OLD TESTAMENT

Genesis

The Woman said to the serpent, ‘Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It’s only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said. ‘Don’t eat from it: don’t even touch it or you’ll die.’

The serpent told the Woman, ‘You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.’

When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it – she’d know everything! – she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate.

Immediately the two of them did ‘see what’s really going on’ – saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves.”

Exodus

Leviticus

Numbers

Deuteronomy

Joshua

Judges

Ruth

Very impressive. So impressive, in fact, that many of us, while remaining impressed, feel left out. Our unimpressive, very ordinary lives make us feel like outsiders to such a star-studded cast. We disqualify ourselves. Guilt or willfulness or accident makes a loophole and we assume that what is true for everyone else is not true for us. We conclude that we are, somehow, ‘just not religious’ and thus unfit to participate in the big story.

And then we turn a page and come on this small story of two widows and a farmer in their out-of-the-way village.

The outsider Ruth was not born into the faith and felt no natural part of it – like many of us. But she came to find herself gathered into the story and given a quiet and obscure part that proved critical to the way everything turned out.

Scripture is a vast tapestry of God’s creating, saving, and blessing ways in this world. The great names in the plot that climaxes at Sinai…and the great names in the sequel…can be intimidating to ordinary, random individuals: ‘Surely there is no way that I can have any significant part on such a stage.’ But the story of the widowed, impoverished, alien Ruth is proof to the contrary. She is the inconsequential outsider whose life turns out to be essential for telling the complete story of God’s ways among us. The unassuming ending carries the punch line; ‘Boaz married Ruth, she had a son Obed. Obed was the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David.’

David! In its artful telling of this ‘outsider’ widow, uprooted and obscure, who turns out to be the great-grandmother of David and the ancestor of Jesus, the Book of Ruth makes it possible for each of us to understand ourselves, however ordinary or ‘out of it,’ as irreplaceable in the full telling of God’s story. We count – every last one of us – and what we do counts.”

1 Samuel

“By this time Eli was very old. He kept getting reports on how his sons were ripping off the people and sleeping with the women who helped out at the sanctuary. Eli took them to task: ‘What’s going on here? Why are you doing these things? I hear story after story of your corrupt and evil carrying on. Oh, my sons, this is not right! These are terrible reports I’m getting, stories spreading right and left among God’s people! If you sin against another person, there’s help – God’s help. But if you sin against God, who is around to help?’

But they were far gone in disobedience and refused to listen to a thing their father said. So God, who was fed up with them, decreed their death. But the boy Samuel was very much alive, growing up, blessed by God and popular with the people.

A holy man came to Eli and dais” ‘This is God’s message: I revealed myself openly to your ancestors when they were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. Out of all the tribes of Israel, I chose your family to be my priests to preside at the altar, to burn incense, to wear the priestly robes in my presence. I put your ancestral family in charge of all the sacrificial offerings of Israel. So why do you now treat as mere loot these very sacrificial offerings that I commanded for my worship? Why do you treat your sons better than me, turning them loose to get fat on these offerings, and ignoring me? Therefore – this is God’s word, the God of Israel speaking – I once said that you and your ancestral family would be my priests indefinitely, but now – God’s words, remember! – there is no way this can continue.

I honor those who honor me; those who scorn me I demean.

‘Be well warned: It won’t be long before I wipe out both your family and your future family. No one in your family will make it to old age! You’ll see good things that I’m doing in Israel, but you’ll see it and weep, for no one in your family will live to enjoy it. I will leave one person to serve at my altar, but it will be a hard life, with many tears. Everyone else in your family will die before their time. What happens to your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, will be the proof: Both will die the same day.

Then I’ll establish for myself a true priest. He’ll do what I want him to do, be what I want him to be. I’ll make his position secure and he’ll do his work freely in the service of my anointed one. Survivors from your family will come to him begging for handouts, saying, ‘Please, give me some priest work, just enough to put some food on the table.’”

