Two year Bible reading program.

Congratulation on finishing the two year Bible reading program!! If you want to do it again or have friends who would like to, I won't be republishing things every day. However, if you go to this link , you can access each day as an individual pdf, according to the date in the file title: eg. "20180101 - Two year Bible reading program" is that of 1 January in the first year (which was 2018). BEGIN WITH PRAYER "Lord open my eyes and my heart." Read slowly so that you take in. And as you do, turn your heart to God, thanking him for the good you discover and praying his will home for you, your family, your church and the world. Wisdom to chew on The wife of nobel character... Proverbs 31:29-31 Understanding to grow in What a way to end. We started with a pair as God's people, we end with a great multitude. We started in a garden as God's place, we end in a flourishing and renewed creation. We started with a pair obeying God with...

This reading program finishes tomorrow! If you want to do it again or have friends who would like to, I won't be republishing things every day. However, if you go to this link , you can access each day as an individual pdf, according to the date in the file title: eg. "20180101 - Two year Bible reading program" is that of 1 January in the first year (which was 2018). BEGIN WITH PRAYER "Lord open my eyes and my heart." Read slowly so that you take in. And as you do, turn your heart to God, thanking him for the good you discover and praying his will home for you, your family, your church and the world. Wisdom to chew on The wife of nobel character... Proverbs 31:27-28 Understanding to grow in Christ will be victorious. That a key message of Revelation. However much that may not feel the case when Christians suffer, we have seen how it all ends. Jesus wins. The rest of chapter 19 sets that out vividly with this vision of Christ as king of king...

BEGIN WITH PRAYER "Lord open my eyes and my heart." Read slowly so that you take in. And as you do, turn your heart to God, thanking him for the good you discover and praying his will home for you, your family, your church and the world. Wisdom to chew on The wife of nobel character... Proverbs 31:26 Understanding to grow in Now Babylon is the focus. She is a prostitute, intoxicating earthly rulers and peoples and drawing their love away from the Christ who should be their "husband" (19v7). Her prostitution seems to be that of taking their wealth in trade and feeding their immorality in return (17v4). But she is also the persecutor of God's people. What follows is hard to understand. She seems to be identified with Rome, which was said to sit on seven hills and ruled throughout the earth (17v9, 18). She rides the satanic beast (anti-Christ) in the sense that she is upheld by his power and reflects his stance to Christ - a power and stance to b...

BEGIN WITH PRAYER "Lord open my eyes and my heart." Read slowly so that you take in. And as you do, turn your heart to God, thanking him for the good you discover and praying his will home for you, your family, your church and the world. Wisdom to chew on The wife of nobel character... Proverbs 31:25 Understanding to grow in Some see these seven bowls as describing what was seen in the seven trumpets, but with differing emphases. However, with them we are told God's wrath "is completed" (15v1). So, to my mind, they describe an intensification of what took place with the seven trumpets, as final judgments that will come just before the seventh is blown and Christ returns. Those who have withstood Satan throughout history are pictured worshipping God for his awesome acts of judgment. They are safe in heaven, witnessing God's anger being poured out on those on earth who worship the dragon. Yet still these refuse to repent (16v9-11). Towards t...

BEGIN WITH PRAYER "Lord open my eyes and my heart." Read slowly so that you take in. And as you do, turn your heart to God, thanking him for the good you discover and praying his will home for you, your family, your church and the world. Wisdom to chew on The wife of nobel character... Proverbs 31:24 Understanding to grow in If you're doing this program in a year, today should be Christmas Day. And it's quite an appropriate reading. The woman is Israel, giving birth to Christ as prophesied in Psalm 2v9. But Satan and the angels (stars) who fell with him seek to devour him. Christ, however, ascends to heaven and the Jewish people end in a wilderness place for the three and a half years that mark the church age - the time of persecution (12v17). What follows implies that during Christ's ministry or at his ascension, the dragon and his angels were defeated, and are now overcome as God's people are cleansed by Christ's blood and stand firm i...

BEGIN WITH PRAYER "Lord open my eyes and my heart." Read slowly so that you take in. And as you do, turn your heart to God, thanking him for the good you discover and praying his will home for you, your family, your church and the world. Wisdom to chew on The wife of nobel character... Proverbs 31:23 Understanding to grow in These chapters need more explanation. They give pause to help us understand what is happening to the church whilst the events so far have been taking place. Before the seventh and final trumpet is sounded a majestic angel declares that "the mystery of God" will be accomplished. Throughout the New Testament, this is his purpose of gathering those from Jew and Gentile to faith in Christ. The angel combines the earlier descriptions of God and of Christ (10v1,3 with 4v3, 5v5), so may be Christ himself or a representative of him. As Christ opened a scroll in chapter 5 detailing the events of history, the scroll John takes from angel...

