Our
church has decided to
read the Bible together in 2009, so I thought it would be good to resurrect this blog to post my reflections about this. I'm sure that a number of people - particularly Crossroaders - will have xangas, so I figured I might as well join the crowd, even though most of my normal daily posts happen on my
livejournal. Though I normally do my devotions in NIV, I've decided that this trip will be NASB. This in particular will help me differ my existing trip (#6) through the Bible and the church trip (#7), which will happen simultaneously until I finish trip 6 through the NIV. I'm about a third of the way through so far. I guess it doesn't hurt to double up.
Just for clarification - I won't be writing something significant every day, simply because there isn't enough time in the day to do everything. But since I'm on vacation, I figured I might as well.
Everything should fall into the
first week's reading.
Old Testament 
I've always liked this strip, particlarly for the second row in the comic, where Watterston shows the godlike Calvin creating the universe out of the void. Of course, the third row talks about Calvin the evil god (which of course makes it funny), but the second row always sticks with me whenever I read the first couple of chapters of Genesis.
I was struck during this reading of Genesis of the concept of blessing. I found it interesting that the author mentions God blessing the birds and ocean life (1:22) - as well as humans (1:28) - but skips over the beasts on the earth in this blessing.
Focusing on the blessing for humans:
"God blessed them; and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'" (1:28)
What does it mean to rule? I'm not queen of anything besides my own household, but I've been able to think about it by reading perspectives from various novels, including the genre of fantasy. Unlike most misconceptions of ruling, it has very little to do with soirees and social standing, but has everything to do with being responsible. Poor kings lorded their status over their people; good kings thought of their people as their constituents (regardless of whether or not they were elected into office), and tried to serve them in some way.
In Christian lingo, it's been called "stewardship," but I like to think of it in this way - our constituents, according to the Bible, are the other living beings on this earth. I think we've done a pretty good job of subduing the earth, but ruling? I think we've failed in a number of ways, most of them in the ways we've changed our world for the poorer, particularly in the area of environmental hazards.
I was reading a novel this morning that had pretty much the same bent to it: "She clenched her jaw, angry at her aunt, at all of the short-sighted fools who couldn't see, wouldn't see, that what poisoned the land came, eventually, to poison
them.... Did they think, in their arrogance, that their money would keep the isolated from the filth they poured out every day? Was their greed such that the cost didn't matter so long as it was hidden? Or were they willfully not beliving, pretending that the poison was somehow harmless, or even beneficial?" (
The Gates of Sleep, Mercedes Lackey, p. 257-258)
This doesn't turn me into a rabid Greenpeace member, but more conscious that my role as a Christian is to be responsible for the way that I live my life and how it affects others in this fragile ecosystem. Things I can do include recycling, conserving water and electricity, composting, repairing, and re-using, as well as doing stuff like using real plates, forks, knives, and spoons when entertaining insead of paper and plastic.
Anyway, enough of that. On to:
The New Testament 
Image(s) courtesy History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries; copyright the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma.
The genealogy of Jesus is covered in this section, as well as a brief summary of the virgin birth. I only really had one thought about this section, as we basically spent the entire month of December thinking about Jesus' birth. The women mentioned in the genealogy were all foreign and extraordinary in some way, two who were involved in scandal (Tamar [Caananite], who seduced her father-in-law as a prostitute, as illustrated to the left, and Bathsheba [Hittite], whose husband was killed by David's executive order) and one who was revered and bold (Ruth [Moabite], who was faithful to her mother-in-law).
The other was a vague fascination with Matthew's division of time, which separates the epochs from Creation to Jesus by two great events in Israel's history - the ascension and reign of King David, and the fall of Israel to captivity in Babylon. I probably could say a lot more about this, but I won't, as I've spent far too much time talking about this and finding photos. :)
Comments (3)
Also, awhile ago a friend from college asked me why I studied engineering. I answered that in part, I see it as a way of fulfilling the original command to "subdue [the earth]" - to understand what makes it work and how to control it. To me, the idea of stewardship is very strong even in the word "subdue"... but maybe that's just me. I definitely agree that this is not a call to become a rabid treehugger, but to be aware of how we affect the earth positively and negatively in the ways that we choose to live.