Monday 31 January

Job 19:1-21:34

Sometimes you read a verse from the bible and it is like it is speaking directly into your situation.  And so it is today; “my breath is offensive to my wife... even the little boys...ridicule me”.  I’m joking of course - it is my wife, and not my little boys, who ridicules me - but in this section we do really get a sense of how isolated and how depressed Job must have felt.  It must be horrifying and debilitating to be loathed by the person who lies next to you at night and to know that each and every morning all you have to look forward to for breakfast is a big bowl of scorn-flakes (I’m sorry I think I’ve gone to far with that one ;-)).  Even now I find myself just wanting to joke about it because the prospect of living in that place is too awful for me to accept.  So how on earth can we worship a God who would put someone there?

Well, first of all I don’t think we get much of a choice in the matter; God is God and there is no other.  Whether we like it or not, he deserves, even demands our worship.  But it is more than that.  The fact that such events would be included in God’s holy book show his desire to achieve redemption in and through suffering.  Also, it was never God’s idea to put Job through all this mess - there was another one who was agitating for that - and God acted as a protective guard throughout, limiting the extent to which Satan was able to pursue his destructive agenda.  So why did God allow Satan any scope at all to act against Job and why does he not act to remedy the situation any sooner?  I’m not sure that question is ever neatly answered in this intriguing book but we do see here, in the deepest darkest night of Job’s soul some extraordinary flickers of revelation that perhaps could not have sparked in more comfortable surroundings.  Here, in Job, we almost certainly see the first evidence in the bible of a genuine hope in resurrection (19:26) and the first sense of individuals being held personally accountable to God.  These ideas are not properly forged in the Jewish mindset until around the time of Jesus, so you can see how Job, in his suffering, grasped some of the most awesome truths about God almost a thousand years ahead of his more comfortable descendants.  Does that make suffering seem OK? Nope - it still hurts like hell and, indeed, that is the place from which it came.  But, we know that God does, somehow, in ways that people probably don’t even realise at the time, bring unfathomable revelation and unchallengable redemption into the very deepest pits of despair.  

Matthew 1:1-17

I find it interesting that there is a current fashion to refer to Jesus as a Rabbi.  For me, this fashion suggests Jesus was primarily a man of holy living and teaching, to be followed by students who with to emulate his level of understanding of God.  This section blows that fashion out of the water.  There is nothing academic or studious about Jesus’s assault on the precincts of the temple.  This is a highly prophetic and symbolic action that, for me, is the pinnacle of all his acts prior to his death.  He, in a wildly subversive manner acts out the destruction of the temple that he knows is going to occur approximately 30 years later.  Jesus’ actions, rather than being a protest at how the money-changers were exploiting the poor, were the final, unthinkably provocative declaration that the age of the temple was now over.  Jesus’ prophetic actions screamed in the face of the Jerusalem population that they had to make a choice between the expiring covenant of the temple and the vibrant, dawning covenant of the cross.  This was the thing about Jesus - he was a prophet through and through; grabbing attention, bringing new revelation and, above all, demanding an active response from every person he came across. 

Psalm 18:1-6

The Lord is my rock is one of my favourite images from the Psalms.  The rock I have in mind is not a small piece of quartz that I keep in my desk draw or use as a paper-weight.  No, rather it is a huge, Ayers-Rock-sized monster on which my feet can stand firm and secure, well away from the sinking sand of uncertainty and insecurity.  

Sunday 30 January

Job 15:1-18:21

I must say that when Job says “will your long-winded speeches never end?” (16:3) everything in me is inclined to agree with him.  I know this is the precious word of the Lord, gifted to us by our heavenly Father to comfort us and train us in all righteousness but isn’t it, to quote the man himself, a little bit long winded?  I mean I think the point has already been pretty well established - Job is suffering, his friends say it is his own fault and he is doggedly refusing to accept their accusations.  I see there is a little bit of development in the language as each side gets more entrenched in their own position, but does this really need to go on for another 20 chapters before we finally hear the word of the Lord on the subject??  I must confess I don’t really know why Job is so long - it’s a book that I’ve always been completely fascinated by but got a bit lost in - but I do take from it that Christian living is just not a continuous flow of joy and excitement.  It seems that God is quite willing to put us through a fair bit of boredom and mind-numbing detail for the sake of our growth and understanding.  So, working against my natural tendency to always be looking for the next thing, I’m going to try to really dig into the inner details of Job and ponder upon his continued reverence for God despite his longing for death and, upon the friends’ miserable comforting despite their privileged access to his side.

Matthew 20:20-34

Jesus’ words and actions so often subvert the conventional wisdom about how to pursue the righteousness of God.  I think that most Jews would have believed blindness to be a barrier to communion with God.  The more merciful members of the community may, potentially, have prayed that a prophet would come to bring healing to the blind so that they could be accepted into the temple of God.  But surely none of them, not even the most compassionate Jew, would have thought that God would approach a blind man and ask him what he could do for him.  Surely no-one would have believed that God would even tolerate the presence of a disabled man before his impurity (ie his blindness) had been taken away from him.  And yet Jesus, God incarnate, while he is in the middle of something, while he has a crowd around him calling out reverence and request, stops.  Turns. And looks at the blind men. And when he says “what do you want me to do for you” you feel like he is taking all the world’s religious establishments, turning them upside down and shaking them all about.  He is putting himself, the all-powerful, all-conquering master of the universe at the service of two blokes who don’t even know whether they’ve wearing odd socks.  Jesus’ complete lack of presumption and his unquenchable desire to hear from people must have felt like a warm summer breeze to those who had been frozen out of the religious community for so long.  And his ability to follow through on their requests and actually bring them healing looks like a haymaker following the left-hand uppercut that Jesus has just landed on the chin of everyday religious life.  We need more of this empowered openness in our church.  And more of it in our world.

Psalm 17:13-15

“I shall be satisfied with seeing your likeness”.  At first that seems a bit bland but, after a few moments reflection I realise it is an awesome and simple statement of faith.  It is a conviction that I could pursue for the rest of my life and neither be done with nor disappointed by.

Saturday January 29

Job 11:1-14:22

“Though he slay me, yet I will hope in him” is probably one of the more famous phrases in Job, riven as it is with authenticity and insight.  What struck me more today though is Job’s interrogation of Zophar which begins “will you speak wickedly on God’s behalf?” and goes on to say “will you argue the case for God?”.  Job seems to be suggesting to Zophar that he should keep his prying nose out of a business that doesn’t involve him and that he certainly doesn't understand.  Zophar, rather than sympathising with Job’s pain and pointing him to the Lord for ailments and answers, decides he will step in and defend the good name of the Most High.  And Job reprimands him for it.  It seems to me that Job understanding of true faith is not to provide water-tight arguments for the actions of God but to show compassion to others and to point them to the hope they can find in the Lord.  Now that sounds appealing, and like something that I can do!

Matthew 20:1-19

Doesn’t this just hack you off?  Those who were at the marketplace at the end of the day would almost have included some who were just plain lazy as well as those who were poor or unfortunate.   Why should the layabouts get the same deal as the conscientious?  I suspect Jesus was being deliberately provocative (again!) to snap the complacent Jews out of their comfortable sense of privilege.  What he was emphasising here, as so often, was that his thing is always about drawing in new ones, often shocking ones, under his protective canopy. He seems to have this annoyingly unshakable obsession with finding new people to whom he can be generous.  His yearning to provide his care and his comfort to others seems to never be quenched.  Is that how people would describe me??  I seriously doubt it.  But I hope and pray that Jesus would indeed make me open to others, more willing to take interest in them and more keen to give away to them the abundant treasures that I have received.

Psalm 17:6-12

Once again we see the sweetest of intimacy - “keep me as the apple of your eye” - alongside the most un-Christian-like of tirades - “they close up their callous hearts and their mouths speak with arrogance”.  It’s almost as if the psalmist didn’t just include these contrasts as a teaching point for his readers, but that the raw expression of disgust, pain and hatred was as much at the core of his relationship with his God as was the expression of admiration and devotion.  I wonder whether we, by instantly toning down our expressions of anger to God, find that our sense of intimacy with him is similarly weakened.  I suspect that the more we surrender the whole of ourselves to Him in completely frank and unabashed exchanges, the more we will know his love and comfort washing over every part of our beings; even those parts that are grotty or embarrassing.

Friday 28 January

Job 8:1-10:22

It’s like I’ve got a tiger in my bathroom.  This big, fierce thing has taken up residence in my washing space and, no matter how I feel about it, I know that I can never clean my teeth in the same way again.  And so, you get the sense that Job may not particularly want to have God up close at this point - his agonising grief and disfigured flesh have seen to that.  But he cannot shake the knowledge that God is big, is the judge and that his very breath is continually rolling across his sore-infested skin.  Strangely enough there seems to be more intimacy and understanding of God wrapped up in these few words of Job than in whole swathes of Christian literature.  For me, this is the anvil of the faith where our character and our understanding is formed, not in the intellectual positing and positioning of Bildad et al, but in the deep, and at times bitter, sparring with the Shaker of the Earth.  We come back to that recurrent theme; that the pursuit of God is about so much more than the escape of trauma; that beyond hardship and beyond self-doubt is the troubling and yet overwhelmingly free-ing place known as “the fear of the Lord”.  It’s a bit like living with a tiger in your bathroom.

