Bible Challenge, Week One

Bible Challenge Week One

(Genesis 1-18; Psalms 1-6; Matthew 1-6)

I am excited to be starting the Bible Challenge! Reading the whole Bible this year may be hard, but it should also be really rewarding. And we start with a bang! The first chapters of Genesis are packed with famous stories: creation and fall; Cain and Abel; Noah and the flood; the tower of Babel; the calling of Abraham; and the beginning of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Matthew also covers a lot of ground: Jesus’ birth; baptism and temptation in the wilderness; the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount; and the Lord’s Prayer. It can be a little overwhelming!

 
What follows is intended as a conversation starter. Please share your thoughts about it or about anything else that occurs to you as you take the Bible Challenge!
 
What most strikes me this week is the shift that happens with Abraham (chapter 11:27). Before Abraham, God is working with all people. We are all children of Adam and Noah. We all inherit those promises. But with the tower of Babel (chapter 11), real human diversity enters the story. As Genesis tells it, God no longer blesses all people directly. Instead God works with and through a single line, Abraham’s line. The blessing is for all people (12:3), but people experience it quite differently, depending on who they are.

As Scott Gunn points out in his commentary on day two, Matthew’s story of the wise men from the east indicates that the story opens up again with Jesus. People from outside the chosen line receive revelation and encounter Christ. This both fulfills God’s promise to Abraham and takes us back to the time before Abraham when God was more directly accessible to all people.

Over the course of this year, I know we will see more of both: more emphasis on how much God loves some and also more emphasis on how much God loves all. I look forward to pursuing this issue as we go.

Harvey