January 17th: Genesis 30, Psalm 34 and Matthew 19

Part of my job requires me to sit in on some Bible studies. Like a lot of them. Like today, I filmed five, thirty minute studies. I’m around the Bible a lot. When I was a little kid, I thought that would be fantastic. I thought it would be awesome to be a monk and raise chickens, not talk, read the Bible and brew beer. OK, so I didn’t think of the beer thing until right now. But really, what kid says, “Hey when I get older I want to be a freaking burlap wearing sandal loving hymn chanting monk.”

That’s it. There is officially a No-Foxfire-policy in my house.

Unfortunately, all this familiarity with the Bible has become more of a problem than a help. I find myself being lackadaisical toward this most dynamic of books. It's become just a text, a tome, a book I was forced to read at the Institute.

So how do you unlearn something? How do you take the familiar and make it new and fresh? How do you grow from twenty-four verses of Genesis 30 about the Jerry Springer-ness of Jacob's family (seriously, that is some messed up stuff). Sure, I know that this is the birth of the twelve tribes of Israel and that's important and all. But what does this teach me about God after I've read it a couple times?

I'd love some insight. Thoughts?

January 16th: Genesis 28-29, Psalm 33 and Matthew 18

How about a little honesty...

I've got some sinus thing.  I can't breath and I've heard that helps you sleep. So, I'm pretty tired. (If I throw a loving kindness in there, I think it's a Psalm)

I just finished reading today.   It was familiar stuff.  I'm sitting in a hotel, so I did the reading in a blue Gideon Bible that smelled like a used book store.  I don't know what the smell has to do with anything but it was distracting.  The Bible was in ye King James. 

I didn't come up with much today.

The only thing that jumped out at me was in Genesis 28:17.  Jacob The Liar's taking a nap on a rock pillow when he has a vision of God.  He wakes up and says this:

"How dreadful is this place!  This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven"

Remember when God use to walk in the garden with Adam?  Remember when they had a beautiful relationship?  There was no "dread" of God.  Maybe it's the King James speaking or maybe it's the Tylenol PM, but the fact that God went from best friend to fear inducing deity is saddening. 

January 15th: Genesis 27, Psalm 32 and Matthew 17

Telling a lie is bad. That's what Mrs. Whittaker my first grade teacher told me. I believe it was in correlation with a syringe and a bullet casing. I went to school in the ghetto. Seriously. (Lies are bad, remember?) But who told Mrs. Whittaker that lies were bad and who told that person? And what about the person before that?

If you had never read the Bible. If you had never been influenced by Judeo-Christian thought, how would you know? Heck if you only read Genesis, how would you know? Take a look at the lineage:

-Adam told God he was afraid because he was naked, no mention of the one thing he wasn't supposed to do.
-Abraham can't remember if Sarah is his sister or his wife.
-Same for Isaac.
-Jacob...

Yeah, the dude dressed up in a camel hair coat (Marc Jacobs fall 4500 BC), rubbed his brothers stank on himself and stole the blessing. Any mention of it being a "bad" thing. Nope. Not really. In fact, God is referred to as, "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." Keep moving along, Rehab, nice girl...ohh wait... not so much. Lies. She makes it into the faith chapter in Hebrews and is in the line of Jesus as one of the only women mentioned. No mention of the lie being a negative thing.

So what gives Mrs. Whittaker? I know Moses had "You Shall Not Lie" engraved in some stone but how come everyone in the Bible does it. I got to thinking. When did God tell the Israelites not to lie... not till way after Jacob. About the same time as the "do not eat ham." So is it wrong for Jacob? How would he have known? Is he off the hook?

Probably at this point in reading this, one of three things has happened:

A. You have already mentally drafted, edited, rewritten and footnoted a witty and cutting response to this post. Which, honestly, you've gone way overboard. I didn't even write a draft. Seriously, you should read better stuff if you're going to go through all that effort.

B. You stopped reading because you totally disagree...and why am I still responding to you?

C. You agree with me and have vowed to lie.

I hope that you know that I don't think lying is good. I just want to read the Bible as someone that hasn't before... as someone that would question whether what Jacob did was OK. So was it? He was blessed and he prospered. God blessed a lot of liars. And there is no mention of most of them repenting of it.

