 01) and Codex Vaticanus (abbreviation B or 03). Those are dated at 330-360 AD and 300-325 respectively.]
At the time Wescott and Hort were working, it was anticipated that research into the most ancient manuscripts newly discovered in Egypt would reveal a coherent textual stream that would point to the authentic initial form of the Greek text. Now, over a century later, those ancient Egyptian manuscripts have been analyzed, but they do not reveal a coherent textual stream that can be followed. Instead they reveal that Egyptian scribes very freely edited the texts they copied. However the myth continues to be taught that Alexandrian manuscripts are better despite evidence to the contrary, and despite that only the first two picked by Wescott and Hort are still the only ones that are given priority.
In contrast, the Majority Text of the New Testament was made by copyists who lived in the same places as the original recipients of the apostles’ writings. Individual scribal errors have been weeded out, since this text type is based on the majority reading of thousands of Greek manuscripts. The Majority Text has been stable over the centuries and is the best academically defendable text of the Greek New Testament that we have today. It is my hope that these podcasts will build awareness of the faulty Greek text that underlies almost all of the English Bible translations of the last century, starting with the ASV (1901), and including RSV, NASB, NIV, GNT, NLT, NET, and ESV.
If you have questions you would like me to try to answer, please write. Aside from questions, please let me know where I have made mistakes. My favorite way for you to send your comments is via the Contact button at dailybiblereading.info. If you would like to send me a recording of your comments, it is very possible that I will play it.
About 4-5 years ago, the pastor at our church in Siloam Springs preached an expository series of sermons on the Gospel of Mark. Our pastor does a great job of preaching through books of Scripture, even through some of the hardest material in the Bible. So I was shocked that on the Sunday when we were all expecting to hear the last message in Mark’s Gospel, the pastor started his message by telling us that he would not be preaching on chapter 16. Before he launched into the new topic he had chosen for that Sunday, he said something like this, “I decided that I would not preach on this passage, because, after all, we don’t know whether it is part of inspired Scripture or not.”
I want you to know that my pastor believes in the inspiration of God’s Word. Was the pastor right to doubt if Mark 16:9-20 was written by Mark? Is he being inconsistent in his belief in the inspiration of the Bible if he doubts that the long ending of Mark is the correct text? What’s the evidence?
This is an important point, and that’s what we will deal with today.
After I read Pickering’s translation of Mark 16, I will read Pickering’s article, entitled Mark 16:9-20 and the Doctrine of Inspiration. This is the Appendix E in his book entitled The Identity of the New Testament Text. (See the Resources section of the episode notes for information on where you can download this book, or purchase it. The complete text of the article I will read parts from is in the PDF file attached to this podcast. To download the PDF, find the podcast entitled EveryWord005 at dailybiblereading.info.)
I think some of you will be disappointed that Pickering doesn’t put the overwhelming textual evidence for the inclusion of the last 12 verses of Mark right at the front of his article. So if you don’t have time 45 minutes of interesting discussion that leads up to that info, you can skip to minute xxxx.
I think it is good for us to start out considering the impact that the ending of Mark has upon our attitude toward the reliability of all of Scripture. I think Pickering’s article is a faith builder.
My (PCF) comment at minute 33:54 Let me discuss briefly one of the ‘poison passages’ that Pickering mentioned, the one found in Luke 3:33.
LUKE 3.33Majority Text: The son of Aminadab, the son of Aram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah,
Eclectic Text: The son of Aminadab, the son of Admin, the son of Arni, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah
Dr. Timothy Friberg says in his What is what article:The reading of the Traditional Text is consistent with the known Old Testament account of Jesus’ ancestors (1Chronicles 2) and also Matthew 1, while the text of the Bible Society Text has no known Old Testament support.
For a link to Friberg’s article, see the Resources section, at the bottom of the episode notes.
PCF: Of new Bible translations, only NIV sort of follows the BT and harmonizes with 1Chronicles 2. All the others contain the fictitious Arni. I am surprised by this. It must be that most translators felt that most people would not notice a little change in Jesus’ genealogy. As I show in my Playing Follow the Leader article, in important places where readers will notice a difference, the translators for versions of the last century departed from the Eclectic Text about 30% of the time. Whenever translators do this, they show they are ashamed of the Eclectic Text. No one should deny that it contains the kind of ‘poison’ Pickering speaks of.
Dr. Pickering named his NT, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” That title contains three concepts that were not believed by Wescott, Hort, and the succeeding managers of the Eclectic Text. They did not believe that our Creator created humans as described in Genesis. They did not believe in the sovereignty of God. Nor did they believe that God actively inspired and has preserved every word of Scripture for us.
Moses and Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Mat. 4:4; Luk. 4:4)
May the Lord bless you ‘real good’!
Resources: Fields, Philip:
Playing Follow the Leader in Bible Translation, 2019, by Phil Fields. See the Resources list in that article for many more helpful articles on the superiority of the Majority Greek Text.
Friberg, Timothy:
On the text of the Greek New Testament that also happens to be the right one for cousin audiences
Although the title of this four-page paper refers to translating for Muslims, the principles and summary is widely applicable.
I suggest reading this paper before reading Friberg’s other articles listed below.
Layman’s Guide — A modest explanation for the layman of ideas related to determining the text of the Greek New Testament, 2019.
What is what? — Differences between the Traditional Text and the Bible Society Text of the Greek New Testament. Some data for the reader to weigh, 2019.
Pickering, Wilbur:
New Translation of the New Testament: The Sovereign Creator has Spoken
Greek Text of the New Testament based on Family 35
The Identity of the NT Text IV This book is available as a free download for the Kindle reader app, and also can be purchased from Amazon.
All of Pickering’s articles and books are freely available for download at PRUNCH.net. All are released under the Creative Commons license. Additionally, his second edition (2016) NT translation is available for a free download via the Kindle app. It is also freely available as a module in the MyBible program for Android and Apple devices.
Robinson, Maurice: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform, 1991, 2005, 2018.
This is available in free digital form in the MyBible Bible app, and in other ways.
Article:
Full Text of the 105 verses lacking overall Greek Manuscript Support in the NA edition 27
I’m really thankful for all of you Bible readers and listeners! I hope that you are staying healthy. Gale and I are fine.
I am thankful to see that DBRP listeners are a faithful bunch. I can tell from the download statistics that many of you have kept on listening daily even in the worst of the Covid19 epidemic. Some of you skip listening on the weekends because you listen while commuting to work, but you catch up again during the work week. Keep it up, friends! In our troubled times, knowing God’s Word is the rock and anchor we need.
For some DBRP listeners, especially for any listeners who are not in sync with those who started listening on January first, you might have difficulty finding your next episode at certain times of the year. (This has to do with how episodes are rescheduled for broadcasting.) If it ever happens that you can’t find the day number you want, you should always be able to find that day’s episode at our website, dailybiblereading.info. Another cause of the problem could be the podcast app you are using. It will help if you choose a podcast app that allows you to track your position in the calendar and automatically download a certain number of episodes in advance. Please share your favorite app for that with me, so that I can add the information to our website. I want to express thanks to my volunteer secretary, Vicky Pool, who does the queuing up DBRP episodes every week.
After I have my Bible reading time in the morning, I listen to a podcast I hope you have heard about called The World And Everything In It. It gives world news from a Biblically-based world view. If you haven’t listened to it, I recommend that you give it a try.
I want to apologize to all those who are listening to the NLT Daily Bible Reading Podcasts. I have been listening to those again this year, one day ahead of people who started on January first. I keep finding mistakes and have fixed quite a few of them, and I have made notes for fixing some episodes later. But here is the main problem: The NLT series was recorded when I was new to podcasting. The initial recording quality was awful for half of the year. So when I now record little improvements (perhaps a sentence or two), the voice quality is significantly different. Some episodes have become a patchwork quilt, with corrections or improvements made over time, which make me sound like five different men. Oh, and by the way, back in 2014 when I first made those podcasts, I was using an older edition of the NLT.
This leaves me with a problem: I am very focused now on my Bible translation work for Indonesia. I cannot take the time this year or next to re-record the NLT Bible series, either in part or all of it. Someday, I hope to record the whole Bible again, but not now. But I have thought of the solution!
How about if YOU record a 20 minute podcast episode for one of the days in 2021?! How about if there were voices from all around the globe that would do this, and we could look forward to hearing from different people every day? We have time to make this happen for 2021 if we start now. But I will need several volunteers who will be willing to act as editors and organizers for this. If you want to hear more about this opportunity, I will give more information after the close of this podcast.
Some of you have been interested in what I have shared in the EveryWord podcast series, for which I have published just 4 episodes and will soon publish the 5th. This is the podcast where I read from Wilbur Pickering’s translation of the NT which is entitled The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken. I have had a difficult time making the 5th episode, making several starts, then scraping that material and starting over. After praying about it, I have decided to cover the ending of Mark 16 in this next episode. Verses 9-20 of Mark 16 are enclosed in brackets in most Bibles today, but should they be?! Recently a fellow missionary serving in Indonesia heard me mention that we support using the Majority Text for Bible translations, and he fired back the question, “Do you think that Mark 16:9-20 was part of the original text?” I feel that the answer to that question is vitally important.
Here are a few verses that have stood out to me in Ps 119 recently: Ps 119:89: Lamedh Your eternal word, O LORD, stands firm in heaven. Now I wasn’t thinking of textual variants in Greek when I marked that. We can be comforted in our time that there is one thing that can be an anchor for our hearts and minds in this troubled time. God is in control and He is causing his purposes to be fulfilled. Let’s recommend God’s unchanging Word as the answer and source of truth for this world which has lost its moorings.
Ps 119:105: Nun Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.
These verses comfort me in a time when we all seem so vulnerable and the world seems to be falling apart: Ps 119:114,116: 114 You are my refuge and my shield; your word is my source of hope. 116 LORD, sustain me as you promised, that I may live! Do not let my hope be crushed. Ps 119:123: 123 My eyes strain to see your rescue, to see the truth of your promise fulfilled.
Let’s pray: Lord, we call out to You, and we seek at this time to more sincerely put all our hope in You. Be our strong tower, our place of refuge, and the source of our quiet confidence. Please open our minds to be able to find treasures in your Word that will give us new hope, not just for ourselves, but also to share with others. At this time our eyes strain to see your rescue, especially to see Jesus coming back again. No matter how You choose to rescue us today, please let your Word and your presence with us be our source of joy.
May the Lord bless you, ‘real good’!
Now if you are staying around to hear more about what I am hoping for next year, here is what I hope some of you will want to participate in. I love the way the podcasts for The World and Everything In It start, with a new voice giving a greeting, telling who they are and perhaps a sentence about where they are and what they do. I would like opening greetings to be like that for each episode recorded by you and other listeners next year, and your voice would continue to read the day’s Bible readings. You could base your introductory comments and the prayer at the end on mine, or you could embroider and improve on what I have written down. If you want to, feel free to involve other members of your family in your recording. Another difference for next year: You can choose which version you would like to read from a list I will provide.
To do these recordings, we hope that you are someone who can read in such a way that listeners can follow the meaning. I freely admit that I often have to record some sentences three or more times before I get them down without mistakes and carrying the intonation I am aiming for. So if you are someone who makes mistakes like me, then I hope that you can edit your audio file yourself, or be willing to learn that skill. It isn’t hard, and someone else will help polish the file you give us. I hope that next year we will hear old and young voices, voices that reveal different ethnicities, and speaking with accents from various regions and countries.
I need several people who will be able to help me put all this together. One would be someone who could manage the audio polishing process I just mentioned. We will give more pointers about how to make good recordings to people who express interest. The best way to contact me is to use the contact button at dailybiblereading.info.
And again, Gale and I say, May the Lord bless you ‘real good’!
EveryWord004
Welcome to this FOURTH episode of the Every Word Podcast. This is a podcast series for those who enjoy studying details found in God’s Word. In every episode I will read from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s fresh-sounding translation of the New Testament, which he named, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” In today’s episode, I will read and comment on Pickering’s translation of Mark chapter 3.
The episode notes for this podcast provide the text of everything I’m saying and links to supporting documentation.
Dr. Pickering’s translation is based on the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament, which is also called the Byzantine Text. This podcast series shows why the Majority Greek Text is superior to the Eclectic Greek Text, which was used as the basis of most of the NT translations of the last century.
The shift in the Greek text used for English Bible translations began in 1881, with the publication of Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which was based on an extremely small sampling of manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text Type— that is from Egypt.
[The main two manuscripts they relied on are Codex Sinaiticus (abbreviation א [Aleph] or 01) and Codex Vaticanus (abbreviation B or 03). Those are dated at 3_3_0—3_6_0 AD and 3_0_0—3_2_5 respectively.]
At the time Wescott and Hort were working, it was anticipated that research into the most ancient manuscripts newly discovered in Egypt would reveal a coherent textual stream that would point to the authentic initial form of the Greek text. Now, over a century later, those ancient Egyptian manuscripts have been analyzed, but they do not reveal a coherent textual stream that can be followed. Instead they reveal that Egyptian scribes very freely edited the texts they copied.
In contrast, the Majority Text of the New Testament was made by copyists who lived in the same places as the original recipients of the apostles’ writings. Individual scribal errors have been weeded out, since this text type is based on the majority reading of thousands of Greek manuscripts. The Majority Text has been stable over the centuries and is the best academically defendable text of the Greek New Testament that we have today. It is my hope that these podcasts will build awareness of the faulty Greek text that underlies almost all of the English Bible translations of the last century, starting with the ASV (1901), and including RSV, NASB, NIV, GNT, NLT, NET, and ESV.
Mark 3:
A Sabbath healing—the rejection
Another time He went into the synagogue, and there was a man there with a withered hand.
² So they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him.
³ Well He says to the man with the withered hand, “Come out in the middle”.
⁴ Then He said to them: “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent.
⁵ After looking around at them with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts,
*They had no compassion, no agape; their only concern was to preserve their system, their position and authority.
He says to the man, “Stretch out your hand!” So he stretched [it out], and his hand was restored as healthy as the other!
***Perhaps 5% of the Greek manuscripts omit ‘as healthy as the other’, as in NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.
⁶ Then the Pharisees went straight out, and with the Herodians
*Pharisees and Herodians were political opponents, so this was a strange alliance; evidently they perceived Jesus as a common enemy; such a serious enemy that He needed destroying.
started hatching a plot against Him, how they might destroy Him.
PCF: The variant that Pickering shows us here is just returning three short words to the Greek text. While we already would know that the man’s hand was restored, it is nice to know that Jesus didn’t just give partial healing to this man. The hand wasn’t just better and useful again, but was just as strong as his other hand.
Healings by the sea
Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the sea; and a large crowd from Galilee followed Him—also from Judea,
⁸ from Jerusalem, from Idumea and beyond Jordan; even those around Tyre and Sidon. A huge crowd came to Him, having heard the sorts of things He kept doing.
⁹ So He told His disciples that a small boat should be kept ready for Him because of the crowd, lest they should press in on Him.
¹⁰ Because He had healed many, so that as many as had afflictions were pushing toward Him so as to touch Him.
¹¹ And the unclean spirits—whenever one saw Him, he would fall down before Him and cry out, saying, “You are the son of God!”
¹² And He kept giving them strict orders that they should not make Him known.
*I wonder why the demons felt compelled to proclaim who Jesus was, evidently. I would say that He generally has the opposite problem with us!
PCF: I like how Pickering translated two imperfect Greek verbs in this section using ‘kept’. (v. 8 and 12) The imperfect shows a prolonged situation or in this case a repeated action.
The Twelve chosen
He went up on the mountain and summoned those whom He wanted, and they came to Him.
¹⁴ He appointed twelve,
Less than 2% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, add ‘whom He also named apostles’, presumably imported from Luke 6:13, to be followed by NIV, LB, TEV, etc.*
that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach
¹⁵ —also to have authority to heal sicknesses and
***Perhaps 1% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, omit ‘to heal diseases and’, to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.
to cast out demons:
¹⁶ namely Peter (a name He gave to Simon);
¹⁷ James son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James (and a name He gave to them was Boanerges, that is, ‘Sons of thunder’);
¹⁸ Andrew, Phillip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Cananite;
¹⁹ and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him.
²⁰ Then they went into a house;
*This may well have been His own house in Capernaum. If He were in someone else’s house, the hosts could have protected Him so He could at least eat.
and again a multitude gathered, so that they were not even able to eat bread.
²¹ Well upon hearing this His family came to apprehend Him, because they were saying, “He is out of his mind!”
PCF: When we find an addition to the Greek NT text, it is often where a copyist added something found in one Gospel and put that into the Gospel he was copying. The words ‘whom he named apostles’ was added to Mark by a copyist who liked those words in Luke’s Gospel. It is quite interesting to me that so many translations of the last century followed that addition, including those Pickering listed plus others like NLT, NET and ESV. The KJV does not contain those words. As a Bible translator, we often are tempted to do the same thing, shoring up the differences between Gospels. But it is better to allow each Gospel to stand on its own.
Then in verse 15, we have another thing left out of most translations. The phrase ‘to heal diseases’ is in the ones Pickering mentioned, plus left out of the ESV, NLT, and NET. The KJV contains the words. This omission has the support of only 1% of Greek manuscripts, and the Bible translations of the last century don’t even bother to footnote this variant.
There is a tiny textual variant that Pickering does not footnote. That is in v.18, the spelling of Simon’s designation as ‘the zealot’. The Greek word most often translated as ‘zealot’ is Kananaios (Καναναῖος) in the Eclectic Text, whereas the Majority Text has Kananités (Κανανίτης). 99% of Greek manuscripts have the spelling as in the Majority Text.
So, both texts have the same word, but in the ET it is in the nominative form, and it is accusative in the MT. In either form, it can be translated as zealot (meaning a man wanting Israel to rebel against Roman rule) or as Pickering translates, a Cananite, (someone descended from the Cananite people). Either meaning would have been an epithet.
Scribes blaspheme the Holy Spirit
Then some scribes who had come down from Jerusalem
*They had come all the way to Galilee, just to combat Jesus.
started saying, “He has Beelzebub”, and “It is by the ruler of the demons that he casts out demons”.
²³ So summoning them He started saying to them in parables: “How can Satan cast out Satan?
²⁴ If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
²⁵ And if a household is divided against itself, that household cannot stand.
²⁶ And if Satan has risen up against himself and become divided, [his kingdom//he] cannot stand, but is finished.
²⁷ No one can plunder the strong man’s goods,
***Since the definite article occurs with ‘strong man’ the first time the phrase occurs, the entity has already been introduced, so the reference is to Satan. Here is a biblical basis for binding Satan, which is now possible because of Christ’s victory. Hebrews 2:14 informs us that Jehovah the Son took on human form to destroy the devil, while 1 John 3:8 affirms that He was manifested to undo the works of the devil. But in John 20:21 the resurrected Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, so send I you”, and not long after that He returned to the Father. He defeated Satan alright, but it is up to us to ‘undo the works’.
invading his house, unless he first binds the strong man—then he may plunder the house.
²⁸ “Assuredly I say to you: all the sins of the sons of men can be forgiven, including whatever blasphemies they may utter;
²⁹ but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation”
***Perhaps 1% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, read ‘sin’ instead of ‘condemnation’, to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.
