Resources for Daily Devotions

A while back I put together a list of various devotional resources with a description of each one for a workshop I was leading at my church. It occurred to me that I never made that available here so I'm tending to that now. You can download the file as a pdf here.  Below is a summary of what you'll find.

• After some general advice on doing daily devotions, there's a table of contents that lists the nineteen different resources described.
  
• Each resource is identified as to whether it is print, online, email etc.
  
• Where appropriate, a sample of the content is provided.
  
• Information follows on where to get the particular resource.

I hope this is helpful!

Tim

David, Bathsheba, The Baby and God

This morning I read 2 Samuel 11 and 12, the story of how David committed adultery (rape, really, considering the power differential) with Uriah's wife Bathsheba, then had him killed in order to cover it up. Three things gave me pause to reflect.

___

First, Nathan confronts David using a story about a rich man who takes a poor man's sheep in order to feed a traveler. The traveler represents David's passing urge to have Bathsheba just because she's attractive.

What are the "travelers" you have to deal with? Things that are passing, that you have a hard time not "feeding?"

In a way,I think my depression episodes are like that. They are travelers in my life, passing through (although often staying way too long like bad house guests). And I feed them with the attention that really belongs to others in my life.

___

Second, the story tells how God punished David by killing the baby boy born to him and Bathsheba. How do we understand or interpret that? I see three options and there are probably more.

The first option is to take it at face value. That's really what happened and why. This leads to a dilemma. If I believe the text is literally true, I can't understand how God could be considered loving and just by killing the child. But if I believe that God is loving and just and would never do such a thing, then I can't see how the text could be literally true. Personally, I can't accept the idea that God would act in this way. So I find myself looking for different ways to understand the text, rather than different ways to understand God.

A second option is to simply say that the events never happened at all. The story was made up or constructed from other bits of fact and rumor, and included in the Bible perhaps for the way it shows there are consequences for sin, and for the example of God's faithfulness (to David) by being willing to forgive him.

A third option is to accept that the *events* are historical, but that the *interpretation* is something that made sense to the writers, but is not one I can accept. So, the real David had a real child with Bathsheba and the child really died. The writers see this and conclude that the death was caused by God as punishment. They don't seem to struggle with the way that portrays God as I do, perhaps because they think it *does* reflect the true character of God to act that way, pr perhaps because they don't view children as having the same value as adults, the way we do.

How do you read the text?

___

Third: at the end of chapter 12, David conquers the Ammonites. He "emptied the (capitol) city of its people and put them to slave labor using saws, picks, and axes, and making bricks."

He treated them just like the way the Egyptians treated his own ancestors, even to the point of forcing them to make bricks. (Exodus 1:13-14)

It's just unbelievably tragic that the oppressed have now become the oppressors.

It's astonishing that God continued to be faithful to his people in the face of this. Even so, God is faithful to us in whatever atrocities we may be guilty of.

Tim's Toolbox: STORY - We Learn It to Live It

For followers of Jesus, story is important in many, many ways. Jesus taught in stories; the story of Jesus reveals who God is and what God has done; the stories of Scripture are a treasure chest for the life of faith; our personal stories are the way we bear witness to Jesus; seeing our own story as part of a larger story gives life context and meaning, and living in a story that we know ends in eternal life gives us hope and courage for the days along the way.

The Old Testament story unfolds as a series of movements on a map. Abraham and Sarah journey from their home in the East, up over the top of the Fertile Crescent and down into the Promised Land. That journey is represented by the upper curved arrow in the Story icon. Later, their descendants leave the Promised Land and move to Egypt, represented in the lower curved arrow. The story continues over many generations with a return to the Promised Land from Egypt in the Exodus, followed by a deportation back to the East in the Exile. The Old Testament story concludes with a final journey of return to the Promised Land to await the coming of the Messiah.

The New Testament story also unfolds on a map, but this time as an ever widening circle centered on Jerusalem. The life and work of Jesus unfolds there, then moves further and further into the rest of the world as his disciples share the message “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

In both the Old and New Testaments, God’s goal remains the same (to embrace ALL people throughout the world), and the same basic strategy is used (commissioning a group of people to live out the message of God’s love.) In the Old Testament however, the approach is to have those people in a central location so that the message can go out from there. (Micah 4:2b) In the New Testament it’s the people themselves that are sent out into the world, bearing the message with them as they go. (Matthew 28:19)

The story of God’s activity in the world to deliver the message of love does not end with what’s written in the Bible. The story continues on through all the people that came afterwards, including each one of us. When we are called to be “witnesses,” it’s a call for us to tell our own stories of how God has touched and blessed us. Story is still the way that God is at work in the world.