Matthew 19:16-30

Fortunately, this is one of Jesus’ sayings that appears a bit more straight-forward for us to understand; that the more the scales are tilted towards us in this life the harder it is for us to believe that our stuff could be out-balanced by the riches of the heavenly realm.  Those of us who are rich (all of us??) have to see that much more of Jesus before we are convinced that the regard-it-all-as-naught equation makes sense.  And yet, Jesus has to reassure even his closest friends that the correct way to look at these scales is not with eyes fixated on immediate gains, but that the things of the Kingdom, which often look so meagre at first glance, are actually only representative of things bearing 100 times their weight and value.  This pierces the heart of my desire to see big results and to see them now; Jesus rarely seems to work that way.  His eyes seem to apprehend the things of the future as if they are present here now and he lives in the full knowledge that these light and momentary troubles are as nothing compared to the great and glorious riches that will be received in Christ Jesus at the coming of the end of the age.

Proverbs 3:11-20

You certainly could never accuse Solomon, or whoever it was that wrote the proverbs, of underselling the benefits of a vibrant faith in God.  “Nothing you desire can compare with (developing an understanding of God)”.  The sheer audacity of it - to say to all and sundry that whoever they are and no matter how big their imagination, they could think of nothing that would be as good as knowing God as Lord!  And yet, if it was Solomon who wrote it, I guess he should know; he who had unmatched power, wealth and 1000 concubines(!) should be well placed to speak of desire and satisfaction, or lack thereof!  

Thursday January 27

Job 4:1-7:21

Isn’t Job eloquent for a man at the end of his tether?  If it had been me who was in his situation and one of my friends had given me a lecture about my sufferings I suspect my answer would have been far less poetic and a lot shorter.  Perhaps about two words long...  And so we stumble upon one of the glorious aspects of Old Testament - its exploration and celebration of human experience and creativity.  This is not just some rule book or instruction leaflet but a dazzling tapestry of living faith, simultaneously emblazened with wonder and catastrophe.  It truly captures the drama of people, soaked full of the image of God and yet in the noose of trespass and decay.  And this is where Eliphaz comes in; so smart, so sorted and so certain that life can be whittled down to the comprehension of mankind.  I know his position well as it is one I know I so readily adopt - that of the irritating dork who assumes that they know the full story and who is ready to pronounce judgement based on this assumption.  It seems that the God of this book is not like Eliphaz and me (and that is something truly to be thankful for!) as he values Job’s questions without having to shoot out immediate answers and, for a time at least, he listens quietly until the wounded man has said his piece.

Matthew 19:1-15

From Jesus’ discussion about divorce we pick up an absolutely crucial principle for approaching the bible - that our quest is not to find particular verses that prescribe this action or that behaviour, but rather, we are to give ourselves to digesting and sifting through the poetry and the history, the law and the prophecy in order that we may expose the overarching desires of our God.  Simply to get all the verses about divorce and put them on one page is not an adequate approach - it will likely both underplay the high desires of God and instil a kind of judgementalism towards those who we don’t think have followed the rules.  No, rather, we are to engage with the book in order to discover the One who lies behind it.  And in so doing we discover that God’s demands absolute to-the-death faithfulness along with never-lapsing-for-a-moment purity and yet at the same time offers reckless forgiveness and restoration.  This approach to the bible, rather than proof-texting and rule-defining, is what we see all throughout the New Testament and is the only one that seems to be worthy of our ridiculously awesome God.

Psalm 17:1-5

“I have resolved that my mouth will not sin.”  I once resolved that my mouth would not taste chocolate for an entire month. I think I lasted about 3 days.  

January 26

Job 1:1-3:26

Gulp. If there has ever been a meeting anywhere in which you just hope your name didn’t come up, then this has to be it!  God and Satan’s great philosophical debate about the human species and their capacity for good gets a little bit personal for poor old Job.  Amidst our distress over seeing Job treated like a human guinea pig it’s worth bearing in mind that God is always on the side of Job - he believes in his faithfulness and capacity for pure worship and is convinced that Job will prevail - while Satan always acts as the great accuser, attacking not only Job personally but also the whole concept of what it is to be human.  (It is interesting to reflect on our society today, where we see being played out the battle over what it is to be human.  I’m desperate for us as the church to step forward and redeem the concept of what it is to be a person, tearing down the ideas of reductionism and pessimism that surround us.)

Finally, it’s worth noting that, while we are mercifully let into the heavenly back-story (or should I say front-story - I have no idea!), Job has no way of knowing that his response to his sufferings has any wider significance.  He’s just a bloke having his head kicked in.  Even more amazing then is his determination to keep his tongue under control and not sin in what he said.

Matthew 18:10-35

Mercy is a fine word don’t you think?  It’s one of those words that isn’t used too much (except for in the game “mercy mercy” in school play-grounds - which I always used to lose...) so still has some potency.  I think mercy is the common theme in today’s 3 discrete sayings of Jesus.  Following Jesus, and living in the church is always about looking out for others, trying to find ways to keep them close to you and in touch with God.  It really pains me that so many Christians shy away from the grubby reality of our faith - rubbing up alongside people, being inspired and offended, supported and wounded by them.  We seem so quick to take a step back and not really throw ourselves into friendship with the church.  We often say the problem is with the church being too institutionalised or too full of difficult characters but is the truth really that we are just not that good at forgiving people?  If we are serious about following Jesus we have to seriously get stuck into the local church, doing life together with the other “little ones”, challenging them and then forgiving them (note that “forgive and forget” is a gross distortion of Jesus’ teaching here - challenge first and, when they repent, then forgive them.  If they don’t repent well... maybe we can get to that another day).  All this effort is not just to play happy families though, a properly functioning church has immense power to bound and loose, to ask and receive.  

Psalm 16:1-11

A psalm with an amazing sense of contentment tied up in it but, goodness me, did no-one ever teach David not to mix his metaphors? 

January 25

Genesis 49:1-50:26

I can’t believe we’ve seen off Genesis!  And it’s one of the longest books! Roll on (odd) Job!

It’s great to see Joseph finishing on a high, stepping away from the Machiavellian  approach of Pharoah and affirming to his brothers that he is most definitely not in the place of God.  It’s also fascinating that the die are cast for all of the 12 tribes so early on in this narrative.  Judah’s royal lineage has already been identified (which of course reaches its climax in Jesus) and Benjamin’s agitating attitude has been called out.  But it’s Issachar that I feel sorry for.  We’ve barely heard of him all throughout this book and then at the end he gets called into his father’s presence, hopes high, eyes gazing with expectancy. And as his father raises his arm towards him he hears the calling to which his whole life has been leading; “you will be a scrawny donkey, my son, and you will lie down between two saddlebags”.

Matthew 17:14-18:9

I’m struck by the grave seriousness that Jesus attaches to sin.  It is a rather gruesome form of execution that Jesus says would be preferable to the consequences of causing a “little one” to sin.  It is also a pretty horrific form of self-harm that Jesus advocates in the interests of self-preservation.  So two things come out of this for me - firstly, self-interest is no bad thing; it is a genuine motivator for us to make right choices and do good.  Secondly, that following Jesus is continually about making sacrifices and paying prices.  Jesus seems incredibly uninterested in protecting us from pain and shockingly committed to us growing in holiness and entering life.  This daily commitment to do hard things is not the sunniest of thoughts, but it does lead to a brighter and better future.

Psalm 15:1-5

Spookily there’s an incredible overlap between Jesus’ words and this psalm.  It’s almost as if some force or some person was overseeing all of the stuff that is in the bible, making sure that it followed certain consistent themes and all pointed in a single direction...

January 24

Genesis 47:13-48:22

Maybe I’m just feeling a bit cranky this morning but I must admit I’m not an absolute fan of Joseph. I know he credits God with his arrival and elevation in Egypt but I can’t bring myself to believe that he was right to enslave all the people of Egypt.  If God sent Joseph to Egypt to protect the people of the land from the famine, was he really correct to buy them all into bitter slavery to their ruler?  Indeed we know he didn't have to do it -  it was quite within his power to provide people with food free of charge as he did with the priests.  Perhaps Joseph just let his commercial instincts and his environment cloud some of his judgements?  And that is why I love Jacob’s hand-switching trick so much.  Yes, he was half dead and yes, he was completely in debt to his son, but yet he would not let worldly power and influence corrupt his intentions or play against the contrary desire of God to bless the younger over and above the elder.  God does not kowtow to anyone.  His hand cannot be moved from one head to another.  Jacob got this.  I just hope that Joseph, despite his whole world crying out to him otherwise, was really able to cling onto the truth that God is the Lord, and there is no other.

Matthew 16:21-17:13

“For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.”  I must confess I have not yet nailed my understanding of exactly how this statement of Jesus fits together with the thrust of grace and forgiveness that undergirds the gospel.  I’m not saying I think it contradicts it - definitely not.  But I do think there is an interesting web of truths around salvation and the return of Jesus that I have not pressed in to sufficiently.  I do know that the grace and forgiveness of Jesus fully covers all of my sins, even those of omission, and which causes me to appear before the Father as entirely holy and blameless.  But I also see here that there is an element in which my activity and my actions are examined and rewarded by Jesus.  I know that I don’t have to fully understand how this all works but I do want to.  I guess where I’ve got to thus far is an appreciation that while Jesus comes to cleanse and redeem, his activity does not end there.  He issues to us a call that is real and which must be responded to by a change in lifestyle and of priorities.  

