Question and Answer on Works

As I was reading John 5, Jesus talks about being the ultimate Judge.  He says, "a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out--those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned."

To me, that sounded an awful lot like judgement is based on works, which doesn't jive with other Scripture indicating faith as the basis of salvation.  Why did Jesus state it this way?

Then, I think my question was answered in Luke 6: "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.  Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. ... The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart."

Faith will produce works.  

This also raises the issue of works of nonbelievers seeming "good," but ultimately not being altruistic.  I'll leave that for another day.

Kingdom of God

A word on the "kingdom of God" that Jesus often refers to. For a long, long time, my mind just equated "kingdom of God" with "heaven." In the last several years, I have since come to have the opinion that it is an already-present kingdom.

Luke 6:20
"The kingdom of heaven BELONGS to you." (present tense)
6:21
"You WILL BE satisfied." (future tense)

It seems to be a kingdom that has already begun, one that has not yet come to complete fruition, but will. Thoughts?

Jesus & Centurion

I am struck at Jesus' response to the centurion. The centurion shows some considerable faith, and Jesus acknowledges this. The next part, thought, seems a touch out of place:

I tell you, many will come from the east and west to share the banquet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, but the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Then Jesus heals the man's servant.

Does that seem out of place to anyone else? Any thoughts on the "sons of the kingdom?" Another one of my bible's translates it "subjects of the kingdom." I feel like the cliche response would be to ascribe this noun to the uber-law-abiding Jewish leaders?

Also, this isn't in Luke.

I like Matthew's emphasis on the universal message of Christ.

Job Thoughts

1. Job 7:20: If I have sinned - what have I (Job) done to you (God), O watcher of men? - Is this rhetorical? Is Job really saying that sin has no consequence to God?
   
2. Who are we supposed to listen to in Job? When Bildad says "He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with gladness," is that an indirect promise from God, or is it simply a man's opinion?
3. I was talking with Evan last night about Job, and he mentioned 2:13, where Job's friends come and sit with him for 7 days and nights without saying a word. Evan said this is an incredible example of friendship... don't know how I missed that on my first read-through. (Then I read in ch. 16 "what miserable comforters are you all!")
   
4. Is anyone else a bit uncomfortable reading some of things Job says to God?
5. How cool is this to read?
   Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high
   My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God
   and he contends with God on behalf of man as a man pleads for his friend
   
6. Job as a Greek tragedy -- any takers?

Qualified?

This isn't new, but it's been sort of newly convicting for me. I started paying attention to what we know from Scripture about the people God calls to something. There have been a lot of them in just the first few days of reading - Noah, Abraham, Zach & Elizabeth, Mary & Joseph, Simon, Andrew, James, John, Levi, the other 7 apostles whose names I'm too lazy to look up. We're told so little about most of them in terms of why God chose them or what qualified them for the things he asked them to do. It says that Noah was "righteous" and "walked with God" (but as Jake asked in his post, what does that really mean?) and Mary also "found favor with God," but the rest of them were introduced for the first time when they were being called by God to do something. Which tells me that the only thing we can know that they had in common was that they were able to hear and were willing to respond to God's voice. No other qualifications.

And the thing that convicted me the most about these people was how little information they were given about what saying yes was going to mean for them. I am kind of obsessed with needing to figure things out. I analyze stuff and overthink everything and more often than not talk myself out of decisions because I don't have enough information. But Abraham - God didn't even tell him which direction to walk! He just said "Go to the land I will show you." What the heck does that mean? When will you show me? How far's it gonna be? Should I take a camel or just a backpack? Mary - she was asked to do something completely terrifying that could have easily gotten her stoned. And ended up having this crazy life with a son who could do awesome stuff but people thought he was crazy and wanted to kill him. The apostles that got up in the middle of the workday - they didn't get anything. Not even like "yeah, you might want to tell your dad you're not gonna help him fish tomorrow." No information. All any of them had was some word that they somehow knew was from God, and because they knew it was him, they just did what he said. What's keeping me from having that kind of confidence in God's voice? Do I even completely believe he speaks like this?

Never Read this before...

After a chapter long rant about his guilt, job concludes the following.

³³ If only there were someone to arbitrate between us,
to lay his hand upon us both,

³⁴ someone to remove God's rod from me,
so that his terror would frighten me no more.

³⁵ Then I would speak up without fear of him,
but as it now stands with me, I cannot.

Ive never read this and am encouraged by it. I love thinking of Jesus as my/our advocate. To think that Jesus as an attorney pleading on our behalf to God the Judge is really beautiful. For as bad a wrap that defense attorneys get, it is cool to think about their role. Pleading on behalf of those who have little to no plea. If we think about it in a human sense, defense attorneys are offensive in a lot of cases. In cases where the defendant is clearly guilty, defense attorneys try to get them off on some sort of technicallity, insanity plea, or at least try to minimize the sentence (reducing what we consider justice).

