What’s been on my mind lately…

The most important message I picked up from today’s readings overall is God sees everything I’m going through and will sort it all out for my ultimate good.

My primary takeaway from each of the passages was this:

• Deuteronomy 1 & 2: Moses recounts the defeat of the Amorites, the time the Israelites lost faith at Kadesh, the instructions from God at Kadesh, the journey from Kadesh to the Arnon, and the conquest of the kingdom of Sihon. 
• John 9: Jesus heals a man on the sabbath who has been blind since birth.
• Psalms 77: A meditation on the distress of Israel during their time wandering through the desert.
• Proverbs 15: “The eyes of Yahweh are everywhere; observing the wicked and the good.”

In John 9, Jesus heals yet another person on the sabbath. As we near the end of the gospels, it almost seems as if Jesus only healed people on the sabbath, just to get a rise out of the Pharisees. It seems obvious that he was trying to drive home an important point in doing this. He has already stated that the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. That’s his first point. His other point, and perhaps the most important one, is that if one uses the law to prevent them from doing good, then the law is useless. Any day is a good day for doing good and alleviating the suffering of others.

There’s another important point in this chapter. The story suggests that in that time people assumed that anyone who suffered from any kind of infirmity from birth had somehow sinned, or was being punished for the sins of his parents, or grandparents, or someone even further back. In the book of Deuteronomy, in the old testament (in a chapter we’ll be reading in just a few days), there is a verse that says “for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me” (Deuteronomy 5:8-10) However, later in Ezekiel 18, that is all undone: “The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.” (Ezekiel 18:20) Apparently, the Pharisees and Jews of Jesus’ time were cherry picking the scriptures for what suited them in the moment.

Jesus seems to have chosen to heal this particular man, who had been blind from birth, just to provoke this discussion and make the point that everyone only suffers for their own sins, not the sins of others; and anyone can ask for God’s help and receive it, regardless of their circumstances. Additionally, physical infirmities are not the result of sin. They’re the result of genetics, accidents, illnesses, and injuries. Think of all the people you know who are not good who have perfect health. Think of all the good people you know who are suffering in some way. There’s an entire school of philosophy that deals with “Why bad things happen to good people.” This is one of the reasons why.

My husband’s first wife (who died in 1998) was diabetic and had ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease). At one church they went to for a long time, the pastor had the audacity to tell her that she must have sinned or she wouldn’t be sick. That was in the present day. There are so-called Christians out in the world right now who tell people that. Apparently, they haven’t read this passage in John 9. Treating people that way, and telling them that their infirmity is the result of sin is at best wrong and misguided, and at worst it is pure evil. That is the kind of thing that Jesus came to put an end to.

Psalm 77 is a meditation on Israel’s past, but it could also be a prayer for any time we find ourselves wandering in a  spiritual desert and in distress.

Proverbs 15 is full of meditations on upright behavior, and wisdom and foolishness. My favorite verse in this chapter is one that helps me when I’m in a situation like the one Jesus was in here in John 9, and I’m witnessing people calling good evil and evil good: “The eyes of Yahweh are everywhere; observing the wicked and the good.” (verse 3) When things seem unfair and I am being treated unjustly, it’s good to remember that God sees everything and he knows what’s really going on. I don’t have to worry about it, because God will sort it all out later.

That’s what I got out of it. What did you get out of the readings today?

To participate in a discussion about the posts, please join us in our private Facebook group that I set up specifically for sharing what we take-away from the readings each day.

If you haven’t gotten the FREE “Read the Bible in a Year” worksheet yet, you can download it here. It is not necessary for you to start on January 1st–you can start from the beginning on whatever date you get the worksheet. Join us!

Learn more about why I read the Bible all the way through every year, and feel free to share with anyone you think could benefit. 

This post is part of the series, “Read the Bible in a Year.”

To see other posts in this series, go to the Chronological Index of Read the Bible in a Year Posts.

The most important message I picked up from today’s readings overall is faith in God provides with me security and a refuge.

My primary takeaway from each of the passages was this:

• Numbers 35 & 36:  The portion allotted to the Levites (priests), cities of refuge, and the inheritance of widows.
• John 8: Jesus forgives the adulterous woman, and then makes the bold proclamation that he is the Son of God.
• Psalms 76: A prayer of praise to the awe-inspiring God.
• Proverbs 14: “In the fear of Yahweh is powerful security; for his children he is a refuge.”

Here at the end of the book of Numbers, we learn about how the Levites (priests) are taken care of, since they do not receive land. We also learn about the inheritance of widows, set up so that the land they inherit from their husbands will not pass out of their husband’s clan.