Proverbs 3:1-10

Having acknowledged above that there are bits about Jesus that I can’t quite get my head around, it’s pretty encouraging to now read that I do not need to lean on my own understanding but can just trust in the Lord. I can be certain that my attempts at obedience and worship will be sen by him and will fare me well in the end, even if there is confusion or hardship along the way. 

January 23

Genesis 45:1-47:12

Can you imagine; you wait for years and years to introduce your parents to your work colleagues and then, when you finally get the opportunity, your dad tells your boss that  he is old and miserable, but not as old or miserable as your ancestors.  It’s got to be a tricky conversation when you then explain that your family are in fact God’s chosen people who will bring blessing to all the nations of the world.  But the fact is that Jacob has been going through an excruciatingly painful time and, while God has most definitely not given up on him, he must have felt fairly hard-pressed on every side.  It makes you realise that blessing from God is a calling to significance and intimacy, not comfort and security.

Matthew 16:1-20

Something that was distinctive about Jesus was that he so often taught from what he saw in nature rather than just from what he read in the scriptures.  He was so unreligious in that way, affirming God as genuine creator who can be encountered in all that he has made, although only truly known through engagement with himself.

I think it is really hard for us to understand how significant Peter’s words are “you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”.  We don’t really know how commonly the word Christ was used in First Century Palestine, or what exactly Peter understood by it. But what we do know is that this utterance was so explosive, so determinedly provocative that Jesus had to sternly warn all of his followers not to repeat it in anyone else’s company.  Today we so often seem to trade in an image of Jesus that is so bland that people don’t even bat and eyelid at it. I’m determined to meditate again on the words and works of this Jesus such that I’m rocked back on my heels and blown away by his challenge to my life.  I really want to be gripped and hurtled forward by a real understanding of his identity as the Son of the living God.

Psalm 14:1-7

It’s fairly uncompromising stuff - if you don’t think there is a God, then you are an idiot.  While I may want to adopt a slightly more understanding approach, I’m challenged by the certainty of the psalmist.  He is so confident in his world-view and of the bankruptcy of all others.  But then I guess his confidence in his world-view comes from his overwhelming confidence in the power and sovereignty of God, and that is something that, through his raw and honest worship, he has experienced day in, day out, through the times that are easy and the times that are hard.

January 22

Genesis 43:1-44:34

I’m not sure why Judah was so willing to offer himself up as a substitute for Benjamin. Maybe he was only too happy to escape his ‘interesting’ family situation after the Tamar episode?  Whatever the reason, and joking aside I think it was a genuine act of self-sacrifice, we see here a hint being dropped about how God will save his people in the future.  All throughout the Old Testament we see act after act and word after word that pre-figures the future redemptive activity of Jesus; people offering themselves up in the stead of others; the imprisonment of one to pay for the sins of many.  These are reassuring signposts along the journey through these stories.  They point us to the fact that God has never changed; his intentions have always remained the same.  He is the same yesterday, today and forever, revealing, through his people, his commitment to both justice and mercy.  And his inexplicable penchant for self-sacrifice.

Matthew 15:10-39

Jesus was a prophet to Israel, coming to call God’s people out of their bankrupt submission to the now-redundant temple worship.  He had come to make straight the crooked path of Israel, to put them back on the road to fulfilling the Abrahamic promise “I will bless you and every nation will be blessed through you”.  (We see this “first Israel and then the world” strategy clearly being played out in Acts). Jesus knew it was essential to his mission that Israelites accepted him as an authentic (or the authentic) Jewish prophet and followed his call to transformation, even if that would only really happen once he had died and risen again. So, when a Canaanite woman approaches him, Jesus knows he is in danger of undermining his identity as a prophet of Israel.  He cannot be seen to, and nor would he want to, undercut the special place that Israel has in the purposes of God.  Jesus therefore clearly demonstrates to her and his listeners that what he has brought is Yahweh’s bread of heaven for the children of his promise, not some magical power to be dished out willy-nilly to whoever would desire it.  When the Canaanite woman affirms her position as a dog beneath the master’s table she shows she has real, saving faith - that she understands Jesus is the prophet of God who is coming to continue and fulfill what Yahweh has been doing through and for Israel.  Her faith then acts as a gateway for the incomparably great power of Jesus to come into the life of her family and bring healing to her daughter.

Psalm 13:1-6

It’s often so easy to see the hard things in life and to spot our disappointments with how things are going.  This is a biblical activity and not to do it would run against the grain of the biblical witness.  But it is only part of life and, crucially, should always be subsumed and overcome with the great and glorious knowledge that in spite of the hard stuff God is full of unfailing love and goodness and can be absolutely trusted to bring things to our salvation.  We are neither happy clappy nor doom and gloom but a bit of both, mixed together into a deep joyful, realistic faith.

January 21

Genesis 41:41-42:38

Essentially just a linking part in the Joseph narrative, we still see a couple of interesting points emerging from these verses.   Pharaoh buys into this God-revelation thing in a fairly monumental way.   What a maniac!  Why was he so willing to believe Joseph’s interpretation? And yet what a benefit he derived from trusting that God has spoken and would be absolutely true to his word.  Joseph’s interrogation of his brothers seems focused on identifying whether or not they have truly repented of their previous treatment of him and, curiously, he doesn’t just take Reuben’s statement about “accounting for blood” as sufficient proof of this; deeds, not words, were how repentance was demonstrated in ancient Israel.  And strangely enough, while we see the story moving towards redemption, Jacob believes it is becoming more and more bleak.  Jacob was close to God, the revealer of mysteries, and yet God does not let Jacob into the secret plan that he was unfolding around him.  I guess it was all about enhancing Jacob’s faith in the unseen, even though that wasn’t the easiest thing for the old man.

Matthew 14:22-15:9

When Jesus said to Peter “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” he was joking right?  Peter was standing on top of water, wind screaming over his cheeks, the creaking and groaning of the boat resounding in his ears, Jesus bobbing up and down in his line of sight, and Jesus asks him why he doubted?  Surely there are very few environments in which a little bit of doubt would be more understandable?  The thing we get out of this, the reason why Jesus saw this situation so differently from Peter is that his method of analysing and processing what he saw and heard was fundamentally different from those around him.  Jesus interpreted every sensory impulse through the prism of his own lordship over creation.  He doesn’t get too het up about water being in front of him because he knows he is Lord of the waves.  He doesn’t get flustered about how to respond to people who are sick because he knows he has in himself the power to defeat all sickness.  He doesn’t feel the need to tow the religious line because he knows what true religion is all about.  This certainty and this understanding is amazing, and it all comes out of a true and deep knowledge of his own identity.

Psalm 12:1-8

You know, I always thought that the Word of the Lord was like silver purified 6 times over. I guess it goes to show - just when you think you know something...

January 20

Genesis 40:1-41:40

It’s astonishing that God would speak to Pharoah.  He wasn’t part of the covenant people, he was clearly worshipping other gods, he doesn’t seem to have made any effort to seek God in either word or deed (although we can’t know that for sure) and yet God gave him a warning about the future famine.  This is a common and crucial theme throughout the Old Testament - God wants to draw all types of people into the fold of his protection and provision.  God’s covenant promise is made to Israel and he makes himself especially available to the Israelites who seek him (even if it seems to take Him rather a long time as when Joseph is in prison) but he also regularly goes a little bit maverick and speaks words of promise or caution to those completely outside of his chosen people.  God cannot be contained and his desire to redeem people is never restricted to a the special few; his desire is to seek and save the lost.

Matthew 14:1-21

Jesus has just heard that his cousin and his first-ever-believer has suffered a gruesome death at the hands of the Israeli leadership that Jesus has come to challenge and usurp (Herod was head of the Sadducees who claimed that the promises of the Prophets were being fulfilled right then in and through their reign).  He must have felt sick, tired and full of foreboding.  And yet he decides to act on the prompting he has (through the compassion he feels) and to recklessly give of himself and of his disciples for the sake of the people around him.  Is this a recipe for spiritual burn-out? I would have thought so.  And yet it seems I am wrong.  Not only would seeing the miracle have been extraordinarily faith-building but, through the provision of the 12 extra basketfuls, we see how the Lord provides resources for each of the disciples to take away with them.  And yet constant service is not what Jesus is about - as soon as the 5000 are fed he sends the disciples on a boat trip and gets some time away (see tomorrow’s reading).  When Jesus sees the Father doing something he joins in, no matter how he feels, and, when Jesus doesn’t feel the Father’s prompting - even when the needs is still there - he gets away for a bit of R&R.

Proverbs 2:12-22

Proverbs is pretty brutal when describing those who seduce other’s partners (it talks about wives but I think we can take that as short-hand for wives or husbands).  It says it is foolish even to start down the path to their door.  Just don’t even go near them.  It sounds rigid and even legalistic but I think it is just trying to be realistic about the strength of sexual desire and the fact that very few of us are completely without any kind of weakness.  And it has an unambiguous message; the consequences of dalliance are always dreadful.

January 19

Genesis 38:1-39:23

Oh my Lord what on earth were you doing with Tamar?  Just to make sure we are all clear on what we are looking at; Judah is a son of God’s promise to Abraham (I’ll give you more descendants than sand on the seashore). Not only that, Judah is the head of one of the twelve tribes who form the backbone of God’s holy people; Israel.  And, even more than that, we see in Matthew 1 (January 1 reading) that Jesus was proud to proclaim that he was a direct descendant of Judah through Perez, his son of whoredom.  This whole thing is pretty darn offensive.  But, I guess, that is grace in action.