³⁰ —because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit”.
*Those scribes committed the unpardonable sin.
PCF: There are some footnotes from Pickering that I will not read. And there are two places in today’s reading where I have tweaked Pickering’s translation. Those are marked by square brackets in the program notes. If you want to see a nicely formatted PDF of the episode notes, please download that file from dailybiblereading.info.
I am somewhat uncomfortable with Pickering’s footnote about binding Satan. Due to his brevity, his note might be interpreted to say that we have been given the right to bind Satan in every circumstance. So let’s be clear: The One with authority to bind Satan is Christ, not us. I agree, however, that Jesus left us with the task of undoing as much as we can of Satan’s works.
I believe that binding Satan works for us in areas where we have clear legal authority in God’s sight. When we were working in Indonesia, a fellow missionary family was having difficulty with their two-year-old daughter screaming at night and uncharacteristically not wanting her mom to hold her. They thought, as I do, that this was some kind of demonic harassment. In a case like this, I believe that the head of the family can speak out and directly forbid the evil spirit from bothering their daughter or even approaching their house. This is done by making it clear that you (as the head of the family) are claiming authority based on your union with Christ. Doing this solved the problem. Note that I as an outsider would have had no authority to bind Satan for my friend’s family. Similarly, for a child that is grown up enough to be out of the authority of your home, and one who has ‘gone off the deep end’, we cannot any longer bind Satan in the same way. In a case like that we ask Jesus to do that and ask for spiritual protection for the grown child. Therefore also, an area where each of us can legally bind Satan and forbid harassing spirits is in our own lives, bodies, or minds. We can consider 2Corinthians 12:7-9 as an example of why this may not work in every case.
The variant that Pickering points out in v. 29 is small but significant. ESV follows the Eclectic Text Mark 3:28-29 saying: “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.”
It is a little difficult to understand how a single sin can be eternal? The Majority Text reading makes better sense: “… but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation.”
Being subject to eternal condemnation is scary-er to imagine than guilty of an eternal sin. And since 99% of the manuscripts say that, it is most likely to be the original form of the text.
Jesus goes on the offensive New relationships
Then His brothers and His mother came, and standing outside they sent to Him, calling Him.
³² A crowd was sitting around Him; so they said to Him, “Look, your mother and your brothers and your sisters
***The reference to ‘sisters’ makes clear that the ‘brothers’ were indeed Mary’s sons. Some 30% of the Greek manuscripts omit ‘and your sisters’ (as in TR, AV and NKJV).
are outside asking for you”.
³³ He answered them saying, “Who is my mother or my brothers?”
³⁴ And looking around at those seated in a circle around Him He said: “Behold [you who are sitting here are] my mother and my brothers!
³⁵ Because whoever does the will of God, the same is my brother, my sister, my mother.”
*The claims of Christ’s Kingdom are more important than the claims of one’s family.
PCF: The textual variant at v.32 has the support of only 70.9% of the Greek manuscripts. Note that this is one where the Textus Receptus and therefore the KJV do not have the words ‘and your sisters’. As Pickering points out in his Greek NT, this is “not a very difficult case of homoioteleuton.” That Greek term means a variant caused by words in the text starting the same way. The words ‘and your brothers’ and the ‘and your sisters’ are almost identical. Brothers in Greek is adelphoi and sisters is adelphai, so the two four-word phrases (in Greek) are just one letter different. A copyist would be very likely to skip over ‘and your adelphai’, thinking he had already copied that.
Pickering says that “The reference to ‘sisters’ makes clear that the ‘brothers’ were indeed Mary’s sons.” Well actually, in the context of his mother being paired with ‘brothers’, I don’t think very many readers would think that the word ‘brothers’ means ‘Jewish brothers from Nazareth’.
Dr. Pickering named his NT, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” That title contains three concepts that were not believed by Wescott, Hort, and the succeeding managers of the Eclectic Text. They did not believe that our Creator created humans as described in Genesis. They did not believe in the sovereignty of God. Nor did they believe that God actively inspired and has preserved every word of Scripture for us.
Moses and Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Mat. 4:4; Luk. 4:4)
May the Lord bless you ‘real good’!
Resources: Fields, Philip:
Playing Follow the Leader in Bible Translation, 2019, by Phil Fields. See the Resources list in that article for many more helpful articles on the superiority of the Majority Greek Text.
Friberg, Timothy:
On the text of the Greek New Testament that also happens to be the right one for cousin audiences
Although the title of this four-page paper refers to translating for Muslims, the principles and summary is widely applicable.
I suggest reading this paper before reading Friberg’s other articles listed below.
Layman’s Guide — A modest explanation for the layman of ideas related to determining the text of the Greek New Testament, 2019.
What is what? — Differences between the Traditional Text and the Bible Society Text of the Greek New Testament. Some data for the reader to weigh, 2019.
Pickering, Wilbur:
New Translation of the New Testament: The Sovereign Creator has Spoken
Greek Text of the New Testament based on Family 35
All of Pickering’s articles and books are freely available for download at PRUNCH.net. All are released under the Creative Commons license. Additionally, his second edition (2016) NT translation is available for a free download via the Kindle app. It is also freely available as a module in the MyBible program for Android and Apple devices.
Robinson, Maurice: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform, 1991, 2005, 2018.
This is available in free digital form in the MyBible Bible app, and in other ways.
Article:
Full Text of the 105 verses lacking overall Greek Manuscript Support in the NA edition 27
Warm greetings to all of you who often or sometimes listen to my podcasts. Welcome to this first update for this year.
Here are some of the things I have been doing in my Bible-reading hobby recently:
I always want to follow the Digging Deeper Daily Reading plan in some form. I’m still not tired of it, and I want to up-to-speed when people comment about it. So this year I’m following my original Digging Deeper Daily YouVersion reading plan with 9 people sharing in the group with me. I have never met any of them personally, but two of them are long-time long-distance friends and prayer partners who have shared many times with me by email.
I listen to the 3D plan using the dedicated Android app for the podcast. If you are an Android user, I recommend that app, but it’s not easy to find in the Play Store. Search for this complete string: daily bible reading phil fields. Even being so specific, the app currently comes in third in the search results! I am using that app to listen one day ahead of everyone that started the plan on January 1st. I want to be a day ahead so that I can catch mistakes. My original recordings contain a few mistakes, and I have fixed a few of them. However, as I follow along in the NLT, I have found that many times the differences in the NLT text compared to my recordings is due to my having used an older edition of the NLT rather than newer ones. Newer editions were released in 2007 and 2015.
While I keep checking off the days in my YouVersion Digging Deeper Daily reading plan, I am actually not reading daily in that app. This year I am using the MyBible reading app. The MyBible app is one of two that I know of that includes the 3D reading plan, and I find it very quick to navigate to the different readings each day. (The other app that includes the 3D reading plan is QuickBibles. QuickBibles is only for Android devices, while MyBible has both Android and Apple apps.) If any of you are interested in checking out the MyBible app, I hope these two observations may be helpful:
- I value the MyBible app because it allows me to also see the Biblical source texts and get definitions and grammatical parsing of every word.
- It takes a little time to set up the MyBible app to put all the plethora of features to work for you. For instance, to quickly access the reading plan button, you will need to use the settings and place that button in the header bar.
The other thing that I have been spending a little time on is improving the audio recordings for the second semester of the Read To Me Daily YouVersion reading plan. I will finish that in just a couple of days, so the better recordings will be ready for any of you currently/ following the first semester of the RTMD plan now.
I have a new podcast series that some of you would have noticed. I have released three episodes of the EveryWord podcast. This is a podcast series for those who enjoy studying details found in God’s Word. In every episode I will read from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s fresh-sounding translation of the New Testament, to which he gave the name, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” Dr. Pickering’s translation is based on the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament, which is also called the Byzantine Text. I consider the Majority Text to be superior to the Eclectic Greek Text which was used as the basis of most of the NT translations of the last century. Dr. Pickering’s translation is full of interesting footnotes, which I read and comment on. I hope that beginning soon more high quality Bible translations will be based on the Majority Greek Text rather than the Eclectic Greek Text. To learn more about all this, please see dailybiblereading.info and look for one of the three EveryWord podcasts.
Last week, for the first time ever, I got to visit the YouVersion headquarters near Oklahoma City, OK. I was able to meet with three people I have frequently corresponded with, and three others who help to make things happen behind the scenes. The headquarters is a beehive of activity, with more people working in it than it was designed for. I was able to discuss various things with them about the use and promotion of our Plain Indonesian Translation, and various things about my reading plans, which I have submitted in both English and Indonesian. They received me so very warmly, and part of that is because people who are their partners seldom show up to visit them.
One of the things I discussed with them is the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. Many of you know that that is a 365 day plan. Well, before Christmas I spent several days bringing the daily devotional text up to Youversion’s new guidelines, and giving each day a theme image. But then, all that work somehow got lost in cyberspace. My visit to the YV headquarters confirmed that the edits cannot be retrieved. If there is anyone out there who has time to do some very exacting copy/pasting into an Excel spreadsheet with 365 rows, please let me know.
In December, I concluded that the stand-alone forum for BibleReaders was not going anywhere, and reluctantly started a new Facebook group. I waited until mid-January to close the BibleReaders forum. I have appreciated our smaller new Facebook group— the 2020 3D Bible Reading Group— which currently has 129 members. This group will be open for just this year. Next year I will either start a new group, or do something else. The other way to hear news from me is by visiting the ReadThisFirst pages at dailybiblereading.info. Look at the Stay Connected page and sign up for our email updates.
If you have any comments or corrections to anything you hear in my podcasts, my favorite way for you to communicate those things to me is to use the Contact button at the very top of the dailybiblereading.info site. Or if you have already used that button before, just write an email to me using the same address that I used to reply to you.
I leave on February 18 for 7 weeks in Indonesia. Here are my prayer requests:
- There are issues remaining from our consultant checks of Genesis and Exodus that need to be cleared up. Genesis has been particularly difficult for our translation team. Please pray that we can finish those two books.
- We praise the Lord that the two most popular Bible reading apps in Indonesia are showing not just our Plain Indonesian Translation’s New Testament, but also 4 little books of the Old Testament. Please pray that people will enjoy Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Jonah. Please pray that the presence of these books will prompt people to pray for our translation team.
- It looks like I will be giving about nine presentations in various places in Java and Papua, including fellowship groups, seminaries, prison groups, and even in a Bible school program that is for prison inmates. You may think that I would be OK at speaking because I have a podcast. But I have never been good at public speaking. It doesn’t help that the situations I find myself speaking in are so different. It throws me off if people can’t see the presentation slides I am showing, or if I can’t use the visual aids at all. Please pray for me.
- Please pray that our non-profit Bible organization in Indonesia will find someone talented who would like to take on a ministry of communication, handling our website and social media promotions.
- Please pray for my health. I have had dizzy spells recently. We agree with our doctor’s treatment, and this is probably just something temporary. But all the same, please pray for me.
- It is exciting that we have 29 people in an online course that our organization is offering about how to understand and use different Bible translations. Please pray that this will be part of sharing the news about how our NT translation supports and complements the main Indonesian Bible. The two translations, and others out there, are not at odds, but give people better ways to get the full meaning of God’s Word.
- One social media post by one of the people in that class said that 70% of Christians in Indonesia are not interested in reading the Bible. The person said, “We need a Bible that young people enjoy reading.” Well, that’s what we are making, and the NT is published. But Indonesian people need to hear about it. Please pray that people who have lost interest in Bible reading will give our translation a try. And that people in rural areas who struggle to understand the default Bible translation will find out that there is an understandable alternative.
- I talk to Gale every day when I am gone. Please pray for Gale in managing the pain and mental fuzziness that is part of her chronic condition.
EveryWord003 Mark 2 Welcome to this THIRD podcast in a series that I am calling the Every Word Podcast. This is a podcast series for those who enjoy studying details found in God’s Word. In every episode I will read from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s fresh-sounding translation of the New Testament, to which he gave the name, “The Sovereign God Has Spoken.” In today’s episode, I will read and comment on Pickering’s translation of Mark chapter 2.
Please bear in mind that the episode notes for all of my podcasts provide the text of everything I’m saying and links to supporting documentation.
Dr. Pickering’s translation is based on the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament, which is also called the Byzantine Text. I consider the Majority Text to be superior to the Eclectic Greek Text** which was used as the basis of most of the NT translations of the last century.
**Footnote: The Eclectic Text is also called the Critical Text, the Nestle-Aland text, and the United Bible Societies (UBS) Text. The succeeding editions of the Eclectic Text have primarily followed Wescott and Hort, while the apparatus (or footnotes) dealing with textual variations has grown significantly to show details about textual variants found among Alexandrian manuscripts.
The shift in the Greek text used for our Bible translations began around 1881, with the publication of Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which was based on an extremely small sampling of manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text Type*— that is from Egypt.
*Footnote: The two are Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. These are dated at 3_3_0—3_6_0 AD and 3_0_0—3_2_5 respectively. At the time Wescott and Hort were working, it was anticipated that research into newly discovered ancient New manuscripts from Egypt would reveal a coherent textual stream that would point to the authentic initial form of the Greek text. Now, over a century later, those ancient Egyptian papyrus manuscripts have been analyzed, but they do not reveal a coherent textual stream that can be followed. Instead the papyri manuscripts reveal that Egyptian scribes very freely edited the texts they copied. In contrast, the Majority Text of the New Testament was made by copyists who lived in the same places as the original recipients of the apostles’ writings. Individual scribal errors have been weeded out, since this text type is based on the majority reading of thousands of Greek manuscripts.
The Majority Text has been stable over the centuries and is the best academically defendable text of the Greek New Testament that we have today. It is my hope that these podcasts will build awareness of the faulty Greek text that underlies almost all of the English Bible translations of the last century, starting with the ASV (1901), and including RSV, NASB, NIV, GNT, NLT, NET, and ESV.
It is high time (now that I’ve reached the 3rd podcast) that I admit to you that— although I have worked as a Bible translator for most of my life— I am a new-comer to the whole study of textual criticism. In my article Playing Follow-the-Leader in Bible Translation, I speak about how little missionary Bible translators of my generation were trained in the area of textual criticism. I— unlike many of my colleagues— did not have the benefit of seminary education. My degrees are in the field of music. But from what I have heard from my seminary-trained colleagues, there is not much taught to normal seminary students about textual criticism. Few pastors today know anything about the subject.
It was in April of 2018 that I had the opportunity to visit Timothy and Barbara Friberg in Indonesia. Four years prior to this my team and I had published the Plain Indonesian NT. Dr. Timothy Friberg is famous for compiling the Analytical Greek New Testament, which is a reference work that virtually all Bible translators use. (Incidentally the AGNT is now being released in a new and improved edition.) I sought Dr. Fribergs advice because of his experience translating the NT for Muslim background audiences, because I am a consultant for such a project. During my two-day visit, I received excellent advice, but also received a bonus I didn’t expect. Tim Friberg convinced me that the Majority Greek Text should be used in translating the New Testament for Muslim background believers.
But then he asked, “Well, what about your Plain Indonesian New Testament? Are you going to revise that to follow the Majority Text?” This was a hard question for me because that NT was already published. I had just played follow-the-leader in basing that translation on the Eclectic text. After some thought and prayer, I concluded that God would be most glorified if my translation team and I revised our published New Testament to follow the Majority Text. The revisions are now about 75% complete. Please pray for us in this:
- Please pray that we will work carefully so that we do not make mistakes as we revise the Plain Indonesian New Testament.
- Please pray that Bible readers in Indonesia would be happy to have a translation following the Majority Text, even though that will make our translation different from the default Indonesian Bible.
- Being aware that the United Bible Society publishes the Eclectic Greek Text, please pray that the Indonesian Bible Society or other parties will not publicly criticize our move to the Majority Text.
As I admitted above, I do not have training in the field of textual criticism. Because of that, I am sure that I have already made mistakes in these EveryWord podcasts. If you find errors in my statements, feel free to use the contact button at dailybiblereading.info to send your input to me.
Mark 2 Pickering’s footnotes are indented and italicized in the PDF attached to this podcast. Find EveryWord003 at dailybiblereading.info and use the red Download PDF button to get it.
A paralytic— the evaluation ¹ Well a few days later, He again entered Capernaum, and it was heard that He was at home.
² Without delay so many were gathered together that there was no more room, not even around the door, and He was speaking the Word to them.
³ Then four men came, carrying a paralytic to Him.
⁴ And not being able to get near Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof where He was;
The roof was presumably flat, with an outside staircase leading up to it. I suppose damaging someone else’s roof could be considered a crime, but they were determined. If Jesus was in His own house, there would be no problem.
upon breaking through they lowered the pallet on which the paralytic was lying.
⁵ So seeing their faith Jesus says to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you”.
⁶ Now some of the scribes were sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts:
⁷ “Why does this guy speak blasphemies like that? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
⁸ Immediately Jesus perceived in His spirit what they were reasoning within themselves
*Time and again the Inspired Record will point out that Jesus could read people’s thoughts.
and said to them: “Why are you reasoning these things in your hearts?
⁹ Which is easier:
I suppose the point to be that the first is easier to say, because no one can see whether it happened or not. But if you tell a paralytic to get up and he doesn’t, you get egg on the face. The Lord did it that way to help them believe that He could really forgive sin. There was nothing wrong with the scribes’ inference; indeed only God can forgive sin, so in fact Jesus was claiming to be God!*
to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins have been forgiven’, or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your pallet and start walking!’?
¹⁰ But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on the earth to forgive sins” —He says to the paralytic:
¹¹ “To you I say, get up, pick up your pallet and go to your house!”
¹² So forthwith he got up, picked up his pallet and went out in front of them all; so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”
Quite right; they never had!
PCF: I agree heartily with Pickering’s footnote on v. 8. I think especially of the Gospel of John that repeatedly shows that Jesus could read people’s thoughts.
I do not agree with Pickering’s first sentence about ‘which is easier to say’. The idea he supports is that it would be easier to forgive sins because no one could tell if it happened. But even he seems a bit doubtful about saying that, because his sentence starts with, “I suppose the point to be …” Yes, the interpretation he gives— that forgiving the man’s sins would be the easier to say— can be found in some commentaries. But that is worldly thinking. Jesus would have known that saying ‘I forgive your sins’ would mean that He would pay for those sins on the cross.
But Pickering is right in the last part of that footnote. Only God can forgive sin, so the scribes’ inference was right. He might as well as said, ‘I am God’.
There is interesting linguistic support for only God being able to forgive sins. In the Orya language of Papua, Indonesia, and in many other languages, ordinary persons cannot ‘forgive’ someone else’s wrongs or sins. The word the Orya language uses for forgiving on a person-to-person level is simply to ‘forget’. You can choose to ‘forget’ a sin someone commits against you. But the real word for ‘forgive’ in Orya means to ‘finish’ or ‘nullify’ the sin. Only God can finish all the liabilities of a sin or nullify the consequences. So the scribes were right that it takes an action of God to have one’s sins forgiven.
Matthew called ¹³ Then He went out again by the sea; and the whole crowd came to Him, and He began to teach them.
¹⁴ As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office, and He said to him, “Follow me”. So he got up and followed Him.
