The One Year Bible- December 21st

As Christmas fast approaches, so does the completion of our journey through the Bible this year. I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have. This journey never really ends but can be the beginning of some new habits. I hope this year has got you in the habit of daily time in God’s Word. I hope you will continue with this habit whether it is reading the Bible again in this same format or it is another way to study, please keep up the hard work. This is the second to last post for this year. Next week I will wrap up all the readings for the year and then on January 4th I will give the first post of 2008 starting the Bible from the beginning again. But lets not get ahead of ourselves. On to today’s study...

Vicar Seth’s Thoughts

The Old Testament
The book of Jonah is famous for its fish story and in many respects that is one of the keys to this book. Jonah tried to run from God. His fear got the best of him and he tried to get away from it. I found it interesting that even in the midst of his flight from God, the Lord was honored. Did you catch it when the men on the same boat as Jonah threw him overboard and the storm stopped? “Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows” (Jonah 1:16 ESV). One great connection to Christ in Jonah comes from mouth of Jesus himself, “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40 ESV). Jesus used Jonah to help teach what was going to happen to him; yet again another great connection between the Old and New Testaments.

Micah is one of those gloom and doom books of the latter Old Testament. It has a similar message to many of the other books, i.e. destruction is coming, turn back to God. But there is a huge gem of prophecy in chapter 5, “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel,” (Micah 5:2 ESV). This is one of the great Christmas prophecies and shows why the Messiah had to be born in the small town of Bethlehem. Just one chapter later we see some great practical advice to the exiles as they live in captivity. “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” (Micah 6:8 ESV).

The prophet Nahum writes some of the most comforting and the most disturbing things in the Old Testament. He reminds us that the Lord is slow to get angry (1:3) and he is our refuge (1:7), but what will happen to those who don’t believe (i.e. Nineveh) will be something awful.

I am glad the book of Habakkuk is not so long because most of it is depressing and bad news. Thank goodness for the last two verses of the book, “yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places” (Habakkuk 3:18-19 ESV). This is the key to the book. It reminds me in a way to the book of Job who said, “I know that my Redeemer Lives!”

The key to the book of Zephaniah is in Chapter 2, “Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, who do his just commands; seek righteousness; seek humility” (Zephaniah 2:3 ESV). Even in the middle of this destruction that will come as a direct result of sin, God still reminds them to do right.

Haggai writes to those who have returned to Jerusalem but were busy building their own houses and not a house for the Lord. Haggai gives the people encouragement to get to work on building the new temple and gives them a reminder that God is with them

The New Testament
I think maybe I need to back up and give you some perspective on the book of Revelation. Without seeing the whole picture, the details will only confuse you. First of all as I have written before, the book of Revelation is in the genre of other apocalyptic books. As the American Heritage Dictionary defines as: Involving or portending widespread devastation or ultimate doom. The book of Revelation looks at this in regards to the end of the world and it looks at it from different angles. As one of my seminary professors said John sees a vision of the end of the world from three points of view. Each point of view is like a different camera angle shooting the same scene. Each camera sees the action and the characters from a different point of view. Each angle provides certain aspects of the story to be emphasized. Some angles completely obscure the action and something may be lost. When John writes about what he sees we must keep in mind that this is not all happening in linear time as we are used to. John sees the complete destruction of the world with the seven seals on the scroll opened by Jesus himself. Then he sees the destruction of the world again with the seven trumpet blasts. This time different parts of the same story are emphasized. A bit later we will see the seven censers of God’s wrath being poured out. This time John will describe the end of the world from another point of view. In the middle of all of this is the cosmic war between Satan and Christ. We must remember that the war was won for us on the cross and the open tomb. We are part of the group that has been sealed in baptism and we have the mark of God on us. Therefore all of this bad stuff will not affect us. We are assured of our place in heaven already. I hope this give some perspective to you as you read. I will spend some more time next week getting into some of the details.

Bits and Pieces

Only two books to go... We will spend this whole week in the book of Zechariah. Here are the vital stats for the book:

PURPOSE: To give hope to God’s people by revealing God’s future deliverance through the Messiah

AUTHOR: Zechariah

TO WHOM WRITTEN: The Jews in Jerusalem who had returned form their captivity in Babylon and to God’s people everywhere

DATE WRITTEN: Chapters 1-8 were written about 520-518 B.C. Chapters 9-14 were written about 480 B.C.

SETTING: The exiles had returned from Babylon to rebuild the temple, but the work had been thwarted and stalled. Haggai and Zechariah confronted the people with their task and encouraged them to complete it.

KEY VERSES: “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey...He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and form the River to the ends of the earth." (9:9-10)

SPECIAL FEATURES: The book is the most apocalyptic and Messianic of all the Minor Prophets.