Bible In A Year: July
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: Who Can Endure It?
Joel 1-3 “For the day of the LORD is great and very awesome; who can endure it?” (Joel 2:11) Who can endure it, indeed? Joel’s prophecy, situated as it is between Hosea and Amos, reveals the awesome and terrifying character of the Day of the Lord. No one can escape the judgment of Yahweh, neither […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: “Son of man, stand on your feet”
Ezekiel 1-3 Just when I think I can get my head around the Bible, I encounter a book like Ezekiel. I am instantly humbled when I come to this text and behold the mysterious, extraordinary God we find there. The first three chapters detail Ezekiel’s inaugural vision. He was thirty years old, and it was […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: An Object of Reproach
Ezekiel 4-6 The Nation of Israel, God’s chosen people, the people upon whom God had set his affection because he loved them has now become the object of his wrath: This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. And she has rebelled against my rules […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: “Behold, it comes.”
Ezekiel 7-9 Judgment and wrath: not pleasant to think about. Wrath does not show up on fun Facebook surveys, and God’s judgment on sin – yours, mine, ours, theirs, and the fractured condition of all things – does not easily make idle dinner conversation. It is hard to know how to interact with the idea […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: Organ Donor
Ezekiel 10-12 Ezekiel 10 opens in the midst of a vision God has given Ezekiel. It is an account of the departure of God’s glory from the temple. This is the glory (think “pillar of cloud and fire” from Exodus) that led the nation of Israel out of Egypt and dwelt in the temple as […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: Why It’s Not Magic
Ezekiel 13-16 Faith is not magic. The magician wishes to turn the supernatural to his or her advantage; the faithful person wishes to turn the supernatural back to the glory of God. The largely forgotten pop band Pilot, in 1974, cautioned us: “Oh, ho, ho/ It’s magic you know/Never believe, it’s not so” (from From […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: Tree of Life
Ezekiel 17-19 Today the Lord calls us to ponder parables of a vine, two eagles, and a tree. The first eagle, representing the king of Babylon, plants a vine in fertile soil by abundant waters. When the vine, representing the king of Judah, turns its branches toward another eagle, Egypt, God warns that the rebellious […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: “As silver is melted in a furnace”
Ezekiel 20-22 As I read through Ezekiel, I find myself caught up short. The vivid imagery is strange and wild, violent and varied. Yet for all the variety of imagery, the theme repeats over and over again to a people in exile: God cannot tolerate their rebellion. They have given themselves heart and soul over […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: No Fairy-Tale Princesses!
Ezekiel 23-25 Counter to what we might hope, the extended metaphor that the Lord delivers to Ezekiel in today’s reading gets no better, but worse, as we read on. Oholah and Oholibah are no fairy-tale princesses, but are snapshots of the rather gross reality of God’s people (that means you and me) consumed by sin. […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: Proud in Your Wealth
Ezekiel 26-28 Today’s reading tells of God’s judgment on the island city Tyre, a neighbor to Israel and a powerful center of trade. Speaking through Ezekiel, the Lord describes the vast array of valuable goods that were bought and sold there: gold, jewels, ivory, warhorses, linens, and every food imaginable. The people of Tyre were […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: “and its heart was proud of its height”
Ezekiel 29-31 As the long finger of divine judgment now points towards Egypt, it might be easy to assume that this has little to do with us 21st century Westerners. Yet we would do well to pay attention to at least two underlying lessons in today’s readings. 1) The reason the Egyptians were under judgment […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: When We Remembered Zion
Ezekiel 32-35 “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.” (Ps. 137:1, KJV) Ezekiel’s prophetic book nestles itself by the rivers of Babylon and weeps along with the despondent. Like much of the other prophetic literature, Ezekiel provides the warrant for God’s judgment on his people. Left disoriented […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: Cardiology
Ezekiel 36-39 There is so much good news in this part of Ezekiel, I feel as if my heart is strangely warmed each time I read it. If you find yourself beat-up, judged and found wanting, isolated, alienated, dislocated, disjointed, out-of-plumb; if you find that the law of God has done its proper work, and […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: Vision of the New Temple
Ezekiel 40-42 A picture is worth a thousand 400-700 words:
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: “Yet I have been a sanctuary…”
Ezekiel 43-45 “And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east. And the sound of his coming was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with his glory. And the vision I saw was just like the vision that I had seen when he came to destroy […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: Of Things Not Seen
Ezekiel 46-48 To begin this reflection I borrow from the letter to the Hebrews 11:1: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” At the end of the book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel has likely been prophesying to the people in Babylonian captivity for twenty years. Significantly, considering the roller […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: Good Lord, deliver us. *