¹⁵ Now it happened, as He was reclining at the table in his house,
Matthew’s—he evidently put on a big dinner and invited all his associates.
that many tax collectors and sinners
‘Tax collectors and sinners’ seems to have been almost a frozen idiom. A Jew who collected taxes for Rome was viewed as a traitor and held in very low esteem.
joined Jesus and His disciples at the table; for there were many and they followed Him.
¹⁶ The scribes and the Pharisees, seeing Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, said to His disciples, “Why is it that He is eating and drinking with the tax collectors and sinners?”
¹⁷ Upon hearing it Jesus said to them: “It is not the healthy who have need of a doctor, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Perhaps 10% of the Greek manuscripts omit ‘to repentance’, to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.
Fasting ¹⁸ Now John’s disciples and those of the Pharisees were fasting; and they came and said to Him, “Why do John’s disciples and those of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?”
¹⁹ So Jesus said to them: “Can the groomsmen fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom to themselves they cannot fast.
²⁰ But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast, in those days.
Some 15% of the Greek manuscripts read ‘day’ instead of ‘days’ (as in NIV, NASB, TEV, etc.), but obviously the fasting would take place on more than one day.
PCF: The two textual variants from the Majority Text that Pickering points out in verses 17 and 20 both make better sense than what is found in the Eclectic text. In particular, it seems a shame that most Bibles of the last century left out the words ‘to repentance’ in verse 17. The men who compiled the Eclectic Text chose a principle that would favor the Alexandrian manuscripts. They decided that a shorter variant in a text was more likely to be correct. Verse 17 is shorter without the two words ‘to repentance’ but it leaves the reader wondering, “Where is Jesus calling sinners to come to?” In the early years of the Eclectic Text movement, people did not yet realize that Alexandrian copyists frequently shortened the texts they copied. This goes for secular works as well as NT books. Alexandrian copies of Homer’s poems are much shorter than manuscripts found in other places.
Together with verse 17, there are four places where Mark’s account uses the words ‘repent’ and ‘repentance’. Clearly the call to repentance was an important part of what both John the Baptist and Jesus taught. In Mark, Jesus sent the disciples out preaching that people ‘should repent’. (6:11) So having Jesus say that his mission was to call sinners to repent makes good sense in the context of this gospel.
Cloth and wineskins ²¹ “Further, no one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, or else the new tears away some of the old, and a worse hole results.
²² And no one puts new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine spills out and the skins will be ruined; rather, new wine must be put into new wineskins.”
There is no way of renewing an old wineskin. Whenever a church becomes an ‘old wineskin’, any introduction of new wine will always cause a split.
Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath ²³
Between verses 22 and 23 all of John chapter 5 takes place—that chapter revolves around the second Passover of His public ministry, in 28 A.D. A year and a half have passed since His baptism.
Now it happened, on a Sabbath, that He was passing through some grain fields, and His disciples began to make a path, picking the heads of grain.
²⁴ So the Pharisees said to Him, “Just look, why are they doing on a Sabbath that which is not permitted?”
²⁵ And He said to them: “Did you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him?
²⁶ How he entered the house of God (making Abiathar high priest)
My rendering is rather different than the ‘in the days of Abiathar the high priest’ of the AV. We are translating three Greek words that very literally would be ‘upon Abiathar high priest’. When we go back to the Old Testament account, we discover that David actually conversed with Ahimelech, Abiathar’s father, who was the high priest at that moment (1 Samuel 21:1-9). Within a few days Saul massacred Ahimelech and 84 other priests (1 Samuel 22:16-18), but his son Abiathar escaped and went to David, taking the ephod with him (1 Samuel 22:20-23; 23:6). That David could use it to inquire of the LORD rather suggests that it had to be the ephod that only the high priest wore (1 Samuel 23:9-12). That ephod was to a high priest like the crown was to a king; so how could Abiathar have it? The Text states that David’s visit filled Ahimelech with fear, presumably because he too saw Doeg the Edomite and figured what would happen. Now why wasn’t Abiathar taken with the others? I suggest that Ahimelech had a pretty good idea what would happen, so he deliberately consecrated Abiathar, gave him the ephod, and told him to hide; Abiathar escaped, but carried the news of the massacre with him; only now he was the high priest. Putting it all together, it was David’s visit that resulted in Abiathar’s becoming high priest prematurely, as David himself recognized, and to which Jesus alluded.
and ate the consecrated bread, which only priests are permitted to eat, and shared it with those who were with him?”
²⁷ Then He said to them: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
This is a crucial point. The Pharisees, etc., had turned the Sabbath into an instrument of domination that they used to impose their authority on the people.
²⁸ Therefore the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
The Lord of the Sabbath can change the rules, or even retire it!
Abiathar is not Ahimelech Mark 2:26 X 1 Samuel 21:1 Some of my readers may be aware that this verse has destroyed the faith of at least one scholar in our day, although he was reared in an evangelical home. He understood Jesus to be saying that Abiathar was the priest with whom David dealt, when in fact it was his father, Ahimelech. If Jesus stated an historical error as fact, then he could not be God. So he turned his back on Jesus. I consider that his decision was lamentable and unnecessary, and in the interest of helping others who may be troubled by this verse, I offer the following explanation:
“How he entered the house of God (making Abiathar high priest) and ate the consecrated bread, which only priests are permitted to eat, and shared it with those who were with him.”
My rendering is rather different than the ‘in the days of Abiathar the high priest’ of the AV, NKJV and NIV. We are translating three Greek words that very literally would be ‘upon Abiathar high-priest’ (but the preposition here, επι, is the most versatile of the Greek prepositions, and one of its many meanings/uses is 'toward'―the standard lexicon, BDAG, lists fully eighteen areas of meaning, quite apart from sub-divisions). When we go back to the Old Testament account, we discover that David actually conversed with Ahimelech, Abiathar’s father, who was the high priest at that moment (1 Samuel 21:1-9). Within a few days Saul massacred Ahimelech and 84 other priests (1 Samuel 22:16-18), but his son Abiathar escaped and went to David, taking the ephod with him (1Samuel 22:20-23; 23:6). That David could use it to inquire of the Lord rather suggests that it had to be the ephod that only the high priest wore, since only that ephod had the Urim and Thummim (1 Samuel 23:9-12; cf. Numbers 27:21, Ezra 2:63).
That ephod was to a high priest like the crown was to a king; so how could Abiathar have it? The Text states that David’s visit filled Ahimelech with fear, presumably because he too saw Doeg the Edomite and figured what would happen. Now why wasn’t Abiathar taken with the others? I suggest that Ahimelech foresaw what would happen (Doeg probably took off immediately, and Ahimelech figured he wouldn't have much time), so he deliberately consecrated Abiathar, gave him the ephod, and told him to hide―he probably did it that very day (once the soldiers arrived to arrest Ahimelech and the other 84, it would be too late). Abiathar escaped, but carried the news of the massacre with him; only now he was the high priest.
Putting it all together, it was David’s visit that resulted in Abiathar’s becoming high priest prematurely, as David himself recognized, and to which Jesus alluded in passing (which is why I used parentheses). But why would Jesus allude to that? I suppose because the Bible is straightforward about the consequences of sin, and David lied to Ahimelech. Although Jesus was using David's eating that bread as an example, He did not wish to gloss over the sin, and its consequences.
Recall that Jesus was addressing Pharisees, who were steeped in the OT Scriptures. A notorious case like Saul's massacre of 85 priests would be very well known. And of course, none of the NT had yet been written, so any understanding of what Jesus said had to be based on 1 Samuel
(“Have you never read…?”). If we today wish to understand this passage, we need to place ourselves in the context recorded in Mark 2:23-28. The Pharisees would understand that if Abiathar was in possession of the ephod with the Urim and Thummim, then he was the high priest. And how did he get that way? He got that way because of David's visit. It was an immediate consequence of that visit.
Some may object that 'making' is a verb, not a preposition. Well, the 'in the days of' of the AV, etc., though not a verb, is a phrase. Both a pronoun and an adverb may stand for a phrase, and a preposition may as well. TEV and Phillips actually use a verb: ‘when… was’; NLT has ‘during the days when… was’. Where the others used from two to five words, I used only one.
PCF: Just a little comment from me on the this topic. The problem in this verse is very hard to deal with, and I am linking an article here written by Dr. Daniel Wallace to illustrate how hard this is. As I said before, we can’t prove anything because of how vague Greek prepositions are. An added thing to think about is that Jesus could have been speaking in Aramaic, not Greek, because that was the everyday language for him. I am willing to set this aside as a problem we cannot solve for sure. But one thing I hold onto is that God’s Word is true in the Old Testament record, and what Jesus said was also true. It seems more likely to me to conclude that He knew much more than us about it, and various things could have happened like what Pickering posits.
Secondly I think the comment about this verse destroying the faith of a Christian scholar is interesting. If you know who that scholar was, please let me know. My searches on the internet for likely choices failed to turn up the answer. Just the other day my son, David, mentioned how a little thing like this that erodes one’s faith puts a person on a dangerous slippery slope. He told about a fellow graduate of his Christian university who was his friend. But the friend learned things that shook his faith. He ended up as a pastor in an extremely liberal denomination. But now he has left even that and has taken up with Hindus in India, but it is unclear if he really believes what they teach either.
A little thing like the presence of footnotes in our Bibles could be the thing that would cause someone to embark on that slippery downward slope. People will think, “Well, who knows what the apostles really wrote?” This has been a problem with the adoption of the Eclectic Text starting in 1901, which has contributed to liberalism in the church for over a century. Now I ask my listeners, Would your church hire someone as (let’s say) an associate pastor if the person did not believe in the inspiration of the Bible? I think I can hear the answer. My church wouldn’t. If someone interviewed for a job at my church without believing in Jesus or the inspiration of the Bible, the interview would quickly change to my pastor seeking to share the Gospel with that person. So then I ask, Do you think that it would be a good idea to trust a person with beliefs like that to manage the Greek text that is translated for our Bibles? I don’t think so! I recommend an an article I found about the beliefs of Kurt Aland, the one whose name is on the publications of the Nestle-Aland Eclectic Greek Text. It is linked here in the episode notes.
The episode notes for all of the Every Word podcasts will include a Resources section which gives links to articles that will give further documentation about all of my claims about the Majority Text, the Eclectic Text, and about different Bible translations.
All of Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s works are released according to the Creative Commons License and are available at PRUNCH.net. Additionally, his second edition (2016) NT translation is available for a free download via the Kindle app. It is also freely available as a module in the MyBible program for Android and Apple devices.
Dr. Pickering named his NT, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” That title contains three concepts that were not believed by Wescott and Hort. In their age Darwinism had invaded the church. W&H did not believe that our Creator created humans as described in Genesis. They did not believe in the sovereignty of God. Nor did they believe that God has actively inspired every word of Scripture and has made sure that every word has been preserved.
Moses and Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by Every Word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Luk. 4:4)
May the Lord bless you ‘real good’!
Resources: Fields, Philip:
Playing Follow the Leader in Bible Translation, 2019, by Phil Fields. See the Resources list in that article for many more helpful articles on the superiority of the Majority Greek Text.
Friberg, Timothy:
On the text of the Greek New Testament that also happens to be the right one for cousin audiences
Although the title of this four-page paper refers to translating for Muslims, the principles and summary is widely applicable.
I suggest reading this paper before reading Friberg’s other articles listed below.
Layman’s Guide — A modest explanation for the layman of ideas related to determining the text of the Greek New Testament, 2019.
What is what? — Differences between the Traditional Text and the Bible Society Text of the Greek New Testament. Some data for the reader to weigh, 2019.
Pickering, Wilbur:
New Translation of the New Testament: The Sovereign Creator has Spoken
Greek Text of the New Testament based on Family 35
Articles and other major works:
See PRUNCH.net.
Robinson, Maurice: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform, 1991, 2005, 2018.
This is available in free digital form in the MyBible Bible app, and in other ways.
Article:
Full Text of the 105 verses lacking overall Greek Manuscript Support in the NA edition 27
Welcome to this SECOND podcast in a series that I am calling the Every Word Podcast. This is a podcast series for those who enjoy studying details found in God’s Word. In every episode I will read from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s fresh-sounding translation of the New Testament. The NT was named, “The Sovereign God Has Spoken,” and I will read from the 2016 2nd edition. In today’s episode, I will read and comment on Pickering’s translation of Mark 1:29-45.
This is the kind of podcast where it might be better to look at the episode notes while listening. If you are flying down the freeway right now, just bear it in mind that you may want to check this out later.
With a few exceptions that I will discuss today, Dr. Pickering’s translation is based on the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament, which is also called the Byzantine Text. I consider the Majority Text to be superior to the Eclectic Greek Text which was used as the basis of most of the NT translations of the last century. The shift in the Greek text used for our Bible translations began around 1881, with the publication of Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which was based on an extremely small sampling of manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text Type*— that is from Egypt.
*Footnote: The two are Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. These are dated at 3_3_0—3_6_0 AD and 3_0_0—3_2_5 respectively. At the time Wescott and Hort were working, it was anticipated that research into newly discovered ancient New manuscripts from Egypt would reveal a coherent textual stream that would point to the authentic initial form of the Greek text. Now, over a century later, those ancient Egyptian papyrus manuscripts have been analyzed, but they do not reveal a coherent textual stream that can be followed. Instead the papyri manuscripts reveal that Egyptian scribes very freely edited the texts they copied. In contrast, the Majority Text of the New Testament was made by copyists who lived in the same places as the original recipients of the apostles’ writings. Individual scribal errors have been weeded out, since this text type is based on the majority reading of thousands of Greek manuscripts.
The Majority Text has been stable over the centuries and is the best academically defendable text of the Greek New Testament that we have today. In this podcast, I am trying in a small way to undo the damage caused by Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which passed a legacy of mistakes down to all succeeding editions of the Eclectic/Critical Greek Text.** The damage I speak of can be found in almost all of the English Bible translations of the last century, starting with the ASV (1901), and including RSV, NASB, NIV, GNT, NLT, NET, and ESV.
**Footnote: The Eclectic Text is also called the Critical Text, the Nestle-Aland text, and the United Bible Societies (UBS) Text. The succeeding editions of the Eclectic Text have primarily followed Wescott and Hort, while the apparatus (or footnotes) dealing with textual variations has grown significantly to show details about textual variants found among Alexandrian manuscripts.
You may ask, “How can I find the damage that you speak of in my Bible?” The quick answer is to examine the footnotes found in the New Testament. Then check out what Pickering has to say in his NT translation.
Mar 1:29-45: Pickering’s footnotes are indented and italicized.
Peter’s mother-in-law
29 Immediately upon exiting the synagogue they went into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.
30 Simon’s mother-in-law was lying down with a fever, so without delay they told Him about her.
WP footnote: The parallel passage in Luke 4:37 specifies that it was a high fever—she was burning.*
31 So He went and grasping her hand lifted her up; immediately the fever left her and she began to serve them.
WP footnote: A high fever usually leaves a person weak, even after it passes, so we really have a double miracle here: Jesus dismissed the fever, but also reversed its effect.*
Many healings
32 That evening, when the sun had set, they started bringing to Him all who were sick and the demonized. 33 So much so that the whole town was gathered at the door, 34 and He healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons; and He did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew He was Messiah.
*WP footnote: I here follow some 40% of the Greek manuscripts, including the best line of transmission; most versions omit “He was Messiah”.
Alone to pray
35 Now very early, still night, He got up, slipped out, and went off to a solitary place, where He was praying.
36 Simon and those with him hunted for Him,
37 and upon finding Him they said to Him, “Everyone is looking for you”.
38 But He said to them: “Let us go to the neighboring towns, so I can preach there also; that is why I have come.”
*WP footnote: I here follow some 40% of the Greek manuscripts, including the best line of transmission; most versions have ‘come forth’, presumably referring to why He had slipped out of town.
39 He was constantly preaching in their synagogues throughout all Galilee, and also casting out demons.
The hinge—proof, evaluation, rejection, blasphemy A leper—the proof
40 A leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling before Him and saying to Him, “If you want to, you are able to cleanse me”.
41 So being moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him,
WP footnote: Wow! In those days, no one would touch a leper, because of contamination. Notice that Jesus agreed with the leper: “I want to; be cleansed!” Beautiful!*
and said to him: “I want to; be cleansed!”
42 And when He said this, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed.
43 And He sent him away at once, sternly warning him,
44 by saying: “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing the things that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”
WP footnote: This would be the first case the priest had ever had of evaluating a cleansed leper, because only the Messiah could cure leprosy. By instructing the cleansed leper in this way, Jesus was serving notice to the priests that the Messiah had come.*
45 However he [the leper] went out and began to proclaim it freely, spreading the news,
But he did go to the priest, which resulted in the following evaluation—Luke makes this point clearly in his parallel account. That said, however, I can sympathize with that leper—he had good reason to sound off! But it did increase the pressure on Jesus.
so that He [Jesus] was no longer able to enter a town openly, but remained outside in deserted places; yet [people//they] kept coming to Him from all over.
WP footnote: There were an awful lot of sick people who all of a sudden had hope.*
My comments:
Before commenting on two textual variants footnoted by Pickering in the portion I just read, I would like to go back to the first episode to verse 1, and the variant that I pointed out at the end of the verse:
1 A beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God!
Pickering has a footnote that says, “There is no definite article with ‘Son’, which in this case emphasizes the inherent quality of the noun.”
So Pickering makes this comment about his translation, not about a textual variant. He says that in Greek, ‘Son of God’ has no article before it. In other words, Greek doesn’t say, ‘the Son of God’. His comment may be right that in Greek, the absence of an article gives emphasis. Unfortunately, English doesn’t work that way, and not using the article ‘the’ before ‘Son of God’ makes the sentence sound odd to me, and an odd-sounding sentence doesn’t give me a feeling of emphasis. Pickering also leaves out a ‘the’ in a similar place is verse 34, and to me his translation sounds odd there too. (“and He did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew He was Messiah.”)
So here’s a little translational principle for free from me: Forcing an English translation to follow the Greek in tiny little grammatical things often doesn’t work very well. It just makes the translation sound odd, and perhaps alert the reader to look at the footnote. To add emphasis in English, we may need to add a word or two, or switch around the order of the words.
But I mentioned in the last episode that there is a variant that Pickering didn’t mention. To be complete I should have said that Wescott & Hort’s Greek text include ‘Son of God’ in brackets. The brackets indicate that they had some doubts that the words were in the original text, but decided to keep not erase the words in the text. Most of the time W&H were bolder in their choice of variants, and the mention of them was relegated to the footnotes.
W&H started a giant game of follow-the-leader in such things. Succeeding editions of the Eclectic Greek NT followed W&H in similarly casting doubt about the authenticity of those three Greek words in Mark 1:1 by putting them in brackets. And now finally the popular SBL Greek Text* totally deletes the words. As I said in the last episode, 98.4% of ancient Greek manuscripts have those words.
*Footnote: The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) is jointly published in partnership with Logos Bible Software.
Thankfully, the translators of nearly all of the Bible versions of the last century decided to include the bracketed words, ‘the Son of God’ in Mark 1:1. That is probably why Pickering didn’t mention that variant.
