It took less than a day of reading to get a deeper understanding of why one can study the bible for a lifetime and still glean new things. In truth a lifetime is not enough. As Saint Augustine said, "The bible is shallow enough for a child not to drown, yet deep enough for an elephant to swim. Each verse opens up a new thought, a new question, a new understanding of what God has done and sometimes a confusion of why He is doing it. In moments of questions research is good but there are times where I need to submit to His authority remembering what A.W. Tozer said in his book Pursuit of God, "God will not hold us responsible to understand the mysteries of election, predestination, and the divine sovereignty. The best and safest way to deal with these truths is to raise our eyes to God and in deepest reverence say, "O Lord, Thou knowest." Those things belong to the deep and mysterious Profound of God's omniscience. Prying into them may make theologians, but it will never make saints."
Genesis 30-37
Jacob is married to two women, sisters, and now building his own family while still living in his father in laws land. The two sisters are basically having a baby war to see who can conceive the most for their husband with either themselves or their slaves they have given to him. At one point they Rachel trades a week of sex with Jacob for some food one of Leah's sons brought home. The competition and tension around the tents must be extreme! At the beginning of this week Jacob is still not my favorite. He still seems a little shady in his dealings with Laban, but then Jacob opens up and shares his heartache of working for twenty years for his wives and flocks, being paid little, never knowing when Laban was going to switch things around and you start to see that the life and status he was given through Isaac might have been from deception but that his road didn't end up being an easy one in the end either.
Jacob changed. God changed him. He comes face to face with his own sin and life choices and wrestles with the Lord. His fear of meeting up with Esau shows that he knows what he did was not right and knows that Esau has the right to be angry with him. The moment Esau runs up and hugs him reminds me of the story of the father in the prodigal son. And as these two brothers, both changed by God through time and maturity, surrounded by their immense volume of people and possessions, weep together my Hamilton loving heart sings to itself, "Forgiveness...Can you Imagine?"
And here we are at the end of Rebecca and Isaac's life and at the beginning of the lives of Jacob's children. Once again strife caused by the jealousy of brothers, once again God holding the stories in his hand as he directs their steps and their lives to the exact proper place he needs them to be through difficult circumstances that eventually bring tremendous blessing to many.
Mark 1-7
Moving from one Gospel straight into another is interesting. Similar stories, very different writing styles. mark is short and to the point. Not much flowery language, no need for tons of details. It's as if he is a hurry to get it all down before he forgets or as if he is telling the story to children and know that they will lose their attention if he doesn't get it all out in a quick fashion.
But even with the similar stories there are many that jump out that didn't before. The friends carrying their paralyzed friend and lowering him through the roof will always remain one of my absolutely favorite stories. Those are the friends I want to have. That is the friend I want to be. Knowing that being close to Jesus is so crucial you will go to any means to get before him.
I was struck by the description of the sabbath being made for man, not man for the sabbath. We were not made to uphold it, it was made for us to enjoy. A gift of rest, not a burden to maintain.
In Mark 5 as Jesus heals and drives out demons the phrase they "ran and fell at his feet" is repeated in every interaction. They rushed to be near him and humbled themselves before him. Run and fall. Its the only way to be picked up. The man who once was possessed now begs Jesus to let him come with him after the rest of his town begged Jesus to leave. Jesus asks him to stay and tell others about what was done for him. Fear kept those others from Christ, but Love kept this one man behind so that he could be a witness to them.
There's another verse in Mark 6 about rest. "Come away by yourselves to a remote place and rest for awhile" Jesus says after they have come back from preaching, healing, driving out demons, etc. Rest is important in the work of God. Rest keeps you abiding in Him instead of working out of exhaustion for yourself.
One of the last lines of this week's reading in Mark says "He has done everything well." That is Jesus.
Esther 6-10
Mordecai is honored, Haman is executed, the Jews are given victory over all of their enemies, the King is used by God to accomplish this task, and Esther fulfills her duty in this place in time. And still to this day they are remembered and God is glorified on the 14th and 15th of Adar.
Job 1-3
And now we move on to Job, a most confusing book at times. A quote for John Piper states that "Job has about 29 chapters of misapplied theology in the middle. It's hard to navigate your way through those chapters and determine what is true and what is not, because these guys [Job's friends] are mixing up truth and falsehood all over the place..."
The big lesson we will learn from Job is that God is Sovereign over everything, our suffering and our happiness. In the meantime, as I am counting on wise people on the interwebs to help me figure this book out, I am floored by Job's immediate reaction following the news. Before he sits in complete silence for 7 straight days and nights he utters the words, "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, Blessed be the name of the Lord."
Romans 1-7
Romans. Ya'll, and I thought the book of Matthew had a lot! Romans is a book that can be read countless times and should be read countless times. It is so foundational in understanding the gospel and why and how we are able to have it and what happens within us by the work of the Spirit to enable us to live and grow and as our inner dispositions change and become more like Christ. Paul has a desire to explain, very carefully and methodically, what it means to be saved by faith and not by works. Immediately born in sin without anything we have yet done because of one man's sin and then immediately righteous through nothing we have done because of Christ.
In this chapters Paul shows us our need for a savior. He explains clearly yet confusingly that we do not do what we want to do but do what we don't want to do. Our minds know what should be done yet we are unable to produce the actions. Try all we might there is no good in me. Our youngest son cried this desperate words tonight, "I am never going to be a good person." after getting caught lying covering up a mistake. The truth, I reminded him again, is that you will not ever be a good person on your own no matter how hard you try. He, like all of us before we truly understand, is constantly living in the guilt of his own shortcomings, a necessary step before seeing, truly seeing, that Jesus is the only way. A simple step that can sometimes be one of the hardest to take.
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