Onan was about as callous as it was possible to be in his situation.  Tamar had no pension, no support, no means of income and no retirement fund. She needed children to care and provide for her and to give her status; in ancient Israel everything  was about family and passing things on to the next generation.  So, asking brothers to provide heirs for their deceased siblings was the ancient equivalent of an endowment fund.  It chaffs a bit now but actually probably made reasonable sense back then.  Onan knows his role towards Tamar is to ensure she will be well looked after in future life but decides all he will do is enjoy a bit of fooling around and then, almost to spite her, spill his semen on the ground so she can watch her needs and hopes draining away into the dust.  Tamar now has no way of actually getting a future for herself so, completely and utterly at the end of her rope, she uses the well-practiced family skill of deception to get herself a son.  Can you imagine Judah’s face, and that of his wife!, when Tamar pulled out his seal and chord as proof of his fatherhood?  He was most definitely in the wrong, grossly so, but he acknowledges it and acts with compassion towards Tamar from that point on.

So we see the offensiveness, even to our ears, of God’s grace and compassion to the oppressed and the down-trodden.  It is easy to point fingers back at these people of old and decry them for their (very obvious) failings.  But I for one am so glad that they are laid out so clearly on display because in them we see the nature of our God; slow to anger and quick to forgive, faithful to generation after generation and determined to see his promises come to pass.

Matthew 13:36-58

As we press deeper into Matthew we see more and more of the character of Jesus.  Here is one part of him I think is often overlooked - everything he did, and certainly every parable he told, was expertly crafted specifically with the intention of provoking a decision.  People could not just sit and listen to him; they had to make a choice at the end.  Am I good seed or a weed? Will I sell all I have to gain the kingdom or will I just ignore it?  Am I a good fish or a bad fish?  The implications of each decision are laid out for even a child to understand.  When we approach Jesus, and when we speak out for him, we need to keep this at the forefront of our minds.  This is not just therapeutic stuff to listen to but is a call to change, to give up or take up, to sell or to buy, to hope or to repent.  We must regain this dynamic initiative to speak and demonstrate truth, to challenge and inspire radical transformation of our world.

Psalm 11:1-7

The Lord is loving and gracious but, as this psalm declares, he also examines us closely.  That is why the (slightly lost?) act of repentance is so crucial to us.  We do not bear close scrutiny (at least I don’t), but through repentance we find again the cleansing of the Spirit and become convinced of the purity of Jesus living in us.

January 18

Genesis 36:1-37:36

Shall I let you into my secret?  I don’t read the Old Testament genealogies.  I don’t even pretend to read them.  I just skip them out; verses 9-43 of Genesis 36 not even glanced at.  You see I just don’t think they are very interesting or useful for us and they just sap me of my enthusiasm to read the bible.  Maybe you could do the same? I won’t tell if you don’t.

Isn’t it quite reassuring to get back to a story we know pretty well and which fits a bit more easily into our understanding of God and his people? The great thing about knowing stories like these is that we see every part in the context of the overall redemption that God achieves through and for Joseph.  We can smile knowingly about the upstart Joseph lording his dreams over his brothers because we know he grows as a person as the narrative unfolds.  We can relax about the yet further deception carried out by Jacob’s sons (pretending Joseph is dead) as we know that everything turns out OK in the end.  Here we see that same ultra-important message again - God gives us freedom on the micro level to explore, make mistakes, sin and grow but he has most definitely got the big stuff nailed.  God is gripping the macro level and is twisting it towards his intentions.  Personal tragedies occur, pain and loss are most definitely felt but the covenant promise will not be broken and, somehow, through and above and beyond all the troubles, God will redeem his people and lead them into the blessing that he has promised.

Matthew 13:18-35

This parable of the weeds is possibly my favourite parable.  For me, it’s where I go when people ask about suffering.  How can God allow suffering?  Well, suffering is not all there is in the world.  There is incredible beauty; heart-breaking actions of love and creativity, glorious and joyful moments of partying and celebration.  And God knows that to eradicate suffering at this point would damage the glory and the beauty of all that is good - we as people, and the world we inhabit, have joy and suffering too intertwined within us to enable a simple separation of one for the other.  No, we have to live with the tragedy and the glory in the now.  But we can rest fully assured, and not doubt for one moment, that there will be a day when all that is wrong with this world, all that is wrong with ourselves, will be burned up in the unquenchable fire and a new world, a new way of being people, will emerge.  This new world will tolerate no weeds; no evil will be found there.  Just goodness and creativity and joy and life.

Psalm 10:12-18

I covered a bit of this during my rant yesterday on the first half of the psalm.  Again, though I’m so struck though by the fact that the Lord hears the desires of the afflicted and that he encourages them.  He takes time to stoop down to our level, to hear our desires and why we think they are out of reach and then he warms us and energises us, he invests confidence in us - note that, he invests confidence in us, not just us in him! -  and sets us off to fulfil those things to which he has called us.  Amazing.  Completely amazing.

January 17

Genesis 34:1-35:29

Flip!  It’s as if Jacob and his sons were playing poker and Simeon and Levi look at their cards, look up at their father, and say “we’ll see you deception, and raise you mass murder”.  Reuben is hardly a paragon of virtue either, waiting till his dad was out of town and then nipping in to sleep with his concubine.  These people seem like they should be locked up, not looked up to.  And that, I suspect, is the point.  The bible shows life as it can be; not sanitised or triumphalist, but real. It shows that God is unshakably committed to his people (he STILL does not reject Jacob’s family), that his people are desperately needing his help (this whole story is a catalogue of the human predicament) and that, even during grotesque and ridiculous meanderings (ref circumcision, concubines and childbirth), God is slowly unfolding his intentions for the universe.

Matthew 12:46-13:17

To think back over Israel's history how many incredible, faith-filled, earnest and talented people there must have been who would have longed to have seen Jesus, to have known his grace, to have been filled with the Spirit, to have heard his teaching and his prayers for them, and yet they did not, as he had not yet come.  It makes you feel quite small and pretty overwhelmed to have been born at such a privileged time and place where we can know the mystery of God revealed to humans, to have been beckoned into the family of the divine and to be co-heirs with Christ.  Jesus says “blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear” and that is so absolutely, marvelously true.  We are steeped in privilege because, if we want to, we can choose to draw into the presence of Jesus.  Knowing that as we do so we are marinading ourselves in grace, hope, love and truth, in the power and the riches of his kingdom.

Psalm 10:1-11

Not the most cheerful of reads, but essentially asking a question that troubles so many - why is life so unfair? - and doing it right in the guts of the bible.  It’s a shame that in this reading plan we don’t get the answer that is in the second half of the psalm but I guess there must be some logic behind that somewhere??  The truth is that these questions are to be affirmed and should be raised - life does indeed seem completely out of sorts.  Because, in going to the Lord with these questions, in demanding an answer from the Most High, we begin to see that he is at work and he is bringing about justice.  It is just that, in the same way as in the Genesis narrative, he does so in a slower, more over-arching way than is at first visible in the intricacies of living.  Life may well suck right now but, in time, the LORD will encourage the afflicted, defend the fatherless and cause the terror of the nations to perish from his land.

January 16

Genesis 32:1-33:20

Who would have guessed that God occasionally dabbles in a little bit of WWF?  And poor old Jacob; even if he moonlighted in a bit of wrestling, it must have been a serious brown-trousers-time when he realised he was up again none other than the Almighty Lord of Hosts.  All things considered, then, he seems to have fared pretty well; a wrenched hip is far less than many a wrestler suffered at the hands of The Undertaker.  But what are we to make of this remarkable episode??

Well, this is a key time for Jacob, finally stepping out from under Laban’s authority and journeying to the land God had promised to his ancestors.  And God seems to be using this moment to do a bit of a spot-check on Jacob’s commitment to Him and, at the same time, to prepare Jacob for the challenges that are to come.  It is amazing that God should do this - to allow himself to be grappled by the flesh and blood he made - and crucial for our understand of Him to note that God’s primary intention of this engagement was to speak into Jacob’s identify.  

I guess there is the question of what actually happened during those moon-lit hours on the river-side.  I suppose it might have been a deeply-tangible spiritual experience or (my preference) an actual physical one but whichever it was, it was an incredible demonstration of the extra-ordinary lengths God will go to to build the faith-levels of his people.  

Matthew 12:22-45

So Jesus make a man who was mute and blind speak and see and it only gets one sentence!  What a testament to how amazing (and how provocative) it must have been following him.  

I believe the unforgivable sin is refusing to accept the new covenant of the Spirit that Jesus is inaugurating - ie, denying that God (the Holy Spirit) is working in the church or the He is in what we now call Christianity.  

We also see Jesus here warning people that they cannot experience the promptings of God and then excuse themselves from actually changing how they live.  Claiming that more proof was needed will not wash.  Jesus has come so that people will lay down their arms and fall in behind him - debating and postulating are fine but at some point they must end and the activity of seeking and serving the King of the New Age must begin.

Proverbs2:1-11

It’s interesting that wisdom affects the heart and the soul as well as the mind.  This is not some cerebral activity but actual useful stuff for wholistic everyday living.

