Genesis 1-3

Genesis, the book of beginnings, is utterly foundational to the rest of Scripture. In the opening verses we see that the eternal God is the Creator, the Source of everything, speaking the entire universe into existence. We see that God creates Man, male and female, in His image and gives them dominion over the earth. We see the Fall of Man and ongoing rebellion against God. We see God’s judgment, tempered by mercy and grace. We see the call of Abraham and the beginnings of God’s redemptive plan to bless the whole world through him, so we trace his descendants, particularly those who come to be known as the nation of Israel.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:1

Take a few minutes to really consider what that means. Think about the vastness of the universe. Try to count the stars, even just the ones you can see. Consider the intricacies of a flower. Look at your own fingerprints and wonder. This God of ours brought it all forth out of nothing. He just spoke the Word, and it all came to be.

If you accept the truth of Genesis 1:1, then nothing else in the Bible should be beyond belief. That is, the Creator gets to do what He wants with His creation, and nothing within creation is beyond Him. If He chooses to part the Red Sea, then who are we to say that such things can’t happen? If He can handle everything from quarks to galaxies and beyond, then He ought to be able to feed 5,000 folks with a few loaves and fishes. There is nothing “super” about the supernatural for God.

So meditate on that truth today and praise our awesome Creator Who upholds the universe by the word of His power. (Hebrews 1:3)

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One more thing…

I am sure you will have noticed that I have made no attempt to cover the full breadth of our reading today. I focused on a single verse and even then barely scratched the surface of it. Given our pace through the Scriptures this year, I expect that to be the norm, which goes to say that there will be plenty of room for you to comment on what sticks out to you. Notice what you notice, and tell the rest of us about it.

Tomorrow RTB will return to its roots, taking the first steps on a journey of reading through the entire Bible in a year. (After all, “RTB” stands for “Read Through the Bible”.) For some (like Fred and Carol), this year-long trek is familiar ground. For others, this may be the first time through. For all, the journey can be life changing — certainly life giving — as our path is through the living and active Word of God.

With Genesis 1:1 starting with “In the beginning…” and Revelation 22:21 ending with “Amen“, one might expect it to be reasonably easy to read the Bible straight through from beginning to end, page by page. But the Bible is, of course, no ordinary book. It consists of multiple shorter works written by multiple authors over a period of roughly 1500 years. We see historical drama, poetry, legal code, prophecy, and personal correspondence. We have action and advice, worship and wisdom, foretelling and forthtelling, songs and sermons. It starts in a garden and ends in a city, with a glorious epic in between, but it is not organized as a single long narrative, so for those who have not read it all before, reading from beginning to end can be confusing.

And so, we will avoid taking the “simple but confusing” straight path and instead chart our course chronologically through the Bible. For example, when we read the history of the Exodus led by Moses, we will read a psalm that Moses wrote. As we walk through the events of King David’s life, we will read the psalms corresponding to those events. As we journey through the history of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, we will read the writings of the prophets who spoke to those kingdoms. And so on.

In taking this approach we will use The Chronological Study Bible published by Thomas Nelson as our guide. The Chronological Study Bible (CSB) is packed with helpful notes and maps and timelines that can help shed light on the biblical text. So if you have a copy, use it as your map through the Scriptures, reading all the extra sidebars. If you don’t have a copy and would like one, let me know. But don’t feel like you have to use The Chronological Study Bible to be able to participate in RTB. We will still publish our Reading Schedule each month, and you can follow along in your favorite translation. (The keen observer will note, though, that our own schedule may differ slightly from that published in the CSB, but we’ll never be very far off.) For my part, I will avoid referring to or quoting the CSB notes for two main reasons:

• I don’t want anyone without the CSB to feel “left out in the cold”, wondering what I am talking about
• I don’t want to inadvertently plagiarize the material and violate Thomas Nelson’s copyright

Our goal here isn’t to learn everything the CSB scholars have to say. Our goal is to encounter the living God by reading through His Word. If the CSB notes help us to hear from God, excellent! But if they don’t, don’t worry about it — just concentrate on the Word itself.

Here are a few tips for completing this journey together:

• Pray for the Holy Spirit to speak to you through His Word
• Develop your own daily routine for reading and stick to it
  • We will typically read three or four chapters a day, so allocate sufficient time in your schedule to read each day, with some extra time built in for contemplating what you read
  • Plan ahead for disruptions to your schedule (e.g., travel)
  • Don’t fall behind, but if you do, just skim (or even skip) over the backlog to catch up and stay on track
• Participate in the conversation, both online and in person

Finally, whether you’ve trodden this path before or are completely new to this, we are all embarking afresh on a tremendous journey. At times we may find the going to be easy and the weather fine. Other times may seem dark and gloomy. We may find adventure. Or we may find ourselves plodding along. We may find encouragement. Or we may find cause to grieve. Through it all, seek the Lord and listen to what He has to say to you. You will not regret it.

Psalm 150

The end of the Psalms.

Yes, it’s a Praise psalm, the last of the five closing Hallelujah psalms, but it’s also a guide for us as to how to praise God – the what (v. 1), the why (v. 2), the how (vv. 3-5), and the who (v. 6).

I don’t mean to be judgmental, but have you heard of people who have left one church or another because they didn’t like the music, especially those folks who leave because they don’t like contemporary music? They need to read Psalm 150!

It’s been a glorious year, far more than I could have ever imagined. Thank you all for sharing it with John and Carol and me – and all of you and your comments. Now on to 2023!!

