Tag: Understanding the Bible

Digging in Deeper: Psalms 119:27

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“Help me understand the meaning of your precepts so that I can meditate on your wonders.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Granting you’re doing at least a little bit of this right now, but when was the last time you made a good faith effort to engage with the Scriptures? Notice, I didn’t say, “read your Bible.” We usually think in terms of the latter, but the first is more helpful. Either way, if you’re like most people who give the notion of following Jesus some part of the time of day, it’s probably something you’ve tried at least once or twice. And if you’re like most people who fit into that category, you probably got started pretty well, but then gradually fell off the wagon. The odds are better than average that the reason you eventually quit is that you ran into something you didn’t understand. Engaging with the Scriptures can be tough. What the writer of Psalm 119 – which is entirely dedicated to extolling the virtues and worth of God’s word – offers us here is a strategy for staying engaged even when it’s hard. Let’s talk about it.

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Digging in Deeper: Luke 12:16-20

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“Then he told them a parable: ‘A rich man’s land was very productive. He thought to himself, “What should I do, since I don’t have anywhere to store my crops? I will do this,” he said. “I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones and store all my grain and my goods there. Then I’ll say to myself, ‘You have many goods stored up for many years. Take it easy; eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.'” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is demanded of you. And the things you have prepared – whose will they be?”‘” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Context matters. A classic example of this is a man who pushes an old woman in the middle of the road. You might judge him as the kind of man who pushes old women, but what if he was pushing her out of the way of an oncoming bus? Then his act was not one of villainy, but heroism. Context matters. Just like for this man pushing old women, context matters in your life. Why you do what you do matters. Jesus helped us understand that through a jarring parable. Let’s talk about it and what it means for us.

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Morning Musing: Genesis 11:3-4

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“They said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make oven-fired bricks.’ (They used brick for stone and asphalt for mortar.) And they said, ‘Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Let’s make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered throughout the earth.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

What are you building right now? That may sound like a strange question, but bear with me. I love building. I think I’ve passed that love on to my boys too. They all build different things – one builds amazing buildings and models, one builds incredible stories and songs, and the other builds exciting fantasy worlds of great imagination – but they are all builders. In a bigger sense, everyone is building something. The question is not whether, but what and why. One more question is who the building is for. In an interesting little story that falls right near the end of the creation story arc in Genesis, we’re reminded that why we build matters as much – or even more – than what.

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Digging in Deeper: Jeremiah 29:12-13

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“You will call to me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Finding God is easy when times are good. But what about when times are hard? That’s often another matter entirely. Perhaps we get so tied up in our circumstances that we don’t ever even bother to look up. But most people instinctively reach up when things are hard. This starts to show itself from the first moment an infant reaches up to his mom and dad to pick him up when he’s crying. That is a response that has to be programmed out of us by life and experience. Yet God wants to be found. He wants to help. He desires to be desired. The prophet Jeremiah once reminded the people of Israel of this truth. The way he said it is both comforting and hard. Let’s explore why and what it might mean for us.

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Morning Musing: Ephesians 1:4

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“For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Do you remember Magic Eye books? They had a brief surge of popularity when I was growing up. Each picture looked like some kind of a random, repeating pattern of shapes and images when you just glanced at it. But if you looked at it just right, all of a sudden, there was something else there. I remember getting a book when I was little and spending hours trying to master the technique of seeing the hidden image. The standard approach is to hold the image right up to your nose and pull it away slowly while trying to look through it. When you got to just the right distance, your eyes would begin to perceive the depth of the 3D image hiding beneath the pattern. I finally figured out my own technique which is to cross my eyes and then slowly uncross them. What got me thinking about Magic Eye images this morning is what Paul wrote here in his opening comments in his letter to the Ephesian church. Most folks who look at it see one thing, but as I was spending some time with it recently, I saw in it something just a bit deeper. Let me share with you what I saw.

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