Well, that escalated fast

 If you are joining me on this journey to read through Mark's account of Jesus' life over the next couple of weeks, you might have finished chapter one by now. Good work!

As we move into chapter 2, you might notice something. Early on, it seems like the action is happening rather rapidly. One thing you probably came across a few times was the word "immediately." It's like, Jesus is here, and then immediately, he is there, and then this next thing happened immediately. It's fast action, hard hitting, and moving rapidly from one scene to the next. No waiting around, this is an action packed story.

That's one of the interesting things about Mark's account, and so it's worth tossing in a couple of interesting tidbits about him. First, who was Mark? He isn't found anywhere in the other accounts of Jesus' life. He may very well be the Mark that is written about in Acts, but the truth is, the Bible doesn't tell us who Mark is.

Yet, he obviously got to know the story of Jesus somehow. And we do have some basis for determining who he is. After John died around the year 90 in the first century, we have a few people who were second or third generation Christians who were writing about how the stories of Jesus had come together. One of them looked into Mark and made a note that he was someone who followed Peter around as he went telling others about Jesus. He wrote that Mark wrote down the accounts of Jesus that Peter was telling, and put them into order. So in a way, as we read through Mark's account, we're kind of getting Peter's view of how things happened with Jesus.

Along with being the shortest of the stories of Jesus in the Bible, many believe Mark is the first one who wrote an account of Jesus. While we may never know the full truth of that, there are some things that may seem to indicate that. You noticed that we come across John the Baptist early on in chapter 1, and it almost seems as though you should know who John is. He isn't introduced. He's just there, on the scene, and then, BAM, Jesus is on the scene. You'd tend to write a story like that when people are familiar with the main characters. So it may very well be that Mark wrote the first account of Jesus.

As we get into chapter 2, we'll see some more fast action, and sides being taken already when it comes to Jesus. More on that with the next post, though!

Do you have time for a story?

 In North America and the United States, we live in a very interesting time right now. We are coming out of a time period where many "knew" the basics of the Christian faith. They honored things like Sundays, and there may even have been a bit of a guilty conscience about not being regular at a church. However, those days are gone. Even Christians have a challenging time thinking about being regular at church, and we live among many who don't even know much about Jesus or about why we worship on Sunday. To them, it's just another day of the weekend.

That means that the story of God's work in this world is reaching a place where it is relatively unknown. People may know names like Moses, David, Jesus and Paul, but know relatively little about what the Bible says about them. Forget the parts where the inspired biblical authors describe faith and life, the story itself is not well-known.

Because we live in that context, it can make it challenging to carve out time to be reading God's story. Daily Bible time gets swallowed by the many opportunities for events and life that are ever-present around us. One of the great challenges for a Christian who wants to know more about God's story is simply finding the time to read it.

The past couple of days, I have introduced some short bible readings to help get us into a habit of reading. For the following posts, I propose that we start making some time for the story itself. It should take less than ten minutes a day to follow through with what I am suggesting, and I hope that it proves helpful.

We will start reading through the account of Jesus' life recorded by Mark. I am going to propose that we read a chapter a day. That way we aren't bogged down with too much, but as we work through it, we'll be continuous enough to get the flow of the story. As we walk through it, I'll also attempt to interject some facts about Mark and the story of Jesus that he tells. That way we not only get the story, but we get to know a little about what is behind the story.

I hope you'll join me on this journey. For just over the next two weeks, we'll follow Jesus on an interesting journey. You may even find that you have questions, and I encourage you to find some way to keep a record of them. If you are able, I'd love for you to pass them along to me. After all, the best stories are the ones we share and talk about.

So today, let's start with Mark 1. I'll even plan to keep this up over the weekend, so keep tuned in for those as well. 

The Story: Rome wasn't built in a day

 At one point when I was studying to become a pastor, the professor gave an assignment for the class to read through one whole gospel in one sitting prior to the next class. At the time, I was working the overnight switchboard, from 12:00 PM to 5:00 AM. That nice quiet time provided an opportunity to read through my assignment undisturbed. Sure, my eyes may have wanted to disturb that desire, but in the end, I did get through the whole reading assignment before my shift ended and I headed to my room for an hour of sleep before the next round of classes.

What I remember is that it took me, a fast reader, almost two full hours to just sit there and read Mark's gospel account of Jesus. Now, I will admit that I wasn't just reading through it quickly to say that I had. I was actually trying to track what all was happening, and then my mind would touch on some theological point that was made, and I had to get myself back on track. But I do remember that it took far longer than I thought it should.

Why do I share this with you? Well, for a couple of reasons. First, it is an acknowledgement that reading through God's story takes some dedication. Even the shorter sections of God's story may take a lot of time to actually sit and read through. And that's just to read, much less to work to understand what all is going on. So if you have ever tried to take on the challenge of reading through God's story, you likely know that it isn't exactly fast reading to get through it all.

A second reason I share this with you is to give you a bit of hope when it comes to reading God's story. Sure, it's great to read it all together and get a sense of the flow of things. The thing is, though, the Bible is written to inspire faith in God, and especially His work in Jesus. It isn't meant to convey a neat historical account, but rather to demonstrate that God truly does work in history. God did things that took place at a particular time. It is good for us to know how that story flows, but the real point of reading is to believe in what God has done and how He will continue to hold true to His promises.