January 15

Genesis 31:1-55

Thus far in God’s salvation narrative there have been a few key themes, and this passage is as good as any in illustrating them:

• God is intimately involved with his creation and is looking for people with whom he can enter into a covenant - who he can bless and look after (in this case giving Jacob loads of speckled goats and warning off the irate Laban)
• When God is seeking people to enter a covenant with, the one thing that he looks for is whether they are seeking him.  If they are, he is unflinching in his commitment to them, even if they are stubborn, deceptive, polygamous and impetuous.
• Sin is a power that grabs hold of people, even communities, and which is hard to shake off.  Jacob’s deceptive nature is now seen also in Rachel (her lies about the household gods). But God, through experienced reassurance of his provision and protection, can change people’s inclinations; witness Jacob now displaying integrity rather than deception when looking after Laban’s flocks. Of course, the problem God has with the people of his covenant is that they don’t really have the power or intention to break free from their sinful ways (this is what he sorts out some time later in the book...)

Just as a little sidenote - I love the fact that Jacob, after making the deal with Laban, offers a sacrifice and then invites his friends to a meal - what an amazing picture of faith being living out in community.

Matthew 12:1-21

“I desire mercy not sacrifice” is one of the major themes of Jesus’ life.  It is a prophetic message of rebuke to the people of the Abrahamic covenant essentially saying “this thing I was doing with you was meant to be for the benefit of all people (“all peoples on earth will be blessed through you”) but, mainly due to fear of others, you have just turned it into a series of transactions and practices that bring little pleasure to anyone.  Following Jesus should inspire kindness and openness, not stale religious practice.  We need to work hard to ensure that our church is always prioritising mercy to those beyond our walls over and above any activity focussed on maintenance or survival.

Psalm 9:13-20

It’s interesting that while David’s Psalms are so full of cries for his enemies to be destroyed, David’s life was marked by his mercy to his enemies even when opportunities arose for him to destroy them (stories with Saul and Absolom that we get to in due course).  If we baulk at his words perhaps we could see them as great methods of “venting”, dealing with anger and hurt with the only one who an actually do something about them.  God seems very hard to offend or shock, and honesty to him seems to enable David to act in extraordinarily generous ways, even when in the most difficult of circumstances.   

January 14

Genesis 29:1-30:43

It’s about at this point in the narrative that you start to realise that Jacob is a little bit... well,... randy.  I mean, at his first meeting with Rachel he runs to her kisses her then breaks into a weeping fit before finally explaining who he is and what his intentions are.  Later, he pretty much says to Laban “give me your daughter so I can bonk her” (heaven knows what reaction I would have got if I’d tried that line with my father in law!), he seems so keen to get on with his honeymoon activities that he doesn’t realise he’s got the wrong girl and, most troubling of all, he seems to sleep with any girl who is offered to him - “you must sleep with me, I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes” must be one of the most amazing chat up lines ever uttered by anyone anywhere!  So what is this telling us about the Lord??  Well, I understand that bigamy was the cultural norm and that girls had to marry as they couldn’t work and there was no such thing as benefits but I still think the Jacob was sinning and that the Lord was not happy with his “bed-time” activities.  So for me, the lesson here is about how the Lord deals with our sins.  If our hearts are for Him, he is not looking for an excuse to accuse us (there is another one who does that).  In fact, quite the reverse.  Jacob had a completely messed up family and was impulsive and impetuous but he did know how to seek the Lord (see Jan 16th reading) and, I think because of this, the Lord would not break off his commitment to him.  Indeed, the Lord poured out abundant blessings on Jacob just liked he promised he would - nothing could prevent the Lord from keeping his covenant with his people.

Matthew 11:16-30

What I love so much about the picture of Jesus that develops through Matthew is that he is so difficult to pin down.  One minute you get an image of him as a gregarious socialite (people calling him a glutton and a drunkard), and the next he is calling people to repent in sack-cloth and ashes.  He embraces both wild celebration of light and bitter mourning of darkness.  I believe a truly surrendered Christian life should be similarly marked with the extreme highs of parties and the extreme lows of repentance.

Psalm 9:7-12

We tend to emphasise gray areas, acknowledge that we are on journeys and be open about our struggles.  This is a thing I enjoy about living in 21st century London.  But, I’m challenged by the lack of gray in statements like “you, Lord have never forsaken those who seek you” and “he does not ignore the cry of the afflicted”.  They are massive claims that I impulsively want to soften but I think that I shouldn’t.  I think these things are actually true and should be celebrated, not toned down; God is absolutely trustworthy, no matter how that fact jarrs with our culture. 

January 13

Genesis 27:1-28:22

There has never seemed a more appropriate time than to quote that famous Shakespearean maxim “liar, liar, pants on fire” (at least I think it was Shakespeare; maybe it was Dickens).  Poor old Esau’s biggest sin seems to have been that he looked a bit like Chewbacca, whereas Jacob is just a big fat liar.  And yet it is Jacob who God chooses to bless.  What the heck is going on here?

Well, it seems to me that behind the initial appearance of things, there was a clear reason why Jacob was attractive to God and why Esau wasn’t.  More important than how hairy they are or even of how deceptive they are being, was the question of which direction their hearts are orientated.  Esau had already shown he didn’t care a bowl of lentil soup for the inheritance God had prepared for him (see yesterday’s reading) where as Jacob earnestly desired the blessing of God.  God sees people who are seeking him and he loves them, blesses them and uses them to bless others, even though they may still be a bit of a train-wreck themselves.  So does this mean that it is OK to be deceptive and sinful as long as we are seeking God? A sneak peak at tomorrow’s reading suggests otherwise - God has committed himself to Jacob and promised to bless him; and that involves God teaching Jacob the pain caused by deception (Laban deceives Jacob into marrying Leah).  God turns to people who seek him, but he doesn’t leave it at that - he then leads them into whatever situations are required to teach them the beauty of his holiness.

Matthew 10:32-11:15

The bit about hating your son or daughter, softened in this translation to “love them more than me” is one of the bits of the bible I have agonised over more anything else.  I mean I love my 3 boys more than anything.  If Jesus asked me to give up Starbucks 2-shot vanilla lattes I would struggle but just about cope. But is he really asking me to reduce my affections for my boys just so he stands out even further??

You’ll be relieved to know my conclusion is “no”.  I think what Jesus is doing here is speaking into the Jewish concept of family as being the primary determinant of both your current identity and your future hope.  I believe Jesus was saying "I am  more important than your family heritage. No matter that your family have always owned this land, if I ask you to sell it you better do so.  No matter that your family are fishermen, if I call you to fish for people you better put down them nets".  And, in the same way, if you choose to walk away from the Lord’s call on your life so that you can build a crack-a-jack inheritance for your children through their schooling, extra-curricular activities and a trust fund (not bad things of themselves), then Jesus would say (a bit harsh this!) that you are not worthy of him.  Jesus never claimed that his road was comfortable, but he did show that to all who do choose it, the rewards will be incredible.

Psalm 9:1-6

Can someone look up the tune of “The Death of a Son” (see instructions at the top of the psalm), it sounds like a nice uplifting melody.  Maybe we could start using it in church?

January 12

Genesis 25:1-26:35

The picture is of the Lord using little niggles and frustrations to draw Isaac and Rebekah into greater dependence on him and into the geographical place that he has for them.  For me, the defining point of this passage is the Covenant promise that God is re-emphasising to Isaac.  God has chosen his people - the family of Abraham - and through them he intends to benefit and redeem the whole world.  Isaac’s insecurities and difficulties (which interestingly mirror those of his father - I need to be careful what legacy I give to my children!) cannot inhibit the progression of God’s redemptive action.  

The writer seems to make rather a big deal of Esau’s swapping of his birthright for the ancient equivalent of a Pot Noodle, but that makes perfect sense in the context outlined above.  Esau’s actions scream that he couldn’t care less about the role he has been given to play in God’s chosen people - he just wants his lentil soup!  It’s amazing how in the heat of the moment people can swap something so insignificant for something so important.

Matthew 10:1-31

The first bit of this really gets the old Vineyard blood pumping through the veins - the signs of the kingdom, freely receiving and freely giving - it makes you want to jump up and give someone a fist pump.  And then Jesus comes out with “everyone will hate you...when you are persecuted...you will be called Satanic”.  It’s not quite Obama’s “change is going to come” is it?  Did Jesus not know how to give a motivational speech??  But then, he did have a ruthlessness about him that I rarely get to. He was ruthless in excluding the Gentiles at that stage as it was not yet the time for them to be drawn in, he was ruthless about naming and shaming the evil and corruption around him, he was ruthless in banishing disease and demon, death and disfigurement.  I increasingly think you can’t have one without the other - we can’t heal without haranguing, we can’t redeem without rebuking.  It’s all part of the same package - to push back evil in every form that it presents itself.

Proverbs1:20-33

When it talks about simple ones, I think it is maybe better understood to mean ignorant, or people who don’t bother to look at their actions and realise that there will be consequences.  In fact, there seems to be great simplicity in choosing to fear the Lord; of having a single place to go to for advice.  Surely that’s something even the Russian meerkat would agree is good thing to do..

January 1-11th (catch up)

January 1

Genesis 1&2 

I’ve heard this story so many times that I tend to skate over it (or get distracted by the evolution thing - which to my mind in no way contradicts this but that is for a different day) but when I actually take the time to look at it, this is truly staggering.  As a campfire story told by a nomadic elder to his gathered household it could scarcely be more powerful; in such a short and clear way it answers the aching questions of humanity.  The star-studded night sky and the fading horizons around us all belong to our God.  His fingerprints are on the dust on our feet and the shrubs at our backs.  We, indeed, not only belong to him but were formed by him in a deliberate and intimate way. If we look right, we see him in ourselves and in those around us.  He has laid out this landscape for us in which to make love, work and feast. The simplicity and yet the liberation in it is astonishing.  

