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·         Extravagant claims of righteousness—occasionally, I find myself gulping when, aloud and with gusto, I end up praying something like, ‘I have led a blameless life; I have trusted in the Lord and have not faltered’ (Psalm 26:1). I wonder if the proverbial lightning will strike me down. Despite the fears of divine punishment, a few things have kept me praying these absurd boasts:

o    First of all, I’ve noticed that my praying of these psalms take on a tone of aspiration: it makes me want to be the kind of person who can pray those things without blushing. That seems like a pretty good result to me.

o    Secondly, I get the feeling that the psalmist doesn’t mean that he has never made any mistakes. I think what he’s saying is that he has never abandoned God. That’s still a pretty gutsy thing to say, but it’s not quite a claim to perfection. While the ‘not faltering’ thing still kind of trips me up, I think I can honestly say that ever since I met God I’ve taken my relationship with God seriously.

o    Thirdly, I have a growing suspicion that these extravagant claims to righteousness have less to do with my moral report card, as it were, and more to do with how God sees me. I noticed that sometimes in the same psalm the author will ask for God’s forgiveness and will make one of these audacious claims to utter blamelessness. Once he’s confessed and been forgiven, it’s as if he never even took a mis-step. Perhaps these psalms are saying that, because of God’s goodness, we can be certain that God likes us, sees the best in us, and wants the best for us. If that’s the case—and I’m beginning to believe it is—then we can pray those crazy things with confidence and excitement.

·         Calls for violent retribution—some of the psalms seem like they’re more suited to a Quentin Tarantino movie than to the Bible. While I sometimes still find myself a little squeamish at the sheer bloodthirstiness of some of these ‘crush my enemy’ psalms, I’ve been surprised to find them among the most helpful psalms to pray, for a few reasons:

o    They help me prepare for the difficulties of the day—if I start the day with one of these psalms, it reminds me that not everything is going to go my way. I can prepare myself, and ask for God’s help in facing the difficulties that are sure to come;

o    It’s a faithful and non-violent way to vent—it’s extremely liberating to unabashedly express just how I feel about the people who treat me poorly and unfairly. But in the end, it’s harmless. I’m expressing it to God, not letting it leak out in my interactions with people. I express my anger and my desire for revenge; then I leave it in God’s hands to protect me and to vindicate me when appropriate. Once I’ve expressed my feelings and left action in God’s hands, I can much more easily let it go;

o    I primarily focus the prayers on my true enemies—the New Testament author Paul tells us that our real enemies aren’t other people, but destructive spiritual forces whose entire purpose is to do us harm (Ephesians 6:12). I have no problem praying that these enemies die a gruesome death.

The books of Jeremiah and Lamentations are both poems written by a man named Jeremiah.  Jeremiah was an Old Testament prophet tasked with interpreting current events from God's perspective.   Jeremiah's prophesied in Judah from 626 B.C. through about 586. During this time, the small nation of Judah was caught up in the military conquests of the larger empires of Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt. This period of stress for Judah led Jeremiah's prophecies to have a morose edge to them. The anguish that he expresses has led him to be known as "the weeping prophet".

Reading Jeremiah can be difficult because of his forceful declaration of God's judgment on his fellow countrymen. Why the harsh judgment on Judah? Prior to Jeremiah, Judah was corrupted under the long reign of King Manasseh. Manasseh essentially led Judah to seek power from sources other than God, which is known as idolatry throughout the Bible. Attempts at reforms by subsequent kings did little to change this. Jeremiah interpreted Babylon's violence against Judah as the consequence of their actions. Despite Jeremiah's seemingly harsh words, he loved Judah and was always careful to point out that a sincere return to God from idolatry would help their situation. Jeremiah is a complex character! How might you go about taking his point of view on the affairs of Judah?

Ezra and Nehemiah

Historically, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah were considered a single work and most scholars conclude that the author of Ezra/Nehemiah was also the author of Chronicles, and some suggest that Ezra himself may have been the author. The book of Ezra picks up where 2 Chronicles leaves off in its reckoning of Israelite history beginning with the decree from by the Persian emperor Cyrus for the Israelites to be restored to their home in Judah (538 B.C.). In 458 B.C., Ezra obtained permission from King Artaxerxes to travel back to Judah to oversee the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem and promote the Israelites' return to the observance of Mosaic law. In 444 B.C., Nehemiah, then a trusted cupbearer for Artaxerxes, was also given permission to return to Jerusalem in order to oversee the rebuilding of its defensive walls.

As you read the stories of Ezra and Nehemiah in their attempts to rebuild significant parts of Jerusalem, what do you notice about the circumstances under which their work was completed? What differences do you notice between Ezra and Nehemiah and their respective reforms?

1 and 2 Chronicles, are books detailing the history of Israel and its then-recent kings. The writings are dated around the mid 5th century B.C. as the defeated and scattered nation of Israel was being restored to their home in Judah. They cover much of the same period of time and content as the histories of 1 and 2 Kings, which we just read last season, but its message and intent are different. Here's a brief comparison of 1 and 2 Kings with 1 and 2 Chronicles:

 

·         1 and 2 Kings

o    Can read like a commentary or criticism on the quality of the Israelite's line of kings.

o    Targets the concerns of an Israelite audience that was defeated in battle and recently exiled from their homeland.

o    Reflects on the issue of what happened when the Israelites failed to fulfill their end of the "covenant relationship" with God.

