What's with God's nose? Throughout Leviticus the priests are constantly "turning offerings into smoke" so that God can smell it. God repeatedly makes a judgment depending on how well something smells. I admit that I tend to see the nose as a bit of an inferior organ. I like it when God "sees" something or "hears" my voice. I like it when God speaks and when God's hand comes down. But nose? It just seems, well, un-god-like. Perhaps I'm underestimating the importance of the nose. I'm certainly glad I have mine. Perhaps God is too. A pleasant odor certainly makes my life better, and maybe it does for God too.

Shouting - Isaiah

The prophets tend to have one volume level - LOUD!! They are the guys standing on the soap box on the corner shouting to everyone who will listen...and it seems like no one is listening. Justice, righteousness and faithfulness...that's about the extent of the sermon notes. Over and over again, treat everyone fairly, quit wasting your lives, don't get distracted away from God. I think we probably need a loud voice shouting at us sometimes. We are way to comfortable doing our usual doings. It sometimes takes someone to shake the bed and shout at us to get up and going.....NOW! At least, that's how I'm feeling halfway through Isaiah...I've still got to get through Jeremiah, Micah, Amos and all the rest of the corner shouters. Just remember....God loves us!

Wisdom - Proverbs

This week we finally get out of Psalms and head into Proverbs. Did you know that both Psalms and Proverbs are categorized as "wisdom" books? What do you make of wisdom? What is it? How does it operate in our lives? How do you get it? What does it do? Any ideas?.... let me know

Nature - Psalms

Jesus once said that even if his followers were silent, the stones would shout out. In the Psalms we find an expression of the close connection between God and the natural world. It is, we are reminded over and over, God's creation. God made everything, therefore we can trust it and we can see a reflection of God in it. The world around us can even speak of or shout God's name if we pay attention to it. The spiritual connection to nature is more than simply the fact that trees are beautiful. It is the idea that God makes stuff...God takes an active part in the world we live in - whether it's building trees or building lives, God is knee deep in the stuff of this world. We can't go anywhere without seeing God's hand at work.

Images - Psalms

I've just spent a week at the General assembly of the Presbyterian Church and now I'm at Synod School, which is a week long family camp for Presbyterians. I'm hoping that the Psalms keep me a little bit sane! It certainly is a wonderful book. Rich and thick with emotion, energy and imagery. God is: a rock, a fortress, a deliverer, our strength, our help, our wings. Yesterday I ran across this: "You show me the path of life, in your presence there is fullness of joy." I like that! Sometimes I find these little gems in Psalms. A phrase - a line that just smacks me between the eyes and says everything that I need to hear. I hope you all come across some lines like that. Let me know!

Job - blessings and curses

Job...what a great book. I might almost be bold enough to say...the greatest book in the Bible. It really cuts to the heart of so many of our questions about ourselves and about God. In fact, the entire question that the book is intended to address may be, "What is it that we can really say about God?" The book emphasizes words - good words and bad words, words that are full of wisdom and foolish words.

In 1:21, after Job has been inflicted with pain for the first time, Job says, "Blessed be the name of God." The Hebrew word of blessed is BARAK. It is the same word that Job's wife uses in 2:10 to tell Job, "CURSE God and die." Blessing and curse - the same word. Job's wife is probably being sarcastic here as in, "Yeah, right, Job...go ahead and bless this so called God of yours. What's so blessed about God now?"

What can we say about God? Can we know what God's up to? Read more!!!

Ezra Nehemiah - Interpretation

OK...so, I haven't blogged here for awhile...but I assure you, I've been more or less keeping up with the reading! In about a month, we'll reach the halfway point of the Bible. It seems hard to believe that we've covered that much ground. Ezra and Nehemiah cover similar territory and even though some of it is slow going, there are nuggets that just knocked me off my feet.

Nehemiah 8:8 has a great scene in which Nehemiah talks about interpreting God's law to the people. It reminded me that scripture is always in need of interpretation. We don't always get it by just looking at it. Sometimes we need help discerning its meaning. I suppose that's often the preacher's task, but the preacher is telling you that he sometimes needs someone Else's help in finding the interpretation.

There's a lot of confessing done in these books...long long sections of communal confession. Why don't we do that much anymore? I suppose we find it depressing or something. Confession isn't supposed to make us feel rotten...it's supposed to remind us of the greatness of God's grace. It's supposed to maintain our humility - something I believe in short supply today. So I'm confessing how rotten I've been at keeping up with this blog and asking God's help in keeping it up to date!

1 Chronicles - Making history

Well...we've pretty much been through the entire Biblical story by the time we get to Chronicles. Starting in Chronicles the writers begin to re-tell the story...with changes. One thing we learn as we read the entire Bible is that it rarely likes to tell a story only once. Instead, it retells it again and again in a number of variations. Rather than spending lots of time and energy trying to "harmonize" all these versions of stories, we should ask ourselves what message God is telling us through these multiple tellings. Maybe, any story is impossible to tell in only one way. Maybe the only way to be truthful about something is it look at it from a number of different angles. What does this say about our own lives and how we should look at ourselves? Maybe it's always helpful to get multiple perspectives on how to perceive ourselves. As you read through the re-tellings in the rest of the Old Testament...look for what's new in the story. How is it shedding new and different light on the same old thing?