We also learn about cities of refuge. In the world of the old testament, the rule of “an eye for an eye” was the prevailing law. If someone was killed, either intentionally or accidentally, it was the right of the family of the dead person to take revenge on those who killed him. The creation of cities of refuge and the laws surrounding them provided a safe place for someone who accidentally killed another person to live out their lives without interference. While in the cities of refuge, these people were safe from vendettas. All throughout the Psalms we see prayers and songs that refer literally and metaphorically to the cities of refuge. The creation of these cities was the beginning of the end of “an eye for an eye,” although it was a traditional practice that was so hard to kill that Jesus was still talking about it twelve hundred years later.

In John 8 we come to the story of the woman who is caught in the act of committing adultery. The punishment for that crime in that time was death by stoning. However, the men who have her in custody bring her to Jesus first because they are still trying to trap him into saying something that blatantly violates their laws. They ask him what he has to say. Without saying anything, he squats down to the floor and starts writing on the ground with his finger.

No one knows what he was writing. There have been great debates in the Christian community about what he was doing, but nothing has ever been determined to be definitive, and in fact it was never recorded. Some think he was using the time to think about what to say. Others think he was writing the names of the men in the group who had brought the woman in, who were also guilty of adultery. We don’t really have any idea what he was doing.

But we do know what he said: “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” This hearkens back to Matthew 7:5 when he says, “You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

One by one each of them leaves, leaving the woman there by herself. Jesus asks the woman who is there to accuse her now, and she says, “No one.” He tells her that neither does he accuse her, and to go and sin no more.

Jesus seemed particularly offended by hypocrites. For a woman to be caught in the act of adultery, there had to have been a man who was caught in the act with her. But where was the man? He wasn’t in danger of being stoned. They only took the woman; only accused the woman. That was an enormous double standard that persists to this day.

There is no criminal penalty for adultery in our society, but women pay the price regularly for the indiscretions of men. Women who are raped, or who get pregnant out of wedlock, or who are sexually harassed at work or elsewhere, regularly (and usually) suffer the indignity of being accused of having done something to deserve it. Even today, in the twenty-first century, men are not held accountable for their actions when it comes to sexual indiscretions. Jesus is right here among us saying the same thing to those men as he said to the ones we’re reading about today in John 8, two thousand years ago. This is one of the many ways in which Jesus was a great feminist. He advocated for women and sought to liberate them from the oppression and double standards that existed at that time, and he did it through scenes like this one. He didn’t work only to liberate women, but to liberate everyone who was experiencing this level of injustice or hypocrisy. It is one of the many ways in which he fulfilled the prophecy in Isaiah, when he said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.” (Luke 4:18)

After this, Jesus continues speaking, and enters into a dialogue with the Jews remaining in the temple after the woman had left. This may be one of the most difficult books in the Bible for many to read. There are a lot of people out there who think of Jesus as a prophet, or a revolutionary, or a holy man, or great philosopher, but not as the Son of God. Many of them actually say, “Jesus never claimed to be God.” However, here in John 8 we see that he clearly did make that claim, and in no uncertain terms.

Jesus also talks about the devil, which is another uncomfortable topic for many people who consider themselves to be rational, intelligent people (myself included). He not only acknowledges the existence of the devil, but he accuses the people he’s talking to (and those who identify with them, or resemble them) of being children of the devil. Oofda! He does not mince words. It’s difficult to impossible to misinterpret what he is saying, here.

In the twenty-first century, many people find it difficult to impossible to believe in the devil, even if they do believe in God; especially the way that some people teach about them. There are still people out there teaching about God and the devil as literal personifications that are embodied in an old man with a white beard sitting on a throne in an actual physical location in the heavens, and a red human figure with horns, hoofs, a forked tongue, and a tail with an arrow on the end of it.

I do not visualize either God or the devil in those ways. For me, those personifications don’t even work as metaphors, although they apparently did and do work for some, and for thousands of years as well as in the present day. If those personifications work for you, great–whatever works for you.

As for myself, I have too much education and scientific experience for those personifications to work for me. However, I also have too much life experience and personal experience of things that I cannot explain with pure science to deny the existence of something that is much greater than myself, and which has manifested itself physically in my life, and the lives of countless millions of others throughout history and in the present.

What I do visualize is two opposing forces much like the yin and yang, in which a great battle between good and evil is raging underneath our entire physical reality. Alan Watts called this the game of black and white. Occasionally, it breaks right into our physical reality. I believe Jesus was one of those incidences of it breaking into our physical reality. He actually existed, and this is documented in history. His time here on Earth, his teachings, and his influence changed the course of western history, and is so embedded in it that the way we divide historical time was affected by it.* It also changed the course of millions of lives in ways we can’t fully explain or understand. All we can do is try to do our best to live out that change and that reality in a way that helps others to experience the positively life-altering experience we’ve had, so that others can experience it also. If we do it the way Jesus taught us to do it, then it will only do good and no harm.