·         1 and 2 Chronicles

o    Idealizes Israel's kings, particularly David and Solomon.

o    Targets the concerns of an Israelite audience being restored to their homeland.

o    Tries to answer the question: Is God still interested in continuing this "covenant relationship" with us?

We’ll only be reading selections from 1 Chronicles that deal with the rule of King David. Why do you think the author would paint such a rosy picture of David's reign, leaving out the detailed accounts of David's faults that you would find in Kings?

1 and 2 Corinthians are two letters (of as many as four) written to the church in the city of Corinth in Greece in about 55 A.D.   They were authored by Paul, an early church founder and author of most of the other letters in the New Testament. At the time, Corinth was the political and commercial center of Greece. It had a typical Greek culture, especially its philosophy and wisdom. The citizens of Corinth were engaged in the worship of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, which brought a great deal of prostitution to the city through the temples dedicated to her.

Paul had founded the church in Corinth, personally knew many people there, and his writing to the congregation was specific to their current situation. In 1 Corinthians, Paul specifically addresses issues including division within the church, sexual immorality, questionable practices (such as eating meat previously offered to idols), and proper use of spiritual gifts. This letter has a mission to build up the followers of Jesus in Corinth while stemming behavior that's gotten out of control.

Some of the material in 1 Corinthians can be challenging to apply today. What do you think about Paul’s advice on marriage? What principles can be learned from his example of eating meat to idols? How would you encourage people to use spiritual gifts in the church?

This short letter from Paul was written to his friend Philemon from prison in order to persuade him to welcome back one of his slaves named Onesimus. Apparently Onesiumus had stolen something from Philemon, ran away, encountered Paul, and then became a follower of Jesus as well.

If you were Philemon reading this letter about Onesimus, a former slave and apparent thief, how might you react?

Revelation is a collection of visions seen by John, one of Jesus’ twelve apostles. They’re written in a genre, called ‘apocalyptic,’ that was apparently very popular at the time but has now become extinct. Apocalyptic writing is very stylized. Two prominent features of apocalypse are visions of fantastical creatures and the symbolic use of numbers. The best we can tell, certain numbers and images had standard, well-known interpretations; but we’ve lost the keys to interpreting them. So, this most popular of the biblical genres has become perhaps the most difficult to understand for modern readers. I often liken Revelation and other apocalyptic literature to comic books: easy to read if you know the conventions, but pretty confusing if the style is unfamiliar. I think Revelation can still be worthwhile to read, and even pretty entertaining, if we simply acknowledge that some of the code is lost to us. The over-the-top imagery is quite engaging, and I think it’s possible to get a decent (but not exact) picture of what’s being described by considering what impressions the images evoke and by seeing how an image is used over the course of the book. It’s almost certainly a lost cause to spend any time at all trying to figure out what the various numbers mean, apart from the vaguest of impressions.

Almost everyone agrees that parts of Revelation refer to current events at the time of John’s writing and that parts of it refer to the end of time or to the distant future. People disagree about which parts refer to John’s time and which refer to the future. In getting the most out of my reading of Revelation, I try to avoid the temptation to map it to our own current events. Instead, I try first to ask the question, ‘What would John’s original readers have gotten from this?’ Then, I try to translate that message into a more timeless truth, which I can apply to my own life.

1 Peter was written by Peter, one of Jesus' best friends and contemporary of Paul (author of Philemon above). In this letter, Peter writes to a general audience of churches in Asia Minor—modern-day Turkey. This letter has a reputation for containing some difficult passages for today's readers. As you read, consider getting some friends to read and discuss with you if you aren't doing that already -- it can be helpful to get different perspectives. Some themes you will encounter in this letter deal with authority, suffering, and separation.

What kind of challenges do you think Peter was trying to address among the followers of Jesus he was addressing at the time? Do you share any of those challenges?

Matthew, also known as Levi, was one of Jesus’ twelve apostles. Before becoming a follower of Jesus, Matthew was a collector of taxes for the Romans. It’s hard for us to understand just how unpopular that would have made him: first of all, he was collecting taxes; secondly, it was taxes for an unpopular foreign government; and thirdly, tax collectors at the time were famously corrupt. Perhaps the closest thing we have nowadays is a mobster running a protection racket. So, Matthew goes from being completely outside of ‘decent society,’ to being one of the closest disciples of the new rabbi Jesus, to writing one of Jesus’ biographies.

Matthew uses the earlier and shorter Gospel of Mark as a sort of outline for his story: the plot of the gospel of Matthew follows Mark very closely, and often they even have very similar wording for a story. But Matthew then supplements Mark’s story with significant additions. Matthew includes a far greater amount of Jesus’ teaching, and—interestingly for someone who would have spent much of his life on the outs with his fellow Jews—a particular emphasis on Jesus as the fulfillment of Jewish prophecies. Matthew, like Mark, places a lot of attention on the theme of the kingdom of God (although Matthew calls it ‘the kingdom of heaven,’ following the Jewish tradition of avoiding saying ‘God’ as much as possible). Whereas Mark demonstrates the kingdom of God through Jesus’ actions, Matthew illustrates the kingdom of heaven through Jesus’ teaching, and particularly his parables. It’s worth paying attention to the way Matthew fills out the picture of the kingdom of heaven over the course of his story.