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You Can Read the Bible Guided Podcast
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Day 78 Guided Podcast
YesterdayTap to summarizeThe Gospel of John, chapters 1 and 2 You heard that right! To prepare for Advent, we’ll jump now to the New Testament and read the Gospels of John and Mark. We’ll return to Judges in a few weeks. We begin with John, chapters 1 and 2. In the beginning… As the first covenant began, so does the second: with creation, and God’s supremacy over it. Remember that this Bible is about God, and with these echoes John tells us what he believes: that this Jesus – “The Word” as John calls Him – is God in the flesh, the One who created the world and who reigns over it. Don’t forget to apply to the New Testament what you’ve been already learned about reading the Old. Let the author tell the story he wants to tell, without looking immediately for theological categories or moral application. As we’ve already seen with Old Testament writers, John allows dialogue to reveal character and meaning. “I am not the Christ” is the very first line of dialogue in this Gospel, and it packs the same punch as “Let there be light” did in Genesis. When Nathaniel can’t believe his ears, John relays Jesus’ reply, “You will see greater things than these…” Mary doesn’t preach about Jesus’ divinity, but just tells the wedding servants, “Do what he tells you.” Listen also to how questions drive the plot. “Who are you?” the priests and Levites ask the Baptist… “What are you seeking?” Jesus asks the disciples who follow him. Upon learning of Jesus’ hometown, Nathaniel mocks, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” When Jesus’ mother asks him to help at the wedding, He retorts, “Woman, what does this have to do with me?” And when He drives the moneychangers out of the temple, the Jews ask “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” These questions are at the heart of the tensions in this book. The New Testament writers add one more element: echoes of the law, history, and prophets of the Old Testament. We’ve seen much of this thus far, especially in showing how the LORD has fulfilled His promises. But in the New Testament the authors exert greater urgency to build a bridge between what had been known of God and what will be shown in Jesus. Thus John gets ahead of the question: “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” The gauntlet is thrown, and with this Gospel John aims to let Jesus prove it. Our verse for this week is Hebrews 11:30: By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. John chapters 1 and 2. Now let’s read it!
Transcribe →Day 130 Guided Podcast
YesterdayTap to summarizeAs with the 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings can be considered a single unit, separated only by the amount of words that could be fit on a scroll. They continue the story of the nation of Israel, inheriting the united kingdom that had existed for almost eighty years under Saul and David. As the first book of Kings opens, David is only nominally on the throne, and we’re immediately plunged into a succession intrigue. The featured actors are David’s oldest remaining son, Adonijah, and Solomon, the son of Bathsheba. When Adonijah exalted himself, saying, “I will be king,” and attracts Joab and Abiathar to his side, two crises emerge: First, that David is weak and seemingly out of touch with his kingdom; and second, that the king of Israel has to this point been anointed by a prophet. Anyone who has taken the crown for himself – Abimelech, Absalom, Sheba – has been doomed. So much is hinted at in these first chapters that the imagination can run. The observation about David’s relationship with Abishag might be highlighting David’s virtue or his feebleness. The author makes sure we know that Adonijah is so handsome – which in Samuel and Kings is the kiss of death. He sheds light on David’s parenting, his grievances, and on his steady gratitude to the LORD, “who has granted someone to sit on my throne this day, my own eyes seeing it.” Chapter 2 is a pivot to a clean slate. The story of David, as well as those of Adonijah, Abiathar, Shimei, and even Joab are brought to a close. The kingdom is established in the hand of Solomon, who, it is observed, loved the LORD, walking in the ways of David his father, [however] he sacrificed and made offerings at the high places. This crescendo reaches a peak when in chapter 3 the LORD comes to Solomon in a dream, and invites him to “Ask what I shall give to you.” The rest of the chapter, and the rest of Solomon’s life, will bear witness to his response. It seems fitting to close today with this epitaph: Then David slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David. And the time that David reigned over Israel was forty years. He reigned seven years in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem. So Solomon sat on the throne of David his father, and his kingdom was firmly established. Our verse for this week is Ephesians 2:8-9: For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 1 Kings 1 through 3. Now let’s read it!
