January 6-10
[M] Genesis 16-18; Mark 6
[T] Gen 19-20; Psalm 1; Mark 7
[W] Gen 21-23; Psalm 107; Mark 8
[T] Gen 24-25; Psalm 4; Mark 9
[F] Gen 26-27; Mark 10
Dwell Plan Day 6-10 | CSB | Digital PDF | Printable PDF
Notes from Jon & Chris
Genesis 16-27 | Notice the cycles of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They’re all very different in personality, but there are striking similarities in their actions and stories. The Bible is giving us a multi-generational perspective, so we can see how sins and character flaws, as well as faith and growth in grace, are passed on from generation to generation. We also see other patterns. Some kids embrace the faith, some not so much. It describes how normal our own family dysfunctions and blessings really are.
Genesis 18:1-16 | Many of us have heard the expression “be kind to visitors, some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Well, this is where that expression comes from, this strange visit of three men, who are described as somehow representing the actual presence of God Himself. But it gets even stranger—we’re given an insight into God’s thinking! The text describes an internal debate that God seems to be having. Some of this is anthropomorphic. That’s a fancy word for saying God is just portraying Himself like a human in order to connect with us and help us understand. This happens a lot in the Bible. It’s God’s form of baby talk, stooping down to speak in words and ideas that are easy for us to understand. Even so, we’re peeking into the mysteries of why God does things. There’s also a promise in this: somehow a human can actually be God speaking to us. That’s something to remember. But it’s also an even bigger promise and hint of God’s intentions—He would become a human!
Genesis 18:22 | This is an amazing text when you know the Hebrew and the Masoretic tradition—which is the ancient Jewish tradition of handling the Bible. The text actually originally read like this (which is noted as a kind of footnote called a “toqueni sopherim.”) “The LORD remained standing before Abraham.” The ancient Jewish scribes felt that this idea of God standing in front of Abraham sounded wrong and impious. God doesn’t stand in front of us, we stand in front of Him! This makes God sound like a common house servant. Our modern translations continue the tradition of translating it according to the Jewish scribes for two reasons. First because the first English translators didn’t know about the Masoretic tradition. They didn’t understand the way they footnoted things. Secondly, even though we know now, most scholars agree that we should stay consistent with the Jewish traditions out of respect and consistency with the history of translations. But is that right? I’m not so sure. God taking the attitude and position of a servant is exactly what Jesus does. Seems like this is an ancient promise of God becoming human in Jesus again!
Mark 6:20 | I’ve always loved this little note—that king Herod loved to listen to John, even though he couldn’t really understand anything he was saying! I’ve had that happen in ministry, and this little verse has always given me hope. It’s also given me insight. The gospel sometimes does attract people who don’t believe, even if they don’t have the Holy Spirit or faith. That can be a bit confusing to a pastor, when someone is interested, but only superficially. You think it’s the Spirit, but then later on you realize they’re just curious about stuff they don’t understand.
Genesis 19 | This is one of the most infamous parts of the scripture. There are a few ways Modern Westerners handle the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. The first temptation is to judge God. “I think he went too far.” The second temptation is to mythologize this passage. “It never really happened, it’s more like Aesop’s fables.” Both of those reactions to this passage force us to lose the purpose of this narrative in the storyline of scripture.
What do we learn here, then? Three things. First, God hates sin. He’s not just annoyed by it. He hates it. Like we all hate the Dodgers level of hate. Second, he is right to judge sin. We don’t get to tell God what to do about sin. He is God, and we are not. But third, if you mythologize this story or tell God he is wrong, you miss out on the fullness of salvation. This passage teaches us about the depth of what Jesus went through on the cross. God hates sin, and he will judge it. But the good news is that Christ took all of that wrath in a real moment in history as he hung from a Roman cross. And so we look at this story and say, “The sin that God hates so much has roots deep in my heart. I deserve what these folks received and more. But I won’t face the wrath of God because I have a savior. A redeemer. A substitute. Thanks be to God!”
Genesis 19:30-38 | This is a morally repulsive and disgusting story about incest. So why is it in the Bible? One obvious reason is how it explains the beginnings of the two nations that God’s people would face many centuries later. It’s an origin story. But there’s something else here. God’s people, God’s faithful, all have problems. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are shown with their warts and faults. Here’s a basic principle for reading your Bible: there’s nothing sacred or holy in the Bible except for God. Our sinful wickedness and the awful things people do are all talked about and described. There’s nothing sacred about humans in their sins, and the Bible doesn’t flinch from speaking the truth.
There’s also a further implication for us to see, an insight into the larger Old Testament context. These surrounding nations, who don’t really know God or follow Him, they’re all just crazy wicked and disturbing. What’s the point of telling us this? God is showing to us just how bad it gets when you don’t know or follow Him. How did these two girls think of sleeping with their dad and think it was a good plan and okay? Look at where they lived. This was the state of morality of the town they lived in, the one that just got annihilated. They had seen this sort of stuff already. Ugh. These girls were raised in it. It's a mercy to be born in any culture that’s been influenced by biblical morality. Once you go outside of those boundaries, things get morally dark and weird pretty darn quick. That’s not to say that biblically influenced cultures aren’t awfully wicked themselves. They certainly are—it just can get a whole lot worse than you think.
Genesis 20:7 | Abraham is a prophet! Isn’t that cool! Who knew?