So why am I even bringing all this up? Because I want to point out a rather interesting thing about Bible translation in the last century. Since W&H and the ASV of 1901, modern Bible translators have inherited the extra responsibility to choose whether or not to include words in brackets in the Greek text in their translation. You might think that diligent translators would carefully research each variant when brackets appeared in the text. But I have shown in my article entitled, “Playing follow-the-leader in Bible translation” that most Bible translators simply followed the choices that were made by the ASV of 1901. (See the link to that article in the episode notes.)
Indeed, whether a variant is in brackets or in the footnotes, Bible translators of the last century rather often switched between the Greek text they used, and often did not mention in a translation’s footnotes. So when you read in the preface of the NET, NIV, or the ESV that the translators followed the Eclectic Text (which might be called the Critical Text, Nestle-Aland Text, or the UBS Text), do not take that to mean that they followed that text 100% of the time. I give data in my follow-the-leader article which shows that for 44 significant variants in the Greek text, the translators of the last century followed their Eclectic Text an average of 71% of the time. 29% of the time they were following the Majority Text (or probably, whatever the KJV had).
The reason for the giant game of follow-the-leader is that the 1901 ASV and the RSV NT of 1946 bore the brunt of negative reactions from readers to the things that they missed in their KJV Bibles. So the safe thing for all succeeding Bible translators has been to just make the same decisions as the previous versions. Meanwhile they continue the appearance of scholarship by imitating the misleading footnotes that say, “Some ancient manuscripts say x y z.”
Let me say it again in a different way: The Bible translators for the major Bible versions of the last century didn’t follow ANY Greek text faithfully. They played follow-the-leader with decisions that were made in 1901 based on following W&H. This method of switching back and forth between different Greek source texts is not academically or objectively supportable. It is time that we insist that our New Testament translations be made following just one Greek text in a consistent manner.
Now, everything that I have just said about how Bible translators have used published Greek texts is a backdrop for the two textual variants that Pickering footnotes in the portion of his translation I read. These are located at verses 34 and 38.
32 That evening, when the sun had set, they started bringing to Him all who were sick and the demonized. 33 So much so that the whole town was gathered at the door, 34 and He healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons; and He did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew He was Messiah.
*WP footnote: I here follow some 40% of the Greek manuscripts, including the best line of transmission; most versions omit “He was Messiah”.
ESV: … And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
PCF: Pickering translates Greek kriston here as ‘Messiah’. Messiah is a word we transliterate from Hebrew and it means ‘the anointed one’, and kriston (Christ) is the Greek word meaning ‘the anointed one’. I like how this variant completes the text by saying WHAT INFORMATION the demons knew about Jesus. The ESV translation might be misunderstood to say that the demons knew Jesus in a friendly relationship.
36 Simon and those with him hunted for Him,
37 and upon finding Him they said to Him, “Everyone is looking for you”.
38 But He said to them: “Let us go to the neighboring towns, so I can preach there also; that is why I have come.”
*WP footnote: I here follow some 40% of the Greek manuscripts, including the best line of transmission; most versions have ‘come forth’, presumably referring to why He had slipped out of town.
ESV: … that is why I came out.
PCF: I respect Pickering’s control of Greek as being WAY better than mine. However, if we follow the Eclectic Text and translate ‘come forth’, it is still not clear whether Jesus was meaning coming forth from heaven to earth, or from Peter’s town. I believe that either of the two Greek words here (ἐξῆλθον or ἐξελήλυθα) could be taken either way. I think it likely that this is one of several places which have a double meaning. The disciples might have understood, ‘why I came out of town,’ while Jesus may have been thinking, ‘why I came forth from heaven to earth’.
But now I want to discuss what Pickering said in both of the two footnotes that I just read to you. He said, “I here follow some 40% of the Greek manuscripts, including the best line of transmission …” Hey, 40% is not a majority of the Greek texts! So whenever Pickering says something like this, he is actually departing from the Majority or Byzantine text and following a subset of Byzantine texts which is called the f35 family of texts. Wow! The plot thickens here! Googling F35, I see that this is the name of a line of Lockheed-Martin fighter jets. That’s not what we mean. From my very limited reading I am concluding that Pickering has constructed a somewhat more restrictive version of the Majority Text.
Here is Pickerings explanation, which can be found as the last footnote in each book of his Greek NT:
The citation of f 35 is based on thirty-five MSS*—18, 35, 141, 204, 510, 547, 586, 645, 689, 789, 824, 928, 1023, 1072, 1075, 1133, 1145, 1147, 1199, 1251, 1339, 1435, 1503, 1572, 1628, 1637, 1667, 1705, 2253, 2323, 2382, 2466, 2503, 2554 and 2765—all of which I collated myself. None of them is a ‘perfect’ representative of f 35 in Mark, as it stands [an unreasonable expectation, presumably, for a book this size, besides being a Gospel]. But 586 is only off by one letter, and its exemplar, and that of 35 and 2382, probably were perfect! And several other exemplars come close—that of 1628 was off by one variant, those of 510 and 2253 were off by two variants, those of 824, 1435, 1503 and 1637 were off by three, several by four, and so on. [This refers to the MSS I have collated—there may be even better ones out there! In fact, since I have collated scarcely 10% of the family representatives for this book, there probably are better ones out there.] The uniformity is impressive. Since these MSS come from all over the Mediterranean world (Sinai, Jerusalem, Cyprus, Patmos, Constantinople, Aegean, Tirana, Mt. Athos [six different monasteries], Corinth? , Athens, Grottaferrata, Vatican, etc.) they are certainly representative of the family, giving us the precise family profile—it is reflected in the Text without exception.
*Footnote: In the preface to the F35 Greek NT Pickering states, “I call that segment [of Greek manuscripts that formed the basis for his NT] Family 35, because cursive [manuscript] 35 is the complete New Testament, faithful to the family archetype, with the smallest number.” So Pickering compiled his Greek NT from the 35 manuscripts listed above, but he named the family based on just one of them, number 35, which is the earliest manuscript that contains a complete NT and was faithful to the family archetype. For much more about this, see Pickering’s book, The Identity of the New Testament Text IV, or the other articles in the section of Prunch.net entitled Objective Authority of the Biblical Text.
Pickering has taken the time to compile his Greek text of the NT with two different sets of footnotes. One gives footnotes that show textual variants with all known manuscripts, then a second one shows variants found just within the f35 family, which represents 40% of the Greek manuscripts. Can you imagine the time it took for Pickering to painstakingly compare every letter of 35 Greek manuscripts?!
Here is my tentative conclusion about the f35 family of manuscripts: It is impressive that such a consistent family of manuscripts can be grouped together. But this designation has something I don’t like: It doesn’t seem right to me to depart from the historically unvarying Majority Greek Text to adopt a subset defined in the last century by Pickering. Let me explain this from my perspective of translating for the majority Islamic nation of Indonesia. There are Muslim scholars who love to point out that Christian Bibles have been fiddled with. They claim that our Greek texts have been corrupted. All they have to do to prove their assertion about textual instability is to point out the footnotes in the Bible translations of the last century. But if we translate the historical Majority Text, we don’t need any such footnotes, because it has remained stable since the third century. So although I am attracted to the two variants Pickering translated in verses 34 and 38, I believe I would still choose the Majority Text to translate for my audience.
Please don’t take my words as a harsh criticism of Pickering. I think we will see that he doesn’t often choose the minority 40% in his translation. It just so happens that two times happened in our reading for today.
Quite a few other footnotes in today’s reading had to do with Pickering pointing out cool details. He loves to comment on Jesus’ miracles. I particularly like what he said about verse 45:
45 However he [the cured leper] went out and began to proclaim it freely, spreading the news,
*WP footnote: But he did go to the priest, which resulted in the following evaluation—Luke makes this point clearly in his parallel account. That said, however, I can sympathize with that leper—he had good reason to sound off! But it did increase the pressure on Jesus.
so that He [Jesus] was no longer able to enter a town openly, but remained outside in deserted places; yet they kept coming to Him from all over.
WP footnote: There were an awful lot of sick people who all of a sudden had hope.*
PCF: By the words ‘which resulted in the following evaluation …”, Pickering is talking about what happened next in the story. His next section heading at Mark 2:1 is A paralytic—the evaluation. In other words, Pickering considers the juxtaposition of the story of the healing of the leper and the arrival of Pharisees and teachers of the law from Jerusalem in the next story to show that the leper not only told everyone in his town about his healing, but he followed Jesus’ instructions and went to the temple in Jerusalem to tell his story to the priests. We can’t prove that, but it is a neat little insight to consider.
The episode notes for all of the Every Word podcasts will include a Resources section which gives links to articles that will give further documentation about all of my claims about the Majority Text, the Eclectic Text, and about different Bible translations.
All of Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s works are released according to the Creative Commons License and are available at PRUNCH.net. Additionally, his second edition (2016) NT translation is available for a free download via the Kindle app. It is also freely available as a module in the MyBible program for Android and Apple devices.
Dr. Pickering named his NT, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” That title contains three concepts that were not believed by Wescott and Hort. In their age Darwinism had invaded the church. W&H did not believe that our Creator created humans as described in Genesis. They did not believe in the sovereignty of God. Nor did they believe that God has actively inspired every word of Scripture and has made sure that every word has been preserved.
Moses and Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by Every Word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Luk. 4:4)
Let’s pray: Lord Jesus, we want to know You better. Like the leper in today’s story, we come to You in our sin and sickness and say, “If You want to, You are able to cleanse me.” Yes, Lord, we DO believe in You. In faith we see you reaching out and touching us, saying “I want to.” Thank You, Lord, for your power and love revealed to us today in Mark 1.
Resources: Fields, Philip:
Playing Follow the Leader in Bible Translation, 2019, by Phil Fields. See the Resources list in that article for many more helpful articles on the superiority of the Majority Greek Text.
Friberg, Timothy:
On the text of the Greek New Testament that also happens to be the right one for cousin audiences
Although the title of this four-page paper refers to translating for Muslims, the principles and summary is widely applicable.
I suggest reading this paper before reading Friberg’s other articles listed below.
Layman’s Guide — A modest explanation for the layman of ideas related to determining the text of the Greek New Testament, 2019.
What is what? — Differences between the Traditional Text and the Bible Society Text of the Greek New Testament. Some data for the reader to weigh, 2019.
Pickering, Wilbur:
New Translation of the New Testament: The Sovereign Creator has Spoken
Greek Text of the New Testament based on Family 35
Articles and other major works:
See PRUNCH.net.
Robinson, Maurice: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform, 1991, 2005, 2018.
This is available in free digital form in the MyBible Bible app, and in other ways.
Article:
Full Text of the 105 verses lacking overall Greek Manuscript Support in the NA edition 27
Welcome to this first podcast in a series that I am calling the Every Word Podcast. This is a podcast series for those who enjoy studying details found in God’s Word. In every episode I will read from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s fresh-sounding translation of the New Testament. The 2016 2nd edition of this NT was published with the name, “The Sovereign God Has Spoken.” It is available for a free download for the Kindle bool reading app. In today’s episode, I will read and comment on Pickering’s translation of Mark 1:1-28.
This is the kind of podcast where it might be better to look at the episode notes while listening. If you are flying down the freeway right now, just bear it in mind that you may want to check this out later. The full text that I will read is attached, but the attachment can only be found at dailybiblereading.info, not in podcast apps. (Click on the PDF download icon to get the attachment. For Android users, if you use our dedicated Daily Bible Reading app, you can get the PDF by clicking the gift icon.) The prettiest way to read Pickering’s NT is via the Kindle app using a tablet, and it is a free download.
Dr. Pickering’s translation is based on the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament, which is also called the Byzantine Text. I consider the Majority Text to be superior to the Eclectic Greek Text which was used as the basis of most of the translations of the last century. The shift in the Greek text used for our Bible translations began around 1881, with the publication of Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which was based on an extremely small sampling of manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text Type*— that is from Egypt.
*Footnote: The two are Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. These are dated at 3_3_0—3_6_0 AD and 3_0_0—3_2_5 respectively. At the time Wescott and Hort were working, it was anticipated that research into newly discovered ancient New manuscripts from Egypt would reveal a coherent textual stream that would point to the authentic initial form of the Greek text. Now, over a century later, those ancient Egyptian papyrus manuscripts have been analyzed, but they do not reveal a coherent textual stream that can be followed. Instead the papyri manuscripts reveal that Egyptian scribes very freely edited the texts they copied. In contrast, the Majority Text of the New Testament was made by copyists who lived in the same places as the original recipients of the apostles’ writings. Individual scribal errors have been weeded out, since this text type is based on the majority reading of thousands of Greek manuscripts.
The Majority Text has been stable over the centuries and is the best academically defendable text of the Greek New Testament that we have today. In this podcast, I am trying in a small way to undo the damage caused by Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which passed a legacy of mistakes down to all succeeding editions of the Eclectic/Critical Greek Text.** The damage I speak of can be found in almost all of the English Bible translations of the last century, starting with the ASV (1901), and including RSV, NASB, NIV, GNT, NLT, NET, and ESV.
**Footnote: The Eclectic Text is also called the Critical Text, the Nestle-Aland text, and the United Bible Societies (UBS) Text. The succeeding editions of the Eclectic Text have primarily followed Wescott and Hort, but the apparatus (or footnotes) dealing with textual variations has detailed the other variants found among Alexandrian manuscripts.
I realize that all this stuff I have just tried to explain may ‘sound like Greek to you’. But I promise that the examples I give will be interesting, and you won’t need to know any Greek to understand them. It will be helpful to your understanding if as you listen you are able to see Pickering’s translation beside your own Bible translation while listening to this podcast.
See the attached PDF for all the readings.
1 A beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God!
Pickering makes a footnote for many of the textual variants. The Eclectic Text does not include ‘Son of God’, and the Lexham Bible (published by Logos) doesn’t translate ‘Son of God’. But most of the last century’s translations follow the 1901 ASV, including those words with a footnote saying, “Some manuscripts do not include the Son of God.” Actually, it is only one Alexandrian manuscript that doesn’t have the three words. 98.4% of manuscripts have it. Another 0.4 percent have it slightly shortened. Only Codex Sinaiticus doesn’t have it, but it was one of Wescott and Hort’s favorites. So that one manuscript dropping the words has caused a footnote in many of today’s translations. Such footnotes have the unintended effect of causing people to question the accuracy of God’s Word.***
***Footnote: I take all percentage information from Pickering’s footnotes in his Greek NT.
What might have guided Wescott and Hort to have left out ‘Son of God’?
Here I quote from Pickering’s article entitled The Root Cause of the continuous defection from Biblical Infallibility:
F.J.A. Hort, a quintessential 'son of the disobedience'. Hort did not believe in the divine inspiration of the Bible, nor in the divinity of Jesus Christ. Since he embraced the Darwinian theory as soon as it appeared, he presumably did not believe in God.2 His theory of NT textual criticism, published in 1881,3 was based squarely on the presuppositions that the NT was not inspired, that no special care was afforded it in the early decades, and that in consequence the original wording was lost—lost beyond recovery, at least by objective means. His theory swept the academic world and continues to dominate the discipline to this day.1
Footnote 2:
For documentation of all this, and a good deal more besides, in Hort's own words, please see the biography written by his son. A.F. Hort, Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort (2 vols.; London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1896). The son made heavy use of the father's plentiful correspondence, whom he admired. (In those days a two-volume 'Life', as opposed to a one-volume 'Biography', was a posthumous status symbol, albeit of little consequence to the departed.) Many of my readers were taught, as was I, that one must not question/judge someone else's motives. But wait just a minute; where did such an idea come from? It certainly did not come from God, who expects the spiritual person to evaluate everything (1 Corinthians 2:15). Since there are only two spiritual kingdoms in this world (Matthew 6:24, 12:30; Luke 11:23, 16:13), then the idea comes from the other side. By eliminating motive, one also eliminates presupposition, which is something that God would never do, since presupposition governs interpretation (Matthew 22:29, Mark 12:24). Which is why we should always expect a true scholar to state his presuppositions. I have repeatedly stated mine, but here they are again: 1) The Sovereign Creator of the universe exists; 2) He delivered a written revelation to the human race; 3) He has preserved that revelation intact to this day.
2 As it is written in the prophets4—
4 Around 3.3% of the Greek manuscripts have ‘Isaiah the prophet’ instead of ‘the prophets’ (to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.). The 96.7% are correct.
ESV ‘As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,’
Here the Majority Text is right with plural ‘prophets’, because two quotes that follow are by two different prophets, Malachi and Isaiah. (Mal. 3:1; Is. 40:3) There are a number of inaccuracies like this that have been introduced in our Bibles because of following the Eclectic Text, and this is a good example of one of them.
10 And immediately upon coming up from11 the water He saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon Him.
11 Perhaps 3% of the Greek manuscripts have ‘out of’ instead of ‘from’ (to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.).
This is my own comment, not Pickering’s: The difference here amounts to a difference of two prepositions. The Majority Text has ‘apo’ and the Eclectic Text has ‘ek’. Someone is going to try to use the difference here to show the method of baptism used by John the Baptist. Don’t base any doctrine on Greek prepositions. They have a very wide range of meaning. Neither preposition can be used to prove the depth of the water where Jesus was baptized.
13 And He was there in the wilderness forty days being tested1 by Satan,
1 Our ‘test’ and ‘tempt’ are translations of a single Greek word, the context determining the choice. To tempt is to test in the area of morals. In this context I consider that ‘tempt’ is too limited, but it is included in the wider meaning of 'test'. Note that the Spirit impelled Him, which means that this was a necessary part of the Plan. The three specific tests recorded by Matthew and Luke presumably happened near the end of the forty days.
Pickering here gives an interesting translational note. This is not about a textual difference. I think it interesting and probably right that Satan was doing more than merely tempting Jesus. He was testing Who he was up against.
1:14 Now after John was put in prison,4 Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom5 of God,
5 Some 2% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, omit ‘of the Kingdom’ (to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.).
ESV ‘gospel of God’
My comment: In the very next verse, Jesus said, “The time has been fulfilled and the Kingdom of God has approached. Repent and believe in the Gospel.” The phrase ‘gospel of God’ (meaning that God owns or sponsors the Gospel) does occur in the Pauline epistles and in 1st Peter, but not in any of the Gospels or Acts. To me, especially because of verse 15, it seems much more fitting for Jesus to specify, ‘Gospel of (or about) the Kingdom of God’.
16 Then, as He was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother, [the son of] of Simon,7 casting a circular net onto the water,8 for they were fishermen.
7 Some 90% of the Greek manuscripts have ‘his brother, of Simon’—presumably a reference to their father. If Peter was the eldest son, he would have been named for his father.
PCF: I think this is an interesting textual variant. If Simon’s father was also named Simon, this part of the story would match the next part where we hear of Zebedee, the father of James and John. If you are looking at the episode notes, you will note that I made a slight alteration to Pickering’s translation. I added the words ‘the son’ before ‘of Simon’, so that the listener will be able to catch the meaning Pickering intends.
When I make alterations like this, I will mark them with brackets. I think the Greek can be understood in the sense ‘his brother— that is Simon’s’. That seems to be the way the World English Bible takes it. (The WEB is another translation of the Majority Text, and it is freely available in many Bible apps.)
23 Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, 24 saying: “Hey, what do you want with us, Jesus Natsarene?!13
13 The name of the town in Hebrew is based on the consonants נצר) resh, tsadde, nun), but since Hebrew is read from right to left, for us the order is reversed = n, ts, r. This word root means ‘branch’. Greek has the equivalent for ‘ps’ and ‘ks’, but not for ‘ts’, so the transliteration used a z (zeta) ‘dz’, which is the voiced counterpart of ‘ts’. But when the Greek was transliterated into English it came out as ‘z’! But Hebrew has a ‘z’, ז) zayin), so in transliterating back into Hebrew people assumed the consonants נזר ,replacing the correct tsadde with zayin. Neither ‘Nazareth’ nor ‘Nazarene’, spelled with a zayin, is to be found in the Old Testament, but there is a prophetic reference to Messiah as the Branch, netser—Isaiah 11:1—and several to the related word, tsemach—Isaiah 4:2, Jeremiah 23:5, 33:15; Zechariah 3:8, 6:12. So Matthew (2:23) is quite right—the prophets (plural, being at least three) referred to Christ as the Branch. Since Jesus was a man, He would be the ‘Branch-man’, from ‘Branch-town’. Which brings us to the word ‘natsorean’. The familiar ‘Nazarene’ (Nazarhnoj) [Natsarene] occurs in Mark 1:24, 14:67, 16:6 and Luke 4:34, but in Matthew 2:23 and in fourteen other places, including Acts 22:8 where the glorified Jesus calls Himself that, the word is ‘Natsorean’ (Nazwraioj), which is quite different. I have been given to understand that the Natsareth of Jesus’ day had been founded some 100 years before by a Branch family, who called it Branch town; they were very much aware of the prophecies about the Branch and fully expected the Messiah to be born from among them—they called themselves Branch-people (Natsoreans). Of course everyone else thought it was a big joke and tended to look down on them. “Can anything good . . . ?”
PCF: This time Pickering’s note points to a treasure he wants us to understand, not a textual variant. You may have picked up in my pronunciation that Jesus was called the ‘Natsarene’. Pickering’s footnote is long, and I think it would be hard to understand for podcast listeners— who may be going down the freeway at 70 miles an hour. The full footnote, complete with Scripture references, is found in the episode notes. But I will summarize what Pickering is pointing out. In Mark 1:23, the demon called Jesus a ‘Natsarene’, following the spelling in Wilbur Pickering's translation. We all know that Nazarene is normally spelled with a z, but Pickering spells it with ts.
Recall that Matthew (2:23) states, “So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: He (Jesus) will be called a Nazarene.” But the name Nazarene or Nazareth appears nowhere in the Old Testament, so how could this fulfill what plural prophets wrote? Unlike what is often assumed, the name Nazareth has nothing to do with the Old Testament nazarite vow. But in Hebrew, the word meaning ‘branch’ is netser.
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah (plural prophets) refer to the Messiah as the Branch or Shoot (which is netser or a related word). Isaiah 11:1 is one of those places:
Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot — yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root. (NLT Isaiah 11:1)
So we might call the original name for Jesus’ hometown as ‘Netser-place’, or Natsereth. But when Natsereth was translated into Greek, the ts became a z, Nazareth. So the cool thing about this is that before Christ came, someone founded a settlement called Branchville. I don't think this happened by accident. At the very least, they named the town with the intent to remind people that God’s promised a Messiah who was given the title, ‘the Righteous Branch’. So it is significant, and a fulfillment of prophecy, that Jesus is called ‘the man from Branchville’.
27 And all were astounded, so that they questioned among themselves, saying: “What is this? What can this new [teaching//doctrine] be?3 Because with authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him!”
3 Instead of ‘what can this new [teaching//doctrine] be’, perhaps 0.5% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, have ‘a new doctrine’ (as in NIV, NASB, LB, etc.).
ESV And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”
The word ‘Because’ is also part of the textual variant. The ESV follows the Eclectic Text, and connects the rather disjointed text so that it makes sense. ESV has an incomplete sentence, ‘A new teaching with authority!’ But the Majority Text includes the verb ‘be’, and a logical connector, ‘for/because’ which renders a much smoother text with complete sentences and good logical flow.
The episode notes for all of the Every Word podcasts will include references to articles that will give further documentation about all of my claims about the Majority Text, the Eclectic Text, and about different Bible translations.
All of Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s works are available at PRUNCH.net. Additionally, his second edition (2016) NT translation is available for a free download via the Kindle app. It is also freely available as a module in the MyBible program for Android and Apple devices. Dr. Pickering named his NT, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” I have not found where Pickering has explained why he gave his NT translation that title. From the forward, I think that it relates to his opinion that God sovereignly protected the original wording of the New Testament through the best line of Greek manuscripts.*
*Footnote: As will be explained in further podcasts, Pickering has chosen a more narrow line of transmission, as found in the F35 family of manuscripts. This is slightly different from the Majority/Byzantine Text Type as published by Robinson and Peerpoint, 2018.
I note further that the title, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken,” contains three concepts that were not believed by Wescott and Hort. In their age Darwinism had invaded the church. They did not believe that our Creator created humans as described in Genesis. They did not believe in the sovereignty of God, and nor did they believe that God had actively inspired every word of Scripture and was making sure that every word would be preserved.
One of my favorite verses is in Jeremiah 1:11-12:
The word of the Lord came to me: “What do you see, Jeremiah?”
“I see the branch of an almond tree,” I replied.
12 The Lord said to me, “You have seen correctly, for I am watching* to see that my word is fulfilled.”
The footnote says, “The Hebrew for watching sounds like the Hebrew for almond tree.”*
God will carry out his threats and his promises.
If God is watching his word to fulfill it like that, it is logical to believe that He also was careful to preserve his Word for us. For the New Testament, God blessed the Majority line of Greek texts so that they predominate and the text has remained unchanged through the centuries. I think it is a good goal to hope for better translations in this century which will preserve every word that should be in the Greek text, and that every word should be translated in a way that fits the English language.
As Moses and Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by Every Word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Luk. 4:4)
Let’s pray: Lord, my listener and I want to know You better through your Word, that we may be transformed to obey you from the heart. We thank You for sending the Righteous Branch, Jesus, to be our King, just like the prophets foretold.
Resources: Fields, Philip:
Playing Follow the Leader in Bible Translation, 2019, by Phil Fields. See the Resources list in that article for many more helpful articles on the superiority of the Majority Greek Text.
Friberg, Timothy:
On the text of the Greek New Testament that also happens to be the right one for cousin audiences
Although the title of this four-page paper refers to translating for Muslims, the principles and summary is widely applicable.
I suggest reading this paper before reading Friberg’s other articles listed below.
Layman’s Guide — A modest explanation for the layman of ideas related to determining the text of the Greek New Testament, 2019.
What is what? — Differences between the Traditional Text and the Bible Society Text of the Greek New Testament. Some data for the reader to weigh, 2019.
Pickering, Wilbur:
New Translation of the New Testament: The Sovereign Creator has Spoken
Greek Text of the New Testament based on Family 35
Articles and other major works:
See PRUNCH.net.
Robinson, Maurice: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform, 1991, 2005, 2018.
This is available in free digital form in the MyBible Bible app, and in other ways.
Article:
Full Text of the 105 verses lacking overall Greek Manuscript Support in the NA edition 27
Hi Friend!
Here’s my news:
First, I have attached a little image which I hope you will download from the episode notes to this podcast, our Facebook page, or the BibleReaders.info forum. I hope that you will share this image in whatever social media platform you use. Let’s pray that the simple message of this picture will cause someone to stop mindlessly scrolling and stop to read the message: “Read the Bible this year.” Let’s pray that the Lord will plant this message in the minds of those whom He is calling. Let’s pray for lives to be transformed in 2020 because of your sharing this simple message.
Secondly, if you happen to be good at making share-able pictures, please make any kind of imaginative graphic that we can use to promote the Daily Bible Reading Podcast or our YouVersion Bible reading plans. Please send them to me via the contact link found in this episode’s notes. An easy way to make such a graphic would be to make a verse picture inside of the YouVersion Bible app. When you share your picture with your friends, please include our web address (dailybiblereading.info) in your message. And I hope you will share a personal recommendation also.
Any new graphics I receive will be posted at our forum, BibleReaders.info. If you visit that site by manually typing in the address, click on the portal link in the site menu to see the newest posts.
In the last two weeks, I have revised the 365-day Digging Deeper Daily YouVersion reading plan. Lots of improvements have been made in the devotional pages. This is the best YouVersion plan to use if you want to read the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan while listening to the podcasts for each day. I have also revised one half of the first semester of the Read To Me Daily reading plan.
I have also revised the Read This First pages at our website that are for new readers or listeners using the 3D reading plan.
In my last news update of each year, I always try to share information about the best one-year full-Bible reading podcasts out there. I am surprised NOT to find more good ones to choose from! I don’t recommend listening to my voice for multiple years in a row. Here are some great options to consider for your next year of Bible reading:
The first one, Dailyaudiobible.com with Brian Hardin is the oldest and biggest in this genre. They have a very active on-line community that shares in mission projects and prays for one another, and this makes it so people keep following his daily podcasts year after year. Unlike my podcasts, Brian and his family produce the Daily Audio Bible series new and fresh every year! This collection of podcasts includes products for children and in different languages. I consider the dailyaudiobible to be— in an odd way— an online church. If you cannot attend a local church, you might find the online interaction and the sharing of prayer requests a wonderful thing. I listened to the dailyaudiobible throughout 2012 on the advice of a friend in Jakarta. This is the audio Bible that gave me the idea to do my own podcast.
The second one is Daily Radio Bible with Hunter Barnes. Hunter’s podcasts are in many ways like Brian Hardin’s. I think that he also is recording the Bible afresh each year. I have only listened to 1-2 of Hunter’s podcasts. They seem good.
And THIS is a new one for me to recommend this year: I think some of you might really like the YouVersion audio reading plan named Bible in One Year 2020 by Nicky Gumbel, who is a pastor in London, England. There are also dedicated apps for this plan for Android, Apple, and even Amazon devices. The web site for this is http://www.bibleinoneyear.org/. I note with a little bemusement that Pastor Nicky and his wife Pippa were able to get past YouVersion’s length limit for devotional content. Their first day’s devotional has 4 times the normal YouVersion limit for devotional content. So if you choose to listen to the audio content for this reading plan, it will probably take you 35 to 45 minutes per day. (My podcasts average 24 minutes per day.) Pastor Gumbel has the advantage of having a staff of people who can help with all the production work of creating a wonderful podcast with great devotional content. You will also enjoy their British accent.
I started my no-frills Daily Bible Reading podcast reading the NLT in 2014, then I added the GNT in 2016. Each day’s podcast was done with the hope that my children and grandchildren would one day be blessed by them. We praise the Lord that our five grandchildren are doing fine spiritually at this point. Luke is the oldest, at 18 years old, and our youngest, Devin, is 3. I still hope that my podcasts will be remembered by them just when they need spiritual input, and that might be when grampa is no longer around to talk to.
The motivation I have for asking YOU to share word about website, podcast, or reading plan is similar. Send out the news about the DBRP or the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan with a prayer that it will be noticed by those whom God is calling. I bet that not everyone of your Facebook or Instagram friends has their life perfectly together, spiritually speaking. They need God’s Word to be living and active in their lives. And they know you and will trust your recommendation, and God will use what you share!
May the Lord bless you ‘real good’ this Christmas and in 2020!
Phil & Gale
Hi Friends!
Before sharing personal news, I’ll give various bits of news about Youversion Bible reading plans and Bible podcasts.
If you haven’t noticed, I believe it is a good thing to read the Bible. Following the suggestion of one of my spiritual fathers, I think it is a great idea to read the Bible once a year. Devoted Bible believers are kind of divided between the ones who choose to memorize a whole lot of the Bible, and those who choose to read the Bible in a year. Here’s what I have noticed about the Bible memorizers: In order to keep three hundred or more verses in your memory, one needs to be dedicated to reviewing the chosen verses regularly. And Bible memorizers will not want to change translations, because it will mess with what they have memorized. So while Bible memorizers can amaze their friends by quoting appropriate passages verbatim from memory, they may miss the blessing of yearly reading some Old Testament books or gaining insight from different translations. Obviously (from my biased description above) you will know that I prefer the decision I made early in life to read the Bible every year instead of focusing on memorization. I enjoy keeping my Bible reading fresh by using different translations, and embracing the whole book— cover to cover— in my Bible study, rather than pinpointing three hundred verses. This means I never get to amaze people by quoting passages verbatim, but I can usually paraphrase the passages I need in conversation.
All that was to say that I encourage you to keep things fresh! At dailybiblereading.info you can find tips for
- reading the Bible in a real-book Bible,
- listening to podcasts of the NLT and GNT,
- or you can mix listening and reading using multiple translations and hearing multiple voices using the Read To Me Daily YouVersion reading plan.
- Tips on how to do that with various apps or web sites are also found at dailybiblereading.info.
What I do NOT recommend is that you spend multiple years in a row listening to me reading. If you are listening to something I have produced this year, do something new and challenging in 2020. If you liked this year following my reading plan, please share my website with your friends.
If you happen to be using the Read To Me Daily YouVersion reading plan this year, I have just updated the images for each day. If you happen to be using a tablet, you may have noticed that the daily theme images (with words like Eyes on Christ or Wisdom) were pixelated and ugly. Now they should look much sharper. Semesters 3-4 have been published with the new images, and semesters 1-2 should go live with new pictures next week. You won’t see the new pictures if you just stay logged in on your device. Log out and then log back into your YouVersion app via the main settings page, then your plan should update to the new version.
Hey, let’s share our Bible-reading insights together. These don’t have to be profound. I have two ways to suggest: Come the first of the year, I will share my YouVersion Bible reading plan with people who request to join in my group. I’ll start on December 31st, so my sharing will be visible to you if you start on January 1st. If things go like this year, I normally share a little something about once a week.
But secondly, I have been copying most of my posts from YouVersion into posts at our new forum: BibleReaders.info. The BibleReaders forum is open to any Bible reader sharing about any verse in the Bible on any day. And it is a good place to ask questions. So no matter where you are in your Bible Reading experience, you can share. Let me give an example: Someone might share, “Hey, praise the Lord, this is the first time I have made it through reading Matthew!” You know what? That would encourage me greatly! Right now it’s kind of sleepy in the forum, and I hope things pick up in the new year.
Gale will be going to Jakarta with me starting on October 3! She comes home on the 21st, and I stay on for another month. We look forward to a little more than two weeks of special time with Hannah and Brandon, and Ava (10), Joel (9), and Devin (3).
We praise the Lord for Him providing a 5 times bigger office for our little Bible translation organization, right in the same building where we have been located. We don't even have to change our address! Praise the Lord for our new office.
While in Jakarta, I will have some important days of meetings with our five Albata employees there. It just so happened that right when we moved into our better office, some difficulties regarding employees surfaced. I have struggled to know how to share this prayer request. I hope I have said enough for you to read between the lines when I say that I will need to make some hard decisions. Please ask for heavenly wisdom for me, as I so much want to make upright decisions.
Please pray that our new part-time employee (Bobby) will be able to do a great job promoting the use of our TSI New Testament through social media, our website, and YouVersion reading plans. The goal of this is not our fame, but to increase the understanding of God's Word in every province of Indonesia.
It is a huge answer to prayer that in November and December three consultants will come, for the pre-publication checking of several Old Testament books. The venue for this has been very difficult to set up. We had to move locations from Papua, where there are protest riots now. The checking will now take place in Salatiga, Central Java. Praise the Lord that a faithful donor has promised to give the full $5000 budget for the two months of consultant checking. Please pray that through these face-to-face checking times, we will build trust with our consultants so that checking can be done via email in the future. Please pray that we can complete all consultant checking of Genesis and Ecclesiates by the end of December.
2KINGS 23: Hilkiah found the book of the Law in the temple while repairs were being carried out as ordered by king Josiah. When Josiah heard the book of the Law, he instituted reforms. And God again is glorified in fulfilling a prophecy we heard in 1 Kings.
PSALM 134: I would like to have been one of the Levitical temple musicians who had the duty of singing praises to God at night. This is the last of the Psalms of Ascent.
JOHN 15:18—16:15: We are still in the upper room. I have chosen to reread the last verses of chapter 15, in order to help us make the connection with chapter 16.
GNT Translation notes: John 16:1 “I have told you this, so that you will not [fall away from your belief in me//give up your faith]. 8 And when he comes, he will prove to the people of the world that they are wrong about sin and about [the way people are made right in God’s sight//what is right] and about God's judgment. 9 [First about sin: He will make them aware that they sin if//They are wrong about sin, because] they do not believe in me; 10 and about the way people are made right in God’s sight: The Helper will make them aware that I have opened the way for people to become right in God’s sight,//they are wrong about what is right,] because I am going to the Father and you will not see me any more; 11 and about the final judgment: He will make them aware that the final judgment will happen,//and they are wrong about judgment,] because the ruler of this world has already been judged. 13 When, however, the Spirit comes, who reveals the truth about God, he will lead you into [the full//all the] truth. He will not speak on his own authority, but he will speak of what he hears and will tell you of things to come.
NLT Translation notes: John 16:23 At that time you won’t need to ask me for anything. I tell you the truth, you will ask the Father directly, and he will grant your request because you [pray for the sake of my glory//use my name]. 24 You haven’t done this before. [Make requests for the sake of my glory//Ask, using my name], and you will receive, and you will have abundant joy. 26 Then you will [make requsts/ask] [for the sake of my glory//in my name]. I’m not saying I will ask the Father on your behalf, 31 Jesus [said/asked], “Do you finally believe? 33 I have told you all this so that you may have peace [because of being joined with//in me]. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
The purpose of this podcast is to announce my short paper telling why I support the Byzantine Greek Text (BT) as the most accurate representation of what the apostles wrote. This has been a major decision for me, because it means that my translation team and I will revise our published Indonesian New Testament by the year 2022.
Here’s the link.
The episode notes viewable here do not contain the footnotes and other special formatting. I have attached PDF file with this episode. If your podcast player does not show you the PDF, please look for this episode at dailygntbiblereading.info.
I was not interested, and not even open, to considering the Byzantine Greek text over the ET (Eclectic Text//United Bible Societies Text/Nestle-Aland Text) until I went to meet Dr. Timothy Friberg, who also has worked in Indonesia for as long as I have. Dr. Friberg is the genius who compiled the Analytical Greek New Testament (AGNT), first published in 1985. The AGNT provides more helpful and accurate grammatical parsing of the NT Greek text because it is based on careful linguistic analysis, rather than the traditional Latin-derived parsing. It is therefore used by a majority of trained Bible translators and many others. When Friberg talks about anything having to do with Greek grammar, then people really should listen. He is the one who convinced me about the Byzantine Greek text being the best one, and the best one for us to translate for all audiences.
But especially for someone working in Indonesia, it is so much better to use the Byzantine Text. Here’s why: Muslims believe that their Al-Koran has been unchanged through the centuries, and that the Christian Bible (particularly the New Testament) has been fiddled with. Their belief in the immutability of the Al-Koran is actually incorrect, but they have ample proof that the NT has been fiddled with, because they can point to words taken out of our Bibles in the last 120 years.
