Category: Bible Reading

Letters from Home

Augustine of Hippo (350-430 AD), one of the early Church Fathers, and a deeply respected theologian and philosopher, once said about the Bible, “The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home.”

If you’ve ever lived far from home, you know the power of that statement. When you are on the other side of the country (or the other side of the world) and you get a letter from home — you treasure every word. You pore over it again and again. Those words reconnect you with your loved ones.

Paul encourages young pastor Timothy to treasure every word of the Bible like a letter from home. In the previous verses, he has just reminded Timothy that he lives in a world that is not friendly territory for the Christ-follower. He says, “There will be terrible times in the last days… in fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:1, 12, NIV).

But as Timothy lives like a stranger in a strange and hostile land, he can stay connected to his Father through these letters from home. Timothy had grown up in the scriptures. They were familiar territory to him. And this was not the time to abandon them. Rather, he should double-down on them.

Paul explains why. The Bible is useful. And the Bible is inspired. If Timothy wants to be wise and ready for eternal salvation, he simply needs to keep on studying the Bible. If Timothy wants to know the things that will make him wise for life right here, right now, he can read the Bible and meditate on it.

There’s nothing like the Bible to show us the truth, and keep us safe from self-deception, the world’s myths, and the devil’s lies.

There’s nothing like the written word of God for exposing our personal rebellion against God, for correcting our mistakes, or for training us to live God’s way.

Better yet, there’s nothing like the gospel to point out Jesus’ love for rebellious sinners, Jesus’ willingness to pay the price for our mistakes, or Jesus’ self-sacrificial kindness in taking our place and living God’s way on our behalf.

These letters from home remind us where we came from and whose we are. And they show us how to get home again from this strange, hostile land we now live in.

“But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:14-17, NIV).

Lord, help me to continue in what I have learned from you in the Bible. Help me to stay convinced by your Spirit’s power that Jesus is my Lord and my Savior. Help me to place full confidence in your word, and to know that it is truly useful to me.

Our Bible reading for Saturday, October 24, is Jeremiah 50:11 – 51:14, 2 Timothy 3:1-17 and Psalm 119:89-96.

Header image based on "Letter from Kenya" by Jeff Turner, CC By 2.0

Memorize and Meditate

Sadly, both memorization and meditation have become lost arts in today’s world.

Stephanie Weisman, author of the book, The Secrets of Top Students, and founder of the valedictoriansguide.com, writes about the serious consequences, “Memorization has gotten a bad rap recently. Lots of students, and even some educators, say that being able to reason is more important than knowing facts; and besides, why bother committing things to memory when you’ve got Google?”

Stephanie continues, “My response to this – after I’ve finished inwardly groaning – is that of course reasoning is important, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know facts as well. It’s not like you have to choose between one or the other. Besides, facts give you a foundation on which to reason about things.”

That last statement is so important: “Facts give us a foundation on which to reason about things.”

The author of Psalm 119 would have supported that. Clearly he believed in memorization: “I have hidden your word in my heart.”

And just as importantly, he also knew the value of meditation: “I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways.”

So what is your memorization plan to “hide” some of God’s word in your own heart? Do you have a list of 5 or 10 key verses that you’d like to always have at your fingertips because you’ve got them memorized?

And what is your meditation plan? Do you have a regularly planned “quiet time” each day when you can simply reflect on God’s words and promises?

The practical advice offered us in Psalm 119 would suggest that it would be extremely wise to weave both memorizing and meditating into the daily fabric of our lives.

Looking for a place to start? Here are a few passages that I really enjoy, and find useful for meditation:

“I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Praise be to you, Lord; teach me your decrees. With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth. I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches. I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word” (Psalm 119:10-16, NIV).

Lord, help me to hide your word in my heart, meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. I want to seek you with all my heart, as the Psalmist did. I want to remain on the path of your commands. And most of all, Jesus, I want to know your grace and forgiveness, won for me at the cross.

Our Bible reading for Saturday, October 10, is Jeremiah 21:1 – 23:8, 1 Thessalonians 2:17 – 3:13 and Psalm 119:9-16.

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Grow Deep Roots

Never be satisfied. There’s always more to do. There’s constantly another another step to take… to understand and deepen the peace you are experiencing, and to take hold of and grasp ever more firmly the grace God extends to you.

