Month: May 2018

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Bible Challenge 37: Messiah – The Kingdom of Heaven

 

What was Messiah about?  His contemporaries thought he was all about restoring the Kingdom to Israel, in political terms, and it seems they were half right.  Because as soon as he began his ministry, he kept mentioning the “kingdom”: a phenomenon right around the corner that demanded repentance.  But too much of what he said didn’t make sense.  The kingdom was here, but it was secret.  Its essence was not exaltation, but humility.  One had to go down in order to go up.  And it seemed whenever anyone had a pointed question, he answered with a story.  What sort of kingdom was this?

And what sort of king?

For a free download of this week’s challenge, including scripture passages to read, questions to think about, and activities for the family, click below:

Bible Reading Challenge Week 37: Messiah – The Kingdom of Heaven

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 36: Messiah – Baptism & Temptation

Next: Week 38: Messiah – Signs & Wonders

 

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Bible Challenge Week 36: Messiah – Baptism & Temptation

One day a man walked down to the river to be baptized by John.  Multitudes were doing the same: John was a sensation.  The man caught no one’s eye but John’s–was the Baptist already familiar with him, or did they just meet?  Had the man spent his earlier adult years among the Essenes or some other holy separatist group, or was he quietly working in his father’s carpenter shop?  No one can say.  Except for one striking incident in Jerusalem, recorded by Luke (who probably got it from his mother), Messiah had lived his life in the shadows, like the vast majority of Galileans.  Then he stepped out of the crowd.

What did his baptism mean?  And the strange interlude in the wilderness that happened directly after–what was that about?

John was famous; this man was not.  But John was continually pointing to someone coming along after him, and now Someone was here.  But where would he go next?  John had his own ideas, but even though he was the greatest of the prophets, those ideas turned out to be wrong . . .

For the .pdf download of this week’s reading  challenge, with scripture passages, thought questions, and activities, click here:

Bible Reading Challenge Week 36:

Messiah – Baptism & Temptation

 

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 35: Messiah – Baptism and Temptation

Next: Week 37: Messiah – The Kingdom of Heaven

 

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Bible Challenge Week 35: Messiah – Birth & Boyhood

“The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come into his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.”  Malachi, the last prophet and the last book of the Old Testament, rang with that expectation.  And the people were looking to the temple.  They had a beautiful sight to look to: all marble and gold, the pride of Jerusalem.

The Lord came suddenly, but not to the temple they were looking toward.  The glory they expected appeared behind them, in the skies over Bethlehem.

They were longing for the “day of the Lord” that Amos and other prophets assured them was coming.  Instead, the Lord himself came.  It’s a familiar story, but it should always surprise us.

For a .pdf download of this week’s challenge, with Old and New Testament scripture passages, thought questions, and activities, click below:

Bible Reading Challenge Week 35: Messiah – Birth & Boyhood

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 34: Messiah – The Forerunner

Next: Week 35: Messiah – Baptism & Temptation

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Bible Challenge Week 34: Messiah – The Forerunner

This week we turn a page–literally.  And we turn an age.

When we left the Israelites in Babylon, they were no longer Israelites.  Instead they were called “Jews,” a name derived from the last tribe to claim its own territory: Judah.  The Jews were allowed to return to their capitol city and take up temple worship again–as soon as the temple was restored.  Also, they were apparently no longer tempted to combine worship of the Lord with rites for the pagan gods around them.  Malachi, the last prophet, had other complaints to make against them, and after him the Lord was silent for 450 years.

But the last book of the Old Testament ends with a specific promise: the promise of a blazing “day of the Lord” to be preceded by the prophet Elijah.  Does that mean Elijah, first of the prophetic age, would be resurrected to bring about a new age?  450 years of wondering followed Malachi, and 450 years of expectations about what this day, and this prophet would look like.

“For behold the day is coming, burning like an oven . . .” Mal. 4:1

As usual, God kept his word.  But not in the way that anyone expected.

For this week’s Bible Challenge, with scripture passages, discussion questions, and activities, chick below:

Bible Reading Challenge Week 34: MESSIAH – THE FORERUNNER *

*Please note: In the .pdf I mis-identified Herod as a Samaritan.  He was actually an Idumean, or Edomite (descendant of Esau), raised as a Jew.

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 33: Prophets – Daniel

Next: Week 35: Messiah – Birth & Boyhood

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Bible Challenge Week 33: The Prophets – Daniel

“Daniel in the Lion’s Den” is one of the first Bible stories every child knows.  His book contains more biographical material than any other prophet except Jonah: we know his social class, his country of origin, his career, his titles.  He was an aristocrat, an administrator, a seer, and an exile.  His story is much like Joseph’s, although his perilous pit occured near the end of life rather than the beginning.

His prophesies are very different from the rest of the Majors and Minors–they actually foretell the future!  Even if somewhat cryptically.  Daniel’s visions are called “apocryphal” because they foretell cataclysmic events in an undetermined future time–maybe even the end of time.  Without getting caught up in the meaning of mixed-metal statues and multi-mouthed beasts, we can appreciate that Daniel’s life occurs near one of those hinges of history: the last, or almost the last, prophetic voice to speak before a long stretch of silence.  And then the prophesies begin to come true . . .

For this week’s reading challenge, with scripture references, discussion questions, and activities, click below:

Bible Reading Challenge 33: The Prophets – Daniel

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 32: the Prophets – Ezekiel

Next: Week 34: Messiah I – the Forerunner