2018 Bible Reading - Quarter Four

Our Bible reading plan concludes with the final book of the Bible.  John, imprisoned on the island of Patmos, receives a vision from God that is to serve as instruction and inspiration for Churches in the Roman province of Asia.  This wonderful book is filled with wild and vivid imagery as John is shown the spiritual reality behind the world around us and allowed to peak into the heavenly throne room of God.  Throughout the book, the vileness and ugliness of the world’s evil is contrasted with the purity, and praiseworthiness of Christ and his redeemed.  Revelation ends with the promise of God’s victory over evil, death, and pain. 

Exempting the resurrection appearances, the final 10 chapters of John cover just 1 week of Jesus Life.  Our reading begins with Jesus being anointed by Mary, which was an act of worship for Mary, but grand sign of messianic kingship in the story of the Gospel.  Jesus then makes the two-mile trek into Jerusalem being welcomed as the Messiah.  9 chapters and 1 week later, Jesus will be crucified, and John will proceed to describe to us a handful of resurrection appearances where they saw and spoke with the resurrected Christ. After we read the Johannine epistles we’ll have just one book left in our reading plan

Zechariah is the last Old Testament book in our reading plan! We saved one of the wildest for last, and if you read it with us you’ll know what I mean. Then we’re on to the Gospel of John. The last Gospel is the most unique of the four and jam-packed with deep truths about the identity and role of Jesus.

This is our last full-week of reading in the Old Testament.  This week we’ll finish book five of Psalms.  You’ll certainly notice the lyrics of a number of songs that you’ve sung in church while reading through these 31 chapters. The Psalms were at the center of the devotional life for God-fearing Israelites, and were at the front-of-mind for Jesus and the apostles – which we know because of their frequent reference to them.  Let the words of the Psalmist lift you to a higher devotion for God.

This Weeks reading covers the end of Ezekiel where the prophet shifts from being the harbinger of doom, to being a guarantor of hope and restoration. Central to Ezekiel’s promise of restoration is his vision of a restored temple in Jerusalem where the first one lies in ruin. The we’ll turn back to begin Book V of Psalms, where we’ll encounter both the shortest and the longest chapters in the Bible.

This week’s reading occurs during the most tumultuous and devastating years for the kingdom of Judah, and Ezekiel makes frequent references to the date so that we can read his words along with the calamitous events which they accompany.  This week’s reading covers 6 years of Ezekiel’s ministry to the Israelites in exile, during which the Babylonians will conduct a campaign against Judah which results in the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple.  Ezekiel’s role as a prophet shifts through three different modes during these 19 chapters.  First he is the harbinger of God’s Judgment against Judah, then he is the proclaimer of calamity for Judah’s neighbors and enemies, the finally he becomes a messenger of hope and new life for an exiled people. 

This week’s reading begins a three-week journey through Ezekiel.  Ezekiel is the last of the Major Prophets.  His ministry takes place in Babylon because he was part of a select group of important people in Judah that had been deported in the two decades before Jerusalem was destroyed.  Ezekiel announces the certainty of God’s judgment against His unfaithful people, and then announces – with equal certainty – that God will restore His people, and be faithful to the covenant even though they were not.

We’ll read the majority of Proverbs this week.  This is not an easy task because of the choppy and, ‘proverbial’ nature of the literature.  Proverbs has wisdom for a wide swath of life’s situations and teaches the reader of Scripture that the path of righteousness and wisdom leads not just through Church, but through every arena and situation of Life.  When we’re done with that we’re rewarded with a bite-size minor Prophet name Nahum who has bad news for the Assyrian Empire.

This week’s reading in Deuteronomy features the very last words of Moses, and the transition of leadership from him to Joshua.  The covenant again takes center stage as Moses outlines the blessings that would result from faithfulness, and the calamities that would result from unfaithfulness.  Then we’ll skip ahead to Proverbs. We’ll be reading the first section of Solomonic proverbs which have a longer form and a more natural reading-flow. The sharp and choppy 2-liner proverbs which we often associate with this book will have to wait for next week. 

We’ll finish Job this week by reading God’s response to all of Job’s challenges, then we flip back to our last remaining book of the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy.  Deuteronomy is the departing words of Moses to the people of Israel who have endured forty years of wandering in the desert as punishment from God and now stand on the door step of the Promised Land, poised to enter and see the promise that God made so long ago to Abraham fulfilled.

This week’s reading covers most of the dialog in Job. Job’s conversation with his three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, and then a new character named Elihu spans all 27 of the chapters which we will read this week. Notice the changes that develop in Job ans his friends as they continue to explore the reason for and justice of this calamity which has befallen Job

This weeks reading includes the end of our third tour through the New Testament and the beginning of our fourth and final trek through the Old Testament. Hebrews and Job have some interesting connections: They’re both anonymous writings, they’re hard to assign a date of authorship to, and both of these books contribute greatly to our understanding of angels (more on that in the study notes) .

This week’s reading serves up four epistles (letters) written by the Apostle Paul. In Galatians and Philippians, Paul is writing to churches that Paul planted while on his missionary journeys around the north-west Mediterranean region. In Galatians, the frustration of Paul shines through, while in Philippians, the joy of Paul shines through. Finally, 1st and 2nd Timothy are personal letters of instruction to Paul’s dearest mentee. In them, we receive the clearest teaching and ministry of the Church in all of Scripture