Realize, to know Jesus as your Lord — you have been given a huge gift! Now, Paul says, don’t stop there. Keep on going. And keep on growing.

You believe. Now, actually live in him. Send deep roots down into Jesus — study his life, his heart and his words — as if you were a tree and he is the most fertile soil you could imagine. And as you do that, Jesus will flow through you, building you up spiritually and extending your influence like branches stretching out into the sky.

It’s the word of God that makes this life in Christ possible. As you are taught from the Bible, the word will strengthen you. The gospel will fill your heart with deep gratitude.

And with increasing intensity the peace of God will fill your heart and mind. God’s grace will more and more become your life’s driving force.

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (Colossians 2:6-7, NIV).

Lord, keep me going, and keep me growing, so that my faith in you and your promises gets stronger each day. Help me to make time to read and study my Bible, because your word is the power for me to grow deeper roots into you, Jesus.

Our Bible reading for Tuesday, October 6, is Jeremiah 11:18 – 13:27, Colossians 2:6-23 and Psalm 118:1-16.

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Get Your Bucket!

Isaiah does something interesting as he writes. At certain points in his prophetic narrative he breaks into songs of praise. Isaiah 12 is one of those places where he switches from prophecy to worship.

Writing in 700 B.C., Isaiah knew that God had a right to be angry. The Jews have been rebellious against God. They have chased idols. They have measured their life’s success not by their closeness to God, but rather by their own personal power, prestige, possessions, positions and playthings.

But one day that will all end, and their lives will once again center on the Lord. One day they will turn back and experience God’s grace and forgiveness. They will understand that salvation is theirs, as a gift from the Son of God, the Messiah long-promised.

What a day that will be! Because that day will bring the demise of fear, and the rise of faith. It will replace all weakness with true strength. It will replace hurt and sadness with joy and peace.

Isaiah taught that all this would be the result of “drawing water from the wells of salvation.”

Today, 2,700 years later, it’s still critical to draw water from the wells of salvation. But in 2015, we call it being regular at worship, joining a growth group or Bible study, making regular use of the sacraments, finding a time and a place in our daily schedules for personal devotions and prayer, and making Christian music and hymns part of our regular listening repertoire.

That’s how we come to live by faith rather than fear. It’s how we replace puny, weak spiritual muscles with big, strong spiritual muscles. It’s how we find our joy again, maybe even when it seemed to us to be lost forever.

Get your bucket. That’s the well we definitely want to be drinking from!

“In that day you will say: ‘I will praise you, Lord. Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me. Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.’ With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:1-3, NIV).

Lord, you are amazing. Thank you that you not angry with me for my many sins. Help me by your Spirit’s power to constantly draw from the wells of salvation. You are my Savior. You are my strength and my defense against the devil, the world and my own sinful flesh. I will trust in you and not be afraid.

Our Bible reading for Sunday, September 6, is Isaiah 10:20 – 13:22, 2 Corinthians 8:16 – 9:5 and Psalm 105:37-45.

Header image based on "Thor's Well" by Bill Young, CC By 2.0

God-Loved, God-Lover

We move past the four first books of the New Testament called the gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And the story of Christianity is not ending. It’s barely beginning.

One of those four authors of the gospels is compelled to tell the rest of the story. Luke wants the entire world — Gentiles as well as Jews — to hear what Jesus taught and did while alive.

But that’s not all! Luke also wants them to know about the things that occur after Jesus dies. He wants people to hear about the resurrection, the 40 day period Jesus was still here — over and over again convincingly proving to people that he had risen from the grave — and Jesus’ ascension into heaven. He desires the whole world to know the story of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the apostles and the dramatic growth of the Christian church in the early years.

So Luke writes a book titled, “The Acts of the Apostles”. It is addressed to a gentleman named Theophilus, a double-entendre name which means both “the one loved by God” and “the one who loves God”. What a great both-and!

This book is a necessary reminder of the power of the resurrection, the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, and the passion of Jesus — and later the apostles — to spread the kingdom of God.

Why a “necessary reminder”?

Because you may be a “Theophilus” as well. You are one who loves God because you were first loved by God. You want to have the entire account of Jesus’ work. You want to hear once again how God loves you, and not only you, but the entire world. You want to be reminded that he still wants us to share his kingdom, and you love to watch the Spirit go to work in our world.

