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.

Continue reading “Genesis 15-17” →

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.

Continue reading “Genesis 11-14” →

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!

Continue reading “Genesis 8-10” →

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.

Continue reading “Genesis 5-7 (January 2)” →

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)” →

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” →