Bible Reading Challenge Week 8

The weather in the Inland Northwest, where I live, has finally turned fully to Fall. I love this time of year. The leaves have turned to gold and red, and are littering the streets with added beauty. Two of my sons play rugby with a local club and Saturday was our last game day of the season. While it will be nice to have a break, there is something special about being out on a crisp fall morning watching my boys engage themselves in a good physical sport. May God who makes all these wonderful things and gives us the ability to enjoy them be praised!

In this week’s readings we finished out 1 Corinthians, read a few Psalms, and jumped into Deuteronomy and the Gospel of Mark.

Week 8 Readings

1 Corinthians 12-16

1 Corinthians 15 is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. The depths and glories of resurrection, our reason for hope, and the great victory that Christ has are showcased beautifully here. Paul is arguing against people, presumably within the church, who are saying that there is no resurrection of the dead. He begins his defense of resurrection by citing eye-witness accounts of Christ’s resurrection. Next he argues that if Christ has been raised from the dead, it proves that there will be a resurrection for all those connected to Him. He [Christ] is the firstfruits, the pledge and token of the fullness.

Fast-forwarding to the end of the chapter, Paul tells us the “mystery” of the resurrection – “When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?'” I love how it sounds like a legend in a epic story that that will be brought about by the hero in the end. Christ is the ultimate hero from which all good heroes in stories we create spring.

These verses have particular comfort and hope for those who have been touched by the death of loved ones. My wife and I lost nine children in the womb on our journey to the five wonderful ones we are blessed to raise. Through the course of these miscarriages, these verses gave us hope that the sting of death is temporary, and its victory overturned. The One who has already conquered death is faithful and true to bring His children into new life, and life that will blossom and flourish even after our bodies die, where we will glory in the God of resurrection all our days.

Deuteronomy 1-15

As Moses gives final instructions to the Israelites before they pass over the Jordan River to take the land that God has promised them, he points out one of the things we often forget even today in chapter 8: prosperity often begets unfaithfulness. God promises that He will bring the people into the land, defeating the current inhabitants for and through them. The land promised to them is Edenic – they will “lack nothing.” But the warning is that the land will not stay this way if they, in their prosperity, forget God by “not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes.”

The theme of the people forgetting God when times are good, but remembering him when times are hard will be one we will see over and over again when we get to Judges. We are not much different. We are often tempted in our comfort to forget that God is the giver of all good gifts. Our default response to blessings and prosperity should be thankfulness to God, but it is often pride and greed. May God make us thankful.

Mark 1-9

Mark’s Gospel is known for not being heavy on the dialogue and instead focusing on the actions of Jesus. There are two things that I found interesting when reading through these verses. The first is what happens pretty much right off the bat in Jesus ministry. He is almost immediately confronted with a man with an unclean spirit. That is not necessarily the striking part. It’s where the demon possessed man was. He was in the synagogue on the Sabbath day – just another church-goer. You’ll also notice that the people aren’t amazed that there is a demon-possessed man in the synagogue, but rather that Jesus actually has authority to cast out the demon. Later in chapter 1, Mark gives an overview of the early stages of Christ’s ministry by saying that Jesus “went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.” (1:39). We tend to be familiar with the account of Jesus cleansing the temple of the money-changers, but Jesus also cleansed the synagogues of demons wherever He went.

The second thing I noticed is of particular note after reading Leviticus and Numbers recently. It was the healing of the woman with a 12-year bleeding ailment and the raising from the dead of Jarius’ daughter. If we remember all the laws about this kind of thing, we would remember that the woman would have been constantly unclean as a result of this bleeding ailment. When she reached out to touch Jesus, Jesus should have been made unclean by her touch. Instead we see that not only is Jesus not made unclean, but that she is made clean, whole, healed. Immediately after this, he enters the house of Jarius and takes the man’s dead daughter’s hand, which would also have made him unclean. Again, instead of Jesus being made unclean, we see that even death has no power over the Savior’s touch.

Something very different is happening here. This is a picture of the fading of the system of shadows when the light comes. These laws were meant to govern the people to a state where they could worship a holy God, but they had no power to affect real, lasting change – no power to truly heal or to make clean. But then Christ enters and true healing can take place.

May God bless your reading of His Word this week!