Psalm 1 | I love the word delight in this Psalm. Here is the problem: sometimes doing our reading plan, being in scripture, and meditating on God’s word feels more like work than delight. What gives? J.I. Packer wrote a book on prayer and the tagline was “From duty to delight.” That works with scripture too, not just prayer. There is this idea that on the other side of duty lies delight. It’s like when you first start working out or eating healthy (or so I’ve heard from people who do those two things). Eventually, they get to a place where missing a day working out is a massive bummer.
I’ve done a reading plan almost every year for the last handful of years. As someone who has done this a bunch, I just want to encourage you as you enter into week 2 of 52. At some point soon, you’ll say to yourself “Is this worth 20 minutes every day?” I promise that if you stick with it and read the scriptures to commune with God and not just for information, there is an overwhelming sense of delight on the other side of the duty and work.
Genesis 22 | This story seems nuts until you realize that God stayed the hand of Abraham and Isaac’s life was spared, but if you fast forward a few thousand years, on the same mountain, God was in a similar position, but the life of his son wasn’t spared. Remember that the Bible has been providentially ordered with patterns of small to great. This story is more than a test of faith. It’s a pattern guided by the hand of God to help his people understand better what Jesus did for them on the cross.
Psalm 107 | This poem has a more easily seen structure than many of the Psalms. Verses 1-3 are an intro and verses 33-43 are a kind of conclusion. In between, in verses 4, 10, 17, and 23 the poet talks about four different kinds of folks in four different situations. Wanderers, rebels, fools, and travelers. Each one suffers and finds an answer in God’s grace. Each one is told to be thankful to God for His grace. Guess the only question we’re supposed to ask ourselves is which one are we?!
Mark 8:17-18 | And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?”
It’s really easy to read about how dumb the disciples were and how Jesus was constantly correcting them and think, “If that was me…” The truth is, if you were there, you’d do the same stupid things. You’d be at least as dumb as they were. Your heart is blinded by sin too. The real difference isn’t you. The real difference is that you live on this side of Pentecost. You have been given access to the Spirit who gives what Jonathan Edwards called “A divine and supernatural light.” So instead of being smug and judgmental, we should all be filled with thankful hearts for the Spirit of God who lives within us.
Mark 6:30-43; 8:1-9 | Why the repetition? Critical scholars, who don’t believe in inspiration, think these early writers got similar stories confused. When Christ explains the two feedings in Mark 8:20, they say that’s just the writer explaining away why both stories are included. But these scholars aren’t really listening to Jesus’ question in 8:21, are they? What is the point of Jesus feeding so many thousands several times? He’s asking them if they get the point. “Do you not yet understand?” This is the same sort of miracle that the people of Israel experienced in the desert! And the implication—Jesus is that same God! Do you understand that yet?
Mark 8:31 | Notice this: Jesus doesn’t tell them about His suffering, death, and resurrection until they’ve realized who He really is. That’s what Peter just did here. This is something to remember, that we all progress in truth which leads to a deeper understanding later, when we can handle it. Be patient with folks. People can’t really understand spiritual things until God shows it to them. And when that happens, there’s always more to grow into and understand. Even here Peter’s understanding is not complete in any way, but it’s a start. Let’s all look and pray for a start, both in ourselves and in others!
Mark 8:36 | God’s special verse of grace for over achievers and those who love success!
Genesis 24:47 | God’s people have worn nose rings! Should we start a new Christian trend?!
Genesis 25:23 | “…the older shall serve the younger.”
Here in Genesis, we see that God is very intentional in teaching his people that his Kingdom is not like Babylon (the kingdom of this world). In a culture where primogeniture was the way of life (where the older brother was the head of the family and the most important), God keeps on choosing the younger. Abel was younger than Cain. Isaac was younger than Ishmael. Here, Jacob is younger than Esau. David was the runt of the litter. Solomon wasn’t the firstborn. He does this to show his people that his ways are not our ways.
We’ll read more about this principle in our Mark passage for today (If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.) The ultimate example of this is Christ himself. The way he saves his people and defeats death is by giving his life. He is raised up by lowering himself. He brings life by dying. He wins by losing. The kingdom of God is (from the perspective of our world) completely backward and upside-down.
Mark 9:24 | Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”
This is my favorite prayer in the whole Bible. It's so honest and it’s so relatable.
Mark 9:29 | You’ll read this again and again in your Bible “some manuscripts add” or some version of that footnote. We have thousands of ancient hand written copies of these books. Much much more than any other ancient documents—most ancient books have ancient copies in the single digits. So we’ve got a lot of data! This includes extra phrases in some of those copies at times and this is one of those times. Don’t be alarmed! It doesn’t affect the meaning anyway. I always include it, because it seems to point out how extra measures are sometimes necessary in our faith. This isn’t works: fasting is a deep dependence on God, not a righteous act. When we face a problem that ordinary stuff doesn’t work for, we have to double down. Remember, fasting is just a way of praying with your body to our God.
Mark 9:42 | Some things seem to really tick Jesus off a lot. We should pay careful attention to those kinds of things, don’t you think?
Mark 10:27 | Did you know that this idea of God doing the impossible is only expressed in the New Testament? That doesn’t mean the Old Testament doesn’t teach it, it just does it by example! (Parting seas, raising dead kids, manna in the wilderness, etc.) Jesus is just expressing with new clarity just how powerful God really is. He’s preparing them for how He’s going to show them that truth in his death and resurrection!
Mark 10:45 | Memorize this verse!