So, Jesus makes the bold claim that he is the Son of God, and he also makes the bold claim that those who refuse to recognize that he is the Son of God, or at least that he is here to do good in the name of God, are children of the devil. Before you dismiss that as nonsense, I would encourage you to read all four gospels. It’s worth knowing exactly what you’re dismissing before doing so. Make an informed decision.

Throughout the gospels, we see that Jesus is constantly provoking the Pharisees and Jews who cling to the law of Moses but don’t live it out in spirit. He actively works to prick their conscience so that it will convict them of their own hypocrisy. However, now we see that in the book of John, Jesus is not only provoking them, he is provoking US in the same way! How do we respond when we read this book? Do we agree with him? Do we recognize him for who he is? Do we see that there is a dark force that holds many people firmly in its grip, such that they betray themselves and those around them by calling evil good and good evil? Jesus talked about that in all three of the previous gospels, calling it the only unforgivable sin. Everything else we do is forgivable, no matter how bad; but failing to allow our eyes to be opened to what is truly good and what is truly evil, and–even worse–claiming evil is good and good is evil, is apparently something from which we can never recover.

In all of the previous Read the Bible in a Year blog posts, I’ve just given you my reflections on the reading and what I get out of it. Today I have a bigger question for you: Where do you stand on the issue of who Jesus was and is? Where do you stand on the issue of good versus evil? Can you recognize the difference when you see it? I think this is the most important issue you, or any of us, will ever be confronted with in our lives. Think about it. If you want to talk about it, you can post to our Private Facebook group, or you can just email me about it directly if you don’t want to have a group discussion. Or you can just pray about it. But don’t ignore it. The Holy Spirit has a way of chasing people down until they deal with this issue.

In Psalms 76 we find a prayer of praise to the awe-inspiring God.

In Proverbs 14 we make a full circle back to the last chapters in Numbers. In this set of proverbs, we find one that refers to God being a refuge for his children. We also find a full circle back to John 8, as there are several verses that talk about telling the truth, not telling lies, and recognizing the life-giving truth of God.

That’s what I got out of it. What did you get out of the readings today?

To participate in a discussion about the posts, please join us in our private Facebook group that I set up specifically for sharing what we take-away from the readings each day.

If you haven’t gotten the FREE “Read the Bible in a Year” worksheet yet, you can download it here. It is not necessary for you to start on January 1st–you can start from the beginning on whatever date you get the worksheet. Join us!

Learn more about why I read the Bible all the way through every year, and feel free to share with anyone you think could benefit. 

This post is part of the series, “Read the Bible in a Year.”

To see other posts in this series, go to the Chronological Index of Read the Bible in a Year Posts.

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*BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini, which in Latin means “In the year of our Lord”). After two thousands years of this Christian bias in the world of history and historians, BC and AD were replaced by BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (the Common Era).

The most important message I picked up from today’s readings overall is denying the truth does not protect me from the consequences of the truth.

My primary takeaway from each of the passages was this:

• Numbers 33 & 34: A recounting of the entire journey from Ramses in Egypt to their final destination, still ahead of them, in Canaan. Instructions to wipe out the inhabitants of the land as they enter, and destroy all of their idols and symbols. 
• John 7: No one who heard the words of Jesus is immune from their effect. Everyone who came in contact with him had a decision to make.
• Psalms 75: “At the appointed time I myself shall dispense justice.”
• Proverbs 13: “The upright hates a lying word, but the wicked slanders and defames.”

In Numbers 33 and 34 we encounter one of the unpalatable recurring themes in the old testament: God telling the Israelites to take possession of the land and wipe out the inhabitants. Considering that “history is written by the victors,” it is difficult to know whether God really told them to do that and they justified themselves after the fact, or perhaps God really did tell them to do that because the inhabitants of Canaan needed to be wiped out. Throughout the entire journey from Egypt to this point, the Israelites have repeatedly encountered peoples with abhorrent practices (child sacrifice, for example). Perhaps the Canaanites were guilty of similar abominations. We’ll never know because they were wiped out by the Israelites and can’t speak for themselves now. Meanwhile, I like to consider all the potential variables and reasons for stories like these in the old testament which are so difficult to digest, and for which we don’t have all the facts or complete context. The most important thing about these chapters, for our purposes, is that they are setting us up to watch the Israelites finally enter the Promised Land.

