Good morning! Today in Genesis 24-25 we see how Abraham and Sarah’s children and grandchildren grow into an extended family of God-followers, and how they struggle with tensions that are common to families today.
Author: Oby Ballinger
Genesis 21-23
Good morning, and congratulations on reaching the end of this first week reading the Bible together! I’m grateful for your sustained interest, particularly since Genesis has served up such a potent mix of stories each day. Your observations, bringing in other learning and perspectives, make this a lovely and enriching experience. Thank you for your comments! Today’s reading is Genesis 21-23, where we experience the birth of the long-promised Isaac, witness its consequences for Hagar and Ishmael, journey with anguish to Isaac’s near-sacrifice at Abraham’s hand, then mark the death of Sarah.
Genesis 18-20
Good morning! Happy Epiphany for those who are marking the end of the 12 days of Christmas! Today’s reading is Genesis 18-20, which juxtaposes the promise of new life in Sarah’s womb with the judgment and destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Genesis 15-17
Good morning! Today’s reading is Genesis 15-17, where God “makes it official” with Abram in the manner of biblical covenants, comes to the aid of the Egyptian slave woman Hagar, and then institutes a name change and circumcision as a sign of covenant.
Genesis 11-14
Hello and thank you for sticking with the Daily Bible to this point (or for jumping in now)! Every day is a new opportunity, and if you miss a day feel free to just start again with the group even if you can’t catch up. In my experience of the life of faith, persistence is more important than perfection. Also, I’ve had several days of preaching commitments and now am in Arizona for a week of continuing education, so please bear with the scarcity of my comments in the excellent discussions of our group.
Genesis 8-10
Good morning and welcome to Day 3 of the Daily Bible! By now you’re starting to get a sense of Genesis and this group. While such a survey of ancient texts can be daunting, I hope the presence of one another is helping you stick with it. Don’t feel like you have to agree with, defend or understand every part of what you’re reading. Look for what catches your imagination, or what brings a glint of excitement or mystery, like a crystal in the window. This experience is about building our confidence that there is treasure worth finding in the Bible, even when the going is rough. And I love that we’re able to gain more insights together—we got this!
Genesis 5-7 (January 2)
Good morning, and thank you for coming back to a second day of reading the Bible. This could become a habit! 🙂
Today’s passage is Genesis 5-7, and it leads us into one central story (rather than the 3-4 powerful narratives that piled on in yesterday’s reading). Chapter 5 brings us from the first humans to the story of Noah and the great flood. I wouldn’t get hung up on the literal ages of people here—these are not medical records!—but I’d love to know your thoughts on what lasting significance there could be for these passages that are nothing more than recitations of names. And perhaps those who are more familiar with the Jewish tradition than I will share a bit of the mythology that’s grown up around Enoch because of what’s described in 5:24.
Genesis 1-4 (January 1)
Good morning, and Happy New Year! I’m grateful for your interest in this daily reading of the Bible together in 2016, and am excited to get started! We start today with the book of Genesis, at the beginning of the first five books of the Bible (often also called the Torah). Genesis contains creation stories, prehistoric myths, and family narratives of those who will become the ancestors of the Hebrew and Christian faiths. Continue reading “Genesis 1-4 (January 1)”
Introduction to Daily Bible
Welcome to Daily Bible, my effort to share insights while reading the Bible from cover to cover in the course of a year. I hope you’ll find my introductory comments helpful enough to inspire your own reading. You don’t have to start at the beginning–jump in wherever you like, and we can be a reading community together. I appreciate the connections you notice and share in the comments below. I also welcome your challenges and critiques, to which I will add my own. The ancient texts we read now are not infallible–only God is God. However, the Bible does record human efforts to describe God’s activity through the centuries. God still speaks today through the Bible, which becomes (holy) Scripture as readers like us find in its pages God’s wisdom for our own time. Continue reading “Introduction to Daily Bible”
Good News Can’t Wait
Community United Church of Christ (Saint Paul Park, Minnesota)
Text: Mark 1:1-20
These days after Christmas are a little treasure that I often forget about. They exist here in an overlooked space on the calendar, a quiet little valley between the mountain peaks of Christmas and New Years. Everyone is so hurried and busy before Christmas: buying presents and wrapping them, putting up trees, making family arrangements, planning meals, and visiting loved ones. But now, when the presents have been opened, family visits are concluding, and enough sweets have been consumed to send us all into comas, we experience what feels like real Sabbath. When Christmas comes on a Friday like this year, most of us get several days before we have to go back to work, before the stock market opens again, and before we have to file year-end reports. These days of leisure following Christmas are something like the “vacation after vacation” which we long for at other times of the year. Continue reading “Good News Can’t Wait”
Pastor Oby Ballinger 