Jesus used stories and parables when he taught 2000 years ago and he still uses stories to speak to us today, calling to mind a story from Scripture or life. Sharing these stories with each other is part of how we listen to God together, and how we care for and encourage each other. Stories become for us a kind of lexicon, a dictionary of images, ideas, themes and emotions that are able to catch our attention and strike chords in our minds, hearts and spirits. When we read stories in Scripture, we may begin by looking for what God said to people at the time since it may also apply to us today. But we also listen through the stories for what God is saying to us now. The story is still being told.

Genesis 12:1-3; Micah 4:1-2; Zechariah 8:20-23; Matthew 28:16-20; Acts 1:1-11; Acts 7; Hebrews 11:4-40

Tim's Toolbox: MYSTERY - Not Understanding is Normal

Sometimes we think that the most important thing in Christianity is what we know and understand. We place huge emphasis on having the “right” theology, being able to explain and make sense out of difficult Bible passages and so on. We are tempted to believe that everything can be explained, that we can understand every explanation, and that anything that “doesn’t make sense” must not be true.

In fact, there are things we don’t know, there are things we can’t know, and there are things we think we know but are actually completely wrong about. This is true in daily life, and even more so in spiritual life. When we encounter the limits of what we can know with our minds we enter into Mystery.

Not knowing everything is normal for humans. Even Jesus had limits to what he knew. He once told his disciples that only the Father knew when the end would come (Mark 13:32). And Jesus suffered with the pain of an unanswered question on the cross when he cried “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) Paul reminds us that at least for the time being “…we see through a mirror dimly” (1 Corinthians 13:12) and that “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9)

If our faith relied on what we know we would be in trouble indeed. Mystery reminds us that our faith is not about knowledge but trust. It’s one thing to believe that Jesus rose from the dead – to hold that statement as true. It’s quite a different thing to believe in Jesus as someone you trust.

Embracing Mystery and accepting that our knowledge is always limited and imperfect can relieve us from the fears and anxieties about not “getting it right.” In fact, this is one of the things we trust Jesus for: not only are we forgiven for our sins, but also for our false, mistaken and misunderstood beliefs. Released from these fears we are able to “hold loosely” our ideas about faith and life and be ready to learn more. This also encourages us to speak with humility about what we believe to be true, and listen with openness to the ideas of others. Acknowledging Mystery helps us to resist the temptations of intellectual pride.

Embracing Mystery can also help us to set aside our questions when there are more important things at hand than just understanding. In John 9 Jesus encounters a man blind from birth. His disciples and the religious leaders are fixated on the theological questions. Jesus sees the man as a person, not as a case study, and heals him. We may want to wrestle endlessly over questions like “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Mystery reminds us to consider whether getting answers is really more important than giving help to someone in need.

1 Corinthians 2; 1 Corinthians 8; Romans 11:33-34; Ephesians 3; Job 38

Scripture as Song, with Sampling

Thinking about different ways we use and value stories this morning especially stories in Scripture:

The stories themselves have value and that’s one reason why we learn them. Stories in Scripture; history of the Church; stories from ancestors, parents, friends and very much so stories from our own lives.  

Stories also have value as a kind of lexicon, a dictionary of images, ideas, themes, emotions etc. that are able to catch our attention and strike theological, experiential and emotional chords. 

In the first, we are often looking for what God said to people at the time, which may also apply to us today. In the second, we are listening for what God is saying now. The current word may be the same, similar, or quite different from what we find in the original setting. (And students of Scripture will readily point out how written Scripture itself sometimes re-purposes things from earlier times to make a point that may be VERY different from the original sense. A stunning example of this can be seen where Paul re-purposes the foundational Jewish story of Isaac and Ishmael in such a way as to reverse the original meaning, presenting all the Law-abiding Jews as children of Hagar rather than Sarah.  See Galatians 4.)

It’s an odd analogy, I think, but works well to compare this to the way that contemporary musicians use sampling. Jesus "samples" Scripture to sing us new tunes today along with the old ones. (By "sampling" here I'm thinking about

occasions like having an image of Scripture come to mind in conversation or during private devotions... these may be times when we're hearing the Lord speak in the present moment, catching our attention with the familiarity of the "sample.")

Scripture as song – there’s more that could be done with that. We value the original compositions very highly. The “old time” versions often have special, deep emotional resonance (e.g. The Lord’s Prayer or Psalm 23 from the KJV). But old songs can often find new richness with a different arrangement, or worked into a medley. From there It’s a short step to incorporating just a verse, refrain or chorus as a counterpoint, and from there to sampling to refer to a theme.

The Message 100 - Book Review

I was very pleased to receive a copy of The Message 100 by Eugene Peterson for review a while back.  I'm happy to recommend it, first and foremost because The Message version itself is hugely beneficial for reading, and second because the new arrangement of the books of the Bible that you find in The Message 100 has some valuable features as well.

A quick word about the translation itself. I like to refer to Peterson's excellent work as a "rendering" of scripture. Though based on the original language manuscripts, Peterson allows more freedom in bringing it into English than one would use in a formal translation. His rendering is at least a paraphrase, and at times makes moves that I would have to call interpretations. But the vitality and vibrancy of his version is so helpful in "hearing" scripture that I am always enthusiastic to recommend it to people for general reading and as a companion for formal Bible study. Reading The Message has improved my "scholarly" understanding of scripture, but more importantly, helped the Lord shape my heart in wonderful ways.

This new version makes two significant changes in how a reading Bible is organized. First, it divides the text into 100 readings. That simple change gives you an encouragement to read the whole Bible (who doesn't want to get to 100?) while at the same time avoiding the problems associated with so many other "read through the Bible" plans which is simply this: failure. I don't know how many times have I gotten behind in some daily reading plan and faced the decision to either skip a batch of readings and "press reset" to (FAIL!) or binge-read as fast as possible in order to "catch up" (faking success = FAIL!)  The 100 version invites you to keep at it and take your time. It's a grace goal... one that comes with a finish line but without a deadline.  How cool is that?

The second change in the 100 version is more significant, and more subtle.  In many places, the books of the Bible have been re-ordered.

Finally, Acts follows Luke as the sequel it was written to be! But that's just the start...

Anyone who's ever tried to read the Bible "cover to cover" has run into the Kings-Chronicles issue. You work your way through 1st and 2nd Kings and then here comes 1st and 2nd Chronicles going back over the same territory you just finished. It's confusing and a bit frustrating to feel like you are "re-reading" all that stuff, even if you are aware of the significant differences between Kings and Chronicles.  Some reading plans deal with this by interweaving the two tellings, and that helps especially if you read the various Prophets along the same timeline as well. (Wayne Cordeiro does an excellent job of this in his Life Journal materials.) In The Message 100, Peterson leads you through Kings first, and then introduces Chronicles after you've gone through much of the prophetic literature and spent time in Exile with Daniel. That brings you to the point in the story when the Chronicles were written as a way to re-engage the people's history in a new situation. That one change actually gave me a new appreciation for the first eight, tedious, chapters of genealogy in Chronicles. (Actually, not so much a "new" appreciation as a "first ever" one.) After all they've been through and the ruin they brought on themselves as a people, the listing of ancestors up to the present survivors returning from exile has a way of saying "... and we are still here!  After all this, all these generations, we are still here!"  The placing of Chronicles helped me to catch that.

Another notable re-ordering is placing the Gospel of John in a final section along with the letters of John and Revelation. With the similarity of voice and vision in these books, it's intriguing to think about the way that reading them together will cast light on each of them.

I'm also intrigued by the decision to put Job in between Genesis and Exodus as part of the section on "Beginnings." No explanation is offered, but to me it helps to suggest a similarity in genre of the two books as something different from what we moderns think of as "history."  And I think it also works as a way of "setting the stage" for the story of Scripture as both Genesis and Job get us thinking about the challenge we face in the human condition.

Each of the 100 readings has an introduction written by Peterson.  They are very helpful in keeping you oriented towards what's going on and what the readings are pointing towards. Especially here in these introductions can you hear the voice of Peterson the pastor, and some of the material is even drawn from his sermons. Another great gift he offers us.

The one thing I wish for that's not in the book is some commentary on his decisions for re-ordering the books of the Bible. But aside from that it's another wonderful piece of work from a man who has made a great contribution to the faith and life of many people, myself included.