Guided reading plans to help you read and understand the Bible.
If you wanted to hear an overview of Ephesians before you sat down to read it, or better yet, if having already read it, you wanted to hear someone’s thoughts on the letter and be reminded of what you just read, take a look at this video.
In it NT Wright runs through the entire book of Ephesians in about 15 minutes. Although I’d hesitate to say, as it is titled, that this is a quick tour of Ephesians given that you could probably read the whole book in just about that same amount of time.
We now begin another wonderful week of reading God’s Word. I hope you enjoyed the way, in just one week, we finished the letter to the Galatians. Certainly there is plenty to study in a book like that, but it packs a punch when you read straight though. We almost finished Judges, which we’ll do this week as it only has a few more chapters. Then on top of finishing Judges, we’ll begin and end both Ruth and Ephesians.
But do not be overwhelmed. We have may four books this week (Judges, Ruth, Ephesians, Psalms), but no one book has that many chapters. Figure out a good way to read them, and might I suggest not trying to each a little bit every day. That may be confusing.
The great thing about having four this week is that we can really build momentum. When we can start to build a longer list of books we’ve read, it makes me excited to see all we’ve done. God has given us each of these books and all of the Scriptures are useful for us today, so what a blessing to have journeyed through as many as we have.
So I hope you share such excitement and enter this week with an anticipation that God will continue to speak to you as you make your way to the end of three more books of the Bible.
If as you are reading you have thoughts to share, pass them along. And let me know if you’d be OK if I then share them here.
I haven’t devoted much typing to the book of Judges this week, something I’ll be sure to remedy for the next week’s assignments for Year in the Bible. But in reading through Galatians I see a connection to Judges, and Galatians could just about be retitled and delivered to the tribes of Israel. Paul writes in chapter one:
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—
He goes on to say that calling anything but the gospel of Christ ‘gospel’ doesn’t make sense, for nothing is good news compared to God’s grace. But, the point I’m making with relation to Judges is that this church in Galatia, some two thousand years ago, suffered the same problems that God’s people struggled with thousands of years before that. They so quickly turn from the God who had delivered them from Egypt and delivered them into the promised land. Sadly the story is a common one in which humanity, for no good reason, turns from God.
I don’t know whether we should grow more angry with ourselves seeing this pattern continue or if we should have greater sympathy. Maybe both. At least it should help make us humble people.
The good news is that this pattern also includes a God who forgives and welcomes us back again and again.
Paul’s style throughout Galatians is great. He has been a servant of Jesus Christ for years but still writes with such passion and urgency as if he is just coming back from meeting Christ on the way to Damascus. He knows what is at stake with the churches in Galatia who have fallen prey to false teachers and have subsequently turned from the gospel, and in so doing, have turned from the one who has called them.
He make God’s grace an emphasis of the letter–that God has called us, that Christ gave himself for our sins, that he has delivered us, and that any work that is required of us has been accomplished, therefore our works can not contribute to our being saved. He emphasizes grace through and through. Sometimes it is bold and confrontational as he challenges these churches, like when he quickly jumps into the meat of the letter with words like “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ” or when he calls them “fools” for now trying to bring in some sort of works righteousness into a gospel of grace.
But sometimes his lifting up of God’s grace, his movement to us and for us when we cannot merit it, is more subtle. It sounds almost offhanded in 4:9. Paul writes about the difference between where we all once were, enslaved to false gods, compared to being heirs of God. He writes, “But now that you have come to know God, or rather be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, who slaves you want to be once more?”
I love this verse. We are reminded even in knowing God that he has initiated. He is the one who has begun all things and he is also the one who has done all things for us. We have not come to know God, but to be known by him. How humbling is the verse, and for that matter, this whole book? We can never measure up to God nor can we ever merit his love. But he has called us by name, he has made us his own. Because of the death of Jesus Christ we can be freed from slavery to false gods and embrace the free grace of God.
I found this not too long ago and it may be a bit silly, but at the same time it sums up Galatians very succinctly. David Mathis has boiled down the entire six chapters of this letter into 30 tweets. That’s not just 30 sentences, since each tweets is limited to only 140 characters. I think it’s impressive. But don’t go reading this instead of Galatians. Think of it like a good outline.
Here are the first couple:
Jesus gave himself at the cross both for us and for God—for our good and ultimately for God’s glory #Galatians 1:1–5
There is one gospel. One path from which saving grace flows to sinners: Jesus. Every counterfeit is damnable #Galatians 1:6–9
It has been a few months now since we began reading the Bible in a year, so I thought I’d go back and touch on one of the aspects that people newer to Year in the Bible may not be familiar with. Each week we read quite a bit of text. We average around 23 chapters per week, with a lighter load mixed in for periodic breaks (or times to catch up!). Reading at this pace is difficult at times, and if you share my experience, it is a very different style of reading.
I grew up doing a lot of Bible study in which you take little chunks at a time. This is a great way to do it since you don’t rush and you have the flexibility to wrestle with passages, meditating on them to try to plumb the depths of God’s Word. That’s typically how sermons go, as well, with a preacher spending focused time on one or two passages. This is how I’ve taught Bible studies. For example, before beginning Year in the Bible, we spent just about all of 2011 studying the book of John.
Now that we’ve sped things up considerably you may lose some of that narrowly focused, in-depth time in the Bible. I think we’ve gained something by shifting into this style for a year, and I wrote about it here. Simply put, it is good to step back to see the larger arc of the story of God’s love for us.
We’re doing Year in the Bible in order to gain this larger perspective and to make sure we read and appreciate all of God’s Word. But we don’t want to miss out entirely on what is gained by slow, meditative study. That’s why each week there is a corresponding Bible study. That’s all that the Focus Passages are. I take a short selection from the readings, and prepare some questions and supporting passages. We use them for Bible studies and small groups, but they’re also great for personal study.
If you haven’t already, take a look at them in the This Week section, and to make it even easier, here is the current week’s below:
Imagine if you will:
Paul has come your way through the region of Galatia, and you think you understood what he has taught. But he wasn’t the only one who has come talking about Jesus, and what Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection mean for us.
Some of what Paul said sounded radical, such as complete dependence on God’s grace, not on what we do. But others came along to you adding to his teaching.
Yes, God is gracious, but don’t we still need to earn grace? God has given you the law, right? Shouldn’t we then follow it? Why would he give it to you if you couldn’t follow it? And if you can uphold the law, then you must.
Should we be concerned? Did Paul just emphasize some parts of the gospel and other teachers emphasized other parts? Are they teaching the same thing? They all sound pretty smart, how can I make heads or tails of this? Are they all right in some way? How should we react?
If only Paul would write to us to help clear things up…
Is it just me or have the last couple weeks flown by? We’ve already finished up both Joshua and Mark and now we begin Judges and Galatians.
I’ll just make one tip as we get into these readings. Galatians is a letter, and how many letters do you read spread out over a week? Answer: none. We don’t typically read letters in parts, so I’d encourage you to take your time with Judges, but when it comes to Galatians, try to read it in one sitting. It’s not that long, so don’t worry. If you do I think you’ll get a good sense of Paul’s intent and purpose in writing this to the churches in Galatia.
If you have questions throughout this week, send them my way!
Year in the Bible 