This is the one-hundred-sixty-fourth lesson in author and pastor Mel Lawrenz’ How to Live the Bible series. If you know someone or a group who would like to follow along on this journey through Scripture, they can get more info and sign up to receive these essays via email here.
“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” Romans 12:18
By Philip Yancey
By my reckoning Judas and Peter stand out as the most mathematical of the disciples. Judas must have shown some facility with numbers or the others would not have elected him treasurer. Peter was a stickler for detail, always trying to pin down Jesus’ precise meaning. Also, the Gospels record that when Jesus engineered a miraculous catch of fish, Peter hauled in 153 big ones. Who but a mathematician would have bothered to count the squirming pile?
It was altogether in character, then, for the scrupulous apostle Peter to pursue some mathematical formula of grace. “How many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me?” he asked Jesus. “Up to seven times?” Peter was erring on the side of magnanimity, for the rabbis in his day had suggested three as the maximum number of times one might be expected to forgive.
What are your questions and misconceptions about the Bible? How did the Bible come into existence? Why is it considered so important? What does it mean that its authors were inspired to write it?
Bible Gateway interviewed Michael F. Bird (@mbird12) about his book, Seven Things I Wish Christians Knew About the Bible (Zondervan, 2021).
You mention that you’ve spent 20 years “wrestling with Scripture.” What do you mean?
Dr. Michael F. Bird: Well, I’ve been a Christian for nearly 30 years and I’ve been doing serious academic study and pastoral reflection on the Bible for 20 years. In that time, I’ve come across, I think, nearly every question, doubt, conundrum, and conspiracy theory about the Bible you can imagine. Ranging from “How could Moses write about his own death?” to “Did Paul write Hebrews?” to “Does the Bible endorse genocide and slavery?”
There’s some stuff I have a quick answer for, but there’s other stuff that requires years of reflection and study to come up with a credible response to. For example, how do we responsibly use the Old Testament for Christian ethics? In what senses is the Bible true or not untrue? This book, Seven Things, is where I show my work from what I’ve learned in wrestling with these questions over 20-plus years.
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Museum of the Bible Magna Carta Exhibition Explores Role of Bible and English Church in Struggle for Liberty
⇨ Fox News
⇨ Read the Bible Gateway Blog post, The Pilgrims May Not Be Who You Think They Were: An Interview with Jay Milbrandt
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Jimmy, Rosalynn Carter Mark 75 Years of ‘Full Partnership’ on July 7
⇨ USA TODAY
⇨ Read the Bible Gateway Blog post, Former US President Jimmy Carter Edits New NRSV Simple Faith Bible
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This is the one-hundred-sixty-third lesson in author and pastor Mel Lawrenz’ How to Live the Bible series. If you know someone or a group who would like to follow along on this journey through Scripture, they can get more info and sign up to receive these essays via email here.
[For our friends in the USA, July 4 is celebrated as a day of freedom. It’s also an opportunity for us to contemplate the freedom we have in Jesus Christ, which is the greatest freedom any of us can experience.]
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” Galatians 5:1
By Desiree Hartsock Siegfried
Editor’s note: The world met Desiree Hartsock Siegfried as an ABC Bachelor contestant and star of Season 9 of ABC’s The Bachelorette and quickly fell in love with this down-to-earth girl looking for love. What follows is a part of her story taken from her new book The Road to Roses.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[a] have been called according to his purpose.” —Romans 8:28
One thing that made me feel secure as a child was praying. Every night, my dad prayed with me before bed, and I prayed for everything in my young life: my friends, my stuffies, to get good grades, for my teachers, and so on. Starting from the young age of six, whenever I went to the store, I prayed I would find money, and more often than not, I would discover an errant penny or dime on the floor. Sometimes I even found a crinkled dollar bill hiding underneath a shelf. Keep in mind this was back when coins and money were the main form of payment. Even when my prayer wasn’t answered, I kept on praying each and every time.
Did you know the book of Psalms is the Old Testament book most often quoted in the New Testament? And its quotations can be found in global literature, everywhere from poetry to television scripts to government speeches. Why is this scriptural book so popular?
Bible Gateway interviewed Sandra L. Richter (@sandralynrichter), author of The Epic of Eden Book of Psalms Video Study: An Ancient Challenge to Get Serious About Your Prayer and Worship (Zondervan, 2021).
Please explain what The Epic of Eden series is.
Dr. Sandra L. Richter: The idea for The Epic of Eden curriculum series was birthed in a late-night conversation in a friend’s kitchen. I was in my first post at Asbury Theological Seminary and had just published, The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament (IVP 2008). I had also developed a weekend intensive for churches and conferences that got folks through the material in about eight hours of face time. The objective for both? To help people “put their Bibles together” by giving them back their Old Testaments.
When we read the Bible, sometimes we find recorded ancient stories to be too fantastic to believe, such as might be the case with Jonah and the big fish.
Yet, when we simply observe God’s wonderous creation around us, we see he has installed daunting physical obstacles and seemingly impossible odds against success to offer undeniable evidence of his design, purpose, and creative power in the complicated and miraculous migration instincts of Monarch butterflies, Arctic terns, Pacific salmon, and, as captured in the following video, Atlantic sea turtles. The ingrained sophisticated navigational system that precisely guides them through uncharted waters season after season reveals new wonders and confirmation of the God who spoke them into existence.
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Engaging The Bible Helps People Become More Hopeful And Forgiving Despite Hardships, Study Finds
⇨ Christianity Daily
⇨ Read the Bible Gateway Blog post, More Americans Turning to the Bible Than in Previous Years and Reporting a More Frequent Reading Habit
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‘A Far Cry From Cranmer’s Quill’: Book of Common Prayer To Be Brought Into the 21st Century
⇨ Premier News Desk
⇨ See the daily Old and New Testament readings based on the Book of Common Prayer on Bible Gateway
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This is the one-hundred-sixty-second lesson in author and pastor Mel Lawrenz’ How to Live the Bible series. If you know someone or a group who would like to follow along on this journey through Scripture, they can get more info and sign up to receive these essays via email here.
“Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” Romans 1:20
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