Category: Faith

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Bible Challenge, Week 9: The People – Moses

The sons of Jacob have become tribes, and the tribes will become a multitude called “Israel.”  God started with one man who trusted him (Abraham), chose one of his sons (Isaac) to carry on the promise, and chose one of that man’s sons to continue.  From the grandson with two names (“Cheater” and “Striver”) God is building a great nation.  It seems that Genesis has a happy ending.  But two problems come up right away . . .

Something huge is about to happen, certified by an explosion of supernatural events.  As much as unbelievers scoff at the Bible as a “book of fairy tales,” miracles are not that common in its pages (and fairies are  nonexistent).  God reserves miracles for special events, and we’re coming up on a big one.   But first we need a messenger, a human agent to put events in motion: someone who was planned for, and set aside, and providentially preserved for a time such as this.

To learn more, click here:

Bible challenge Week 9: The People – Moses

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 9: The Promise – Joseph

Next: Week 11: The People – Deliverance

 

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Bible Challenge, Week 8: The Promise – Joseph

Joseph is an interesting character.  There are more chapters devoted to him in Genesis than even his great-grandfather Abraham, but he’s not part of the standard patriarchal formula used throughout the Bible to identify “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”  Does adding another name simply make the tagline too bulky?  Or is Joseph something more or less than a patriarch?

I think there’s another factor that eliminates him from that very exclusive society: unlike the others, he receives no direct covenant promises from God.  Instead, he lives the covenant promise.  He is both the last of the patriarchs, and the first of the key figures through which God begins to work out his plan.  Joseph is the link between a covenant family and a covenant people, as we’ll see next week.

His life is characterized by weird dreams and swift reversals, and is one of the most dramatic in all of scripture.  You may know the plot of his story, but what’s the theme?  Click here for the pdf download:

Bible Challenge, Week 8: The Promise – Joseph

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 7: The Promise – Jacob

Next: Week 9: The People – Moses 

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Bible Challenge Week 7: The Promise – Jacob

Babylon has Gilgamesh, Athens has Theseus, Rome has Aeneas–but what nation or city ever had a founder like Jacob, the “supplanter”?  Even his name change is provocative: Israel, or “he wrestles with God.”

In spite of his checkered character, he is the last of the three great patriarchs whose name will echo throughout generations of Bible history.  His other name remains a rock of offense today: Israel, a stubborn, tiny nation that continues to exercise an influence far beyond its size.  There’s got to be a reason for that, and we get a hint of it in this week’s Bible challenge, where personality wrestles with destiny.

Click here for the pdf download:

Bible Challenge Week 7: The Promise – Jacob

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous:  Week 6: The Promise – Isaac

Next: Week 8: The Promise – Joseph

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Bible Challenge, Week 6: The Promise – Isaac

What’s there to think about Isaac?  A promised child, a near-victim, a weak husband, a gullible father . . . meh.  He fades into the crack between Abraham and Jacob. and we see very little of his actions, even less of his inward thoughts.  The defining moment of his life may well have been the instant when, somewhere around 15 years old, he lay bound on a stone altar gazing up at a knife held by his own father.  Trustingly? Fearfully? Incredulously?  Maybe all those things at once, and the experience could have scarred him for life.  But now he enjoys an eternal existence as one-third of the patriarchal triumvirate, the “Abraham-Isaac-and-Jacob that the God of Israel would identify Himself by.

It turned out okay for him.  However colorless he appears, being a vital link in the chain of God’s covenant blessing is no small thing.

 

Click here for the pdf download:

Bible Challenge, Week 6: The Promise – Isaac

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 5: The Promise – Abraham

Next: Week 6: The Promise – Jacob

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Bible Challenge, Week Five: The Promise – Abraham

We like to say God has a sense of humor.  (Though I suspect it’s not like ours.)  He may also have a sense of irony, or why would a man who was childless until the age of 90 come to be known as “Father” Abraham?  But then, what seems ironic to us might just be a splendid dichotomy for him.  He loves shaking up the system: the younger supplants the older, the weak overcome the mighty, the last shall be first, and the meek (eventually) inherit the earth.  Likewise, a old man (75 when we meet him) becomes a major point person in our Hero’s quest to resolve the central conflict of the Bible.

Our Hero, remember, is God himself.  We’ve talked about our problem: rebellion, judgment, and separation.  His main problem is us: how to be reconciled to people he loves even though they reject him.  The answer will begin with one person; and from one person, one family; and from one family, one nation; and through one nation . . . but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

So here’s Abraham, great father and great receiver of a foundational covenant.  And here’s the download:

Bible Challenge, Week Five: The Promise – Abraham

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week Four: The Problem – Separation

Next: Week Six: The Promise – Isaac

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Bible Challenge, Week Four: The Problem – Separation

Something is wrong; everybody knows it.  The world is not as it should be.  Some great religious traditions look forward to a future when all our frustrated desires will be subsumed into a blissful oneness.  Others look back to a long-lost paradise and speculate on a leader (or system) who will return us to that ideal state.