And then God, as if he has nothing in the universe to be getting along with, leans back in his armchair, folds his arms and smiles.

Matthew 1:1-25

Crikey!  Did no-one tell Matthew that listening to someone else’s family history is one of the few things less interesting than filling out previous addresses on a CRB form?  And yet, in it we see the bewildering arc of God’s grace, stretching across Kings (Solomon) and prostitutes (Tamar), adulterers (David) and asylum seekers (Ruth). 

And then he quite happily switches into one of the most understated paragraphs I have ever read - a virgin to give birth, an angelic appearance and a promise so great the English language can’t do it justice.  “To save people from their sins” - in six words to define the predicament and remedy for every individual in the whole of history.  Now that’s a message for our stressed out, lonely, confused world.

Psalm 1:1-6

So meditating on the law of the Lord yields fruit?  It should be a fruitful time for those of us doing bible in a year...

January 2

Genesis 2:18-4:16

What gets me about this is that God obviously knew his garden had been defiled  and yet he still goes walking in it. He knew that Adam and Eve were disgustingly guilty and yet still approached them with questions rather than judgements.  He can see right through Adam and Eve’s pathetic blame-shifting strategies and yet he still listens to them.  And yet, what is perhaps even more amazing, while you can taste the tragic sorrow in God’s every word, he does not hold back from enforcing the punishments necessary to set Adam and Eve down the long road to redemption.

And so it goes on; Cain seems to be an impetuous, self-obsessed berk and yet God holds an extended conversation with him, even granting him protection from every side.  I know how I would have reacted in his situation.  I wish I was more like the Lord, especially when dealing with my mother-in-law (joke!!)

Matthew 2:1-18

It seems strange to me that Herod had so much vested interest in finding out who this King of the Jews was but he couldn’t even be bothered to head down to Bethlehem himself.  And while those who he sent - the Magi - are overjoyed and overawed, Herod progresses from humiliated rage to murderous insanity.  At Jesus we see the most unlikely playing jubilant parts in His redemption narrative while the best qualified exit-stage-left in bitter ignominy. Worship and hatred, life and death run alongside each other  with only Jesus standing between them.  What a thing, to know the one who stands in such a place!

Psalm 2:1-12

Kiss the Son. I love the image of reverence which at the same time is an image of gratitude. Life and death are in his hand and he does with them what the pleases.  What an amazing picture of worship. I think I better kiss the Son.

January 3

Genesis 4:17-6:22

I do find the ages of Noah’s ancestors a little troubling. As indeed I do the extraordinary Nephilim and the idea of two of every creature being holed up in one big boat.  I start to see in my mind smirking faces of atheist friends and have an instinct to concede ground to them and agree that the stuff just can’t be true.  But then I remember that the Jewish people who told and re-told this stuff and based their lives on it were not any less intelligent than the professors of today’s world.  They were well aware that 500 was a little old for Noah to be having a child (as the Abraham story demonstrates just a few chapters later).  So, while I don’t think we have clarity over whether this particular part of Genesis is straight-up history or more of a poetic explanation of difficult-to-describe events, the one thing I am certain about is that it in no way negates the thrust of the narrative.  With these passages I believe the key thing is to see that they explain WHY the world is like it is and what God’s intentions are for his people.  And those are pretty clear and as true today as ever - God is not a distant watchmaker but a deeply emotional about his world and is sorely wounded when people arrogantly reject him. When he sees problems he rolls up his sleeves and starts to remedy them, calling out what is good and coming down on what is bad.

Matthew 2:19-3:17

It is striking how Matthew repeatedly shows how Jesus came and lived out what God had called Israel to be.  This is what the regular references to fulfilling the prophets is getting at; Israel was at the centre of a mighty clash of covenants. The government and spiritual leadership of Israel (Sadducees and Pharisees) are being rejected by God as woeful pretenders at fulfilling God’s covenant with Abraham (see Jan 6). John the Baptiser is bringing a new teaching to Israel preparing them for a new government and spiritual leadership to be revealed.  He issues a demand that people turn away from the their way of approaching life and get ready for a new visitation of God.  Jesus’ baptism is, for me, him buying into John’s teaching - he acknowledges that the old way of being Israel is done and he signals, through his going into and out of the water, that he is actively looking for the new visitation of God.  Matthew shows that Jesus, and all he did, was a fundamental continuation of the story that ran through Adam, Abraham and David.

Psalm 3:1-8

Some of these psalms make me chuckle.  I don’t relate at all to the “how many are my foes” bit, nor really the “I lie down and sleep” (new baby in the household) but then I fully know that the Lord does sustain me and I do daily pray that the Lord will break the teeth of the wicked (joke!). Some of this is from another time, but some of it is so relevant now it sends tingles down my spine. The Lord can deliver us from any mess we get ourselves in, no matter how awful.

January 4

Genesis 7:1-9:17

It strikes me that God was never naive about the way things were going to go for Israel.  He had just cleared out the rabble-rousers and trouble-causers and put a small family on a boat for just over a year (now that would certainly strain some inter-generational relationships!).  He looks down at the newly purified world and realises that this time round isn’t going to be any better because “every inclination of people’s heart is evil from childhood”.  Couldn’t he just have got one of the crocodiles to launch an attack on Noah’s clan and be done with it?  But he doesn’t because he is a covenant God, keen to provide for and commit to his people.  He knows he is getting the raw end of the deal (only in Jesus do people get liberated from their natural inclination towards evil) but he is happy to press ahead.  Why?  Because he loves the smell of worship, of people taking time and resources and burning them up, indeed even wasting them away for the sake of Him.

Matthew 4:1-22

This is a pretty mega passage.  Jesus refuses to agree that the ends justify the means.  He won’t settle for short-cuts or self-promotion strategies even though these no doubt would have cause more people, more quickly to have come to him for healing and hope.  He doesn’t just accept individual verses as proof texts but knows the whole counsel of God and follows the broad highway of the Covenant call.  

When he declares “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near” I believe people would have heard him stating that the second exile of Israel is nearly over. The promises of the prophets of God living with his people, of peace and security, of the end of oppression would soon be fulfilled. Israel would return to the glory days of David with a united, triumphant kingdom under a Divinely appointed king who would keep the enemies at bay and the people in good health.  The drama in the book of Matthew is seeing how Jesus both affirmed that hope and called people to repent from their misinterpretation of it, how he called them to see himself, and not the purification of the temple at Jerusalem, as the fulfillment of God’s promises to the world.  It’s a fascinating and difficult journey for him, and one that Matthew depicts with incredible skill.

Proverbs 1:1-7

I find that people today are often labelled as stupid or clever, intellectually-superior or “not that academic”.  The bible doesn’t seem to bound people up like that.  It declares that anyone can grow in wisdom and understanding, even the most stupid can become prudent if they know where to look.  I hope that people doing bible in a year begin to let go of labels they have put on themselves (or have had put on them) and begin to grasp hold of all that the Lord has for them.  No matter where we have been we can gain understanding. We, in Jesus, can learn how to do life really, really well. 

January 5

Genesis 9:18-11:9

Two ways to ruin your life.  And at both of their roots is the same seductive poison of pride.  Canaan fundamentally disrespected his father. There is probably a lot more murkiness concealed within that phrase “saw his his father’s nakedness” but even if there wasn’t, his bragging about what he saw exposed the contempt he had for his ancestors and showed his willingness to exploit his father to advance his own desires.  The Lord does not take kindly to those who disrespect their parents.  He will ruin you for it.  And then there are those who thought they were the super-heroes of their day.  What a bunch of muppets; thinking that their own intellect and their own skill and their own co-operation could be their stronghold and their fortress and their deliverance.  They may well have been pretty smart but you just can’t go pretending that the Boss doesn’t exist when he is right there watching over your shoulder.  That is called pride.  And the Boss doesn’t like pride.  He will ruin you for it.  And so we see that history may froth and settle, that people may self-promote and prosper but that ultimately all people are like grass and the Lord has a lawnmower.  He is sovereign over this earth and we would do well to acknowledge that.

Matthew 4:23-5:20

O the awesomeness of these phrases.  I must have read them 20 to 30 times in the last few days and yet every time I feel like I’m getting claxoned in the face by another surprising and inspiring truth.  I find that the Sermon on the Mount is a bit like Table Mountain in Cape Town; so much of the time it seems obscured by the cloud of other-peoples’-voices and opinions, and yet, there are moments when these vapours evaporate and I am left gazing at the pure, unvarnished magnificence of it all.  And  in those moment of clarity I realise that the sermon declares to be good a lot of things that I naturally shy away from.  It says it is a glorious thing to feel the inadequacy of spiritual poverty, to be wracked with the sorrow of mourning, to constantly be feeling like you are wanting and needing more and to be constantly having to show mercy to those who have wronged you.  I don’t want any of those things.  I want to sit pretty and smile smugly and be patted gently on the shoulder by one man and his dog (can a dog pat a shoulder?? - I bet you could make quite a lot of money from a dog who could do that).  But Jesus seems to be saying that that is the way of the kingdom.  Jesus seems to be saying that the rich and succulent pleasures of the kingdom are reserved for those who have struggled and strained and reached the end of themselves.  The Kingdom is for the humble - for those who spend their life on their knees, knowing that their help comes not from within themselves but from their King.  Do you struggle?  Do you feel like are not up to it?  Do you feel like life is too tough?  Then get on your knees.  You could be in a great place if you will turn and cry out and beg and wail and give all of yourself to Him.  He will make the first last and He will make the last first.  God is real.  And He is turning our world on its head.