Psalm 149

Yesterday’s Psalm 148 was all about praise. I didn’t see that I could add much to what the psalmist had already said. I expected today to be more of the same, since we were now at the penultimate psalm in the five closing “Hallelujah” psalms. And sure enough, the psalmist does not disappoint – it’s all of Israel praising the Lord, highlighted by verse 6a: Let the high praises of God be in their throats… Then, surprisingly to me, the psalmist calls forth revenge, retribution, punishment on Israel’s neighbors, beginning with the very next half-verse: …and two-edged swords in their hands, to execute vengeance on the nations and punishments on the peoples, to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron, to execute on them the judgment written! (vv. 6b-10a) What a shock to go from Israel’s praise to God to her vengeance on her enemies!! Put half-verses 6a and 6b together and capture the full flavor of the change in tone: Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands, (v. 6) Quite a change, eh?!!

Might this describe you or me in any way, large or small? In the midst of some success in our lives, do we look back on those who had earlier stood in the way of a raise or a promotion or some other “victory”? Do we then gloat over our success and cast aspersions back to those “enemies”. I’ve had two major occasions for that, major “defeats” in my life where a small number of people stood in the way of “success” in my future. And yes, there were a few people to blame and I was certainly bitter for a time. Even today a tiny edge of that bitterness remains for a few of those people. Thankfully, however, as God has redeemed those “defeats” and I’ve been able to move forward, I’ve looked back and felt sorry for those people who (I feel) were unjustified in creating those hardships in my life. It’s their problem, not mine. My call is to praise God, not to seek evil on what happened years before. And that’s how the psalmist ends today’s reading: Praise the LORD! (v. 10b) We (I) would do well to echo that call.

Psalm 148

Praise. Nothing more to say…

Psalm 147:12-20

Psalm 147, Day 2. He declares His word to Jacob, His statutes and rules to Israel. He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know His rules. (vv. 19-20) “He has not dealt thus with any other nation…”. When the psalmist wrote these words, he was looking only at his nearby nations. He did not foresee Jesus’ ministry, or the apostles and Paul reaching out to the rest of the Mediterranean world, or the growth of Christianity over the next hundreds of years. We, too, now have His word … His statutes and rules …, and the entire world is better as a result of that growth in the distribution of God’s Law!

An aside on that verse: word, statutes and rules in verse 19 above, plus ordinances in the NASB. My main takeaway from the Psalms this year has been the synonyms in Psalm 119. And those various synonyms appear throughout the Psalms and even in the historical and prophetic writings. While there are certainly nuances in the original languages, if I translate them all as “His ways”, I know that I’m not too far off! 😊!

Psalm 147:1-11

Psalm 147, Day 1, the second of the five closing “Hallelujah” psalms.

The LORD lifts up the humble … His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor His pleasure in the legs of a man, but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His steadfast love. (vv. 6a, 10-11) It was sometime in years past that I first heard a “theology” that it’s not us doing anything, but it’s the Lord working through us – or some words to that effect. It’s not a theology that troubles me at all, but it’s one that I have a hard time fully embracing. I understand God’s grace, His care for us, His provision for our needs. And I understand that He has gifted each of us in special ways and that He delights in our use of those gifts to His glory. But then – is it us using those gifts, or Him working those gifts inside us bringing outcomes that glorify Him? I remain confused.

Beyond all that, I have some understanding of humility and I find myself less prideful of past accomplishments than I used to be. I am thankful to the Lord for giving me the ability to do whatever I do or whatever I’ve done in the past. And again I ask, was I doing anything or was it God at work inside me doing those things? The answer to that question doesn’t matter; it’s more an intellectual issue than a theological barrier. But I continue to wonder…!

Psalm 146

Yesterday’s Psalm 145 ended that strong set of ten psalms “of David”; today begins the Psalter closing with five “Hallelujah” psalms as we close out our own wondrous year.

It took me no time to choose a verse today: … a son of man … When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish. (vv. 3-4) My younger brother, Dickie died sometime in the past few days. When he didn’t show up for Christmas dinner, another of my brothers went looking for him and found him in bed, unresponsive. He had dealt with prostate cancer and liver failure, so his death was not totally unexpected. Still, death comes harshly to those of us on this side of life.

Dickie was, by his own admission, an atheist. Carol and I talked extensively with him about God, about Jesus, about our own changed lives. Still, his forever question was, “Prove to me that God exists.” Sometime in the last few days he met Jesus, face-to-face. He now knows that God exists. We pray that he found need in his last few hours to ask the Lord to reveal Himself, to show him as He showed Moses, “I am Who I am” (Exodus 3:14). We can only hope that Jesus saw more faith in Dickie than we did, and that He had mercy on him.

If you have loved ones who don’t believe, don’t let up. The eternal cost is too great!

Psalm 145:8-21

Psalm 145, Day 2. The LORD is near to all who call on Him … He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; He also hears their cry and saves them. (vv. 18-19) When David wrote these words thousands of years ago, he had no idea that hundreds of years down the road the Lord would come very near to those who had called for Him those many years, that He would come in person, incarnate as that Baby in a manger Whom we celebrate this Christmas Day. Not knowing of this Jesus Incarnate, David would also not have known how this Baby would, in fact, fulfill desires, hear cries, and save His people. He would do all that in ways no one expected, all the while fulfilling prophecies thousands of years old. That Baby that we celebrate today, that Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), that Baby is alive today, living in the hearts of those who know Him: The LORD is near to all who call on Him. That’s us!!