It’s a “necessary reminder” because our world today is a very tough world when it comes to matters of faith and Christ. Please don’t be discouraged or disheartened by that. We can be confident in the Holy Spirit’s power! If he could spread the kingdom aggressively in Luke’s world, he can certainly, through word and sacrament (and through us), do the same today!

Be convinced!

“In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:1-3, NIV).

Our Bible reading for Wednesday, June 3, is 2 Samuel 3:22 – 5:5, Acts 1:1-22 and Psalm 69:13-28.

Lord, I am convinced! I trust that you can and will keep your church alive and thriving, as it was in the days of the early church. May the book of Acts be a strong encouragement to me to keep sharing the gospel with others. I know that I am passionately loved by you. Send me your Spirit through word and sacrament that I may be one who loves you passionately — and shares your love with the world, as Luke did.

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The Source

Idolatry is the root of all sin. We are constantly on the watch for something — anything — that we think will give us life, peace, joy, contentment. In some way or another, all of life is a hunt for these things.

Our pursuit of them is the reason that we worship idols. Whatever idols we pursue, we pursue them only because we hope that they can bring us one of these — life, peace, joy, and contentment.

Our idol might be money. It might be possessions. It might be a relationship. Or it might be chemicals. Or sex, or power, or respect, or education. Some idols are idols not because they are bad things in themselves, but because we see them as ultimate things.

We pursue them for what we hope they will deliver to us. We chase the thing we hope will give us the THING.

It doesn’t work. Not in the long haul, anyway.

And there’s a much, much better way. Pursue Jesus. Listen to him speak. Adopt his angle on life. Follow his commands.

The way to do this is to absorb his words into your heart, deep inside of you. And post his words as reminders all around you. Post them even on your hands or on your forehead, if need be.

Jesus is the one and only true Source of life, peace, joy and contentment. He is the Ultimate.

“Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and he will shut up the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you. Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads” (Deuteronomy 11:16-18, NIV).

Lord, help me to seek you, pursue you, find you. My heart naturally does the opposite. I am a sinner and and idolater. I look in every place but you for what only you can give. Please forgive me. Turn my stubborn and rebellious heart to you. Fix your words on my heart and mind. Give me a clean heart. Grant me a heart that trusts you above all else.

Our Bible reading for Thursday, April 9, is Deuteronomy 11:1 – 12:32, Luke 12:35-59 and Psalm 43:1-5.

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Eternity On the Line

Luke was a companion of the apostle Paul. It’s likely that Paul and Luke first encountered one another in the city of Antioch, in Syria. We know from the book of Colossians that Luke was a physician.

Luke’s Greek is grammatically excellent and proper. His descriptive references to ancient cities and towns, and his correctness in ancient terminology mark him as a careful scholar.

As Christians we know that the Holy Spirit divinely inspired the words of the gospel Luke wrote. But the Holy Spirit also chose Luke, the careful scholar, to be the one to do the research work that would allow him to provide us with an accurate and well-ordered account of the life of Jesus, our Savior.

God is so good. As Luke writes in the introduction to his gospel, God wants us to have certainty about the things we have been taught. He does not want to leave us hanging.

That’s because a lot is on the line here. Eternity, to be exact.

Our Heavenly Father wants us to be confident. He wants us to know the Bible is trustworthy. And most of all, he wants us to know that his work of sending his Son, Jesus, to be our Savior is fully reliable. All because he wants our eternity to be secure.

“With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (Luke 1:3-4, NIV).

Lord, thank you for showing us that your word is reliable. As the true author of the Bible, you carefully selected the men who would record your words. And they in turn, carefully did the research so that in the process we are left with an account of the life of Jesus that we can trust is completely trustworthy. So much is on the line. Thank you for such love!

Our Bible reading for Friday, March 13, is Leviticus 26:14 – 27:34, Luke 1:1-25 and Proverbs 7:1-5.

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3 Things To Do With the Bible

Maybe you have a Bible sitting somewhere around the house. But you’re not sure exactly what to do with it. Well, we can help with that.

Jesus tells us how to handle a Bible. And his instructions are relatively easy to follow:

1. We should listen to it.

In today’s world there are so many ways to accomplish this first one. You can go to church. You can listen to a message online. You can attend a growth group or Bible study. You could begin to subscribe to a daily devotional from biblegateway.com or Bible.com. You could sign up to this daily blog and read along with us.