Our situation is no different. We are guilty before God and really have no plea. But Jesus took it a step further than trying to get us off on a technicality, insanity plea, or minimized sentence. He (as our advocate/attorney) has told the judge that yes, the defendant is guilty, but rather than have him/her serve their sentence, I would like to serve their sentence for them. Pretty cool.

I think it is quite amazing that Job realized his need for this advocate. Especially at a time when he seemed to have done nothing wrong and was the offended party.

-camel

Thanks for the invite

First post, pleasure to join you all, I've been catching up with the readings and am glad to be able to take part in this. Commenting on what Raine said, I feel like I can relate to Job and am trying to learn to trust God through the hard times. I have definitely had some struggles in the past few months, nothing compared to Job but nonetheless feeling like God took something away from me that was/is so important to me. (I have been suffering from a severely herniated disc in my back that has left me hobbling around for the past 3 months or so and hopefully will soon be operated on). To not be able to even kick a soccer ball or jump a few inches off the ground, or even lift my leg very well has been a frustrating experience and so many times I have cried out to God to take away the pain and felt like I am speaking to a deaf ear. I continue to move forward and keep walking through the pain (literally and metaphorically) but it is definitely a struggle. I think about how many things I usually use as a crutch: money, power, nationality, health, education, etc. I realize that often it is so easy to worship/trust God with your mouth but your actions say something different and your heart knows differently. I liked Job 5:18 that says "For he wounds, but he also binds up: he injures, but his hands also heal." I think I am starting to learn to just give it all up to God and trust that he knows what he is doing, that his timing is better than mine and his plan superior to mine. This is hard to do, I feel like I need to have more power in my life, or at least feel like I have it, but this experience has been a humbling one, just one little insignificant disc in my back is out of place and all my power, speed, athleticism, everything is gone and I am rendered weak. It has really just shown me the fragility of my strength and I was drawn to what John the Baptist said in John 3 "You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.' The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegrooms voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater, I must become less." How true that is, its a painful lesson of being broken, one that is a long and sometimes painful journey, one I still haven't learned, but am fighting through. I just want to be the hero of the story, but am learning to recognize that that can never be my role, but in that there is freedom to be used by God.

Challenged

I am always challenged when I read the first part of Job. "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord". I wish that I could say that and mean it. Obviously it is easy to bless the Lord when everything is going well, and by and large, I don't run across a whole lot of adversity. But even still, I think that most of the time, I trust God or praise Him for what He does or has done for me, rather than who He is.

Rambling OT Thoughts

Being a history lover, it can be tough for me to distance myself from wanting to fit everything in Genesis into a historical timeline. I just had some thoughts that I'd love to hear input from you on if anyone has time... I know these are rambling and maybe even unanswerable. Still, I'd very much enjoy hearing your collective thoughts.

1. How come the OT seems to skip in huge leaps? We go from Noah, with no one left on the Earth, to Babel, where it seems we have a million people together building a tower. Then, we flash to Abram, and it seems as though we are in some part of the zenith of Egypt while a big city has been built in Sodom.
   
2. Local flood vs. global flood? Does it matter?
3. Was Noah's time the absolute peak of sin? How did everything devolve so quickly? Were they necessarily more wicked than modern day people? Were they given an opportunity to repent? Is that what the time period around the building of the ark was?
4. How did the author of Genesis know the lifespan of everyone?
5. What were the logistics of being a person of faith in the early OT? Did it involve simply "being" righteous? Is that salvation through works? (What have I opened here...)

I don't know. I used to be a super-militant 6,000 year old Earth creationist in high school and have since mellowed out a ton. As a reader, the transition seems so blurry between this (completely factual) myth and quite precise genealogies.

Always abundant

I'm always struck by this picture of abundance when I read the creation story. The word "good" is used like a billion times (ok, actually just 11) in reference to the things God made. He provided all this crazy goodness in such an extravagant way for Adam & Eve to enjoy, and gave them access to and dominion over all of it, with the exception of that one tree. Sometimes I think "wow, that was kind of mean of God to create this cool tree and then not let them eat from it" but He had given them SO much other cool stuff to name and caretake and eat from and enjoy. It reminds me of the part at the end of the Prodigal Son story where the father says to the older son "you are always with me and EVERYTHING I have is yours." If we are really God's children, then we have access to all this crazy abundance. But how often do we take advantage of that access, or even recognize it? I was talking about this with one of my roommates this week, how so often we act like orphans - like we are on our own to make decisions and provide for ourselves and figure out our lives - or like beggars - that we have this scarcity mentality that there isn't enough _______ (money, love, affirmation, success, etc.) to go around, so we need to fight for our piece of it. The creation story reminds me that I'm not an orphan or a beggar. I have a Father who, when He got to choose the way He went about provision in the very beginning, chose to do it in an abundant, extravagant way, so that the things He provided were good. Not just good for Him, but good for the people He gave them to. Reading the story again today in this light, I think the thing that saddened me the most about the consequences of Adam & Eve's sin was that they were banished from the garden. They no longer got to experience abundance the same way because they had demanded more than what had already been provided for them. I guess that's maybe the irony of sin - wanting something you think is attractive actually takes you farther away from the abundance that the Father knows is best for you.

