The sweep of the Bible in two weeks

Dane Ortlund offers this simple way to get an overview of the Bible in two week. It’s worth a go at it!

If a freshman in college or stay-at-home mom or aspiring deacon or friend from work or anyone else asked me how they might get a rough grasp of the macro-storyline of the Bible in a few weeks, I’d send them not to any secondary resource but to the Bible itself for a reading plan that might look something like this. 

Week 1 Sunday – Genesis 1-3
Monday – Genesis 12-17
Tuesday – Exodus 1-3, 12
Wednesday – Exodus 14, 19-20
Thursday – Joshua 23-24; Judges 1-2
Friday – 1 Samuel 8, 16; 2 Samuel 7, 11; Psalm 105
Saturday – Isaiah 7, 9, 11, 35, 52-53, 65

Week 2

Sunday – Jeremiah 30-33; Ezekiel 36-37, Zechariah 9; Malachi 3-4
Monday - Matt. 1:1; Mark 1:1-15; John 1:1-18; 5:39-46; Luke 24
Tuesday - Mark 14:1-16:8
Wednesday – Acts 1-2; 13:13-49
Thursday - Rom. 1:1-6; 16-17; 3:9-31; 5:12-21; 8:18-23; 1 Cor. 15:1-23
Friday - Heb. 1:1-4; 10:19-12:2
Saturday – Revelation 1; 20-22

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A great question for parents to ask

Brian Croft writes:

Paul addresses fathers here for several reasons.  The husband/father is the head of his family (Eph. 5:23).  Fathers are to lead the family, which includes the instruction and discipline in the home (Eph. 6:4).  Fathers also play an especially important role in the life of a child.  However, all these reasons do not exclude “mothers” and their equally important role in the lives of their kids from Paul’s instruction.  The command to fathers (parents) is, “To instruct and discipline in the Lord.” (Eph. 6:4)

Yet in the midst of this instruction is this warning to “Not provoke your children to anger.”  Paul must have known our natural sinful reaction as parents to our kids when they disobey is to respond in frustration and anger, thus provoking them to anger, instead of calm, firm, and loving discipline.

Because of our propensity to this reaction and Paul’s warning that accompanies this instruction, I submit to you this question that parents should constantly be asking and evaluating in their own hearts and each other’s hearts:

“In what ways do you see I am most prone to provoke our children to anger.”

For a list that might help stimulate examples of provoking our children to anger, see this list from Lou Priolo that I found incredibly helpful from his book, The Heart of Anger.

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Smile, please!

Don’t let these incredibly crisp photos of tiny insects bug you!!  Reminds me today that God cares for the smallest and the largest of his creatures!

 

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If we can’t trust the promises of God, who can?

Martin Luther writing one of his friends Philipp Melanchthon reminds us to have unwavering faith in a God who knows our needs:

“I pray for you very earnestly, and I am deeply pained that you keep sucking up cares like a leech and thus rendering my prayers vain. Christ knows whether it comes from stupidity or the Spirit, but I for my part am not very much troubled about our cause. Indeed, I am more hopeful than I expected to be. God who is able to raise the dead is also able to uphold his cause when it is falling or to raise it up again when it has fallen or to move it forward when it is standing. If we are not worthy instruments to accomplish his purpose, he will find others. If we are not strengthened by his promises, where in all the world are the people to whom these promises apply? But more of this another time. After all, my writing this is like pouring water into the sea.”

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