I think I’ve mentioned before that one of my goals each year is to read the Bible through, cover-to-cover. I began this discipline in 1990, when I assumed a position of responsibility for a Bible study group, and figured I’d better increase my familiarity with the Owner’s Manual.
I use as my guide a little publication from LifeWay called “Open Windows.” Each day, it has a reading from the Old and New Testaments. There’s also a short devotional and related passage, although I usually don’t take the time to dwell on it. This routine works well for me, but it might not be for everyone. If you’ve had a hankering to try something like this, January 1, 2004 is coming up pretty quickly, and that would be a great time to begin.
I’m always amazed at what I see in Scripture that I missed the last dozen times I read it. Also, it’s interesting how often the OT and NT passages touch on the same theme, on the same day. Which leads to the true subject of this post (finally!).
I wrote a post about wisdom a while back, and one of the comments it generated had to do with the difficulty of knowing what pleases God. I guess I’m a pretty simple-minded guy in this area, and I tend to point to the little book of Micah for the answer to that issue.
Micah is one of the so-called “Minor Prophets,” nested inside a series of mostly short writings obviously arranged by God to give fits to anyone trying to memorize the books of the Bible. Most of the MPs focus on a couple of themes: the heavy price Israel is going to pay for ignoring God’s will, and the amazing grace that will [once more] bail it out if it will but repent. Really, it’s hard to imagine a more chuckleheaded nation than post-Exilic Israel, unless you include every other nation on the face of the earth today.
Anyway, we don’t really know much about Micah, but it seems that he lived during one of those Bubble Periods in Israel’s history when things were just peachy, and so there was a lot of general moral dissolution and mistreatment of underlings that seems to accompany those times when money talks and holiness, um, doesn’t. God, through Micah, expresses some pretty heavy dissatisfaction with this general state of affairs. And one of the things He points out is that it’s really not all that hard to please Him.
He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8, NIV
That’s not exactly rocket science, is it?
[Micah’s got some other cool stuff in his little seven chapter book, including that great line about beating swords into plowshares and not training for war anymore, plus a prophecy that the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem.]
So, I read this, and thought, yeah, that’s all good, even if it is Old Testament medieval-type stuff. Then I pop over to the New Testament, where we’re reading what Jesus’ half-brother, James, has to say.
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
James 1:26, NIV
There you go. What better example is there of acting justly and loving mercy can there be? And the bit about not being “polluted by the world”? What does this world teach us to value more than anything else? I submit to you that the Double Jeopardy question would be: “What is pride?” We’re lousy with the stuff, individually and as a nation. (Perhaps you’re not…but are you proud of that fact?)
Well, I could ramble on and on about this, but instead I’ll just close by giving mad props to the Author and Finisher for once more shining a bright light on something so that even my blind eyes can discern it. And guess what? There’s a lot more where that came from!
That may have been me Eric. I didn’t post it in your comments, but rather I posted an item on my Blog titled The Fire Ant Gazette and Wisdom. In it I stated:
[Few people have the ability to see anything through God’s eyes or to actually know what is pleasing to Him.] Our correspondence on the subject began at that time via email.
If it’s so simple, how come Israel, as a nation, still doesn’t seem to have gotten a good grasp on it? A better question might be “Have you as an individual been able to live your life in such a way as to be completely pleasing to God?”
If you have, what an opportunity this is for you to reveal to individual believers and our nation how it can be done. Preach it Brother!
About Bible study. It took myself and our small group at work, fourteen years to read through the Bible, cover to cover, six times. The more we read, the more we saw for the first time, even though we may have gone over it several times before. The more we read, the slower the process progressed because we found so much to discuss and research with experience.
The true benefit to all that reading, research and discussion was the affect it had on us between those periods when we came together each work day.
Whatever happened to Micah? Did they kill him too?
Mt:23:29: Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,
Mt:23:30: And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
Mt:23:31: Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.
Mt:23:37: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
Clarence, I never said it was simple to do the things that please God. We’re just without excuse when we claim that we don’t know how to please Him.
And, of course I haven’t lived my life (nor do I now live it) in such a way as to completely please God. I’m just another sinner saved by grace. But you knew that! 😉
I can give you a hint (which you also already know) for how to get started: humble ourselves, turn from our wicked ways, seek God’s face and pray. He’ll take it from there.
I’m not sure if anyone knows whether Micah met the same fate as many of the other prophets. He’s sort of a man of mystery. If anyone else has some insight about him, please let us hear from you.