Coincidentally, there’s a clue in John 7 about why (or if) God might have told the Israelites to wipe out the Canaanites. In verse 7, Jesus says, “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil.” As we’ve discussed previously, John is different than the other three gospels. Not only do we see in this book a version of Jesus that is more mystic and spiritual, we also see a version of him that is more angry and exacting. He’s already cleared the temple of the money changers, and now he’s talking about how his mere presence is what angers those in power because it convicts their consciences of the sins and crimes of which they are guilty. Again, “A hit dog hollers.”

In this chapter, Jesus’ “brothers”* encourage him to go speak out in the open. As of late, he has taken to avoiding crowds, especially in Jerusalem, because the Pharisees want to arrest and kill him. He tells them that his time has not yet come, speaking of the fact that he will soon be crucified, but he still has work to do before that happens. Then, the next thing we see is that he IS out in the open preaching again. He starts teaching right in the temple, a place sure to draw the negative attention he was just saying he wanted to avoid.

In the temple, the Jews ask him where he learned to read. It was uncommon at that time for a common laborer to be literate. He answers that his teaching comes from God, and is beyond human education. He also accuses them of being hypocrites because of their criticism of him healing someone on the sabbath. He tells them that they hide behind the law of Moses to defend themselves and their actions, but they do not follow the law of Moses (the spirit of the law).

The people talk amongst themselves about whether he could be the messiah. Jesus responds by speaking of his coming departure from this world. He also speaks to them about the living water they will receive once he’s gone (speaking of the Holy Spirit).

In the crowd are men that were sent to arrest them, but they go back to the authorities empty handed. When asked why they didn’t arrest Jesus, they respond that they had never heard anyone speak the way he did. Jesus’ influence was spreading to everyone who heard him, and he was having an effect even on those sent to arrest him.

Psalms 75 gives us basically the same thing that Jesus says in John 7:16-19 and 21-24. The entire psalm is about the Universal judge (God), who will dispense justice at the appointed time. Jesus could have quoted this psalm when he was talking to the crowd in Jerusalem in John 7.

In Proverbs 13:5, we find a verse that condemns those who were seeking to kill Jesus in John 7. When Jesus told them that they hide behind the law of Moses but don’t abide by it, he could have quoted this verse to them. Their own scriptures convicted them.

That’s what I got out of it. What did you get out of the readings today?

To participate in a discussion about the posts, please join us in our private Facebook group that I set up specifically for sharing what we take-away from the readings each day.

If you haven’t gotten the FREE “Read the Bible in a Year” worksheet yet, you can download it here. It is not necessary for you to start on January 1st–you can start from the beginning on whatever date you get the worksheet. Join us!

Learn more about why I read the Bible all the way through every year, and feel free to share with anyone you think could benefit. 

This post is part of the series, “Read the Bible in a Year.”

To see other posts in this series, go to the Chronological Index of Read the Bible in a Year Posts.

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* According to the footnotes in my New Jerusalem Bible, these could have been his actual brothers or his cousins. 

The most important message I picked up from today’s readings overall is if I choose Jesus, it’s because he chose me first.

My primary takeaway from each of the passages was this:

• Numbers 31 & 32:  A holy war against Midian, the slaughtering of women, distribution of the booty, and allocation of Transjordan. 
• John 6: The magical math of Jesus, feeding thousands, walking on water, and the foreshadowing of the later betrayal by Judas. Jesus
• Psalms 74: A lament for the sacking of the Temple by the army of Nebuchadnezzar, and a good prayer for when we feel that we have been sacked by some catastrophe in our lives. A call for God to rise up and show our enemies who he is.
• Proverbs 12: “In the way of uprightness is life, the ways of the vengeful lead to death.”

Numbers 31 and 32 are yet more chapters in the old testament that remind us these books were written a long time ago in a land far away, where the cultural practices were brutal, punitive, and not particularly fair. Women always got a bad rap back then, and were blamed for everything that men did wrong. We see this all the way back to the Garden of Eden, where Eve is blamed for everything that Adam does wrong. When I read books like this, I like to think that one of the purposes of these stories is to show me that humans are terribly flawed and if the Israelites could be God’s chosen people despite their flaws, then so can I. As mentioned before, the old testament has a lot of rules and no mercy. Thank God for Jesus and the new testament.