In contrast, the BT has been stable through the centuries. It includes most of the words that readers familiar with the KJV miss in modern translations, and it can be translated without the need of any footnotes talking about textual variants.
I have written a short article (linked here in the episode notes) that outlines how the shift happened to translating the ET rather than a better Greek text. I hope that some of my listeners will be interested in that story. Here are a few teaser facts:
- About 120 years ago, Christians were told that earlier manuscripts penned on papyrus and preserved in the dry climate of Egypt (especially around the library center in Alexandria) more likely revealed the authentic form of the words penned by the apostles. Subsequent manuscript finds and analysis over the next century did NOT support the claims that manuscripts of the Alexandrian type form a stream that consistently points to the most authentic text of the NT. What research showed is that Alexandrian manuscripts show sloppy and wild variations because Egyptian copyists freely redacted the texts they copied.
- Wescott and Hort published their Greek NT in 1881. It was based on only two Alexandrian texts, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. Successive editions were published by Eberhard Nestle (beginning in 1898), who was followed by his son, then Kurt Aland (in the 1950s). All these editions prioritized Alexandrian manuscripts. These editions are known by various names, and I will refer to them as the Eclectic Text. Even though many textual discoveries were documented in successive editions, those discoveries were largely relegated to abstruce footnotes, and the main text still very much followed what Wescott and Hort published. The Christian public was not made aware about the wild variations discovered in Alexandrian manuscripts.
- It has been conclusively shown that Alexandrian copyists shortened the texts they copied. They did the same thing with Homer’s poems.
- Sometimes more than one variant are found in one or two verses of the Greek text. I was further convinced about the flawed nature of the ET when I found out that it displays 105 verses where the combinations of variants chosen are not represented in any extant manuscript. Or if we widen that to two consecutive verses in the ET, we find a further 210 two-verse combinations that are not found in any extant manuscript. An example in a single verse occurs in John 5:2 where no manuscript has been found anywhere that contains the name spelled ‘Bethzatha’ and the exact form of the Greek translated as ‘at the sheep gate’. To me, the presence of three hundred and fifteen unsupported combinations represents a fatal flaw in the principles used in compiling the ET.
- By contrast, the Byzantine Text has stayed stable throughout the centuries. Byzantine manuscripts predominately were found in the wide area which received the original letters written by the apostles, places like Antioch, Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, etc. 95% of the manuscripts containing NT books or fragments or them are of the BT type. This is why the BT is also called the Majority Text. It seems that a majority of ancient copyists believed that this was the text to pass on to following generations, and Alexandrian renderings died out.
- Some of you will have heard about the Textus Receptus, which is the 1516 Greek text compiled by Erasmus that became the basis of the KJV NT. In my article I show briefly why the BT is far superior to the Textus Receptus.
- Just as succeeding editions of the ET basically played ‘follow the leader’ since Wescott and Hort’s 1881 publication, so modern translations have played ‘follow the leader’ since the American Standard Version (ASV) of 1901. Translations that followed ASV’s lead include RSV, NASB, GNT, NIV, CEV, NLT, NET, and ESV. The prefaces of all these translations claim that the translators were following the ET, but in reality all of these only followed it around 72% of the time. In doing this, it is clear that the translators took the lazy and safe path, rather than themselves examining the textual evidence. There is no evidence that the ASV translators were super-scholars who made consistently excellent decisions about the Greek text. They (or some of them) played it safe and went with KJV-like readings in some places, but then seemingly by whim they (or others of them) went with poorly-supported textual variants in other places that were sure to anger readers— like leaving out words from the Lord’s Prayer. One after another, succeeding generations of translators of newer translations have simply following the lead of the previous popular translations, all the while keeping up an appearance of scholarship by including misleading footnotes that say, “Some manuscripts add the words …” By not following the their declared Greek text consistently, all the translators of the above listed Bibles have shown that they really did not respect the ET to be faithfully showing the content of the original autographs. If Bible translators don’t follow the ET faithfully, then what justification can be found to claim that it is the best available representation of what the apostles wrote? What Greek text will we, the Christian public, choose to follow? It doesn’t make sense to create a new edition of the Greek text based on what translators have actually translated since 1901!
- The assertions above are supported by hard evidence in my January 2019 article: Playing ‘Follow the Leader’ in Bible Translation.
The Eclectic Text is basically dead. One might compare it to the theory of evolution. Experts from multiple scientific disciplines have repeatedly announced that evolution can no longer be maintained as a viable theory. (And many of the scientists are scratching their heads as to how to replace it, because they absolutely will not entertain returning to believing in the creation of the world.) In a similar way, seminary professors who have long taught the superiority of earlier Alexandrian manuscripts are not even open to looking at articles that might change their view. Someone has observed that just when a popular theory or philosophy has lost logical credibility, that is just when people become more bone headed about it. I hate to say it, but support for the BT will need to come from ordinary conservative Christians who care about God’s Word and His reputation, and who are willing to look at the evidence.
- In my article, I discuss English translations of the BT. The most available literal translation of the BT is the World English Bible, and I prefer the British Edition.
- Unfortunately, I find that there is no translation of the BT done in a more meaning-based manner. There is no BT-based version like the NIV or the NLT. My firm belief is that every believer should have access to at least one good literal translation and one good meaning-based translation. When a literal translation leaves the reader wondering if their understanding of a verse is correct, they need to be able to open a meaning-based translation to find their answer. ALL the false cults that have ever sprung up from the year 1600 to the present based their teaching on literal translations where the meaning of their favorite passages was hard to understand and open to multiple interpretations. My particular desire is to allow for meaningful audio recordings of a New Testament translated from the BT. Literal translations from ancient Greek cannot ever express things in a natural and easy-to-understand way in modern English. The two languages are too different. As someone who has made two complete recordings of the whole Bible, I refuse to record a verse in a translation where I know that the listener who is not following the written text will misunderstand it. That’s why my podcast notes give little tweaks I have made to even the GNT and NLT.
If there is a group out there currently trying to make a good readable, meaning-based translation of the BT, I want to join them. If no group or organization has started to do this, then I will start and I call on interested parties to join me. So starting next year, I want to make a series of podcasts reading the results. I hope that this modest beginning will lead to more faithful Bible translations for the Christian public in the future.
- Please pray for this effort.
Greetings Friends!
Thanks for listening or reading this news update, which is for everyone reading the Bible— but especially to all who are following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. As always, you can find all sorts of information about this reading plan at dailybiblereading.info. That’s where to look for helpful tips to make it easy listen or read the Bible in a year. In particular, see the Read This First information linked in the site header.
I praise God that the 3rd semester of the Read To Me Daily reading plan is live now in your YouVersion Bible reading app. The link for subscribing is in the episode notes. If you don’t know, this reading plan follows the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan (like my podcasts) but this is an audio plan within YouVersion. In the third semester, I read the devotional page, then the internally bundled YouVersion recordings are played for the Bible readings. Please pray for me in preparing the 4th semester, so that it will be published before people complete the 3rd semester.
I haven't been posting the videos from TheBibleProject.com like I planned in email updates and at our Facebook group. But I do at least want to remind you of them. The overview videos for each Bible book that they have done are Way Better than my short comments in the podcasts. They are especially helpful for more difficult books of the Bible, like the Old Testament prophetic books.
Our Facebook group is now replaced by our forum at http://biblereaders.info.
Right after this news podcast goes live, I will do another podcast on What Greek text of the New Testament that I recommend. That is the Byzantine text. In my opinion, the Nestle-Aland text no longer holds up under academic scrutiny as the best text for Bible translation or serious Bible study. In my podcast notes, I will link to readable articles that support what I am saying. For me as a Bible translator, this is not a decision I have made lightly. This will mean a lot of work for me and my team in Indonesia, because we will revise our published New Testament to match the Byzantine text by 2022. Some have asked and will ask if I will redo all my daily Bible reading podcasts. I’m sorry, I certainly won’t have time for that. But here’s what I want to do, LORD willing: I would like to make a new series of podcasts of the New Testament that will be based on a new translation of the best Greek text. These won’t be daily podcasts, and I can’t do this alone. I need some volunteers who have time to help me. If you can use online Bible study tools effectively, and think you might have a flair for expressing Bible concepts in everyday language, please use the contact link at dailybiblereading.info to email me.
Here is the MOST IMPORTANT thing I want to share with you in this News update: I want to highly recommend that EVERYONE who will read this letter or listen to this podcast to see the documentary movie called American Gospel. If you don’t want to spring immediately for the two hour movie (which is well worth the $5 price), please view the free one hour video linked here. This is a very clear presentation of the TRUTH about the false gospel that is being taught in so many churches in America. Even if you feel that your church is teaching what the Bible teaches, I still urge you to see the one hour version of American Gospel. I think every Christian needs to be able to identify the false message, because someone you know is listening to it, and you will want to be able to help them. If you live in another country, I also urge you view to this video, because this false gospel has been exported all around the globe. Let me also share another little tidbit on this topic, showing Francis Chan’s perspective.
In family news, I am thrilled that my grandson Luke (16) will be going with me for 18 days to Papua, Indonesia, starting on the 22nd of June. Four college age people in an internship program with Pioneer Bible Translators will meet us there, and I will take them for a five-day adventure living in an Orya village. The goal of this time is to find out what village life in a tropical rainforest is like. They will help catch, butcher, harvest, and prepare the food we eat. I hope that they leave feeling like they have truly made a few good friends among the Orya people. And I know that whenever I go out there, the people will ask me about Luke and the four interns. Please pray in the first week of July! We hope that this experience will prepare all five of them for whatever service God has in mind for them in the future.
Lord bless you all. We send our love in Christ to you.
Phil & Gale
EXODUS 25-26:Yesterday we read the commands for the Israelites to be good neighbors and to practice justice. And we heard the requirement for all Israelites to celebrate three festivals, and God gave promises of how He would bring them into the land. Then we read the story of how Moses led the people in accepting the covenant. Note how important the sacrificial blood was in this ceremony. The Israelites promised to obey the covenant. Moses told them to wait for him, then followed God's call to go up to the summit of the mountain, where he stayed for 40 days and nights. PSALMS 1:Job— as I said before, is perhaps the earliest book of the Old Testament, but we didn't find a primitive book, did we?! We found a book of sophisticated poetry, one that uses literary devices and makes reference to a well-developed mythology. And we find a book that defies simple analysis. At the conclusion of Job, some of you may be feeling that some basic questions were not really answered. Some of you may be saying, “But I have suffered injustice, and God has not responded to me the way he responded to Job at the end of the book.” To those of you, I say that we can learn several things from Job, and one would be that there are many things God takes into account that we do not know about. And secondly, we can be sure that God is just and fair, and in the final analysis— when we reach heaven, all issues of justice will be resolved. And I also say this: I hope you continue to read the Bible with us this year, because we will find more answers about God’s sovereignty and justice as we go on. The book of Psalms was the nation of Israel's hymnbook. The poems were compiled over time, with most of the first half by King David. The Psalms fall into these categories: Instruction, Praise, Thanksgiving, Penitence, Trust, Distress, Aspiration, History, and Prophecy. Under the prophecy category, the Psalms talk of Jesus' prophetic office, his priestly office, his kingly office, his sufferings, and his resurrection. (For details, see HC Mears.) LUKE 2b:Yesterday we read of Jesus' birth, of the angels announcement to the shepherds, and of Jesus being presented in the temple— which is where we pick up the story today. GNT Translation note:Luk. 2:34 Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, [the child’s//his] mother, “This child is chosen by God for the destruction and the salvation of many in Israel. He will be a sign from God which many people will speak against 35 and so reveal their secret thoughts. And sorrow, like a sharp sword, will break your own heart.” NLT Translation notes:Luk. 2:30 [For I have now//I have] seen your salvation,31 which you have prepared for all people.32 He is a light to reveal [You/God] to the nations,and he is the glory of your people Israel!”
Hey, greetings to ninty-two friends who have signed up for this letter!
If you haven't signed up for our email Digging Deeper newsletters, here's the link to do so.
Thank you for responding to my invitation to join this letter list. If you are listening to the podcast covering the information below and you did not receive an email from me by now, that means that you haven’t signed up. Please visit dailybiblereading.info and follow the link at the top of the site to join our list.
The idea to have a special list for newsletters should have come to me sooner. I finally decided to add this list because it has been so clear that my news update podcasts plus my posts at the Facebook group have not been reaching very many people. You who have signed up for this list will get a maximum of 12 emails in 2019, and then no more. I will start a new list for 2020, and this list will be deleted.
Our Facebook group is now replaced by our forum at http://biblereaders.info.
For those listening to the audio Devotionals in this first semester of the Read To Me Daily reading plan, beginning next semester the devotionals will be read by Ashlee Smith. Ashlee is a member of the same church our family attends in Siloam Springs. For those who have listened to the Daily Bible Reading Podcasts her voice will be somewhat familiar, as she recorded a lot of the women’s parts when those podcasts were made.
Here are The Bible Project videos that will enrich your understanding of the books we’ll be reading.
22 January Job summary wisdom series
27 Jan 1st Peter summary
31 Jan Exodus 1-18 19-40 Torah Series
1 February James summary
7 February 2Peter summary
9 February Luke summary Luke-Acts Series
11 February Psalms summary
21 February Leviticus summary Torah Series
Now I have something rather unusual and surprising to share: Having been in the field of Bible translation for 39 years, I didn’t think that I would change my opinion about the best Greek text to follow in translating the New Testament. But less than a year ago, the Lord arranged for me to meet a world-class expert in Biblical Greek, and he got me interested in this topic. Before meeting him, I confess that I would not have been motivated to click on any link leading to an article about different Greek texts. I was happy with remaining ignorant about the topic. My opinion now is that the Byzantine text (also called the Majority Text) is the most authoritative New Testament Greek text. And I urge every Bible reader to NOT just remain ignorant about what this means.
I have brought this up because I ask for your help in sharing a 12-page article that I have written. If you can help me share it with pastors or anyone else you think would be interested, we have a chance of halting a senseless game of ‘follow the leader’ that has been played in the field of Bible translation for the last 120 years. My article has quite a few supporting links to other articles written by people more knowledgeable than I am about this topic.
Look, I know this is an advanced subject, and many of you are going to say, “This is all Greek to me,” but here’s the point: Most of us are using Bibles that really ought to be considered defective. My own Bible translation work turns out to also be defective, because for 38 years I made translations of the Eclectic Greek text (also called the Nestle-Aland/UBS text). Nearly all Bible translators made the same mistake because we were unaware that suppositions (or opinions of experts) about ancient Greek manuscripts were speculative and wrong. (This should not surprise us! Just think of the conflicting claims of nutritional experts about what are healthy and not-healthy foods!) The defective Bibles I mean include the NIV, NLT, GNT, ESV, NET, and so many others.
My friend Doug Pack (who frequently posts in the Digging Deeper Facebook group) asked me recently how come I still am promoting reading the Bible in translations — like all those I just mentioned — if I believe they are based on a defective Greek text. My answer is that it will take time for the decision-makers and Bible publishers to be open to hearing the truth. I hope all major Bible translations will be revised and released in new versions based on the Majority/Byzantine text. In the meantime, let’s not stop reading the Bibles we have! My article gives information about currently available English translations of the Byzantine Greek text.
If you will help me spread the word by reading my article or sharing the link, perhaps we can hasten the day when new editions of the Bibles mentioned above will follow the best Greek text. Please share my article with people who are dedicated students of God’s Word. You don’t have to be able to read Greek to understand my article.
On to a new topic! If you are following the Read To Me Daily YouVersion reading plan and using the audio, you have probably noticed a little bug. I don’t know if this bug shows up for Apple devices. For Android devices it definitely is noticeable. The automatic audio playing of the different Bible portions will sometimes skip back to re-play the Devotional page’s audio, rather than continuing on to the next Bible reading. The YouVersion people have been informed and I am told they are working on this.
Then something I am sure is happening for all platforms is this: If you are playing the audio of Read To Me Daily plan or any other, and if the next portion is only a partial chapter, then the recorded citation of the book name and chapter is not played. When the YouVersion app automatically progresses to the next portion listed for the day, the reader only cites the book and chapter if that next chapter is a full chapter. Take for example day 22 of the RTMD plan. The audio reading of a chapter from Job was immediately followed by Mark 14:1, without even a pause between the two. For people who are not watching the screen, this can be VERY confusing! I have put in a request that this be fixed, perhaps using an automated voice give the citation for partial chapter readings. I think we’ll have to live with this defect for some time.
As some of you know, I still go to Indonesia twice per year, and each of my visits there lasts for 7 weeks. My next trip starts on February 5. I would really appreciate your prayers for Gale and myself. This time, Gale will visit her aunt who lives in NY State, and she normally would not pick to go there in February. But her aunt is turning 100, so she is going to help celebrate this milestone. Her aunt is still ‘with it’ mentally and will definitely enjoy Gale being there. I personally thank the Lord for such good communication options as we have nowadays. Gale and I talk with each other every day.
An important activity is happening for our team on this trip to Indonesia. From February 11th through the 28th, a consultant will be helping us with the final pre-publication check of Genesis 5-25 and the book of Esther. Three of our team members will be coming from three different provinces. The consultant herself will be coming from India. There will also be some reasonable costs that need to be paid for some local people who will help us in answering the consultant’s questions. So perhaps now you can see why a full consultant check like this is so expensive! A lot of money will be spent to check just 30 chapters. Thankfully the event will have a lot of training value for our team members. Here are some prayer requests about this:
- Please pray that the Lord will help us with good health.
- Please pray the Holy Spirit will help the team of local people so that they will be able to answer the consultant’s questions thoughtfully and correctly.
- Checking like this always reveals some weak places in a translation. I have never seen any translation pass a consultant check with no changes. Please pray that weaknesses found in our translation will be fixed, resulting in a high-quality and very understandable translation.
- Please pray that the consultant will be so pleased with the integrity of our work that she will agree to do checking via email in the future, rather than face-to-face.
- Praise the Lord with us that He has already supplied the funds budgeted for this checking event.
Our translation team is being blessed and challenged daily by the participation of almost 20 active volunteers. These volunteers receive two chapters per day of our draft translation via a Whatsapp group. They respond with helpful suggestions and questions. I am hoping to build upon this and expand the number of active volunteers to 48. The input from these groups has been VERY valuable in checking Genesis and Exodus recently. We offer an online Basics of Bible Translation course online to further enhance the ability of the volunteers to help us. Here are our prayer requests about this:
- For the first time, In our current group-sharing of our draft of Exodus, we had some people leave the checking group. One person said, “Don’t add or take away from anything in God’s Word!” Uh, well, doing that is certainly not our intention! But there was no discussion that I could find within that group where anyone accused us of adding or subtracting anything from the text of Exodus. Please pray that we will learn how to more effectively manage these groups so that people remain happy to take part in them.
- Please pray for Jaya, our team member who manages all the groups, currently five groups and some people contributing suggestions via email.
- Please pray that our active volunteers will grow to 48 people from all over Indonesia.
I will still be in Indonesia through most of March, so I will send my next update letter from THERE and can tell more about what is happening.