2. We should accept it.

Jesus honors the faith of little children, because they are trusting and accept the claims of others at face value. We can do the same with the Bible. It’s easy to be skeptical in today’s world. But Jesus says that we can take the Bible at face value. It is what it says it is: the word of God. It has a lot of wisdom in it. It’s useful wisdom for this life. And it’s eternally-saving wisdom.

3. We should produce based on the Bible’s wisdom.

Faith will make us more productive people. Even better, it will make us productive in all the right ways. When we read the Bible and trust it’s words, we begin to produce “fruit” from the faith in Jesus that takes root in our hearts. Our words and our actions will be transformed by Jesus’ love and forgiveness. And when that occurs — who knows what might happen next?!

“Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown” (Mark 4:20, NIV).

Lord, when I open my Bible, help me to really listen to what I am reading and studying there. And then, give me trusting eyes and ears. Remove the scales of skepticism from my eyes. Finally, change me from a person who acts with a selfish heart into a person who acts with your selfless heart.

Our Bible reading for Wednesday, February 18, is Exodus 23:1 – 24:18, Mark 3:31 – 4:29 and Psalm 22:22-31.

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Wrestle God Down.

It’s so interesting when one Bible passage informs another. It might be two different books of the Bible, written by different authors, written hundreds of years apart even. But when you lay the two passages alongside one another, they show us exactly what God desires for us, and from us.

Today the lesson is this: Sometimes it’s just about grabbing hold and not letting go. Jacob wrestled with God, and God could not overpower him. God even wrenched Jacob’s hip out of his socket, and still Jacob wouldn’t let go.

“So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak.’ But Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me'” (Genesis 32:24-26, NIV).

Wow. Really? I will not let you go unless you bless me. That’s saying something, isn’t it? This guy is Navy SEAL tough when it comes to getting God to bless him.

In Proverbs 2, Solomon writes to us. And while he uses different language, he means exactly the same thing. Grab hold, don’t let go. Don’t release him, or his wisdom, until he blesses you.

“My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding—indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God” (Proverbs 2:1-5, NIV).

God, I will wrestle you down!

Our reading for Friday, January 16, is Genesis 32:1 – 33:20, Matthew 12:22-45 and Proverbs 2:1-11.

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How to Be a Wise Man (or Woman) in 3 Easy Steps

What in the world are “magi”? Strong’s Concordance defines the word this way: a magus; the name given by the Babylonians (Chaldeans), Medes, Persians, and others, to the wise men, teachers, priests, physicians, astrologers, seers, interpreters of dreams, augers, soothsayers, sorcerers etc.

It’s a pretty broad job description, isn’t it?

Matthew, one of Jesus’ disciples, writes about the wise men: “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him'” (Matthew 2:1-2, NIV).

Something in their education and experience told the wise men that this particular star was unusual, and the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy about the birth of a king.

Whatever it was that told them this, they dropped everything—their schedules, their jobs, their families, their friends, their familiar places of living—and went together to find Jesus.

Why? Because they knew the most important thing they could do in this moment of their lives was just that. Find Jesus, the king, and then worship him. But they also knew that their destination was far. And as the old saying goes, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

Wise men, indeed!

What if you grabbed another person or two this year and did the same? You’re just three steps away!

Step 1: Commit to someone. Ask your spouse to pray and read the Bible together with you in 2015. In my humble opinion, way too few marriages feature spouses that pray and read the Bible together daily. Just saying. Alternatively, you could do the same with your children, or a buddy from church or your growth group. If you’re feeling particularly outreach-minded in 2015, you could even select someone from work, or school, or your neighborhood.

Step 2: Commit verbally. Say to the person(s) you have selected “Let’s do this! Let’s go search for Jesus, the King, together. We’ll pray with each other each day, share our SOAP journals, and go together to worship Jesus every day this year.”

Step 3: Commit the time. Put it on your calendar. Block out a daily opportunity with your fellow “wise man” when you can meet (even over the phone or via text) and share your thoughts about the King. Don’t forget to clear a space for prayer together daily, too.

Lord, help me to find you daily in the gospel. Help me to find someone with whom I can share this daily journey. And then, put your Spirit in my heart so that we may respond—mind, body, heart and soul—with worship.

Our reading for Friday, January 2, is Genesis 2:18 – 4:16, Matthew 2:1-18 and Psalm 2:1-12.

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