The stories in the book of John are full of the mysticism of Jesus. In today’s chapter we get a retelling of the miracle of the loaves and the fishes, in which Jesus takes a young boy’s lunch and multiplies it to feed thousands, and with enough left over to fill twelve baskets. Jesus also expounds in this chapter on his purpose, and how God has given him a flock to care for, and he will not lose a single one that was entrusted to his care. He speaks of every follower who chooses him as having been foreordained to do so, and every follower who chooses to leave him as also being foreordained to do so. But the part that sticks out to me the most in what he is saying is that no matter what I do, if God meant for me to follow Jesus, no matter what mistakes I make or how far I stray at times, Jesus has a firm grip on me and is not going to let me out of his sight; I am safe.

When some of his followers do choose to leave him in this chapter, he looks to the twelve apostles and asks them if they are going to leave, too. Peter responds by saying, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.” In my own life, there have been many times when things were going so badly for me that I wondered, “What’s the point of following Jesus? Nothing is better. In fact, in many ways, things are often worse.” And then I have the same response that as Peter did: “Where would I go? You are the one with the words of life.” In “The Silver Chair,” one of the books in the Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, Puddleglum says to the evil witch who is trying to convince them that Aslan and Narnia do not exist, “You may be right, there may not be an overworld, no sun or stars or trees, no grass under your feet. There may be no world except your world here in this underworld. There may be no Aslan. This may be the only real world and you are the queen of all there is. But I would rather believe in the land of Narnia and in Aslan and all that is above this world and live in a fantasy. I would rather believe in Narnia and in Aslan than believe you.”

I would rather believe in God and Jesus than a world without them. They give me hope in what is possible when things are at their worst. To not believe is to despair. I would rather believe that if I get lost in my own hopelessness, Jesus will come looking for me and won’t stop until he finds me and safely escorts me back to safety. That’s what Jesus is telling us in this chapter.

That hearkens back to his parable of the one stray sheep, and the shepherd leaving the ninety-nine sheep to rescue the the stray; and the story of the prodigal son. These two stories are directly connected to what Jesus is saying in chapter 6 verses 34-40.

Jesus also talks about being the bread of life, and almost sounds as though he is speaking of cannibalism when he talks about eating the bread of his body and the drinking of his blood. These were, of course, symbolic gestures. However, that was meant to antagonize the Jews for whom eating any kind of meat that had not had the blood thoroughly removed was repugnant and an abomination. Jesus is teaching them something completely new (new wine in new wineskins).

In the other three gospels, when Jesus performs miracles, there is a lean, straightforward, accounting of the facts of the matter. But in John we get Jesus’ private thoughts on the events, as if John knew what they were. Of course, since the gospels were written long after the events they recount, all four authors were able to write the stories with hindsight, which did include the disciples’ intimate knowledge of Jesus and his plans, intentions, and private conversations. These stories were told and retold over and over again as oral histories before they were written down. The storytelling tradition that became the book of John is the one that included these annotations of Jesus’ thoughts and intentions. You can read about the origins of the book of John, and the reasons it is so different from the other three gospels, here.

However, this isn’t meant to be an in-depth analysis of the history of these books in the Bible. I find the histories very useful when reading the Bible, but I am always more interested in how the words hit me in the moment I am reading them. Later, in Hebrews 4:12, we will read that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” That’s what I feel when I am reading the Bible. Invariably, whatever I’m reading from the scriptures on any given day illuminates and clarifies my thinking when considering the events of the previous day, and how I should respond to and take action concerning those events.

The mystical nature of the writing in the book of John reminds me that there is something much bigger and more important than myself in the Universe, and that I am not in control. It also reminds me that there are forces at work that I can’t see but that I can feel, and which do influence my life. It reminds me to commit my concerns to prayer, and to put myself in the hands of God. From that position I am much more able to make good decisions and act from a calm, reasoned demeanor when doing so.

In Psalms 74, we find a lament for the sacking of the temple by the army of Nebuchadnezzar, and a good prayer for when we feel that we have been sacked by some catastrophe in our lives. It is a call for God to rise up and show our enemies who he is.

In Proverbs 12, we find a litany of advice and wisdom about being diligent in our work, keeping our own counsel, and letting God be our champion when we experience injustice. Revenge is not for us to seek, but for God to exact for us. Karma eventually overtakes us all, good or bad.

That’s what I got out of it. What did you get out of the readings today?

To participate in a discussion about the posts, please join us in our private Facebook group that I set up specifically for sharing what we take-away from the readings each day.

If you haven’t gotten the FREE “Read the Bible in a Year” worksheet yet, you can download it here. It is not necessary for you to start on January 1st–you can start from the beginning on whatever date you get the worksheet. Join us!

Learn more about why I read the Bible all the way through every year, and feel free to share with anyone you think could benefit. 

This post is part of the series, “Read the Bible in a Year.”

To see other posts in this series, go to the Chronological Index of Read the Bible in a Year Posts.