So yesterday I challenged you to read through Psalm 100. That one is not very long. Today's challenge will be for a bit longer of a section, though still in the Psalms. It's Psalm 78. This Psalm is a summary of some of the time around Moses and God freeing His people from Egypt. Yes, it should take a little bit longer than the few verses of Psalm 100, but in some respects, we have to start seeing what we can handle as we engage God's story. So today will take perhaps 5-10 minutes, depending on how fast you read. It helps you get into the story a bit more. 

The reality is, no one will be able to read the whole account of God's story in one sitting. Just as Rome wasn't built in a day, you simply cannot read the Bible in one sitting, or just a few hours. It will take dedicated effort. And our small steps now are to help us develop the habits toward that effort. 

Learning God's Story

 As people, we dearly love stories. We like to read stories. We like to watch stories unfold on the small screen (TV) and the big screen (movies). There is just something about a story that captures our attention, draws us into a different place and time, and keeps us focused until the end.

God's story is much the same way, only on a much larger scale. It is a story that has a lot of drama in it, more than a few comedic places, and tension that grips us and keeps us on the edge of our seats. That story also explains a lot about why our world is the way that it is, and how we are best designed to live in this world and among other people.

One of the biggest challenges that we face is finding time to engage God and His story. At a conference I sat in on last fall, one remark that was made was that people almost need a step to take place before they start to read God's story in the Bible. That first step is to learn how to set aside the time to actually be able to read the story. And when we think about our busy schedules and everything that life throws at us, having a guide to help us learn how to even set apart that time is a necessity.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to work with this blog to help us think about ways to set aside a little bit of time to engage God and His story. I'm also going to be suggesting some easy entrance points to reading God's story and learning it. It will be a journey, and just like a journey, it will likely have its unexpected stops and detours along the way. That's okay. Be gracious to yourself if you are following along and find that the road is closed, or that you need to take a quick pitstop. 

To get us started, I want to suggest one thing. Let's start off with something simple. Something that is not too long to read, and that we can find engaging with our attention. I suggest that we start with Psalm 100. It's only a few verses long, and so doesn't take a lot of time to read through. Small steps are good to take as we get the journey going.

So for our first step, I'm simply going to suggest that you read Psalm 100 at some point today. Bookmark it, as we will come back to it as we get this journey underway. And if you find that God gives you a few extra minutes, read on ahead to the next Psalm. But for us as we take our first steps together, let's start small and work our way up. Then, let's check in tomorrow to see what our next step might be together. 

God and His Story

 At Lord of Life, where God has placed me at present to serve His people, we have been working through a curriculum called "The Story." This breaks down the biblical story into 30+ chapters, with a primary look at the lives of God's people in chronological order. It helps the reader to get a grasp of how God's story with His people unfolds. It does not seek to get into all the deep theological points, but rather presents the overview of His interactions with His people and their interactions with each other and the world around them.

Over the years, I have come to realize that there are many people who are faithful followers of Jesus, but perhaps miss how His life fits in with the overall story of God's people. We hear often of the different people of the Bible, but without putting them into their place in history, it can be challenging to place them, or to know who came first or who came later. This also has an impact when we hear God speaking to His people, such as through the prophets. Part of what makes their words impactful is the situation into which they spoke. That might mean that, at one part of history, God would have one message for His people, but at a different point in history, they might be doing something different, and so God spoke in an appropriate way for their current circumstances.

Understanding this history can help us get a growing perspective on just how patient and caring God is for His people. When you consider that, in a couple of different instances, God waited for hundreds of years to take action, it shows how long He is willing to wait, to give people a chance to change, to return to Him, and to remember what it means to be His people. A word from the old King James version sums this up nicely: long-suffering. God is willing to wait, far longer than you and I, to see His people change their hearts and minds.

That's why we look at the history of God's people. We also end up seeing ourselves reflected in their lives, even though they lived long ago and far away. We'll cover that in a future post. Until then, I hope you enjoy or make an effort to get to know God's story as it happened and learn from Him.

Christians and Wisdom

A common occurrence at the new year is for people to think about things that they want to change as the new year is ushered in. Some call them resolutions, others call them goals, but the point of them is that there is a desire to change something for the better in our life. We want to do these things for a variety of motivations, but the desire to improve is there.

There is wisdom in this desire to improve one's life and circumstances and situation. In fact, God speaks really highly of wisdom. In Proverbs 9, we have an image painted for us. It is of a lady named Wisdom, who cries out to the people who walk by her. She wants to be found by them. She calls for those listening to leave their simple ways and to walk in the path of insight and wisdom.

God created this world to operate in specific ways. He designed us human beings to live in certain ways when it comes to our interactions with each other. The wisdom that God gives, the wisdom that cries out to be found and embraced, is the wisdom of seeing God's design for life and then working to live according to that design. So when we see God laying out His commandments, we see God's wisdom at work. For example, when God says "You shall not steal," we see the wisdom of what God intends. We tend to get along better with each other when we aren't taking things that belong to others. God designed us to live in relationship with each other according to wisdom.

As you consider God's wisdom, where is God calling you to grow in greater wisdom? Is it in a specific relationship you have? Is it in handling some of what God has given you (such as your finances or possessions)? Is it in simply trying to learn more about how God designed you to live with others? Wisdom recognizes these areas where we can grow, and then adopts a way to address them. So my prayer is that you may grow in seeing and seeking God's wisdom in this new year.