BEGIN WITH PRAYER "Lord open my eyes and my heart." Read slowly so that you take in. And as you do, turn your heart to God, thanking him for the good you discover and praying his will home for you, your family, your church and the world. Wisdom to chew on The wife of nobel character... Proverbs 31:22 Understanding to grow in Many see each of the 7s (seals, trumpets etc) to cover the entire church age rather than follow one-another. My increasing conviction is that each 7 fits within the final 7 of the previous set, so taking us closer and closer to the return of Christ and renewal of all things. So as the seventh seal is opened, there is silence to mark the solemnity of what is about to take place. The prayers of God's people as seen to rise (probably their cries for justice, as 6v9-10) and judgment is then dispensed on the world in response. In other words, the trumpet events are realeased by the opening of the 7th seal. The significance of trumpets is...

BEGIN WITH PRAYER "Lord open my eyes and my heart." Read slowly so that you take in. And as you do, turn your heart to God, thanking him for the good you discover and praying his will home for you, your family, your church and the world. Wisdom to chew on The wife of nobel character... Proverbs 31:21 Understanding to grow in The harsh realities of history should not surprise us. They are no surprise to the Lord. Note 6v1. It is the lamb (Jesus) who opens the seals that loose the various judgments on the earth: conquest, violence, famine, death, and with it the persecution of God's people who cry out for justice when in heaven. In marking the seven almost complete, the sixth seal seems to bring cosmic upheaval (whether purely symbolic or partially literal) that cause the most mighty and most lowly to seek shelter from the wrath of God and the lamb that is about to be dispensed at the end of history. The point is that God's people are about to get the...

BEGIN WITH PRAYER "Lord open my eyes and my heart." Read slowly so that you take in. And as you do, turn your heart to God, thanking him for the good you discover and praying his will home for you, your family, your church and the world. Wisdom to chew on The wife of nobel character... Proverbs 31:20 Understanding to grow in Jesus is the centre of all history. That's the point. There's too much symbolism to explain it all. But we are told what follows shows what will take place "after" (4v1) the details outlined to the churches - ie. in subsequent history. John sees inside heaven a scene that reflected the design of Israel's tabernacle that was to be a copy of heaven (Heb 8v5). The unapproachable holiness of God is emphasized, separated from his creation by a sea of glass, with a rainbow backdrop reminding us of his promise to Noah. This is our creator. Around him are 24 elders that probably represent the complete people of God (Israel...

BEGIN WITH PRAYER "Lord open my eyes and my heart." Read slowly so that you take in. And as you do, turn your heart to God, thanking him for the good you discover and praying his will home for you, your family, your church and the world. Wisdom to chew on The wife of nobel character... Proverbs 31:19 Understanding to grow in These letters come to angels as representatives of churches (some think they symbolise key leaders). The number "7" represents completion, so the 7 churches probably represent churches throughout the world and in every age. Each letter contains a statement picking up an aspect of John's vision of Jesus in chapter 1, a commendation and/or rebuke, action to be taken, and an encouragement to those who perseve in faith until the end. A key point is that Jesus' presence amongst his churches means that he sees and knows all that we do - what we suffer for his sake, and how we sin. The letters therefore urge Christians today ...

BEGIN WITH PRAYER "Lord open my eyes and my heart." Read slowly so that you take in. And as you do, turn your heart to God, thanking him for the good you discover and praying his will home for you, your family, your church and the world. Wisdom to chew on The wife of nobel character... Proverbs 31:18 Understanding to grow in We must remember that Jesus is a lion as well as a lamb, awesome as well as meek. The one who displayed such humility on earth is now glorified in heaven. And that's what we see at the beginning of this book, which was written perhaps as late as the 90s AD. It opens telling us it is a prophecy given from the Lord Jesus through an angel speaking to John in a vision. It's visionary nature alerts us to the fact that it is highly symbolic. So its images aren't necessary to be taken literally, but we should ponder the realities they reflect. The book is to show Christ's servants "what must soon take place" (1v1). Bu...