May the Lord bless you Real Good!
Hey, hi! So YOU want to study the Bible!
Great! Fabulous idea! So where are you going to start?
I’m Phil Fields, and I have a quite a few years of experience in this topic, so I hope what I share now will be helpful to you.
In the title of this podcast, I included the words, ‘for beginners’. I realize that what I will say now may seem totally obvious, but I feel we must begin here: What most beginning students of the Bible need most is to READ the Bible. I can hear someone saying, “Well, duh!”
Now really! Before you delve deeply into the study of one part, you really need the background of having read all of the Bible. I suggest you concentrate on reading the whole Bible about 3-7 times before you get too engrossed in the study of narrower topics. If you already have read the Bible more than seven times, then I suggest you stop playing this podcast and look for another podcast on advanced Bible study materials. You might start by considering the resources and books I have listed for you in the episode notes.
But for those still with me, let me introduce you to this big, complicated book called the Bible. For the best results in your reading, you want to start with a good idea of what the important divisions in that big book are. It is not like a fat novel, which the author expects you to read starting at the beginning and going right through. The Bible is an ancient book that was written by around 40 authors spanning a period of around 1500 years.
The Bible has these major divisions:
1a. The first five books are called the Pentateuch— Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The rest of the Bible attributes these books to Moses. These books give the foundational stories of the beginning of mankind, the beginning of the chosen people starting with Abraham, through several generations to the giving of the Mosaic Law, and the stories of how the people of Israel started worshipping God according to the way God instructed Moses, including their initial failures. The first five books of the Old Testament tell us about the important promises God made, and tell of how God started fulfilling them.
1b. Those first five books are part of the Historical Books of the Bible. The story continues after the death of Moses with Joshua leading the people of Israel into the promised land, and with many further failures of the Jewish people once in the promised land. The book of Judges deals with the leaders of Israel before they appointed a king. Then four books tell the story of the kings of Israel, then of civil war resulting in two kingdoms— Northern and Southern, called Israel and Judah. Finally, there is the history of the exile of God’s people to other nations, and the time when God fulfilled his promise to bring them back to their own land.
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The next section of the Bible is the Poetry section. There are two main types of poetry here: There is Wisdom Literature, with books like Job and Proverbs. Then the book of Psalms has 150 chapters of poetry. Many of these poems express praise to God, but the psalms include quite a range of other themes as well. The major writer was King David, and he was a prophet also. So some of the Psalms are Messianic Psalms which are fulfilled by Jesus in the New Testament.
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The final section of the Old Testament is the Prophetic Books. These start with the four Major Prophetic writers, followed by 12 more. Many prophetic writers conveyed their messages in poetry. Many of the prophecies in these books were fulfilled in the Old Testament, many were fulfilled in the New Testament, and some are yet to be fulfilled.
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The New Testament starts with five historical books. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, tell the story of Jesus fulfilling all the prophecies about a Messiah, and those books chronicle his teachings. Then the book of Acts tells the story of the early church.
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Thirteen of the letters of the New Testament were penned by Paul. Eight other letters were by five other writers. Jesus specifically told his disciples that He could not teach them everything, but that the Holy Spirit would teach them after He was no longer with them, reminding them of His teachings and guiding them into new truths. (John 14:25-26; 16:12) We see the way that worked out in the stories in Acts, and then in the letters. The last letter, Revelation, is more than a letter. It is addressed as a letter to seven churches, but it really is a letter to everyone in any church anywhere giving in symbolic form the events in the future. The prophecies in Revelation close the New Testament in a way that matches the prophecies closing the Old Testament. Hundreds of Old Testament prophecies are alluded to in Revelation. People say that it is a hard book to understand, but really, the main point is absolutely clear: Jesus wins. Be ready to meet Him.
That’s the amazing book you want to study! And I love this book. I have finished reading it every year since I was 20, and have given more than half my life to translating it into two languages. So here’s my basic advice: Follow a daily reading plan or make up a new one that gives you a varied menu of readings every day, including one portion from the New Testament per day. Don’t let yourself get bogged down by following a plan where you will read chapter after chapter of detailed Old Testament Laws or chapters full of names, without enjoying some daily time reading in the New Testament. The same is true for poetry. Since poetry is harder for me to digest, I make sure that my daily Bible reading plan doesn’t schedule too many chapters of the same type of poetry in a row. If you are considering a plan that says it is Chronological, that sounds like a good idea. But take a closer look. Rigidly Chronological plans will have you stuck in the Old Testament for two-thirds of the year before you get to the New Testament.
All the creatively done visuals in the presentation are taken from the videos created by thebibleproject.com. I don’t think they’ll mind, because I am going to suggest that you include their videos in your Bible study plans for this year. Each time you start a new book in the Bible, view the short introductory video for that book. Please see the episode notes attached to this podcast to find more about how to access the fantastic videos in thebibleproject.com.
Next, let me share from my background as a Bible translator: Make a wise choice in the Bible translations that you will choose to use for your first three years of Bible reading (assuming that you will read the Bible each year, as I suggest). I suggest that you use several translations that are easy to understand while you are building a foundation for deeper Bible study. My top three recommendations are the NLT (New Living Translation), GNT (Good News Translation), and the NIV (New International Version). If you really are a beginner to Bible reading, let me be so bold as to suggest that you read each of those three translations completely and in that order: NLT, GNT, and NIV. It is quite likely that your church will use a different translation in their meetings, as pastors like to use translations that are more literal translations of the ancient original texts, but those translations require a good foundation before you will enjoy reading them devotionally. Translations like the ESV, NASB, or KJV are good for detailed study later. If you are interested in more information about Bible translations and how they are different, please see the episode notes for a helpful link.
In closing, I want to bring together the various things I have said and make daily Bible reading easy for you. I have constructed a 365 day Bible-reading plan called Digging Deeper Daily. This plan is a modified Chronological plan, which always includes three different types of Bible readings per day: an Old Testament reading, then an Old Testament poetry reading, and a New Testament reading. The Digging Deeper Daily plan will help you be successful in your commitment to read the whole Bible in a year. The unique order of the readings— together with my brief devotional notes, will help you see the various threads that unify the message of the Old and the New Testaments. And I hope that my daily devotional comments will help you remember what you have read the day before, and hint at the deep and incredibly rich treasures in God’s Word. If this sounds interesting to you, head over to dailybiblereading.info and read the ReadMe PDF file linked at the top of the page.
In that ReadMe PDF file, you will find complete instructions for reading the Digging Deeper Daily plan in a regular printed Bible, or in a Bible reading app, or for listening to 365 podcasts that cover the whole Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. You can listen to the Daily Bible Reading Podcasts using our website, or a plethora of podcast aggregator apps, plus streaming services like Alexa, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, GooglePodcasts, iTunes and Apple podcasts, Facebook, YouTube, and soon Pandora.
Our Facebook group is now replaced by our forum at http://biblereaders.info.
I suggest following up this podcast with visiting the site thebibleproject.com and viewing the first three videos in the How to read the Bible series which is linked in the episode notes. If you choose to use one of the methods for following the Digging Deeper Daily Bible reading plan this year, I invite you to join our Digging Deeper Facebook group (linked in the episode notes). I will be posting thebibleproject.com’s videos there at strategic times during the year, and this group will link you to others who are following the Digging Deeper reading plan. You can join in sharing insights with the group, or asking questions.
Our Facebook group is now replaced by our forum at http://biblereaders.info.
The Bible is not just an ordinary book. As Hebrews 4:13 says, “the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.” The Holy Spirit will be actively working in you as you read the Word which He authored. And that is the reason why reading the whole Bible is always a life-transforming journey. Do it! Read all of it this year!
The three videos I recommended viewing above are found on this page: https://thebibleproject.com/explore/how-to-read-the-bible/
About the videos made by thebibleproject.com: A convenient way to access these videos on your cell phone or tablet is to install the ReadScripture app from the App Store or Play Store. This gives you their videos referenced by topic, without having the distractions of YouTube. But notice, the reading plan they have put in this app is a Chronological one, which will have you reading exclusively in the Old Testament only for 2/3rds of the year, unless you purposefully skip around inside the plan. Also their version choice is the very literal ESV, which is not a user-friendly translation for newbies to Bible reading and study. You won’t understand books like Isaiah if you read them in the ESV!
For a wonderful Bible panorama video, see thehopeproject.com. The HOPE is an epic 80-minute dramatic motion picture overview of the story of God's promise for all people as revealed in the Bible.
For those who want to study more deeply, see the Suggested Reading List at the the bottom of this page: https://thebibleproject.com/explore/how-to-read-the-bible/
To that list I add one classic:What the Bible is All About, Bible Handbook, by Dr. Henrietta C. Mearsrecommended by Billy Graham
What’s the difference in Bible translations? See my blog post entitled More about Bible Translations.
Hi, and Merry Christmas!
I have plenty of information to share this time. I hope you are not too distracted while listening to all this!
Would you like to see more people find the Daily Bible Reading Podcast? If so, here is a quick way you can really make a difference: Some time ago I made a channel for the DBRP on YouTube which is linked here in the episode notes. Please, even if you never intend to listen to an episode on YouTube, please click the link to subscribe to that channel. The more people that are subscribed, the higher our channel will appear in search results.
At the beginning of 2019, I hope to be able to make Youtube playlists of episodes a month at a time, so that it becomes easier for people to actually listen to the DBRP using that platform. Youtube is the second most popular Internet search engine. So please help some people who are searching to discover the DBRP. Just click the link above and click to subscribe to our channel. Currently, there are only 8 people subscribed.
The DBRP got off to a rough start in 2018. This was due to my not observing how the new update to the Apple podcast app ruined the way the many episodes of the DBRP were being displayed. People--- including my son, David, were having difficulty finding the next episode they wanted to listen to. This is important because, around half of our audience are listening on Apple devices and primarily using the podcast app. So we lost many listeners at the first of the year.
To address the problem, I have taken three categories from the DBRP podcast and moved them to two different new podcasts. This makes it so that menus and search results are less cluttered. So here’s how it will work for next year:
- If you want to listen to the NLT podcast series, starting on January 1st, use our first web site, which is dailybiblereading.info. You will find complete information about listening apps and how to subscribe in the ReadMe PDF file linked at the top of the site. New episodes of the NLT will be released every day. Links for everything I am talking about right now are given in the episode notes.
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If you want to listen to the GNT podcast series, those are no longer being released daily at the first site, but at the new one: dailygntbiblereading.info. Every day a new GNT episode will be released to all the podcast apps and will be available at that website. Complete information about listening apps and how to subscribe are found in the ReadMe PDF file linked at the top of the site.
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If you enjoyed the JoySightings series of podcasts, I have moved those to a new location: joysightings.info. See podcast subscription information at that site. The Joysightings.info site also is host to the DayStarters series. The Joysightings podcasts are for sharing Parables of all kinds, but especially those of Safed the Sage. The DayStarters podcasts are GNT NT readings which were prepared for our daughter Hannah, so that she could start homeschooling days for Ava and Joel by listening to grampa read and pray. The readings are just the NT portion from the GNT readings, and they do not cover the more difficult readings in the New Testament. See the table of contents for both the DayStarter and JoySightings podcasts at joysightings.info.
Again I ask for your help! If you are an Apple device user and are still using the native Apple podcast app to listen to the original DBRP (not the newer GNT podcast), please tell me if you are more easily finding your episodes now. If there are problems, please send me a screenshot and tell me the difficulties you are having.
In looking forward to the new year, I never encourage people to listen to my podcasts for two years in a row. If you’ve listened to me for one year, it is time to find a different voice. But this year I have something new to suggest to you! I am releasing a new 100% audio reading plan for the YouVersion Bible app called Read To Me Daily. This will be almost like listening to one of my podcasts--- almost, but not quite. You’ll only hear my voice for the first 3 minutes reading the devotional introduction. But after you play the audio on the devotional page, then the YouVersion app will automatically play the default audio recordings for the two OT portions and one NT portion in whatever version you are using. This obviously won’t work for Bibles which don’t have recordings. The translations I recommend using for this plan are the NLT, GNT and NIV. For those who have read the NLT and GNT recently, I suggest following the NIV this next year. Just to let you know: That’s the version I plan to read in 2019.
One thing I like about this new RTMD YouVersion reading plan is the flexibility and the ease of use. Some people will choose to read on their own without activating the audio on days when that is convenient for them, but listen to the readings on days when they are commuting to work. Or, someone might listen one week to the readings in the GNT, and next week use the NIV recordings. Some people who delve deeper might choose to listen to some daily readings twice, perhaps once in the ESV and once in the NLT. Everything will be easy to do using just one app, the YouVersion Bible app. This Read To Me Daily reading plan will follow the same Digging Deeper Daily reading calendar as the DBRP. So on any day you might want to, you could jump to listening to your day number in one of the DBRP podcasts.
The reason I recommend using the NLT, GNT, or NIV for the RTMD plan is because those three translations are easier to understand in audio form. This plan will be released in 4 semesters to cover the whole year. Please help me spread the word about the new RTMD plan. I will release an audio invitation soon. Please share it with your friends.
Let me shift the topic back to the podcasts now: Recently I was talking to a man who has a ministry to the elderly in our town. It seems to me that the Amazon Alexa devices are the easiest way for elderly people to listen to the DBRP. I have already registered an Alexa skill for the DBRP, and I am applying for an Alexa skill for the Daily GNT Bible Reading podcast as well. Alexa devices like the Echo Dot start at just $29, but to use it, the person also needs to have a Wifi connection. By the last week of December, I will have new information in the ReadMe PDF file linked at the top of our websites that will tell you how to get things set up for using Alexa devices. Once you initiate the podcast on the Alexa device for your elderly friend, they can listen any time they want by saying, “Alexa, play the next episode of Daily Bible Reading Podcast.”
The initial idea for the Daily Bible Reading Podcast was to leave the recordings as a legacy for our grandkids. So far none of our grandkids have made it through a whole year’s worth. They currently range in ages from 16 down to 3, so there is still hope that they will listen to grampa someday. With the help of our podcast publisher, the DBRP is able to be subscribed to in almost any podcast aggregator app (and there are many), plus Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, GooglePodcasts, iTunes and Apple podcasts, Facebook, YouTube, and soon in Pandora.
I dropped the subscription to the dedicated Android and Apple podcast app, but I see that at least the Android app is still available in the Play Store. On my tablet, I noticed that the Android app is still working just fine. So for some of you, that may still be a hassle-free and advertising free way to listen. I still recommend the Podbean aggregator app for both Android and Apple devices, but it does show advertising while the podcast plays.
There are two more apps from YouVersion (also publishing under the name LifeChurch) that I want to tell you about. The first is Bible Lens. This app makes it easy to put Bible verses with any pictures that you have in your mobile phone or tablet. You are given multiple ways to creatively format the verses, and the output is more artistic than is possible using the verse-image feature that is available inside the YouVersion Bible app. (You see the Image option whenever you highlight a verse.)
The second terrific app from LifeChurch is Bible app for kids. This app is a very engaging way for kids from about 4-8 to listen to and watch Bible stories. The interface is like a game, and your kids will be able to navigate through and play the stories they want themselves.
One of my spiritual fathers, Richard Burson, gave me Sam Shoemaker’s book, Extraordinary Living for Ordinary Man. In that book was Shoemaker’s poem, “I stand by the door.” I will read that poem at the end. [I have edited the poem, and it was already slightly modified by the one who posted it at the website I link to the episode notes.] But here I give just the first lines:
I stand by the door.I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out,The door is the most important door in the world—It is the door through which people walk when they find God.
Not just a few times I have been tempted to be envious of people who have such wonderful ministries to overflowing audiences or who are invited to lead organizations. Somehow, no one has ever chosen me for anything like that. This poem has encouraged me, because it seems like to me that God has called me to take my place near the door Shoemaker talks about. And truthfully, it has surprised me that God gave me an audience through my podcast. And guess what! We find now that ‘the door’ has moved. At the time Shoemaker wrote, the door might have been to a church or an organization like the one Sam Shoemaker founded, where people might come and find answers. Now the door is more often via YouTube, or Stitcher, Facebook, or the app called Whatsapp. God is still calling many people to come to Jesus. So many people are spiritually hungry and searching for answers. Please join me in standing near the door!
Before I read the poem to close this podcast, I want to remind you to follow the link at the top of the episode notes to go to YouTube and subscribe to that channel. Let’s pray that this will help some find ‘the door’.
I stand by the door.I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out,The door is the most important door in the world—It is the door through which people walk when they find God.There’s no use my going way inside, and staying there,When so many are still outside, and they, as much as I,Crave to know where the door is.And all that so many ever findIs only the wall where a door ought to be.They creep along the wall like those who are blind.With outstretched, groping hands,Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,Yet they never find it . . .So I stand by the door.The most tremendous thing in the worldIs for people to find that door—the door to God.The most important thing any one can doIs to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands,And put it on the latch—the latch that only clicksAnd opens to one’s own touch.People die outside that door, as starving beggars dieOn cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter—Die for want of what is within their grasp.[While others//They live,] on the other side of [the door//it]—live because they have found it.Nothing else matters compared to helping [those on the outside//them] find it [too],And open it, and walk in, and find Him . . .So I stand by the door.Go in, great saints, go all the way in—Go way down into the cavernous cellars,And way up into the spacious attics—In a vast, roomy house, this house where God is.Go into the deepest of hidden casements,Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood.Some must inhabit those inner rooms,And know the depths and heights of God,And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.Sometimes I take a deeper look in,Sometimes venture a little farther;But my place seems closer to the opening . . .So I stand by the door.The people too far in do not see how near [some others//these] areTo leaving— [those far-in ones being] preoccupied with the wonder of it all.Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door,But would like to run away. So for them, too,I stand by the door.I admire the people who go way in.But I wish they would not forget how it wasBefore they got in. Then they would be able to helpThe people who have not even found the door,Or the people who want to run away again from God.You can go in too deeply, and stay in too long,And forget the people outside the door.As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,Near enough to God to hear Him, and know He is there,But not so far from people as not to hear them,And remember they are there too.Where [are they]? Outside the door—Thousands of them, millions of them.But—more important for me—One of them, two of them, ten of them,Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch,So I shall stand by the door and waitFor those who seek it.‘I had rather be a door-keeper . . .’So I stand by the door.
Hey Friends! Here is our Christmas letter! This letter shares one major prayer request: We are poised to start distributing a major new Gospel-sharing video in Indonesia. We were involved in translating and recording the narration parts for this production.
View/Download
This is a really quick information podcast, recorded on my phone, because I am leaving for Indonesia in a few hours and I wanted to get this news to you.
The new web site for the JoySightings and DayStarters series WILL BE http://JoySightings.info. I am deleting the 134 episodes of DayStarters immediately, because I think that they are really messing up the search results for lots of listeners. So if you are listening to either of these series, please send me a message and tell me what series and number you were ready to listen to, and I will try to prioritize getting these ready for you. I will delete the 48 JoySightings episodes in a few days.
In a day or two from this posting, I hope that the iTunes/Apple Podcast app subscription link will be at the new web site: JoySightings.info.
For those who don’t know what these two series are, the JoySightings series are primarily a collection of Parables. Most of them are by Safed the Sage (the pen name of William E. Barton) who was a pastor in the Eastern USA over 100 years ago. He wrote his parables for the Sunday School Magazine he edited for the Congregational denomination. Another part of the JoySightings series are two wonderful children’s books by David and Karen Mains, Tales of the Kingdom, and Tales of the Resistance.
The DayStarters series was made at the request of Hannah, our daughter who is currently in Jakarta, Indonesia. She asked last year for 7 minute NT readings and a prayer to be made into separate podcasts. I chose the GNT recording series, and the books that I felt would be best for Ava and Joel who were 8 and 7 years old last year.
I recently moved the GNT series to a new podcast location, which is dailygntbiblereading.info.
One of the main reasons I have separated the original DBRP podcast into 3 podcasts is because of the terrible Apple podcast app, the native app that has the purple icon. For those of you who are using that app, I hope that the changes will eventually help you. But for some, like my son, David, the new GNT podcast when accessed in the Apple Podcast app still is not showing up in the proper order.
In my last news update, I recommended the Podbean app for all those who have trouble seeing the DBRP podcasts in the order you are listening to them. I was wrong about it not showing much advertising. It shows advertising all the time you are listening. However, if you are just listening and the screen is off, you won’t see the advertising. Podbean only shows the most recent 200 episodes, so it can’t find all the episodes for a whole 365 day year.
The very best app for listening to the DBRP (now three different podcasts) may be the one you have on your phone already: your favorite web browser. Just keep a tab perpetually open that has one of our three sites. All three sites will be listed at the original site: dailybiblereading.info.
Here is a link to our most recent letter giving our prayer requests for my time in Indonesia. I was supposed to be on my way today already this morning. But the Lord evidently had different plans. I am thankful for a little more time at home, and for being able to give this news to you just before leaving. My letters are normally posted at the Digging Deeper Daily Facebook group which is also linked here in the episode notes.
Our Facebook group is now replaced by our forum at http://biblereaders.info.
May the Lord bless you ‘real good’.
Hi, friend!
This is to let you know that I have moved the GNT Bible Podcasts (the Good News Bible podcasts) to a new location. The way to subscribe to the GNT podcast series has changed. This is being done primarily to help the many folks who listen via the Apple podcast app or iTunes. This will make it so that listeners of the GNT podcasts won’t have unlistened to NLT podcasts cluttering their display. If you are listening to the NLT series, do nothing. If you listen on the Apple Podcast app,soon you won’t have the GNT podcasts cluttering your display. If you listen to the NLT series, just continue as you have before.
If you are a listener to the GNT series, the new website address just adds GNT to the name: That new GNT website is now DailyGNTBibleReading.info. If you listen on an Apple device, going to that site should present you with a link to subscribe so you can then find the GNT series in the podcast app.
For those of you actually listening to this podcast on an Apple device, open the episode notes and click on the iTunes/Podcast App subscription link, and you will be able to subscribe to the GNT podcast series with another tap. HERE’S the LINK.
This change also means that I am discontinuing the dedicated DBRP podcast apps for Android and Apple. I am not sure how long the current apps will continue to work. (Probably not long.)
If you are using the Android app, then let me suggest that you install a better Android app. And if you would like to join the many people who have ditched the now-broken Apple podcast app, I have the same recommendation for you: I recommend Podbean. Here are some of its great features:
- Podbean works on both Apple and Android.
- It shows nicely formatted episode notes.
- It is easy to follow/subscribe to the either the Daily GNT or the Daily NLT Bible Reading podcast. Just search by the podcast name.
- There are good controls for listening speed and silence reduction, and even optimizing volume.
- You can easily choose episodes to pre-download. I wish the Apple podcast app was this intelligent.
- The app includes almost no advertising. The only advertising I see is for the Pro version which is 99cents per month. You only see that advertising in the settings and probably when requesting certain kinds of content.
- Downside: Podbean won’t list really old episodes. It only shows the most recent 200 episodes. So if someone wants to start listening today starting at episode 1, they won’t find it. People wanting to start from Day 1 should probably use the website.
New info about listening on Alexa:I figured out my problem with getting Alexa to play the DBRP on an Amazon Kindle Fire tablet. The Alexa skill invocation phrise is Daily Bible Reading. That won’t work out of the box. First start the Alexa app with the on-screen icon. Then find the Skills section, and manually type in the name of the skill, Daily Bible Reading. Then and only then will you be able to say, “Alexa, tell Daily Bible reading to play the newest episode.” (Otherwise Alexa keeps wanting to play an Audible Bible recording, which is most annoying.) Other skills are listed right on that page in the Skills section, which can be used for going back or forward x number of episodes, etc.
I will register a new Alexa skill soon for the GNT podcast.
There are many great podcast aggregator apps out there. A quick way to follow the DBRP on many apps is to supply the app with the rss feed (which is a special internet link). The rss feed for each podcast can be found right in the top information bar, among the icons, at our two web sites.
I’ll be leaving for Indonesia on the 11th of September, and be away from home until November 1. I’ll give another update on that soon. See the Digging Deeper facebook group, where I will try to share a picture or two.
Our Facebook group is now replaced by our forum at http://biblereaders.info.
May the Lord bless you ‘real good’!
1CHRONICLES 7:Yesterday we heard about Levite and priestly genealogies and their allotment of towns. The pace quickens as today we hear of six tribes. PROVERBS 16b:Today’s highlighted verse is this: 18 Pride leads to destruction, and arrogance to downfall. EPHESIANS 6:This is another chapter break that interrupts the flow. Yesterday we started a new topic with the words “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” We have heard about the husband-wife relationship under this, and now we hear of two more relationship pairs. GNT Translation notes:Eph. 6:1 Children, it is your [duty as the Lord’s followers//Christian duty] to obey your parents, for this is the right thing to do. [The command,]4 Parents, do not treat your children in such a way as to make them [bitter//angry]. Instead, raise them with [the discipline and instruction approved by the Lord//Christian discipline and instruction]. 16 At all times carry [belief in Christ//faith] as a shield; for with it you will be able to put out all the burning arrows shot by the Evil One.23 [Dear brothers and sisters, my prayer is that//May] God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give [you peace, love and full belief//to all Christians peace and love with faith]. NLT Translation notes:1Chr. 7:21 Zabad, Shuthelah, Ezer, and Elead. These [last] two were killed trying to steal livestock from the local farmers near Gath. ====Eph. 6:10 A[s my] final word: [PET: each one of you, be strong because you keep on hoping completely in the Lord's amazing power, and also because you are joined as one with Him.//NLT Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.] 21-22 [PET: Our beloved brother, Tychicus, has brought this letter to you. He serves the Lord very faithfully as our brother who is joined as one with the Lord. I also sent him so that he could give you news about my situation and ministry, so that you can know about our situation and so that he can strengthen your hearts.//NLT To bring you up to date, Tychicus will give you a full report about what I am doing and how I am getting along. He is a beloved brother and faithful helper in the Lord’s work. 22I have sent him to you for this very purpose—to let you know how we are doing and to encourage you.]
You can access the Categores through the Episodes menu at the original DBRP site: http://dailybiblereading.info
Blog Posts are text-only posts like this one, and they hold the most important information about the DBRP. The About link in this site's menu will give you a directory of these posts.
The main categories for Bible readings are:
GNT devotional Bible readings and NLT devotional Bible readings
The podcasts of the whole Good News Translation we done in twenty16. And the podcasts of the whole New Living Translation were first made in twenty14 and some of them were revised and improved in twenty15 and twenty17.
NET devotional Bible readings is a series that I have just started. These podcasts follow the same Digging Deeper Daily reading plan, but there are two parts to each episode. The first part has a plain number (like zero zero 1, zero zero 2, etc.) and the second part has a number followed by the letter C. The plain numbered episodes follow my normal pattern of 22 minute podcasts— three readings and a prayer. The podcasts numbered zero zero 1C, zero zero 2C, etc., contain extended comments on the readings, which I hope will help you to dig deeper.
JoySightings are for fun! This is where I share my love of parables, and especially those of Safed the Sage. I also have recorded the allegorical Tales of the Kingdom and Tales of the Restoration by David and Karen Mains. The two books by the Mains are great for grade school children, and adults enjoy them too! The parables of Safed are delightful, but they contain King James-styled English that can be difficult for children.
DayStarters Are re-releases of the NT readings from the GN series, and starting with the Gospel of John. These normally run 7-8 minutes, including the intro and the prayer at the end. Our daughter Hannah requested these to be a beginning activity in the home school day for Ava and Joel.
News Posts are audio podcasts where I share information about such things as changes in our listening apps, community information of note, and news about our family and our mission work.
Joy of Translating is a series I began with four podcasts on the translation of Mark 1-2. The episodes include my own translation of those chapters, and more in-depth commentary about the challenges of translating the Bible. I'll get back to this project someday!
Devotional Bible readings is the category I first used from twenty14 to twenty16. I don't recommend you use this category. If you are searching for an episode from that time frame that has not been re-released this year in the GNT or NLT categories, it would be easier to search for the episode you want by number (such as _3 6 5, or NL-DBRP_3 6 5, etc.). [Spaces were introduced so that this post doesn't come up when people search for day numbers.]
You can access the Categores through the Episodes menu at the original DBRP site: http://dailybiblereading.info
Blog Posts are text-only posts like this one, and they hold the most important information about the DBRP. The About link in this site's menu will give you a directory of these posts.
The main categories for Bible readings are:
GNT devotional Bible readings and NLT devotional Bible readings
The podcasts of the whole Good News Translation we done in twenty16. And the podcasts of the whole New Living Translation were first made in twenty14 and some of them were revised and improved in twenty15 and twenty17.
NET devotional Bible readings is a series that I have just started. These podcasts follow the same Digging Deeper Daily reading plan, but there are two parts to each episode. The first part has a plain number (like zero zero 1, zero zero 2, etc.) and the second part has a number followed by the letter C. The plain numbered episodes follow my normal pattern of 22 minute podcasts— three readings and a prayer. The podcasts numbered zero zero 1C, zero zero 2C, etc., contain extended comments on the readings, which I hope will help you to dig deeper.
JoySightings are for fun! This is where I share my love of parables, and especially those of Safed the Sage. I also have recorded the allegorical Tales of the Kingdom and Tales of the Restoration by David and Karen Mains. The two books by the Mains are great for grade school children, and adults enjoy them too! The parables of Safed are delightful, but they contain King James-styled English that can be difficult for children.
DayStarters Are re-releases of the NT readings from the GN series, and starting with the Gospel of John. These normally run 7-8 minutes, including the intro and the prayer at the end. Our daughter Hannah requested these to be a beginning activity in the home school day for Ava and Joel.
News Posts are audio podcasts where I share information about such things as changes in our listening apps, community information of note, and news about our family and our mission work.
Joy of Translating is a series I began with four podcasts on the translation of Mark 1-2. The episodes include my own translation of those chapters, and more in-depth commentary about the challenges of translating the Bible. I'll get back to this project someday!
Devotional Bible readings is the category I first used from twenty14 to twenty16. I don't recommend you use this category. If you are searching for an episode from that time frame that has not been re-released this year in the GNT or NLT categories, it would be easier to search for the episode you want by number (such as _3 6 5, or NL-DBRP_3 6 5, etc.). [Spaces were introduced so that this post doesn't come up when people search for day numbers.]
What's special about the Digging Deeper reading plan?
It is important to consider what plan to follow in reading the Bible! I find I can't share about this without telling my age and sounding like I am boasting, so here goes: I will soon be 66 and have read the whole Bible yearly for the last 46 years. I know from experience that some reading plans are not fun to follow. That is why I designed this plan to be practical and doable— taking only 20 minutes per day to finish the whole Bible in a year. And these things make the DBRP plan unique and interesting:
- Each day there is a reading from Old Testament poetry, and those books are taken in Bible order starting with Job and ending with Isaiah.
- In the first half of the year, the DBRP plan tells the Old Testament story in its logical and chronological order— which is also the ordering given in the Bible. In the second half of the year, some retelling of history (starting with 1st Chronicles) is mixed in with the major prophets of Jeremiah and Ezekiel— so that correspondences between what was foretold and the fulfillment are more easily seen.
- I like a plan that gives you something from the New Testament every day. I have arranged the New Testament books according to chronological and thematic considerations and with the Gospels spread out during the year. My goal was to help the reader see correspondences between the Old and New Testaments and follow themes in the New Testament. For instance, the Gospel written for the Jewish audience— Matthew, is followed by NT letters directed to the same audience.
- Cohesion and Seeing Correspondences: The DBRP plan begins the year with the Bible's oldest book (Job), plus the story of the beginning of the world (Genesis), and the earliest written Gospel (Mark). At the end of the year, stunning correspondences can be seen between the minor prophets, Isaiah, and the book of Revelation. If you listen to the podcasts, I give brief introductions to each reading— reminding you of what has gone before and pointing out correspondences that show the amazing unity in God's Word.
- Convenience: The integration of our Digging Deeper Daily reading plan in the YouVersion Bible reading app makes it easy to keep track of your reading progress using any smart device. Our own DBRP podcast app for Android and Apple devices makes it easy to automate listening to the podcasts. See how to get the DBRP app for your device by scrolling down on the landing page of this site. The Bible app and the listening app make it easy to do what you want— whether that be to just read the plan, just listen to the podcasts, or do both at the same time. If you will be reading along in a real printed Bible, you can print the reading plan that is currently found in the ReadMe First PDF file linked in the header of the dailybiblereading.info site.
There are basically four types of Bible products: I urge that everyone have a literal translation (like ESV, NASB), because literal translations show you the word-for-word form of the original text. Because of being literal, such translations cannot give you a good impression of the overall meaning of the text expressed in natural English. So I urge that everyone also read a meaning-based translation (like GNT/NLT), which will show you what the text means in natural English. (Meaning-based translations are sometimes called dynamic or free translations.)
Literal translations mirror the form of the original language in an almost word for word manner, but cannot always give the meaning of the original language text in natural English.
Meaning-based translations give the meaning of the original language text in natural English, but cannot mirror the form of the original language.
The two other types: The Living Bible is a paraphrase, and is sometimes too free/dynamic and sometimes does not completely capture the correct meaning. The Message is even worse! Finally, the fourth type of Bible product are mixed translations—half-way between literal translations and meaning-based translations (like the NIV and HCSB). They tend to be literal when the meaning of a literal translation can be understood. They may be quite free and dynamic where a literal translation would be hard to understand. The difficulty is that the reader will not know which verses are translated literally and which are translated freely/dynamically. Which one do I suggest for reading through the Bible in a year? I urge that you pick one of the two meaning-based translations mentioned above. This kind of translation will encourage you to keep going in your daily readings, because the text of the Bible will make sense to you. I can just hear someone saying, “Well, I understand my literal translation perfectly well!” That is often true for the portions that you generally read, or the passages that are often quoted in church meetings. But if you read all of the Bible, there are places where you will have difficulty understanding properly in a literal translation. Let me give you three examples for you to compare between the above two kinds of translations: Isaiah 7:18-25, Ecclesiastes 12:1-8. There many places in the New Testament where a modern English reader will assume they understand, but often do not understand properly. The topic sentence of Romans in chapter 1:16-17 is a good example. Note that every Christian still needs access to a good literal translation: You will want your literal translation any time you are doing in depth study, and usually you will want to take it with you to your church meetings.
I count it a great privilege to have been at a Bible translation conference led by the Bible Society of Indonesia where Bob Bratcher was teaching on 2nd Peter. Dr. Bratcher was the lead translator for the Today's English Version, which was renamed as the Good News Bible, and then finally renamed again as the Good News Translation. Bob talked of the controversies that his translation caused in 1966, and I relate this story because some of you may have heard negative things about this translation. At the time the TEV came out, the Bible-reading public was not yet accustomed to using different kinds of translations. They were used to the King James. The RSV had been published but was also a cause for controversy and poorly received by conservatives. One thing that helped the popularity of the TEV was that the paperback edition of the New Testament could be purchased for just 25 cents in the late 60s. So the TEV paved the way to the Christian public accepting other translations. However, as Bratcher told us, it was really the emergence of the Living Bible that taught people that it is OK to have more than one Bible. As it happens, in his work with the United Bible Societies, Bratcher also produced many Bible Translation Handbooks for Bible translators, especially for the New Testament books. These books have been a huge aid to all Bible translators, and another reason why the TEV/GNT has had a significant impact on many Bible translations all over the world— including translations like the NIV and the NLT. If you want to see dig deeper concerning a certain passage, the UBS Translation Handbooks (available via the Logos Bible software) give translational alternatives and insight into the GNT renderings.
After many years reading other translations in my devotions, in twenty15-16 I read the GNT again. It was interesting for me to come back to it after so many years of not reading it. As a teenager, I can remember thinking that it was ‘wordy’, because I was used to the RSV. But now that I have worked as a Bible translator and have read the NLT, I no longer feel the GNT is wordy or unnatural in its expression. I also note that somewhere along the line, someone has revised a few of the verses that caused criticism. The GNT is not quite so dynamic as the NLT. This now-neglected translation is a wonderful one to choose for a year's study of the Bible. I think every English-speaking Christian should read all of the GNT at least once in their life.
Here's a great article by Andy Naselli: How not to Argue about Which Bible Translation is Best
These sites will help you dig deeper!
And please share the results or questions from your digging at facebook.com/groups/DBRPdiggingdeeper/.
lumina.bible.org Lumina.Bible includes these translations: New English Translation (NET), ESV, HCSB, International Standard Version, and NASB. This site makes it easy to view the 60,000 footnotes in the NET. You can see the original Hebrew and Greek and each word is defined for you, and if you are viewing the NET, you can see how each word is translated. And don't miss Thomas Constable's Notes on every book of the Bible! This is a treasure of 40 years of scholarly research by Thomas L. Constable, who retired from Dallas Theological Seminary in 2011. One of the great features of Constable's Notes is that he quotes for so many other great resources. Register for an ID and the site will remember your colored highlights, the content of your tabs, and the notes you make! My WORDsearch Bible The main reason I come to this site is to access the Holman (HCSB) Study Bible, which is accessed via the Library icon on the left. Researching the meaning of source language words is easy to do. Register for an ID and the site will remember your colored highlights, the content of your tabs, and the notes you make! biblehub.com If you click on a blue verse number at this site, you will get a comparison page that shows that verse in all of their translations, and then it gives you several older commentaries. I often find useful information in the Pulpit Commentary, and not so much in Matthew Henry. In verse comparison mode, click on the Hebrew or Greek heading and you will see a very useful interlinear page for the verse. I find this especially useful for OT Hebrew verses. (The word order is top to bottom, not right to left!) BibleWebApp This site is great for studying Hebrew or Greek, especially Greek. Also, if you are looking for other languages, this site has a huge list. (Our TSI Plain Indonesian is not yet one of them.) bible.faithlife.com This site includes the Lexham English Bible (LEB) and the Faithlife Study Bible from Logos. The study Bible includes information from distinguished scholars. They are sometimes not as conservative as the two study sites that lead this list. Another very useful site for researching the original biblical texts: blueletterbible.org
For versions, you can also check out BibleGateway.com.
And for commentaries check out StudyLight.org.