Jesus, help me appreciate your abundance more and be attracted to empty pleasures less.

Maybe my favorite part of the Bible...

Well, it would be a bummer to have my favorite part be over with already, but I love the very beginning of Genesis and the creation stories. (That chapter camp was by far my favorite).

For those that took the class, you may remember the book "At the Start," which is a really fresh translation of Genesis. For example, here is a part of what we read today... pure poetry:

At the start Elohim created the skies and the earth

--the earth was tohu-bohu
darkness on the face of the deep
and the breath of Elohim
hovering on the face of the waters--

Elohim said
Let light be
Light was
Elohim saw the light How good!
Elohim separated the light from the darkness
Elohim called to the light "Day"
To the darkness he called "Night"
It was evening, it was morning
One day

First Day Reading

Well, it was a challenge for me to get around to reading today, which doesnt bode well for the other 364 days. But, I am glad that I did. As I type, I am procrastinating working on my Final Project for my grad class. I just finished reading the passeges in Luke and John and was encouraged. It seems like no matter how many times I read the line Mary says, I am stunned by it.

"I am the Lord's servant, may it be to me as you have said"

Its simple and beautiful and really difficult for me to say. Why do I always fight to posture myself as His servant? Why does that seem uncomfortable and why do I immediately cringe at the thought of having it "be unto me" as He determines. Gotta believe its a trust thing. I want to trust Him with everything I am. I think I am more owned by fear and "logic" than I want to admit. Mary was awesome to hear what she had just heard (which was something out of left field) and simply respond with "I am the Lord's servant, may it be unto me..."

-camel, aspiring servant

No recuerdo la primera vez que lei la Palabra de Dios en mi lengua de corazon

I don't remember the first time I read the Word of God in my heart language. God has used many cultures and languages to speak to me in recent months. I decided last week that I'm going to be following along with you guys in the Reina Valera Version de la Biblia. Fluency in Spanish has been something I've been working on for a while and so I think it will be cool to read the Bible in a year in Spanish. I also am going to be listening to our readings everyday in Spanish too. I'm going to see if my roommate who is Puerto Rican, but speaks about the same level of Spanish that I do, wants to join us.

Growing up there were probably twenty Bibles in my house, I've always taken for granted my ready access to God's Word in my mother tongue language. In the past six months, I've had the pleasure of doing firsthand research with people groups around the world, mainly in Africa that have just received access to the Word of God in their native language for the first time. Many people around the world have to read the Bible in their secondary or tertiary language, and so when they receive God's word in their mother tongue language, it is an incredibly intimate and personal experience, validating their cultural and spiritual identity. I was in the rural Northern Ghana conducting focus groups and I had to fight the urge to just start bawling listening to 70 year olds explain how God was no longer a foreigner to them, that church used to be a ceremony and now it is a celebration. How tribal and cultural traditions have been transformed, that because of the connection they have to the scriptures, people no longer slaughter goats when serious sins and crimes are committed in the community because Christ's blood was sacrificed once, for all.

The president of Jamaica said that translating the bible into Jamaican Patois demonstrated a tragic failure of the English language. I got chills listening to pastors share about reading and preaching in creole and having beggars who used to clamor outside the churches now coming inside and worshipping God because He now speaks their language. Rastafarians who used to walk around pretending to read English Bibles upside-down now are meeting Christ and being met where they are. I am incredibly privileged to have these opportunities, and several times I have come away with the thought that I want the Bible in my Mother Tongue language and then i'm like, oh yeah, i've always had it available. I walk away convicted by my brothers and sisters around the world and cognizant that truly the Bible is living and active.

When I read the Bible in Spanish, I can understand 98% of the words, but it doesn't seem to stick to me, like when I read it in English. Reading the Psalms in English is about the most calming thing that I can do, but it just doesn't seem to have the same effect for me in Spanish. It is a great story and I sense there is something bigger than myself going on, but it is still somewhat impersonal to me. Millions of Christians around the world are forced to encounter the Scriptures on the same level, only having access to English, Spanish, French or some other national language which is not their first or second language. I want to join with them and pray for them as we go through this year together.

Vamonos!

Welcome!

Earlier today I shared that I was hoping to start reading the Bible in one year. The idea quickly grew, and I'm happy that you all will be reading along with me.

I started this blog with the intention of giving everyone access. I know we might not want to share everything here, but maybe some observations or comments could be posted. Please note that the blog is closed; only authors are allowed to view it. So, if you would feel comfortable e-mailing a comment to the group, you should feel equally comfortable posting here.

I know this site may not be something often accessed or used, but I thought this would be a bit of a more permanent outlet than merely e-mailing. Also, posting here enables someone to catch up much easier than plowing through a ton of e-mail. I hope you'll join me as I post some of my thoughts here.

Our start date is Friday the 15th! I will put together a Google calendar or send out a reading schedule soon.

-Jake