2 Samuel

1 Kings

2 Kings

1 Chronicles

2 Chronicles

Ezra

Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the family heads of Israel said to them, ‘Nothing doing. Building The Temple of our God is not the same thing to you as to us. We alone wll build for the God of Israel. We’re the one King Cyrus of Persia commanded to do it.’

So these people started beating down the morale of the people of Judah, harassing them as they built. They even hired propagandists to sap their resolve. They hept this up for about fifteen years, throughout the lifetime of Cyrus king of Persia and on into the reign of Darius king of Persia.

In fact, in the reign of Xerxes, at the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against those living in Judah and Jerusalem.
Again later, in the time of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and their associates wrote regarding the Jerusalem business to Artaxerxes king of Persia. The letter was written in Aramaic and translated….

From: Rehtum the commanding officer and Shimshat the secretary, backed by the rest of their associates, the judges and officials over the people from Tripolis, Persia, Erech, and Babylon, Elamites of Susa, and all the others whom the great and honorable Ashurbanipal deported and settled in the city of Samaria and other places in the land across the Euphrates…

To: King Artazerxes from your servants from the land across the Euphrates. We are here to inform the king that the Jews who came from you to us have arrived in Jerusalem and have set about rebuilding that rebellious and evil city. They are busy at work finishing the walls and rebuilding the foundations. The king needs to know that once that city is rebuilt and the wall completed they will no longer pay a penny of tribute, tax, or duty. The royal treasury will feel the loss. We’re loyal to the king and cannot sit idly by while our king is being insulted – that’s why we are passing this information on. We suggest that you look into the court records of your ancestors; you’ll learn from those books that the city is a rebellious city, a thorn in the side to kings and provinces, and historic center of unrest and revolt. That’s why the city was wiped out. We are letting the king know that if that city gets rebuilt and its walls restored, you’ll end up with nothing in your province beyond the Euphrates….

Nehemiah

“…Face it: we’re in a bad way here. Jerusalem is a wreck; its gates are burned up. Come – let’s build the wall or Jerusalem and not live with this disgrace any longer.”

Esther

The Book of Esther opens a window on this world of violence directed, whether openly or covertly against God and God’s people.

It turns out that no God-representing men and women get killed in the story – in a dramatic turnaround, the plot fails. But millions before and after Esther have been and, no doubt, will continue to be killed….No matter how many of them you kill, you can’t get rid of the communities of God-honoring, God-serving, God-worshiping people scattered all over the earth. This is still the final and definitive word.”

Job

It is not only because Job suffered that he is important to us. It is because he suffered in the same ways that we suffer – in the vital areas of family, personal health, and material things. Job is also important to us because he searchingly questioned and boldly protested his suffering. Indeed, he went ‘to the top with his questions… He refuses to accept the role of a defeated victim.”

Psalms

Proverbs

Ecclesiastes

Fools talk way too much,
Chattering stuff they know nothing about.

A decent day’s work so fatigues fools
That they can’t find their way back to town…

Don’t bad-mouth your leaders, not even under your breath,
And don’t abuse your betters, even in the privacy of your home.
Loose talk has a way of getting picked up and spread around.
Little birds drop the crumbs of your gossip far and wide.”

Song of Songs

Isaiah

He was beaten, he was tortured,
but he didn’t say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
And like a sheep being sheared,
he took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and he was let off –
and did anyone really know what was happening?
He died without a thought for his own welfare,
beaten bloody for the sins of my people.
They buried him with the wicked,
threw him in a grave with a rich man,
Even though he’d never hurt a soul
or said one word that wasn’t true.

Still it’s what God had in mind all along,
to crush him with pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
so that he’d see life come from it – life, life, and more life.
And God’s plan will deeply prosper through him.

Out of that terrible travail of soul,
he’ll see that it’s worth it and be glad he did it.
Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,
will make many ‘righteous ones.’
As he himself carries the burden of their sins.
Therefore I’ll reward him extravagantly –
the best of everything, the highest honors –
Because he looked death in the face and didn’t flinch,
because he embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many,
He took up the cause of all the black sheep.”