Transcribe →Day 16 Guided Podcast
YesterdayTap to summarizeWhen we first met Jacob, at his birth, he was grasping the heel of his brother, then cheating Esau out of the birthright. Jacob, the striver, the one who wrestles with God and man. Jacob, who could alternate between strong and weak, between faith-filled and bewilderingly obtuse. He is one of the most complicated characters in the Bible. Jacob is now living in Egypt, and close to death. In today’s reading he calls in Joseph and grants a blessing to both of Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. Whether this double inheritance is Jacob’s response to Joseph rescuing the family, or merely a persistent favoritism of Rachel’s child, the author is silent. In chapter 49, the twelve brothers are assembled so Jacob can “tell you what will happen to you in days to come.” He then offers an odd mix of blessing, prophecy, and rebuke, some of which looks backward, and some of which looks to the future. It is a most intriguing passage, and one that will echo through the story to come. In the closing scenes, listen for details that call us all the way back to Abraham, as Jacob’s heart longs for an eternal connection with his father and grandfather. Listen also for the wife that is buried there, in the cave of Machpelah. Again, the complications abound for this very human being. Not even in passing could Jacob avoid causing tension, as Joseph’s brothers fear that he was simply being kind to them while dad was alive. Joseph’s response is one we can carry with us. Marvel again at how he perceives the hand of God in all that has happened. And then, as Joseph himself is about to die and be buried with honor in Egypt, he makes a final request, with a voice of future promise: “When you go home, take me with you.” Our verse for this week is Hebrews 11:8: By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. Genesis 48 through 50. Now let’s read it!
Transcribe →Day 103 Guided Podcast
YesterdayTap to summarizeWhen we left yesterday, Ruth had returned to Israel with her widowed mother-in-law Naomi, promising “where you go, I will go.” Ruth joined the gleaners in the field of Boaz, a relative of Naomi, and Boaz, knowing how she’s looked after her mother-in-law, treats Ruth kindly. Today, Naomi launches a plan: Ruth should go down to the threshing floor at night, find Boaz, and…well, you can read the rest. Boaz is called on to be a “redeemer” – to marry Ruth and give her children so that Naomi’s family line may continue. This follows the laws of the “kinsman redeemer” set out in the Books of Moses, to ensure that a family’s line should not die out and to protect against the consolidation of property and wealth. There is one hitch in the plan, and Boaz is left to sort that out in chapter 4. Listen for a recurrence of certain words and ideas from yesterday. Naomi repeats her desire that Ruth should “find rest.” Listen for how Ruth turns Boaz’s “wings of refuge” around on him. Find the varied uses of the word “redeemer” throughout the conversations today. And listen for references to how God’s law is being lived out in Israel: allowing the poor to glean after the field had been picked over; the role of the kinsman redeemer; and how foreigners – even a person from Moab, which did not treat Israel kindly during the Exodus – was treated. I mentioned a few weeks ago that the book of Judges serves as a bridge between Joshua and Samuel – between the eras of conquest and kingdom. Ruth fulfills a similar connecting role, but where Judges left us with desperate hunger, Ruth is driven by a determined hopefulness…right up to the end, where the author reaches back – all the way to Genesis 38 – to remind us that the story of God’s people – and especially of the sons of Judah – is just beginning. Finally, take note that for the first time in a while you’re not engaged in some big political drama. No external or internal threats emerge. No militias are called to arms. It’s a reminder that while great national dramas are unfolding people are still giving birth, dying, and figuring out how to eat today and prepare for tomorrow. The Ruth story is quaint and refreshing. It’s also life. Our verse for this week is Matthew 11:28: Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Ruth chapters 3 and 4. Now let’s read it!
Transcribe →Day 94 Guided Podcast
YesterdayTap to summarizeAs we enter this final reading in the Gospel of Mark, let’s retrace some steps. Mark launched this book with his own conclusion about Jesus, the Son of God. Jesus announces His arrival with equal thunder: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. From the first moments the disciples have been present. Even when Jesus looked for escape, they, and the crowds, found Him. They were often amazed, sometimes frightened, regularly confused, but always there. So were the Pharisees and scribes, looking from the earliest days for a way to eliminate Jesus, one way or another. In the first half of Mark, Jesus was a man of action, moving freely throughout Galilee, Judea, the Decapolis, Tyre and Sidon. Everywhere healing, teaching, and amazing. A pivot occurs around Peter’s confession in chapter 8: “You are the Christ.” From there, Jesus’ movements became singular: toward Jerusalem, and a destiny only He was willing to see. That destiny is completed in today’s reading. The chaotic scene shifts from the chief priest’s house to the governor’s. The author reveals that even Pilate knows what’s going on, but makes a political calculation to give the crowd what they want. Listen for what is present rather than for what is absent: the abuse, the wine, the inscription; those who are near, and those who are far. In the paragraph depicting Jesus’ death, there are three lines of dialogue: from Jesus, from a bystander, and from a Roman Centurion, who in eight words sums up the themes of this book. As the page turns to the final chapter, three women who were only introduced yesterday become central figures. As you could expect, the final surprise is revealed not to the disciples, nor to the Pharisees, scribes, or priests, but to these women. Very early, on the first day of the week, they find the tomb open, and a young man, sitting on the right side, who has a message for the disciples…and Peter. The final verses of this chapter are sometimes omitted in modern Bibles, or at least bracketed, because they don’t appear in the earliest manuscripts of Mark. For more about these passages, see my note about John 8 on Day 81. The terror of the story is more profound if we end with verse 8, but you can listen and determine for yourself if verses 9-20 sound like Mark’s voice. Either ending brings the book to a fitting conclusion. Our verse for this week is Psalm 138:8: The LORD will fulfill His purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands. Mark chapters 15 and 16. Now let’s read it!