Psalm 4:1-8

"In your anger do not sin; when you are in your beds search your hearts and be silent." That's a bit weird.  Why would David get so angry in his bed?  Maybe his wife always used to hog the duvet

January 6

Genesis 11:10-13:18

Phew, those genealogies are boring.  But like the queues at the bottom of the Eiffel tower, let us not let things that are tedious and long distract us from the true wonder before us.  God appears to a bankrupt old fogy whose lot had been settled by the barrenness of his wife.  Abraham and Sarai were all out of trumps.  Their cards had been beaten. Their lives were just headed towards death.  No children, no legacy, no pension-provision, no continuation of their line.  Definitely no hope.  They had probably just settled down to see out life till they copped it.  But then out of nowhere the Lord shows up.  The Lord shows up who gives hope to the bankrupt.  The Lord shows up to make a great nation out of a withered, hopeless couple of fogies.  And it ain’t just any old hope.  It ain’t just a child where there was no child.  It ain’t just a pension plan where there once was poverty.  This hope is epic greatness and unrivaled favour and global redemption.  And that is the thing to spot and remember right at the beginning of this covenant - that it is all about grace.  That our faith is about the bankrupt and the deceptive and the scoundrels and the rogues being found and gripped by our God and being given inexplicably generous promises of provision and protection and transformation and influence.  No wonder the early church went back to this passage again and again; it set the tone for the whole of the book.  It drummed the rhythm by which they marched.  It drilled them into dependence on God, gratitude to God, worship of God and hope in God.  It is a beat we need to hear again.  It is a beat that should mark our daily walk.

Matthew 5:21-42

I don’t think this is the set up of a game of sin-bingo.  I don’t think Jesus envisions us all with our own little board of sins and offenses that we tick off as he shouts them out.  I don’t think a fully-ticked-off board will get you thrown into hell.  I think that kind of rigid rule-obsession is what he was calling his people to move beyond.  But, at the same time, he does absolutely call us to live in a certain way.  He strongly calls all people to do what he says and he says that if they don’t do what he says then they are putting themselves in grave danger.  So, Jesus is calling his world neither to a dogmatic rule-observance nor to a permissive, ‘chilled’, anything-goes culture.  And the reason I think Jesus is so strong on this is because both of these ‘heresies’ destroy relationships.  Rule-obsession makes relationships dry and mechanical.  An “anything-goes” approach inflicts severe pain and drives people apart.  And so, as we approach one of these first parts of Jesus’ teaching, we discover, perhaps surprisingly, that central to everything is the quality of our relationships.  How we treat those around us really matters to Jesus.  Even more than things like going to conferences and listening to online sermons and following the latest Christian craze.  Many of us could bring far more pleasure to God and could build far more for the kingdom if we spent our conference money on reconciling ourselves to our family and spent our ‘ipod-sermon time’ trying to carry others’ burdens.  This is the core of what we are called to; pressing into proper, generous and supportive relationships.

Psalm 5:1-12

David sounds just a tad holier-than-thou in some of this.  But I think that was because he was a leader who seriously understood the gladness of living right before God and the awfulness of having a tongue of deceit.

January 7

Genesis 14:1-16:16

What a hero.  What a dummy.  And how like me (OK I admit I may not be quite such a hero as Abraham - I’ve never led a crack force of troops on a routing campaign to recover the plundered innocent - but I did once get through 7 levels of Angry Birds without dying.  And I have a great track record of acting like a dummy).  But how completely, utterly and jaw-droppingly scandalous.  If this was any kind of assessment process for any kind of serious job then the bonking-the-hired-help-and-then-bullying-her-to-leave-when-she-is-up-the-duff episode would surely have resulted in a polite but curt email thanking Abraham for his interest but regretting that the role was not for him.  But not with God.  His grace abounds.  His grace overflows even into the life of that wild donkey Ishmael.  When God latches on to a person it seems like it takes a fair old bit of failure to shake him off - even gross and wicked unfaithfulness to your closest kin can’t do it.  And so we come again to this wonderful and utterly foundational doctrine of the faith; that we are deeply unworthy but that God is even more deeply gracious.  Surely that provokes a bit of gratitude to God?  Surely that provokes a bit of loyalty to him?  Surely that provokes the paying of tythes and the keeping of oaths?  God is so worthy of all of these things.  And so much more. 

Matthew 5:43-6:24

This reminds me of the game chubby bunnies - where you have to stuff as many marshmallows in your mouth as you can and then say “chubby bunnies”.  Jesus has packed as much rip-snorting, life-flipping truth as possible into this ever-so-short sermon and then we, with our souls straining with the effort, try to apply it to our lives without our brains bursting out and sliding onto the floor.  Even the greatest minds the world has ever known have found the Sermon on the Mount to exceed their abilities.  What chance do we have? And yet I do think that this monstrous and intricate sermon has several fundamental principles which even a child could understand.  Jesus seems to be building an argument on four basic convictions: 1) that God is real 2) that God acts as our Father 3) that God sees all we do in secret and 4) God will ultimately determine how our life works out.  Each one of these principles builds upon the other and, if we are honest, each of them is probably something we struggle with at times.  And no wonder.  The God of this Age - Mammon, or whatever other form he chooses to appear in - screams in our faces that God is not real, that he does not want to nurture us, that what is secret is irrelevant and - perhaps most of all - that he has the keys to our fate.  Do we really believe that our secret prayers and our unrecognised obedience and our quiet service are building our future?  Do we value these above the comments of our bosses and the statements of friends and the £££s in our pay-packet and the looks we get on the street?  It is a challenge.  I find I am so much in the pocket of the latest fad or the latest meeting.  I want to be where it is at and I want to be recognised there too.  When earthly success (which generally revolves around numbers) is all around then I am happy as Larry but when it begins to fade I find myself scrabbling about for a quick fix.  But God is real.  God is my Father.  He sees what I do in secret and he will ultimately decide my fate.  I don’t need quick fixes.  I need to trust Him.  I don’t need earthly success, I just need to give Jesus my heart.  For if I make Him my treasure and if I give him my prayers and if I seek Him first then I need to worry about nothing.  For I may not be ‘successful’ but I know I’ll be safe.

Psalm 6:1-10

The Lord really does hear our cries for mercy.

January 8

Genesis 17:1-18:33

Circumcision.  It’s a funny old lark.  If you sidled up to me and said you wanted us to be buddies and that we could be buddies for ever and that as your special buddy you wanted me to do some special buddy sign then I might go along with it... just.  But if you then whipped out a knife and said that you wanted our special buddy sign to be me chopping off a part of my body, well, I think I might make a few polite expressions with my eyes and then edge away quickly.  And if you even began to put that knife anywhere near my penis...  There are just some things that friendships shouldn’t touch, don’t you think?  And maybe that is the point.  God put at the core of his covenant a demand so eye-watering and a claim so intimate that it was impossible for Abraham to mistake it as just a simple friendship.  God wants way more than that.  He wants his claim on us to get into our flesh.  He wants our covenant with him to scar us; to assault the parts of ourselves that we keep most hidden and those parts of ourselves through which we provide for our future.  For God’s covenant is a covenant of nothing being hidden - God sees all and he wants us to disclose all honestly to him.  And God’s covenant is a covenant of putting our hope solely in Him - God provides our future security and he wants us to cling to that rather than to our descendants or our family name.  And when I think about this I think about how ridiculous I am when I complain about pain or suffering involved in my call.  About how peculiar it must seem to Abraham when I moan that obeying God can sometimes be a little bit hard.  For it always has been.  It was there right at the start.  It was part of the deal.  I need to stop flinching away from that blade. 

Matthew 6:25-7:23

Live different.  Don’t just go with the flow.  Don’t conform to the pattern of this world but continually mark yourself out as children of your Father by responding to situations and people in a radically different way.  I find it easy to approach people - all people whether I know them or not - with one over-riding question; “what can you do for me?”.  Whether it is my wife who I want to listen to me or my friends who I want to entertain me or a random stranger who I want to keep out of my way on the train, I am pretty good at asking the question and finding an answer for what I want people to do for me.  It is almost like that question is engraved on my soul.  And also engraved on my soul is a rampant bitterness and frustration that all these ungrateful people don’t live up to my expectations.  My wife has to go and sort out one of the kids, my friends start talking about their problems (how dare they?? don’t they know that I should always be the topic of our conversations?) and the stranger on the train talks infuriatingly loudly on their mobile phone.  This is how I find life is naturally lived.  But Jesus wants to wipe this away.  Jesus wants to fill in all these engravings and carve something almost entirely opposite in their place.  Jesus wants us to ask not “what can you do for me” but “how could I help you out today”.  Jesus wants us to look into other people’s lives not to work out what we can plunder from them but to work out what we can shore up in them, what we can encourage in them and, at times, what we can challenge in them.  But this is not about us just trying hard to live well; that is not the way of the gospel.  The way of the gospel is the way of living out a new identity.  The way of the gospel is dying to our old self at Calvary and being birthed into a whole new understanding of ourselves at the empty tomb.  The way of the gospel is to know beyond doubt that we have a Father who will give us all we need.  The way of the gospel is to see ourselves as one of the lucky few who have found the narrow way.  The way of the gospel is to know that we don’t need to go scrabbling around looking for our affirmation for the Lord of all has already told us we are his.  And so our new identity is one of wounded healers, of struggling helpers.  We put our expectations not on the people around us but on our God.  We live to help the wounded and the struggling and the scrabbling around us.  Of course they will wound us, of course they will let us down.  Of course they will cause us pain.  But we will serve them anyway, we give to them anyway, we will speak the truth in love to them anyway.  Because we know that is what Jesus did for us.  And we know that he now calls us His.  