Daniel 1-3 [ * Title is from a refrain in The Great Litany, BCP] A few years ago I was hiking along a beautiful mountain trail with a friend. The view was spectacular because the mountain dropped off steeply to our left—I would guess it was about a 75-80 degree pitch. We came upon a […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: That the Living May Know
Daniel 4-6 Has your God been able to deliver you? The answer to Darius’s question to Daniel is a resounding yes. Indeed, a theme running throughout the book of Daniel is that the Lord is able. He is able to see, to hear, to know, to do wonders, to send dreams and signs, to give […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: Daniel’s Prayer for his People
Daniel 7-9 Daniel has always intimidated me, ever since I first read about his steely resolve not to partake in the king’s sumptuous feasts. Self-denial has never been my strong suit. In fact throughout the first six chapters of the book, Daniel displays a consistent ability to obey his Lord no matter the circumstance. He […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: Finding the End-Times Tense – Daniel, L. Ron Hubbard and Me
Daniel 10-12 Daniel sets out the dire straits awaiting Israel: Kings, princes and powers rise and fall. Earthly battles reflect a heavenly struggle pre-Revelation. The upcoming geopolitical onslaughts that the prophet describes leave little hope for Israel. And yet, there is a promise of resurrection: “There shall be a time of trouble, such as never […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: The Christ-Life
James 1-2 Proverbs 1 James 1-2 is a startling—nay, unsettling—word for those of us who have heard and been powerfully gripped by the announcement of unmerited grace in Jesus Christ. It is a difficult passage because, on the surface, it may sound as if it has a tinge of works-righteousness to its message. Indeed, James […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: Passions at War within Us
James 3-5 Proverbs 2 It is often difficult to discern pride, envy, and even gossip or slander. There are always qualifications and there are other more public sins to point out. It is true that we can be oblivious of the sins that manifest themselves through our speech. Our apologies are often, “I’m sorry if […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: Destroy this Temple?
Ezra 1-3 We tend to think of the Bible as divided between Old and New Testaments because it is. But let us consider the Bible as pointing toward three narrative arcs in the history of God’s relationship with his people. The first arc tells how pre-exilic Israelite religion came to center on the life of […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: Exile and Return
Ezra 4-6 Exile, return, and reconstruction are powerful fault lines in our lives. They are no less so in our reading for today. The Persian king, Cyrus, declares that the Jews in the Babylonian exile are free to return to their homeland. They do so and then undertake to rebuild the temple. Distant from the […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: Lather, Rinse, Repeat
Ezra 7-9 I was raised in the Roman Catholic church, and a prerequisite for taking communion was the rite of confession. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this practice, it involved entering a small confession booth and sharing the details of my transgressions with a priest who was sitting behind the screen. The […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: The Cost of Renewal
Ezra 10 Haggai 1-2 Religious renewal is never hurdle free. More often than not, such renewal comes at great cost. My wife and I lived in Oxford, England, for one memory-filled year. I experienced my first teaching post during this year. Our first child arrived in Oxford. We had a great flat in the section […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: Pass me another brick, please…
Nehemiah 1-4 In the late sixth century B.C. God fulfilled his promise to bring his people home to Judah from exile in Babylon. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah tell the story of the return of the children of Israel to their promised land. When this book opens, the restoration of Jerusalem has been going […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: Not. Come. Down.
Nehemiah 5-7 “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down” (Neh. 6:3). Nehemiah’s narrative continues as he faces schemes and opposition from nearby leaders. His opponents try to distract him from his work on the wall and bait him to give into fear. They try to thwart his efforts four times by […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: A Day of Joy, Not of Sadness
Nehemiah 8-10 “And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, ‘This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.’ For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law.” (Nehemiah 8:9). […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: A Prayer…
Nehemiah 11-13 A prayer from Nehemiah 13:31: “Remember me, O my God, for good.” Though Jerusalem was restored and its walls completed by your servant Nehemiah, he remembered yet that “we are slaves this day,” that we are not yet immune to the entrapments of your enemies. Remember me as you remembered your servant Noah […]
Advent Bible in a Year Blog: Home Sweet Home
1 Peter 1-2 Proverbs 3 Throughout his first letter, St. Peter urges his hearers to confess the faith without fear, and to persist in doing good, no matter what suffering such boldness brings. He reminds these believers in Asia Minor of the suffering that Jesus endured on their behalf and of the promises that belong […]