Last week we talked about judgment, admitting (perhaps grudgingly) that God has a right to judge.  But there are times when his judgment doesn’t seem . . . well, right.  We can accept bad things happening to bad people (which doesn’t include us, of course).  That’s only just deserts.  But bad things happening to good people is the main problem doubters have with a supposedly “good” God.

The Bible meets that problem head-on.  It’s part of the problem, and no figure shows it better than the long-suffering, pitiful character of Job.  The man has a lot of complaints, and they seem perfectly reasonable to us.  But underneath all the apparent unfairness of the way he’s been treated, Job is most hurt about this:

I thought we were friends.  I thought You were on my side.  But now it seems I never knew You, and we don’t even speak the same language.  Is there anyone who can come between us? Or will we be eternally a universe apart?

Click below for the download:

Bible Challenge, Week Four: The Problem – Separation 

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous:  Week Three: The Problem – Judgment

Next: Week Five: The Promise – Abraham

 

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He’s No Gentleman

Have you ever heard this?  “God is a gentleman.  He would never . . . [insert something a courtly deity would never do, usually related to busting in where he’s not wanted].”  I don’t know where this idea came from, but it’s supremely silly.

It might be seen as gentlemanly to sweep back the waters of the Red Sea for his people to cross (“After you, my dears”).  But then he slammed the sea on the pursuing Egyptian army, drowning every last horse and man.  It was nice of him to gently wake the boy Samuel for a midnight chat—to tell him that his mentor’s priestly family was toast.  He spoke reassuringly to Elijah in a still small voice, after scaring the pants off him by hurling fire, wind and storm in his direction.

And wasn’t it God who sent Jesus to tell us about his Father’s universal love and grace?  But Christ was also known to drop a word about universal judgment and punishment for those who rejected him, making himself the standard for determining who gets in and who stays out.

Jesus actually doesn’t seem like much of a gentleman either.  But why would we want him to be?

Gentlemen are reserved and polite and exercise self-control.  They condescend to make their inferiors feel at ease.  They hold the door for ladies and step aside for baby carriages.  They don’t point out your faults unless you ask them to.  They listen patiently, consider carefully, and make up their own minds.  They know their place and are comfortable in it.

But God is the place.  He does not offer us heaven; he is heaven.  Life is not a smorgasbord of options, though it may seem that way.  There’s really only one option: Those who fail to find me harm themselves; those who hate me love death (Prov. 8:36).  There’s him, or there’s death.  A gentleman might try to arrange another choice or two in order to accommodate those who just can’t comply.  In the process, he would be courteously opening a door to doom: After you, my dear.

The burly track worker who shoves you out of the path of a speeding train is no gentleman.  The lifeguard who knocks you out while you’re struggling is no gentleman.  The Son of Man who makes himself a bloody sacrifice for you is probably the least gentlemanly of all: volunteering to be a spectacle, hanging between heaven and earth, commanding you to look if you want to live (Num. 21:8, John 3:14).  Gentlemen do not offend or plant themselves as stumbling blocks.  They don’t cause any more trouble than they have to.

Better to stumble in this life than the next.  Better be troubled now than later.  If God is embarrassing or bothering you—which, granted, no gentleman would ever do—embarrass yourself in return.  Fall on your knees and give him thanks.

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Bible Challenge, Week Three: The Problem – Judgment

On September 2, a couple of teenagers were spotted throwing smoke bombs on the Eagle Creek trail in Oregon–a part of the country that has experienced unseasonal dryness and too many fires in the last few years.  A hiker confronted the kids: “Do you know how dangerous that is?”

Probably.  But if they knew in theory how dangerous it was to lob fireworks in a tinder-dry forest, they hadn’t yet learned that real acts have real consequences.  Such as an out-of-control wildfire that has consumed at least 30,000 acres of forest land, destroyed dozens of homes, and blackened some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.

They are young.  The earth was young too, when a seemingly small act tipped it into a death spiral.  The perpetrators, I’m sure, didn’t understand the consequences, even though they were warned.  But the consequences played out anyway, in the people themselves (shame, deceit, murder, etc.) and in the scales of cosmic justice.  God’s patience waited (I Peter 3:20) for several generations–and then, the flood.

Conservative Christians acknowledge that God has a right to judge.  We have a little more trouble accepting that God is right to judge.  Without judgment (which also involves putting a temporary halt to evil) we would have killed each other a long time ago.  Without a final judgment, heaven would become hell.  That doesn’t make widespread destruction any easier to think about (the children! the innocent animals! the towns and farms!), but a world without judgment would be even more destructive, and ultimately futile.