Jeremiah

Lamentations

Ezekiel

“God grabbed me. God’s Spirit took me up and sat me down in the middle of an open plain strewn with bones. He led me around and among them – a lot of bones! There were bones all over the plain – dry bones, bleached by the sun.

He said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’

I said, ‘Master God, only you know that.’

He said to me, ‘Prophesy over these bones: ‘Dry bones, listen to the Message of God!;

God, the Master, told the dry bones, ‘Watch this; I’m bringing the breath of life to you and you’ll come to life. I’ll attach sinews to you, put meat on your bones, cover you with skin, and breathe life into you.

You’ll come alive and you’ll realize that I am God!;

I prophesied just as I’d been commanded. As I prophesied, there was a sound and, oh, rustling! The bones moved and came together, bone to bone. I kept watching. Sinews formed then muscles on the bones, then skin stretched over them. But they had no breath in them.

He said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man. Tell the breath, God, the Master, says, Come from the four winds. Come, breath. Breathe on these slain bodies. Breathe life!’

So I prophesied, just as he commanded me. The breath entered them and they cam alive! They stood up on their feet, a huge army.
Then God said to me, ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Listen to what they’re saying. ‘Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone, there’s nothing left of us.’

‘Therefore, prophesy. Tell them, ‘God, the Master, says: I’ll dig up your graves and bring you out alive – O my people! Then I’ll take you straight to the land of Israel. When I dig up graves and bring you out as my people, you’ll realize that I am God. I’ll breath my life into you and you’ll live. Then I’ll lead you straight back to your land and you’ll realize that I am God. I’ve said it and I’ll do it. God’s Decree.’”

Daniel

Hosea

The more of you priests there are, the more you sin against me, and so I will turn your honor into disgrace. You grow rich from the sins of my people, and so you want them to sin more and more. You will suffer the same punishment as the people! I will punish you and make you pay for the evil you do. You will eat your share of the sacrifices, but still be hungry. You will worship the fertility gods, but still have no children, because you have turned away from me to follow other gods.’”

Joel

Amos

Obadiah

Jonah

Micah

Nahum

Habakkuk

Some scholars suggest Habakkuk was written during the rein of Manasseh (one of the most wicked kings of Judah).

…The prophet realized that God was going to use the godless military machine of Babylon to bring God’s judgment on God’s own people – using a godless nation to punish a godly nation! It didn’t make sense, and Habakkuk was quick and bold to say so. He dared to voice his feelings that God didn’t know his own God business. Not a day has passed since then that one of us hasn’t picked up and repeated Habakkuk’s bafflement: “God, you don’t seem to make sense!”

But this prophet companion who stands at our side does something even more important: He waits and he listens. It is in his waiting and listening – which then turns into his praying – that he found himself inhabiting the large world of God’s sovereignty. Only there did he eventually realize that the believing-in-God life, the steady trusting-in-God life, is the full life, and only real life. Habakkuk started out exactly where we start out with our puzzled complaints and God-accusations, but he didn’t stay there. He ended up in a world, along with us, where every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

God Says, “Look!”
“Look around at the godless nations.
Look long and hard. Brace yourself for a shock.
Something’s about to take place and you’re going to find it hard to believe.
I’m about to raise up Babylonians to punish you.
Babylonians, fierce and ferocious –
World-conquering Babylon, grabbing up nations right and left,
A dreadful and terrible people, making up its own rules as it goes.
Their horses run like the wind, attack like bloodthirsty wolves.
A stampede of galloping horses thunders out of nowhere.
They descend like vultures circling in on carrion.
They’re out to kill. Death is on their minds.
They collect victims like squirrels gathering nuts.
They mock kings, poke fun at generals,
Spit on forts, and leave them in the dust.
They’ll all be blown away by the wind.
Brazen in sin, they call strength their god.”

Why Is God Silent Now?
God, you’re from eternity, aren’t you?
Holy God, we aren’t going to die, are we?
God, you chose Babylonians for your judgment work?
Rock-Solid God, you gave them the job of discipline?
But you can’t be serious!
You can’t condone evil!
So why don’t you do something about this?
Why are you silent now?
This outrage! Evil men swallow up the righteous and you stand around and watch!

You’re treating men and women as so many fish in the ocean,
Swimming without direction, swimming but not getting anywhere.
Then this evil Babylonian arrives and goes fishing.
He pulls in a good catch.
He catches his limit and fills his creel – a good day of fishing! He’s happy!
He praises his rod and reel, piles his fishing gear on an altar and worships it!
It’s made his day, and he’s going to eat well tonight!

Are you going to let this go on and on?
Will you let this Babylonian fisherman
Fish like a weekend angler, killing people as if they’re nothing but fish?”
 

Full of Self, But Soul-Empty
And then God answered: “Write this.
Write what you see.
Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run.
This vision-message is a witness pointing to what’s coming.
It aches for the coming – it can hardly wait!
And it doesn’t lie.
If it seems slow in coming, wait.
It’s on its way. It will come right on time.

Look at that man, bloated by self-importance – full of himself but soul-empty.
But the person in right standing before God through loyal and steady believing is fully alive, really alive.

Note well: Money deceives.
The arrogant rich don’t last.
They are more hungry for wealth than the grave is for cadavers.
Like death, they always want more, but the ‘more’ they get is dead bodies.
They are cemeteries filled with dead nations, graveyards filled with corpses.
Don’t give people like this a second thought.
Soon the whole world will be taunting them:

Who do you think you are – getting rich by stealing and extortion?
How long do you think you can get away with this?
Indeed, how long before your victims wake up, stand up and make you the victim?
You’ve plundered nation after nation.
Now you’ll get a taste of your own medicine.
All the survivors are out to plunder you, a payback for all your murders and massacres.

Who do you think you are – recklessly grabbing and looting.
Living it up, acting like king of the mountain, acting above it all, above trials and troubles?
You’ve engineered the ruin of your own house.
In ruining others you’ve ruined yourself.
You’ve undermined your foundations, rotted out your own soul.
The bricks of your house will speak up and accuse you.
The woodwork will step forward with evidence.

Who do you think you are – building a town by murder, a city with crime?
Don’t you know that God-of-the-Angel-Armies makes sure nothing comes of that but ashes,
Makes sure the harder you work at that kind of thing, the less you are?
Meanwhile the earth fills up with awareness of God’s glory as the waters cover the sea.

Who do you think you are – inviting your neighbors to your drunken parties,
Giving them too much to drink, roping them into your sexual orgies?
You thought you were having the time of your life.
Wrong! It’s a time of disgrace.
All the time you were drinking, you were drinking from the cup of God’s wrath.
You’ll wake up holding your throbbing head, hung over – hung over from Lebanon violence,
Hung over from animal massacres, hung over from murder and mayhem.
From multiple violations of place and people.

What’s the use of a carved god so skillfully carved by its sculptor?
What good is a fancy cast god when all it tells is lies?
What sense does it make to be a pious god-maker who makes gods that can’t even talk?
Who do you think you are – saying to a stick of wood, ‘Wake up,’
Or to a dumb stone, ‘Get up’?
Can they teach you anything about anything?
There’s nothing to them but surface.
There’s nothing on the inside.

But oh! God is in his holy Temple! Quiet everyone – a holy silence. Listen!”
 

God, I’ve heard what our ancestors say about you, and I’m stopped in my tracks, down on my knees.
Do among us what you did among them.
Work among us as you worked among them.
And as you bring judgment, as you surely must, remember mercy.

God’s on his way again, retracing the old salvation route,
Coming up from the south through Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran.
Skies are blazing with his splendor, his praises sounding through the earth,
His cloud-brightness like dawn, exploding, spreading, forked-lightning shooting from his hand – what power hidden in that fist!
Plague marches before him, pestilence at his heels!
He stops, He shakes Earth.
He looks around. Nations tremble.
The age-old mountains fall to pieces; ancient hills collapse like a spent balloon.
The paths God takes are older than the oldest mountains and hills.
I saw everyone worried, in a panic:
Old wilderness adversaries,
Cushan and Midian, were terrified, hoping he wouldn’t notice them.