Transcribe →Day 1 Guided Podcast
YesterdayTap to summarizeToday you begin a fifteen month journey of reading through the entire Bible. This will not be easy, but it will be worth it. Each day we’ll provide an introduction to the passage you’ll be reading. Our purpose is not to blow your mind with deep commentary, nor to provide a shallow, clever application, but rather our goal is to shine a brighter light on what you’ll be reading. Today’s passage begins the whole story. When I use that word “story” I don’t want you to hear “Myth” or “Fairy Tale.” Rather, “story” is a shorthand for “narrative.” What you’re looking at is not a theology textbook or how-to manual or a self-help guide. It’s a story. And we’re wired to learn through story. And this passage – really the first 11 chapters of Genesis – is a collection of stories about time before time – the camera zooms in and out around certain events that the author wants to illuminate. As you read through the beginning of that story today, here’s a few things to notice: First: The primary subject of this passage and of this entire book is God. The object is creation. Keeping the focus on God as the subject – the One that the Bible is about – will serve us well as we read through the Bible. This passage tells us a lot about God – what He’s capable of, and what He expects. Second: Humanity is special. We are made in God’s image, given “dominion” over creation, filled with the breath of life. Third: Pay attention to words, themes, or phrases that get repeated or revisited. The canopy in chapter 1; the “naked and not ashamed” and “for this reason a man shall leave his house” that gets flipped around between chapters 2 and 3; and the act of naming in all three chapters. Finally, when you get to chapter 3 (which recounts what is called “The Fall”), look at the deceit, disruption, and blaming between the characters. Pay attention to what they’re afraid of, and how they respond to that fear. We’ll end each day this week with John 1:1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Genesis 1 through 3. Go read it!
Transcribe →Day 62 Guided Podcast
YesterdayTap to summarizeAt the end of yesterday’s reading, Moses reminds Israel that “the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow…shall eat and be filled, that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do.” The LORD’s blessing is listed as a consequence of their care for these groups. Our reading today launches along that same refrain. We’ve seen before that the LORD sees each seventh year as a “year of release” of both debts and slaves. This is the theme of chapter 15, but nested within is a challenge: “There will be no poor among you; for the LORD will bless you…if only you will strictly obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today.” When you turn to chapter 16, listen to how this theme of blessing now permeates the commands regarding Feasts and Festivals. As they celebrate the Passover, their care for the sojourner, widow, and orphan, is directly connected to remembering that they were slaves in Egypt. So with the Feast of Booths – a reminder of how the LORD provided for them in the wilderness. Moses turns now to the courts, where judges “shall not pervert justice,” nor “show partiality,” These instructions regarding civil justice bookend another warning about worshipping other gods – and the penalties that offense carries. If proximity is an indicator of connection, then it’s possible that perversion of justice and perversion of worship have something in common. These three chapters have been building to the crescendo at the end of chapter 17: instructions regarding Israel’s future kings. Notice throughout that the focus is not on whether or not a king is a good idea, but on the LORD’s vision for that king, which is distinctive among the nations. The king shall neither amass wealth through many marriages nor build military power with an overwhelming cavalry. The king is not the lawmaker, but is to be a student of God’s law. In this his blessing – and that of his dynasty – will be found. Our verse for this week is Matthew 22:39: And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Deuteronomy chapters 15 through 17. Now let’s read it!
Transcribe →Day 42 Guided Podcast
YesterdayTap to summarizeYou’ve made it to the end of Leviticus! I know for some of you that this is your first time through this entire book. Congratulations! A few weeks ago I asserted that this covenant read like the founding documents of a nation, like a constitution, with one significant difference. The LORD is king, not negotiating partner. The LORD is not waiting for Israel to ratify his commands before they become binding. This will be important for the Israelites to remember when they approach their inheritance – the Promised Land – which we’ll watch in the book of Numbers. This idea is God’s kingship is clear in a few passages today. In chapter 25, when the LORD is laying down laws for managing property, He reminds them that: “…the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me.” He commands them to allow the land to rest every seventh year, to return property to its original owners every fifty years, and to deal kindly with poorer citizens. Nested in these commands is a reminder that “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.” Chapter 26 begins promises of blessings for obedience: “…I will walk with you and be your God…” This is followed with threats of punishment for disobedience: “If you walk contrary to Me, then I also will walk contrary to you.” Notice that twice as much space is devoted to the curses as to the blessings, and consider what this says about the LORD. The last chapter of Leviticus contains instructions for how to manage vows that people might make to the LORD. These were voluntary vows, a way of giving to the tabernacle through the sale of servants, animals, or even houses. The vows were to be taken seriously – so much so that there was a 20% penalty for attempting to “buy back” the vow, and breaking a vow outright could be condemned with death. Consider why someone would voluntarily make a vow to the LORD, then try to back out of it. And then we come to the end. Next week the children of Israel will pull up stakes and come to the borders of Canaan, the land where all the promise of Leviticus will, we hope, be fulfilled. Our verse for this week is Romans 5:6: For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Leviticus chapters 25 through 27. Now let’s read it!
Transcribe →Day 240 Guided Podcast
YesterdayTap to summarize“When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you… and when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them… You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.” - Deuteronomy 7:1-4 After arriving at Jerusalem and fulfilling his duties at the temple, Ezra is given sobering news concerning the task before him: “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands and with their abominations… for they have taken some of their daughters to be wives… Even more distressing, he learns that in this faithlessness the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost. The camera keeps its focus on Ezra. All through this book there has been the question of compromise: Cyrus’s limited concern for the God who is in Jerusalem; the people of the land, whose children’s children feared the LORD and also served their carved images; and the choice they gave Zerubbabel: let us join you, or we’ll petition the king to thwart your efforts. At the climax of the book, this question is now put before Ezra. His first response is to sit appalled. All day, in fact. His next response is to pray, and listen to the rhythm of that prayer, how humility and gratitude and repentance and worship reach a crescendo with: “Behold, we are before you in our guilt, for none can stand before you because of this.” And finally, he calls an assembly, and the proceedings bear the marks of the faithful and detailed scribe whom we met yesterday. I’ll leave you with an important literary note: in chapter 9, when the Jewish officials apprise Ezra of the intermarriage problem, they refer to themselves as “the holy race…” Remember that the deep meaning of “holy” is “set apart” and that LORD Himself had commanded the people of Israel to be “holy,” set apart from the nations around them. There is no reason to read arrogance into their statement. They are alarmed, as is Ezra, at how un-set-apart the children of Israel have been, and they have a righteous fear that the anger of the LORD would be kindled against them. Our verses for this week are Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Ezra 9 and 10. Now let’s read it!
Transcribe →Day 157 Guided Podcast
YesterdayTap to summarizeToday’s reading launches with Jesus’ arrival at Jerusalem, where the crowds celebrate “The prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.” Jesus is not celebratory at the Temple, though, and launches a multi-day assault on the religious leaders’ practices, teaching, and management. Question and response drives the plot in the first two chapters: the Pharisees, Sadducees, chief priests and scribes, attempting to entangle Him in His words. By the end of chapter 22, “No one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.” Jesus then turns on His harassers: warning the crowd of the hypocrisy, blindness, and arrogance of their religious leaders. Woe to them! For “whoever exalts himself will be humbled…” As elsewhere in narratives, repetition can be a way for an author or speaker to convey meaning, and there are at least three repetitions to note today. I’ve already mentioned the “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites!” which constantly recurs in chapter 23. Earlier, in chapter 21, Jesus concludes a series of responses to the chief priests and elders by twice asking, “Have you never read…,” then quoting Scripture. Later, Jesus reiterates His point from chapter 17 that with enough faith, mountains can be moved. Finally, the crowds are prominently featured today. They surrounded Jesus on his arrival in Jerusalem, cried out “Hosanna to the Son of David!” in the temple and struck fear in the hearts of the Pharisees. The crowd was astonished by Jesus’ rejoinder toward the Sadducees and was Jesus’ audience for His stringing “Woe to the scribes and Pharisees” sermon. Pay attention to how these crowds figure into the events to come. Our verse for this week is Micah 6:8: He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Matthew 21 through 23. Now let’s read it!
Transcribe →