Here’s the pdf download:

Bible Challenge, Week Three: The Problem – Judgment

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week Two: The Problem – Rebellion

Next: Week Four: The Problem – Separation

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Nine Reasons to Read the Bible (even if you don’t believe it)

  1. It’s unique. The Bible Creation story is not like any other creation story. TheBible Reading Bible God is not like any other God.  He’s the only ancient deity to link worship (temples, sacrifices, etc.) to a moral code.  He is absolutely central; a person beyond personality, not a representative of window or fire, not an idea, not a philosophy.  He escapes easy generalities, and so does his book.
  2. It’s eerily familiar. We’re always hearing echoes of it, not only in everyday conversation (broken heart, labor of love, thorn in the flesh, eye for an eye), but in values we take for granted. Whatever our political persuasion, we agree that the hungry should be fed, the injured cared for, the helpless attended to.  None of these principles were widely accepted in the ancient world.  We believe—or at least we say—that love is the greatest power in the world.  Rameses, Nebuchadnezzar, and Julius Caesar would have laughed at that.  We like Jesus, even if we don’t understand him.  All these things originate in the Bible’s thousand-odd pages.
  3. It’s historically relevant. Even if you’re skeptical about archaeology finds that support what it says about ancient times, the Bible’s influence on history is well documented. Those who are certain it inspired oppression, crusades, and pogroms should turn over a few more rocks.  Though it has been misused as a weapon, the Bible is also (and much more logically) the inspiration for revivals, reforms, and rethinking. It directly inspired the greatest surge in literacy, enterprise, and empowerment the world has ever seen (i.e. the Protestant Reformation).  The Enlightenment usually takes credit for those achievements, but without the Reformation there would be no Enlightenment (and after the Enlightenment gleefully kicked away the Scriptural platform it was built on, it collapsed in something called the Reign of Terror).
  4. It’s a treasury of ancient literary forms. Poetry, Historical Narrative, Allegory, Practical Instruction, Romance, Apocalyptic Imagery—every style and genre known to the ancient world is easily accessible between these covers, and in a multitude of translations, too.
  5. It explains the origins of two of the most consequential people groups in the history of the world: Jews and Christians. You may not like them. Often enough, they haven’t liked each other. One was a relatively small group bound by blood and tradition, which had a wildly outsized influence on world history and a proportionate amount of suffering (the honor of being a chosen people cuts both ways).  The second group is, by design, much more numerous and diverse, bound by faith and a conviction that God loves the world enough to die for it.
  6. It tells one Story. A rambling tale, to be sure. But any tale would ramble if it takes about 1500 years and at least 39 authors to tell it.  But the general outline of the story is the model for all stories in all cultures.  There’s a setting, a protagonist, an antagonist, a problem, a development of the problem, a climax, and a resolution.  Why do we tell stories this way?  Whether or not the Bible is the origin for the model, it’s a classic example of the model.  And the type of story it tells, of desolation and redemption, still haunts us.
  7. It provides the only objective reason for treating human beings as anything other than random accidents, disposable trash, or interchangeable parts to be manipulated. The reason is this: the Bible is very clear that human beings are shaped by God to bear his image.  For that very reason, they are not to be willfully murdered (Genesis 9:6) or even carelessly insulted (James 3:9-10).  If the value of humans is set by other humans it can shift at any time.  If that value is set by God, no one can change it.
  8. It’s the most banned book in history. It’s too reactionary, too subversive, too authoritarian, too libertarian.  Tyrants fear its revelation of a rival power; anarchists, modernists, post-modernists, communists, utopians, and well-intentioned progressives hate it for the same reason. The book is a scandal and a trouble—aren’t you curious as to why?
  9. It’s still around. And still a best-seller. What explains its remarkable staying power? Unless you are willing to at least become familiar with it, you’ll never know.
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Bible Challenge, Week Two: The Problem – Rebellion

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

If the Bible is a story, it will share many of the elements of story, such as plot and characters.  Last week we looked at another important (and often overlooked) factor of stories: setting.  The setting God created was perfection, which makes it all the more ironic–if that’s the word–that the first characters to appear in our story rejected it.  That introduces the first big story element: a problem.

They probably didn’t realize they were rejecting perfection, but they knew enough to not to do what they did.  You may know the story, but have you ever thought about all the implications?  You’ll have an opportunity to do so in this week’s challenge.

Without further ado, here’s the pdf:

Bible Reading Challenge: The Problem – Rebellion

Two corrections: The scripture reference in Question 4 is missing the chapter.  It’s Genesis 3:21-24, not Gen. 21-24.  Three verses instead of three chapters.  Also, this week’s challenge is missing a Key verse.  How about Psalm 107:43:

Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things;

let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord.

To start at the beginning, here’s Week One: The Setting.

Next: Week Three: The Problem – Judgment