Keeping That One Resolution We All Make…

It’s one of the most common New Year’s resolutions among followers of Jesus: “This year I will read the entire Bible!” And we start out all gung-ho and read every day for 3 or 4 days, maybe a week… Then we miss a day or two – we plan to catch up “soon,” and we make a couple of stabs at it, but eventually, we just forget about the whole thing…

We know reading the Bible is important. We know it feeds us and teaches us and shapes our lives, our decision-making, the very quality of our lives on earth… But many of us feel defeated when we try to keep up with a Bible reading plan.

So here are some tips and a link to a plan that just might make 2013 the year we actually read the entire Bible:

• Get a version of the Bible you can read and understand. This cannot be stressed enough – (and I’ve got zero interest in debating with anybody who thinks there’s only one “authorized version.”) For most of us, the King James or the New American Standard versions are not very readable. I recommend the New Living Translation – I’ve used it since 2008 (here’s a blog post about why I changed versions: The NLT and Me).
  
• Do not, I repeat, DO NOT open your Bible up at Genesis and start reading with a plan to go straight through to Revelation! You will get bogged down pretty quickly in some boring stuff – legal codes, census counts, obscure history – and your eyes will glaze over and you’ll give up. There are better ways to do it – more on that in a minute…
• Read earlier in the day rather than later. I used to try to read at bedtime – I lost count of how many times I fell asleep on God’s Holy Word. Make it a practice to read early in the day, maybe at breakfast or on a coffee break.
• Relax – don’t get stressed if you miss a day. There’s no law, or Bible verse, or church requirement that says you can’t miss. So if you get behind a day or three or 30 – just pick up reading on the next day. The object is to read the entire Bible – if it takes you 18 months to do, no big deal.

Here’s a plan that might work well for a lot of people. Advantages include:

• Providing variety throughout the week by alternating different types of scripture. The benefit is you don’t get bogged down for days in the less than stimulating portions of the Bible.
• Providing continuity by reading the same scripture type each day of the week.
• Providing an opportunity to see the many interconnections between sections of Scripture. One day you may be reading Paul’s teaching about God’s covenant with Abraham in Romans, and in the next day or two you’ll be reading about the actual establishment of the covenant in Genesis.

In a nutshell, here’s how it works:

1. Sundays: New Testament Epistles
2. Mondays: Penteteuch/The Law (Genesis through Deuteronomy)
3. Tuesdays: Old Testament history
4. Wednesdays: Psalms
5. Thursdays: Old Testament poetry
6. Fridays: Prophecy
7. Saturdays: Gospels

We have hard copies of this plan, and several others, including the Daily Walk magazine available in the foyer at New Hope – or here’s a link to a printable copy in PDF.

If I can help you with finding a Bible or a plan to help you read it – please drop me a note!

 

 

Cheeseburger Sin?

It was a sincere question:  Am I sinning without knowing it?  I mean, are there meals a Christian should or should not eat?  I can’t figure out if there are some meals that are more appropriate to consume as a Christian than others.   I love cheeseburgers, but if it’s a sin, I’d have to consider myself a bad Christian – I’ve eaten a lot of cheeseburgers!

I know Christians, Christians are some of my best friends, so I knew what was coming – I just wanted to see who would throw it out there.  I didn’t have to wait long:

“The body is God’s temple, and too many cheeseburgers messes up the temple…” – a reference to 1 Corinthians 6

This section of scripture has become the catch all to prohibit almost everything a person does or consumes.  It’s supposed to be the slam-dunk proof that it’s wrong to smoke, drink, dance, and chew, or to go with girls that do…

But I think that’s a wrong interpretation and a gross misapplication.  At best, it’s simplistic and at worst it’s devious legalism.

1 Corinthians 6 isn’t about eating cheeseburgers, or smoking cigarettes, or drinking a beer.  1 Corinthians 6 is about sexual immorality.  That should be really clear in the passage when Paul writes:

Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.  Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God?  You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.   1 Corinthians 6:18-25

The way people misuse and abuse that passage totally drains it of its original intent and causes people to call things “sin” that God never did, leading to a neo-“do not handle, do not taste, do not touch” approach to faith that heaps up guilt for sins that don’t exist.

Trying to use 1 Corinthians 6 to prohibit every unhealthy behavior turns us all into hypocrites, with massive speck and beam issues – We’re the preacher who rails against smoking when he hasn’t seen his feet in 20 years.  We’re the Sunday School teacher who told us drinking a beer is the same as “pouring Satan down your throat” who sat for four hours every week day watching her soap operas and wouldn’t allow anything short of the Second Coming to stop her.

Yes, we need to live healthy, but 99% of the time it’s a quality of life issue, not a spiritual one.  Sure, some foods are clearly healthier to eat than other foods, and gluttony is certainly a serious problem, one with spiritual roots that have to be dealt with if we’re going to live free.  The Proverbs writer said if we have strong appetites, we might have to hold a knife to our throats to overcome them.

The Bible does speak to the issue of “what can we eat?”  in 1 Timothy 4:1-5

Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons.  These people are hypocrites and liars, and their consciences are dead.  They will say it is wrong to be married and wrong to eat certain foods.  But God created those foods to be eaten with thanks by faithful people who know the truth.  Since everything God created is good, we should not reject any of it but receive it with thanks.  For we know it is made acceptable by the word of God and prayer.

If someone chooses to eat in the best possible, most healthy way, they have my full support – I’m trying to move that direction more myself.  What I will not support is those who treat others as “sinners” or sub-Christian because they choose to eat a big ol’ sloppy burger or a Krispy Kreme donut – or two.

Let’s give Jesus the final word:

“Don’t you understand… Can’t you see that the food you put into your body cannot defile you?  Food doesn’t go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer.” (By saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in God’s eyes.)  And then he added, “It is what comes from inside that defiles you.  For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.  All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.”   Mark 7:18-23

All scriptures from the New Living Translation.

Hat tip to James Glasscock for excellent thoughts and helpful scriptures.

This Sunday @ Jubilee

A new message series begins February 1st.  “Deadliest Catch” – lessons from the life of Jonah.

Most people have at least a passing acquaintance with the story of Jonah – the guy in the Bible who got swallowed by a whale, right? – but his story could be our story… We run from God and reap the consequences of our disobedience… We gripe and complain when God doesn’t do things the way we want Him to… And if we’ll get still and be quiet for a moment, we just might get to see God’s amazing mercy and love for people.

This four-part message series will draw us deeper into a story we thought we knew – and show us that there’s a little Jonah in all of us.  You won’t want to miss it!

The start of a new series is a great time to invite friends, relatives, co-workers, and neighbors who are not involved in church.  Call someone and invite them to come.  Offer to meet them in the parking lot or foyer, and to sit with them during the service.  If they’re not ready to “go to church” just yet, that’s ok – offer to get them a CD of the message, or hook them up with the web adress where they can listen online.  Let God use you in your unbelieving friend’s journey back to the Father.

Always remember – we’re here for good.