So, how do we deal with this? Gloss over it? Be OK with it? I'm not sure. I wish Mrs. Whittaker would have told me the answer to this one.

January 14th: Genesis 25-26, Psalm 31 and Matthew 16

I'm kind of a negative person. By "kind of," I mean very. And by "negative," I mean that when my fifth grade band teacher said that I would never amount to anything musically, I agreed with him.

I'm a glass half empty sort of person. So looking at now, I realize it makes sense why I struggle with Prosperity Gospel. Today's reading touched on both sides. In Genesis, you have Isaac growing in wealth like an early nineties tech geek. Flip a few hundred years later to Psalms, and you have David. Sure there is that whole shepherd-to-king-Disney-story, but the "Man after God's own heart" isn't loving life in Psalm 31. Here's verse 11:

"Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach especially to my neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me."

Awkward. Not everything smells like peach blossoms and melon in the life of King D.

Flip another couple of years, like a1000 and you have Jesus saying you have to deny yourself and take up a cross. That doesn't sound good. I don't want to say that God doesn't bless some. He does. A lot, like using summer as a verb a lot. But the thing is, if he doesn't, it's OK. David. The disciples. Good people. Rough times...like sawn-in-half-rough-times. So, my BMW-less Christian existence? Probably actually normal.

See, cup's like a quarter full.

January 13th: Genesis 24, Psalm 29-30 and Matthew 15

Why is Jesus so mean to the Canaanite women in Matthew 15? Twenty-one verses earlier, some dude trips over The Rock and bumps into Jesus at a falafal stand and boom he's cancer free. Yet this woman follows Jesus and his entourage around Tyre balling her eyes out. Jesus' response: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

Huh?

Cause I just finished that covenant in Genesis 12 and there was that part about one of Abraham's heirs blessing all of the earth. Pretty sure that it's this guy.

So what is the deal? Did he know the Jews wouldn't believe and wants to give them a shot? Why give her guff? Why is she different than the Roman centurion?

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone...yeah lots of typos. Sorry.]

January 12th: Genesis 22-23, Psalm 26-28 and Matthew 14

I've been doing this for twelve days and I’m only like a fifth of the way through the Psalms. And for those of you that aren’t so good at math that means that I have about …a lot left. Today, when I finished the Genesis portion, I wasn’t actually very excited about reading the Psalms portion. It’s been my least favorite so far. I know, I know, everyone likes the Psalms... we'll even cut it out of the rest of the Bible and put it with the New Testament and create little portable Bibles in bright shiny colors.

But today, I came across something that I hadn't thought of before. David doesn’t ask God to do things based on his own humanly desires and needs. He asks God to do things based on God’s own attributes. In other words, “God, don’t kill me because you’re notoriously loving” or "God, kill those people cause your a good judge of evil." And there is a sense that because David knows the characteristics of God, he can rely on God having his back.

So...how do you get a relationship like this? That, “Hey-buddy-what-do-I-do-right-now” sort of intimacy…where does that come from? I would think that there would be a lot of I’m not worthys, which there are, but there are also a lot of “you ARE gonna do that’s.” Not from God but from David.

Didn’t expect that.

January 11th: Genesis 20-21, Psalm 23-25 and Matthew 13

This guy Abraham is a bit messed up. There is a huge deal made about the faith of this guy and yet he has a serious faith problems when it comes to his wife. 

Cut off a portion of your junk: check.

Be willing to kill your son: check

Live in hostile countries: check

Trust that the local king won’t kill you and steal your wife: FAIL… twice.

C’mon, Abe! Remember God promising to make you a great nation through Sarah?  There was that whole cauldron thing with the bisected animals?  No? Can’t remember that?  You circumcised yourself!  I know you remember that.  If not, there are like 350 dudes in your household that would be glad to.  But somehow, every time you come to a new land, the first thing you do is get rid of Sarah!?!  Wow.  Nothing says, “I love my wife,” like giving her away… twice. 

Abraham, great man of faith… yeah, I don’t get this one.