Proverbs 1:8-19

Proverbs is based on the premise that older people teach younger people how to live, even going into the minute detail on grizzly topics.  Today that might be thought of as too directive but I suspect it is still the wise thing to do.

January 9

Genesis 19:1-20:18

Heck.  Dignity is being ripped up and sprayed around like ticker tape on a St Patrick’s Day Parade.  Who could ever claim the bible is boring? Or prudish?  This stuff is as grubby as it comes.  This passage is just wave upon wave of sick-inducing, disgusting and moronic behaviour.  And it leads you to a rather depression conclusion that we humans are corrupt and twisted and couldn’t organise a spring clean in a broom shop.  But the depression only lasts for a night.  And rejoicing comes in the morning.  Because we may be weaker and more wretched than we would ever care to admit but our God is more merciful and longer-suffering than we would ever dare to imagine.  He sends his angels to visit Lot in Sodom.  And they pull him out of danger.  And they warn him of the coming calamity.  And they gather his family around him.  And when he lingers they grasp his hands and drag him to safety.  And when he complains of weakness they grant his request to make their refuge closer.  And they see him safely into Zoar before the burning sulphur falls.  God’s mercy is not just an emotion or a concept.  It is a practical reality that we can feel every single day; sweeping up our mess, binding up our hearts and pointing our eyes to the goal.  And it goes on and on and on until we choose to opt out of it or until our deliverance is achieved.  Our God is mercy... and His mercy helps us live.

Matthew 7:24-8:22

Authority.  In some ways it has been torn down in our society today.  But in other ways it is more highly regarded than ever.  People pay small fortunes for a lunch with Warren Buffet in the hope that they can learn from him some valuables tid-bits for investing.  Cricket teams take swathes of experts with them to advise them on diet and psychology and security.  This deference to experts is in itself an acknowledgement of authority; that  some people have particular spheres of life that they know everything about.  If you have a particular problem in a particular sphere then all you need to do is employ the particular expert and they will sort you out.  It is as if the sphere of life is the expert’s domain and they rule over it with their knowledge and experience.  And this kind of authority is what Matthew speaks into here.  Jesus, he says, is your special advisor par excellance.  If you are being battered by a storm and you want to know how to survive Matthew does not advise going to an agony aunt.  He gives no truck to astrologers or mediums or the latest self-help manuals.  Matthew even counsels against listening to a lot of the religious establishment.  Matthew clearly points all storm-sufferers to one man and, indeed, to the words of this one man, as the point of authority of how to stand firm through the trails.  And Matthew follows this up by calling out to the sick.  He calls to the lepers and the socially marginalised and to those who see illness and disease ravaging their family.  And he points them to the same man, to the same expert who can see you through each and every kind of malady.  Matthew is basically saying one thing; Jesus has authority.  Jesus is the expert.  Jesus is the Master Teacher for life.  Jesus is the Great Physician, Jesus is the best counsellor or advisor or healer than you ever could find.  And - this is the really cool bit - he is willing to work for all at no initial charge.  I think we need to recapture our confidence in this basic idea.  We need to re-convince ourselves of the expertise of Jesus, of his unrivaled knowledge on life.  Each and every person we see today would find their lives dramatically improved if they sat at the feet of Jesus.  And how do we re-convince ourselves?  I think it is by testing it out.  I think it is by consistently and gently encouraging the people around us to turn their ears to Jesus.  If we do that I think we will pretty quickly be convinced; as we see the sick healed and the demons fleeing and the lepers being welcomed back in.

Psalm 7:1-9

Flip.  David prays 2 things here that I would never ever dream of praying 1) Arise, O Lord, in your anger, and 2) Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness.  I wonder which one of us is right, David or me?

January 10

Genesis 21:1-23:20

What a conference speech story that must have been.  When Abraham did the speaking tours at the big festivals of his day I bet he pulled out this little gem every single time.  I can well imagine the look of horror-verging-on-panic that must have crossed the congregation’s faces as Abraham told them of him raising the knife blade above his son.  And I can almost feel the wave of admiration, nay respect, nay awe, that must have spread across the room as he told of the provision of the ram.  They must have whooped and cheered till they could whoop and cheer no more.  And well they should.  For it was an extraordinary act of faith by this old man who would have spent it all.  But the real glory of course should go not to Abraham but to the Lord.  Not to the man’s faith but to his God’s Faithfulness.  For all across this passage it is fascinating how many times God is the one doing things for His people and how rarely it is His people doing things for God.  God was gracious to Sarah... God did what he said... God spoke to Abraham... an angel of God called out to Hagar... God was with the boy... God tested Abraham... God held back the knife... and God provided the ram.  So much of my life I spend crying out to God, asking and begging him to do something for me.  And yet, if this passage is any indicator, that may be slightly out of balance.  For the Lord will provide for his children, whether we ask him to or not.  God is working.  God is speaking.  God is providing.  We just need to get better at working out what he is doing, what he is saying and what he is giving.  The Lord will provide. 

Matthew 8:23-9:13

Here is the uncomfortable truth; Jesus wrecks things.  Part of him slinging his authority around, part of him bringing his expertise to bear on the world is wrecking stuff that just ain’t right.  And sometimes some other stuff as well.  This is the flipside of authority that just isn’t so popular today.  Jesus rides into town like the big bad wolf and he blows down the houses of all three little pigs.  There is no brick house that can stand before his breath.  I must confess that I don’t really know what that herd of pigs did wrong.  Obviously they weren’t particularly desirable to any observant Jew but it still seems a little bit harsh that they all drowned in the lake.  But whatever was the exact reason that they drowned, the one thing that is abundantly clear is that if Jesus hadn’t shown up then the pigs would have stayed alive.  If Jesus hadn’t shown up then the pigs would probably have ended their days on some Gadarenes’ plate inside a bap with some ketchup.  And if Jesus hadn’t shown up then the poor old swineherd’s would not have lost a fortune.  And if Jesus hadn’t shown up then the city wouldn’t have gone into uproar.  And if Jesus hadn’t shown up the two men would have stayed mental.  Jesus is like some massive magnet that is shoved into a cluster of lots of smaller magnets.  Some are repelled and some are attracted.  What never happens is that the smaller magnets stay unmoved.  So the guests take offense at Jesus’ claim to forgive sins and Matthew the tax-collector has to leave his career and the fearful realise that they need to be scared of completely different things.  We probably got this when we first came to Christ (if we have done) but have we lost a sense that Jesus will wreck our lives?  Do we resist his tendency to ruin our careers and destroy our nest-eggs and sully our reputations and throw our heads in a spin?  If we do then we need to wonder whether we are happy to have him around at all?  Are we really following him like Matthew or sending him away like the Gadarenes?

Psalm 7:10-17

"God is a righteous judge, a God who expresses his wrath every day."  Wow. I don't think that would make it into many worship songs written today.

January 11

Genesis 24:1-67

I’ll have to remember that “hand under the thigh” trick next time I want someone to do something for me; “Oh Si, thanks so much for agreeing to lead worship at house group next week. It’s not that I doubt you will do it but before you go would you just mind putting your hand....”

It’s amazing to me that Isaac, his servant, Laban and Rebekah are all quietly fumbling their way through the simple mechanics of life - grief, marriage, hospitality - and yet the Lord is, through them, constructing the defining narrative of all existence.  Surely they would not have imagined for a minute that their prayers and obedience would lead to the birth of the Messiah who would save all people from their sins. And yet they continued with them anyway, seeking the Lord, asking his favour on their efforts and his blessing on their people. What an inspiration they are.  And what an amazing thing that the Lord would hear their prayers, and make them successful in the things he has asked them to do.

Matthew 9:14-38

When Jesus says “your faith has healed you” to the bleeding woman it sort of sticks in my throat a little bit.  I mean it wasn’t her faith that healed her really - it was Jesus. If she had gone and touched the cloak of one of the pharisees with the same level of faith I don’t think she would have got much back from them, except maybe a kick in the head for violating the purification laws.  So here’s the thing; Jesus should never have let this lady touch her; it officially made him unclean for the rest of the day (or longer I can’t remember the specifics I think they are in Leviticus somewhere), and yet when she did so not only did he heal her but he also praised her for her understanding of where to go for help in this world.  The “faith” that Jesus lauded was an appreciation that Jesus is the King of History, acquainted with all suffering and well able to eradicate it, familiar with the Jewish purification laws and yet overcoming them.  Jesus is the one and only place for people to turn and receive real transformation. The bleeding lady saw that and acted - and this is what Jesus was celebrating.

Psalm 8:1-9

I love this psalm. I think of evenings staring at the sky, realising how big God is and how small I am. This moment of wonder is underpinned by the fact that he psalmist has simply taken time to consider the heavens and the work of the Lord.  I need to carve out some more time for that.