Thanks Jean for being willing to share your story of reading through the Bible this year. For those of you who don’t know Jean, she worships at Bixley Farm, and was very involved in getting MIE Christmas Cards produced and delivered to every home in our community. Over to you…
For me the story really started earlier in 2019 when I came across a book entitled ‘The Gospel according to Judas’ giving a different version of Judas Iscariot to the one commonly read in the gospels. Discussing this at some length with my next door neighbour, a retired Methodist lay preacher, led to some interesting Christian literature novels based on the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 written by two people, one of whom was a Christian novelist and the other a professor of Jewish history. It was interesting to me because my late father served in the then Suffolk Regiment for 21 years of his life and what was then the British Protectorate of Palestine in particular during a larger part of the second world war. Although he was back in England by 1948 his regiment was the last to leave Jerusalem in 1948 when they handed the keys to the gates of the Jewish quarter to the Chief Rabbi, the first time a Jewish Rabbi had held those keys since 70AD after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple. Thus my interest was gained and as I love history I wanted to find out more about recent Jewish history and their beliefs.
Roll forward a few months towards the end of 2019 and the discovery that we were going to study the bible in a year and to do it in a chronological order offered a chance to discover the more distant history of the Jews and their relationship with God. Yes we have all read parts of the old testament, some are very familiar passages, but what did it all mean to the Jews at the time certain events happened and as a historical record to them later particularly at the time of Christ.
So starting off on 1 Jan I did have some misgivings about whether I was reading just for the history interest. However I soon realised that reading the passages and books chronologically was so liberating and the familiar stories came alive for me in a new way, especially with the bible study Saturdays each month in Jan to March. All was well until we got to Leviticus where I came unstuck. So many why questions in my mind! Why would God treat his people harshly, particularly striking down Aaron’s brothers and Aaron not allowed to mourn for them either? And, the exacting details of the wilderness tabernacle and the rules for the people. I got to the point of not wanting to read more, but feeling compelled to find out what God was saying. After praying about it I decided to take Mark’s advice and obtained a copy of ‘Exaltation of Jesus in Leviticus’. Even this book took me months to get through way past the time of us reading Leviticus. But the first few chapters did turn my thinking around and I realised I was looking at Leviticus from a purely human point of view and I needed to look at it from God’s point of view. From this point on it became much more than just a history with familiar readings at various points. God was saying so much more and I was praying more for guidance as I was experiencing frustration and even anger at times, sometimes at the Jews and sometimes with God.
And then COVID struck with what some might say biblical thoroughness and all our lives were turned upside down. Just like the Jews in the bible some people blamed God for what was happening forgetting that he gave us freedom of choice on this earth and that all actions have consequences. And yes the prophets suddenly made more sense in this different world, Isaiah’s well-known and wonderful prophecies concerning Jesus almost a comfort blanket. But then came Jeremiah another stumbling block on my journey so I decided to read ‘Exalting Jesus in Jeremiah’ which again took me a long while to read and made me feel very uncomfortable. I realised I was holding back some things from God, not trusting him enough. He could see all my thoughts even the ones I didn’t really want him to see. The crunch came when I was getting towards the middle of the book and I had to keep going back to Jeremiah in the bible. I remember remarking to Mark one Sunday afternoon at Tower Hall how uncomfortable I felt about it all and his reply that I was not alone and was the reason that not many sermons were ever preached on Jeremiah. Here I feel I must repeat part of a chapter in the book based on Jeremiah 21:1-22:10 because this was a particularly uncomfortable session for me but took me deeper into prayer for forgiveness and resolve to change with the Lord’s help. I certainly couldn’t do it on my own.
Steven Smith the author of Exalting Jesus in Jeremiah writes:
‘Imagine that you are taking an elevator down into your soul. You go down and down all the way to your heart. You get out and you look around. And there you see all that God sees. You see the areas you have blocked from God. Some rooms say, “Keep Out!” God is not allowed to see what is in there. You see the things you pray no one else sees. Down in the locked closets and deep crevices of your heart, you see everything God sees. Do you see it? Now that you see what God sees, will you repent?’
‘As these words form on the page, I can imagine that those not raised in my tradition of altar calls and invitations will cringe at a rhetorical strategy intended to probe the heart so deeply. I get that. But it’s no matter. God used the evangelist that day. And if no one else needed it, I deeply needed the challenge. Sitting here years later, I remember the metaphor like it was yesterday. Sinking down, down to the place where no one sees but God. Wow! Even now it is convicting. The metaphor helps me to visualise the dark crevices, closets I have closed off to God and to spiritual introspection. It’s really scary what lay down there, down where there is no spiritual oxygen. If I were a miner, my canary would be dead.’
‘In Jeremiah 22 the Jews have reached a tipping point, they have been accused of idolatry and now injustice. . . . Their heart is turned away from God and therefore from others. It is clear that they are unwilling to take the elevator trip down to examine their hearts, so God warns them to change their behaviour.’
‘In the end it’s easy to be dismissive about all of this. The excuses are legion: “God does not care that much about this issue. Think of all the money I give to the church. With that money others can do this. We all have our gifts. I’m good at serving the church. I’ll be gracious to people after they get here, but I’m not going to go and get them.” Yet in one story Jesus destroys all of that, Matthew 25:31-46, separating the sheep and the goats . . . . “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. . . .” In the story the sheep do not understand what good they did and goats do not understand what bad they did . . . . the difference is mercy. It’s not that mercy gets us into heaven, but mercy demonstrates that we have heaven in our hearts . . . . the kind of people who have received mercy are the kind of people who show mercy. It’s a hallmark of salvation’.
The following bible books on the prophets made me realise just how great was their faith despite the ridicule heaped upon them in their own time. History now regards them as great men, but in reading the books in the bible, parallels with today’s world are very much in evidence. As another Christian friend said to me in the summer ‘God didn’t cause COVID but maybe he allowed it to try and turn us to Him again and teach us that our decisions have consequences for all’. And so onto the Gospels where there are so many parts that are familiar to us all, BUT reading them chronologically again and with the benefit of having read all of the old testament brought new insight into the words of Jesus particularly when he references old testament quotes when replying to the Pharisees. All human action and emotion is there both good and bad, and again parallels can be seen with what is happening today. It is amazing that God does not give up on us.
The other important point that struck me forceably again is that just how small a part of the bible the gospels are, detailing His birth and just three years in Jesus’s life. But what treasure and promise in those few pages. God chose a time when an empire had advanced so much that travel to far flung places was possible and the words of His Son could be carried to all nations not just the Jews. And here again in Acts we find men and women of faith spreading the ‘good news’ and some suffering for it as did the prophets.
Reading the letters was again a very different experience because of having read the Old Testament. Here was Paul and others trying once again to bring people to the ways of Jesus , much easier for Gentiles than Jews who had many centuries of rules and regulations to change and to accept that the world was full of God’s chosen people and not just the Jews.
Finally as I write this we are coming to the book of Revelation which I know I shall struggle again with, so have once more ordered an Exalting Jesus book to help me through. I started this year and the Bible 2020 cause with some misgivings, but have found it a truly enriching experience especially through the year we have all just had. In fact I have just bought a second hand chronological bible which gives a reading and some explanation for every day of the year and which I am sure I shall find equally rewarding.
All through this experience the following verses from hymns have been reverberating through my mind.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Praise Him all creatures here below
Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
O my soul
Worship His Holy name
Sing like never before, O my soul
I’ll worship Your Holy name
The sun comes up,
It’s a new day dawning
It’s time to sing your song again.
Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes.