Staying Awake

On Saturday on my other blog, I wrote about hitting the 100k mile mark in my MINI.  I then proceeded to perform some maintenance on the MINI.  Those maintenance items – flushing brake fluid, rotating tires, etc. – are things that are done on a periodic basis, usually once a certain number of miles are reached or a certain amount of time has passed.

As I mentioned in my last post here, for the new year I was starting a new reading plan which, if I make it through it, will result in me reading 3660 chapters of the Bible in 2012.  It has occurred to me that reading the Bible on a daily basis is like maintenance for my soul (or maybe spirit is more accurate as Pastor Mark and I discussed in Sunday School one morning – but that is another story).  But maintaining my soul is a little bit different in that it is not something that I can attend to every once in a while.  Even a little bit, like once a week, may be beneficial, but quite probably not sufficient to keep things really running well.  So in the case of my Bible reading, as our Lord’s Prayer alludes to, I need to have some “bread” on a daily basis.

As I noted when I first started Horner’s plan, reading on a daily basis was not going to be stretch for me as I was already reading almost daily.  Where it would stretch me though was in reading so many chapters and in reading from so many different parts of the Bible on a regular basis.  Reading ten chapters a day (or night in my case as I like to close out the day with my Bible reading – really the only time the house quiets down) has resulted in me spending more actual time in the Bible.  In my past reading plans, a lot of times it was only three or four chapters and I could oftentimes get through it in 20 minutes or so.  Reading the ten chapters is really keeping me in the Bible for a good hour now.

As far as reading from so many different books, I’m still getting used to that.  Every now and then I’m seeing connections/parallels.  Alas, I really need to start keeping a journal at hand as I read and jot down notes.  I figure I’ll get to that shortly now that I’m starting to get used to the whole system.

Finally, this post is written mainly as a checkpoint as I have passed through the 10% mark today.  Yes, I’ve made it through 370 chapters already (10% was really at the 366 chapter mark).  Thus far I have read the following books in their entirety since January 1st:

• Matthew
• Romans
• I Corinthians
• I Thessalonians
• II Thessalonians
• I Timothy
• II Timothy
• Titus
• Philemon
• James
• I Peter
• II Peter
• Proverbs
• Joshua
• Acts

For both Proverbs and Acts, since they are the only books in their respective list, I have started reading through them for the second time.

So, off to a good start with the plan.

With 2011 coming to an end, I am wrapping up my reading plan for the year.  I’m a few days behind, so there will be a little overlap.  Of course, this means it is time to decide what I will be doing for 2012.  I happened to run across a Facebook post by Logos asking what people were planning for 2012 and one of the responses proved intriguing.

It was a post from someone indicating they were going to try the 3650 Challenge.  I looked that up and found that Tim Challies was inviting others to join him in doing Professor Horner’s Bible-Reading System.  It is a system where you read 10 chapters each day, one chapter each from one of ten lists. So if one sticks with it, they will read 3,650 chapters from the Bible in the course of a year (and yes, I realize 2012 is a leap year, so I’ll really get in 3,660 chapters if I succeed).

As Challies explains it, if you follow Horner’s plan, in the course of a year you will read (or you could listen):

• all of the Gospels four times each;
• the Pentateuch twice;
• Paul’s letters 4-5 times;
• the OT wisdom literature six times;
• the Psalms twice;
• the Proverbs twelve times;
• Acts twelve times;
• the OT history and prophetic books about 1.5 times.

I have found a few variations of the plan, such as this one by Pastor Brett Maragni, in which he wanted to focus more on Romans and threw in Galatians and Ephesians for monthly reading.

I have found a few tools scattered about – mainly spreadsheets, checklists, etc., for keeping track of where you are.  At this point, I just have some tabs to serve as bookmarks in my Bible.  I’ll probably put the lists in the front of the Bible (or possibly download the Logos reading plan file to use Logos to help me keep track).

Of course, like everyone, I’m full of excitement as a new year dawns.  Hopefully I can keep this going for at least 30 days for the habit to really set in. Should just be a stretch from my current daily reading to really feasting on the Word every day.  I invite you to join me in the challenge.  If you’d like the support of others, and you are on Facebook, you might want to check out the 3650 Challenge group.  I know when I first started working on reading plans it really helped to have feedback and encouragement from others.

Back at the beginning of the year I posted about my plans to read the entire OT during 2011.  The plan was to divide the OT into three sections – the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.  The first phase involved reading the books of the Law by the end of March.  I did accomplish that (think I actually finished a day early).

The regular reading plan has been on hold for a few weeks now while I catch my breath and prepare for the Prophets.  This also gave me a chance to finish reading Dr. Craig’s book On Guard.  Last week I sat down and prepared my reading plan for the Prophets.  I have it scheduled to start on Easter Monday and to finish on July 4th.  The books included for this phase include:

• Joshua
• 1 Samuel
• 2 Samuel
• 1 Kings
• 2 Kings
• Isaiah
• Jeremiah
• Ezekiel
• Hosea
• Joel
• Amos
• Obadiah
• Jonah
• Micah
• Nahum
• Habakkuk
• Zephaniah
• Haggai
• Zechariah
• Malachi

OK, so time got away from me this past week and this final entry is late, late, late.  But it was worth it as I went ever so slightly off on a tangent that was quite rewarding for this final part.  I actually started this last post of this week’s study last night.  It started out addressing the question of what Paul is needing clarity about in v4 of our key passage for the week (Col. 4:3-4) -

³ At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison — ⁴ that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

The question really goes to what “it” is referring to in the sentence.  But before I get into that (hint – covered in the first two parts), I took a look at some translations to see how the word “clear” came out.  For this particular passage it tended toward one of two words:

Col. 4:4 (ESV) – that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak

Col. 4:4 (ASV) – that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.

Col. 4:4 (TNIV) – Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.

Col. 4:4 (NKJV) – that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.

We have clear/clearly or manifest.  I decided to look up manifest.  My initial thought is to define manifest as making something tangible, but that doesn’t really fit in this context.  The definition I found was “easily understood or recognized by the mind”.  So by this, Paul is indicating he wants to make “it” easily understood.  That makes sense and it works if we use the translation of “clear” as well.  So looking up a word I thought I knew pays off!

Oh, but I wasn’t done yet.  I decided to do a search on the Greek lemma for φανερόω.  This returned 49 hits in the ESV (and I decided to search for it in the NKJV as well and got 49 hits there as well, although the verse count differed – 44 verses in the ESV and 43 in the NKJV).

There was quite a bit of variation in how the Greek was translated as well – manifest, appear, reveal, seen, show, display, known, visible, plain and a few others.  Although there were lots of different translations for this one Greek word, I think we can see the concept is very similar.  And if I kept the definition of manifest in mind – making something easily understood – it added some richness to the reading of some other passages.

For example, in another passage from one of Paul’s writings, Titus 1:2-3 -

² in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began ³ and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior

we see the claim that God “made clearly understood” the hope of eternal life through Paul’s preaching (and note how this is similar to the ideas I am studying in this week’s Colossians passage).  But it was not just Paul who used it in this way.  Check out these passages from Peter and John -

1 Peter 1:20 – He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you

1 John 1:2 – the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—

At least for me, if I read those passages and use this idea of something being made easily understood or known in place of manifest, it helps me understand a little better what the writers were trying to communicate.  I even found a passage where Jesus used the same word (John 17:6) -

“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.

We see Jesus in this prayer indicating that he has made God’s name easily understood and known to the people.

It is not without some sense of irony that I note how much studying I’ve had to do to get to where I understand things are to be easily understood.  I tend to think this is probably due to all complications we humans bring to the table.

Building on my earlier work, the “it” refers to the mystery of Christ – that is, God’s plan for us and his creation as revealed through Jesus.  And if we each believe in Jesus as our savior, God’s plan is with each of us.  We are not cut off from it nor do we have to go through others – all we have to do is turn to God’s Word in order to understand it.

The BSM study asks a couple concluding questions for the week.  First, how can we experience the mystery of Christ more often?  Second, what would change about our current circumstances if we experienced the mystery of Christ of more often?  The answer that immediately comes to my mind is to spend time reading the Bible, some time in prayer, and some time thinking about (and doing!) how we can follow the model revealed to us through Jesus.  I suppose everyone’s circumstances are different so the change will be very different for everyone.  I think at the very least everyone would experience some more peace in their lives no matter what circumstances they are dealing with.

Thanks for reading!

A short post this evening to follow up on Part 1 of the second week of my Colossians study.  When I left off, I was exploring the concept of Christ as mystery.  The BSM study guide concludes the study of mystery with the question of what Paul’s understanding of the mystery of Christ prompted him to do and helped him to understand.

I think the answer to that question is probably found in Eph. 1:10 in which God’s plan includes “unite all things in him”.  Paul is able to see that this includes Gentiles as well as Jews.  In taking the Gospel to the Gentiles, Paul was willing to go to prison and suffer persecution to try to help “all things” become united with God.  In my next part, I’ll take a look at what we may be able to do now with this understanding.

Clearly I’m late in posting anything this week, but I’ll still have at least a couple posts as I continue my study of Colossians.  This week started with another reading out loud from Colossians.  This week it was Col. 1:1-4:4.  Our main passage of focus this week is Col. 4:3-4 -

³ At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison — ⁴ that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

The first question to address as we reflect on this passage is what should we be praying for.  I could possibly go into the answer being an ability to “declare the mystery of Christ” – that is, sharing our testimony and our faith that others may receive the Word.  I think the more immediate answer comes from “for us”, in which Paul is asking those in Colossae to pray for him.  I would suppose by that extension, “us” also includes those who may be in prison with him or elsewhere “on account” of their preaching.  So one possible group we should be praying for are those who are persecuted for their faith.  The second possible group would be those who are “leaders” in the church.  Paul recognized that, even in his position, he still needed the prayers and support of others.

The second question is “who opens doors”.  The answer to that should be pretty obvious – God.  I was a little surprised the BSM study guide didn’t ask what was meant by “a door” in v3. (Note – add that to my GTD someday/maybe list of items to study).

Moving on, the next point to study is the term “mystery” that Paul uses to describe Christ in v3.  A search on the Greek μυστήριον resulted in 27 hits in the NT.  Pretty consistently, the word is translated as either mystery, mysteries, or secret.  Paul uses the word earlier in Col. 1:26 -

the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.

and again in Col. 2:2 -

that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ,

Again we see in this second passage that it is pretty clearly indicated that Christ is the mystery.  Not Christ is a mystery – Christ is the mystery.  So what is this mystery?  A word study indicates mystery usually refers to some unknown that can only be discovered through some divine revelation.  In the OT, this was usually accomplished through some designated intermediary (Myers, A. C. (1987). The Eerdmans Bible dictionary. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans).

This quality of the mystery being obtained only through revelation is reinforced in the NT in Eph. 3:3 -

how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly.

where we see Paul indicating that the mystery was made known to him through revelation.  The BSM study guide included that passage along with others in Ephesians (Eph. 1:9, 5:32, 6:19) that may help us understand Paul’s use of the word mystery.

Another quality frequently associated with the idea of the mystery is that it is eschatological in nature.  That is, it has to do with end times.  Not in the sense of us knowing when the end may occur, but more in the sense of what God’s ultimate plan may be.  We find a clue to this in Eph. 1:9-10 -

⁹ making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ ¹⁰ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

We see here the plan is to unite all things, both in heaven and earth.  Trying to piece this together, we get a sense that the idea is that the mystery has to do with how God will ultimately reconcile his creation back to a state of holiness with him.

While we now have some understanding of what the mystery is, I suppose the question still remains as to how Christ is the mystery.  According to Opening Up Colossians and Philemon, (McNaughton, Ian S. Opening Up Colossians and Philemon. Leominster: Day One Publications, 2006), Christ represents the mystery in that Jesus can now dwell within each of us.  So within each of us, through our faith, we can access the “love, joy, and peace” of God.  Note the difference between this and the earlier note about the OT mystery only being accessible through intermediaries.  There are no walls or veils to separate us from God.  Christ provides each of us access to God.

Quite a bit to ponder with this post.  There is a bit more to this particular topic of the mystery of Christ, but I think I will leave that for the next post.  Until then, enjoy pondering these questions yourself!

This is the final entry for week 1 of the BSM study of Colossians.  Unlike the last three where I had to do some actual research and writing, this is a pretty quick post.  Really it just consists of some questions to ponder and a challenge for the upcoming week.

First, name four things to be thankful for.

Second, name three things to watch for.

Then consider how your life might be different if you were to focus on these things and even make changes in your life based on them.  Would things be different?  Would you be a different person?

BSM suggests doing/considering these seven items for a week to see if any habits develop (way too short a time for a habit to develop imo).  Reflect and pray not only on these questions during the upcoming week, but think about some of the ideas I’ve written about in the first three parts.

Be on the lookout for the week 2 postings to start in a day or two.

Thanks for reading!

Our next step in this week’s study of Colossians is to consider the idea of “being watchful” as found in Col. 4:2 -

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

My study guide mentions it doesn’t mean “worryiing”.  I found that a little odd as I wouldn’t have thought of that as the meaning anyway.  A search on the Greek word (really the lemma) used in the passage (γρηγορέω) resulted in 22 matches in the NT.  A search of the ESV resulted in 37 matches.  The Greek meaning comes back to four primary ideas – “stay awake”, “watch”, “be alert”, “wake up”.

Should be pretty clear this is a word that may be of particular note in the context of this blog (see Mark 13:34-37) which uses the same word that Paul uses in the Colossians passage.  Besides the Gospel use of this word, I found a similar usage in Rev. 3:2-3 where the church in Sardis is given a similar warning about waking up so that they will not miss the return of Christ.

The BSM study guide suggested reading Gal. 5-6 regarding this word, which did not pop up in my search on the Greek, but it did when I was searching the ESV.  In Gal. 5:15 we read:

But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

and in Gal. 6:1 we find:

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.

Both of these passages seem to focus more on watching out for our own actions and attitudes so as not to fall prey to earthly problems and temptations.  Not so much watching for the return of the Master.  So it is a different spin.

I think one reason the BSM study guide is connecting these Galatian passages with Col. 4:2 as it seems to fit the context of Paul’s writing.  As you may recall from my previous post, when writing this letter Paul was aware of divisions in the church at Colossae.  So we have two passages that have to do with watching our brothers (note – in a spirit of gentleness).  This is for the purpose of helping avoid temptations.

If we were to take that concept and apply it to prayers being done while watchful, we might be able to conclude that Paul is urging those in Colossae to use their prayers in a way that will help them not fall into the false teachings and in a way that will support each other.  This might also serve them to avoid approaching prayer from the perspective of supporting their own position – that is, avoiding the trap of division that Satan may be laying for them.

Se we have two possible ways to engage in prayer in a way that is watchful.  One is to help us avoid the temptations of this world.  The other is to help us remain ready for the return of Christ (which might be an extension of avoiding the power of this world).

Ponder on this and the previous postings.  I’ll have one post related to Week 1.  Until then, reflect and pray on what I’ve covered so far.

Thanks for reading!

Yesterday’s post laid out the start of this Bible study I am trying to pursue for the next eight weeks.  Yesterday’s post described a quick survey of the words thankfulness and thanksgiving in the NT, keyed off of Col. 4:2.  Tonight we continue to the focus on thanks, but limiting it to three passages in Colossians. They are the previously mentioned Col. 4:2 -

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

Col. 1:3 -

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,

and Col. 3:15

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.

The study guide asks us to ponder Paul’s view of thankfulness, when he is thankful and why he is thankful.  A couple “setting” issues may be helpful to our understanding.  First, Paul was in a Roman prison when he wrote this letter.  And we should probably keep in mind that not only was he in prison, he was in prison because of his faith in Christ.  The second item of note is that the church at Colossae was having some trouble as well.  The commentaries I got through all indicate this was due to a faction that was perverting the Gospel, some specifically calling it out as Gnostics doing this.  By Gnostics, the reference is to some believers who believed in a dualism between the spiritual/heavenly world and the material world.  Probably most concerning to Paul were some of the teachings of these Gnostics that one had to achieve a special knowledge in order to be “saved”.

So, Paul was located in a bad place physically (prison) and dealing with the hardship that entailed.  And he was trying to deal with a group of people who were causing all sorts of drama and strife for a church (to put it mildly).  It seems to me it would be easy for someone in that situation to “write off” the people at the church.  I know sometimes when I have to deal with people causing problems, especially when it is not something directly affecting me, it is very tempting to treat them as “out of sight, out of mind”.  Why waste my time on them, right?  And for someone in prison or some other difficult situation, it becomes even easier – “hey, I have my own problems to deal with.”

But in v1:3, we see Paul still giving thanks for those in Colossae when he prays.  In v3:15 we see him urging those he prays for to also be thankful.  Note that being thankful is included in this passage along with letting the peace of Christ rule in our hearts.  It is not just having that peace – it is being thankful also.  And finally, we see in v4:2 that he urges believers to include thanksgiving when praying.  And since prayer is a continuous action, thanksgiving is a continuous action as well.

I will note that the commentaries I reviewed mentioned one of the concepts I noted in last night’s post – the idea that prayer and thanksgiving go hand in hand with each other.  And as we see, always praying and giving thanks, includes those times and situations when we think we are burdened and it should include others who are struggling.  As one commentary put it, giving thanks is:

a biblical world-view that God is with us and for us even amidst the difficulties and circumstances of this fallen world!
Utley, R. J. D. (1997). Vol. Volume 8: Paul Bound, the Gospel Unbound: Letters from Prison (Colossians, Ephesians and Philemon, then later, Philippians). Study Guide Commentary Series (45). Marshall, Texas: Bible Lessons International.

As I close out this installment, I think the one issue that could use a little more reflection is why Paul is thankful.  I think I may sleep on that and see if something makes more sense to me tomorrow night.

Thanks for reading!

OK, I really have no idea of what I am about to write or how this is going to pan out.  As you might have figured out from the title, this is not only the first of what I anticipate to be several posts on this subject, this is the first week of several weeks.  Is that how it will work out?  I do not know.  But I am just going to start writing and maybe this will turn into something that actually requires multiple parts.  And rest assured, for this particular entry I have a few notes put together, but I haven’t really given any thought to structure, so who know how disjointed this will be.

Now that you’ve been warned that you may be wandering in circles in the forest if you try to follow along with me, onto a description of the content.  I recently started receiving Bible Study Magazine.  Each issue (well, the two I’ve received so far) has an 8-week Bible study plan in it.  I’m going to give this issue’s study plan a try and I figured I would share the journey via some blog posts, maybe some Twitter and FB updates.  With this being the second day, I’m already seeing I could spend a whole lot more time on each topic, but I’ll try to keep the pace BSM has established.

This particular study plan is titled “Being Like Jesus” and is a study in Colossians.  The first week is on Why We Pray.  The first step is to read the entire book of Colossians in one sitting.  But there is more.  It should be read out loud (that is how it was originally meant to be communicated).  I did that last night after giving my wife fair warning that I had not lost my mind (after all, how many times do you hear anyone read more than a couple sentences of anything out loud).

On this second night, the first item to address is Colossians 4:2:

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

I did compare this text from the ESV with some other translations.  A frequent translation for “continue steadfastly” seems to be “devote”.  Watchful tends to be the same although I found a translation that uses “alert mind”.  Thanksgiving is kind of all over the place – thankful, thankful heart, thanks.

BSM indicates the ideas of thankfulness and watchfulness are key concepts.  So the first stop is to do a little more research into the idea of “thankfulness”.  I did a search of the NT on thankfulness (which also returned hits on “thanks”) which yielded 56 results in 53 verses.  A few common threads seemed to emerge:

• Thanks was used during the miracle of the loaves and fishes;
• Thanks was used during the institution of the Lord’s Supper;
• Throughout the NT it was frequently used to express thanks to God;
• It was also used when urging believers to give thanks for each other;
• Many passages use wording similar to Colossians 4:2 in that thanks are given as part of prayer and that prayer should be an “always” activity.

A coupld passages did stand out to me.  First was Romans 1:21 -

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Here Paul was describing unbelievers and I noted that they failed to do two things – honor God and give thanks.  Combined with their foolishness, they are headed down a dark path.

The other passage was 1 Corinthians 14:17 -

For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up.

I found this interesting in that one of the results of giving thanks should be to build up others.  To me, this starts to touch on the ideas of mission and the Great Commission – part of our duty to call others.

With all of these passages, I noted that Philippians 4 did not pop up and BSM had specifically mentioned this as a chapter to consider.  Looking at it, I decided to do an additional search on the word “thanksgiving”.  This yielded 13 results.  Of these, once again two passages seemed particularly noteworthy.  First up is 2 Corinthians 4:15 -

For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

Here we see that an increase in thanksgiving is connected to the glory of God.  That probably struck me after studying the doctrine of Soli Deo gloria last year.  The other passage is Philippians 4:6 -

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

This passage describes how our prayers are to be done with thanksgiving, echoing the same idea found in Colossians 4:2.

And that is where I will leave things at the end of this night.  If all goes well, I suppose I will have another entry tomorrow night that continues this study.  If you made it this far, thanks for reading!