God, is it River you’re mad at?
Angry at old River?
Were you raging at Sea when you rode horse and chariot through to salvation?
You unfurled your bow and let loose a volley of arrows.
You split Earth with rivers.
Mountains saw what was coming.
They twisted in pain.
Flood Waters poured in.
Ocean roared and reared huge wave.
Sun and Moon stopped in their tracks.
Your flashing arrows stopped them, your lightning-strike spears impaled them.
Angry, you tromped through Earth.
Furious, you crushed the godless nations.
You were out to save your people, to save your specially chosen people.
You beat the stuffing out of King Wicked,
Stripped him naked from head to toe,
Set his severed head on his own spear and blew away his army.
Scattered they were to the four winds – and ended up food for the sharks!
You galloped through the Sea on horses, racing on the crest of the waves.
When I heard it, my stomach did flips.
I stammered and stuttered.
My bones turned to water.
I staggered and stumbled.
I sit back and wait for Doomsday to descend on our attackers.

Though the cherry trees don’t blossom and the strawberries don’t ripen,
Though the apples are worm-eaten and the wheat fields stunted,
Though the sheep pens are sheepless and the cattle barns empty,
I’m singing joyful praise to God,
I’m turning cartwheels of joy to my Savior God.
Counting on God’s Rule to prevail,
I take heart and gain strength.
I run like a deer.
I feel like I’m king of the mountain!”

Zephaniah

Haggai

Zechariah

I will make the people of Judah strong;
` I will rescue the people of Israel.
I will have compassion on them
and bring them all back home.
They will be as though I had never rejected them.
I am the Lord their God; I will answer their prayers.
The people of Israel will be strong like soldiers,
happy like those who have been drinking wine.
Their descendants will remember this victory
and be glad because of what the Lord has done.

I will call my people
and gather them together,
I will rescue them
and make them as numerous as they used to be.
Though I have scattered them among the nations,
yet in far-off places they will remember me.
They and their children will survive
and return home together.
From Egypt and Assyria I will bring them home
and settle them in their own country.
I will settle them in Gilead and Lebanon also;
The whole land will be filled with people.
When they pass through their sea of trouble,
I, the Lord, will strike the waves,
and the depths of the Nile will be dry.
Proud Assyria will be humbled,
and mighty Egypt will lose her power.
I will make my people strong;
they will worship and obey me.’
The Lord has spoken.”
 

Malachi

NEW TESTAMENT

Matthew

Our Father in heaven,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right;
Do what’s best -
as above, so below.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.
You’re in charge!
You can do anything you want!
You’re ablaze in beauty!
Yes. Yes. Yes.

In prayer there is a connection between what God does and what you do. You can’t get forgiveness from God, for instance, without also forgiving others. If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God’s part.”
 

Mark

Luke

John

Everything was created through him;
Nothing – not one thing! –
Came into being without him.
What came into existence was Life,
And the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
The darkness couldn’t put it out.”
 

The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
true from start to finish.”
 

Acts

Romans

This makes it clear, doesn’t it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place! And it’s clear enough, isn’t it, that we’re sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else? Our involvement with God’s revelation doesn’t put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else’s sin.”
 

1 Corinthians

2 Corinthians

This most generous God who gives seed to the farmer that becomes bread for your meals is more than extravagant with you. He gives you something you can then give away, which grows into full-formed lives, robust in God, wealthy in every way, so that you can be generous in every way, producing with us great praise to God.
Carrying out this social relief work involves far more than helping meet the bare needs of poor Christians. It also produces abundant and bountiful thanksgivings to God. This relief offering is a prod to live at your very best, showing your gratitude to God by being openly obedient to the plain meaning of the Message of Christ. You show your gratitude through your generous offerings to your needy brothers and sisters, and really toward everyone. Meanwhile, moved by the extravagance of God in your lives, they’ll respond by praying for you in passionate intercession for whatever you need. Thank God for this gift, his gift. No language can praise it enough!”
 

Galatians

It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex’ a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.
This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.
But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard – things like affection for other, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energie