Reader: Take note! 38-59

Greetings and welcome to this third edition of the Reader: Take Note series. This is an occasional series of podcasts aimed at providing extra commentary and encouragement for those following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. No matter where you are in the reading calendar, I hope that the things I share in this episode will support the idea that God’s Word has many treasures for us, and it always pays to dig deeper.

In this episode I will discuss

* my mistake in the last Take Note podcast,

* things modern readers may miss in the story of the 10 plagues in Egypt,

* why the descriptions of the construction of the Tabernacle are so hard to visualize,

* which order were the synoptic Gospels written in?

* and two verses that are difficult to translate in Luke.

Did you catch my mistake in the last Take Note podcast? I said that John the Baptist’s father (Zechariah) quoted from Malakai 4, about ‘NLT'07 Malachi 4:6:

6 His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. …

Zechariah actually said,

GW'20 Luke 1:76:
76 “You, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High. You will go ahead of the Lord to prepare his way.

His words are reminiscent of Malachi 3-4. But the one who actually quoted Malakai 4:6 was the angel Gabriel, who (speaking to Mary about Jesus) said,

GW'20 Luke 1:17:
17 He will go ahead of the Lord with the spirit and power that Elijah had. He will change parents’ attitudes toward their children. He will change disobedient people so that they will accept the wisdom of those who have God’s approval. In this way he will prepare the people for their Lord.”

If you have questions or comments, or corrections to what I have said, my favorite way for you to send messages to me is via the contact button at dailybiblereading.info. I’m always interested to hear your thoughts.

Let’s open to Exodus 3— if you happen to have a Bible handy and are not listening to this while driving. When we were checking our translation of Exodus with a consultant (Norm Mundhenk by name), he showed us several things I had never noticed. In the story of the burning bush:

NLT'07 Exodus 3:2-4:
2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in amazement. Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn’t burn up. 3 “This is amazing,” Moses said to himself. “Why isn’t that bush burning up? I must go see it.” 4 When the LORD saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” “Here I am!” Moses replied.

So who is in the bush, the angel or God? The interesting observation here is that Moses seems not to like having the Lord do things that are physical or visible, such as making a bush be on fire. In this story, the angel messenger never speaks, but

GW'20 Exodus 3:5-6:
5 God said, “Don’t come any closer! Take off your sandals because this place where you are standing is holy ground. 6 I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.

Another example is found in chapter 14:

NLT'07 Exodus 14:19-20:
19 Then the angel of God, who had been leading the people of Israel, moved to the rear of the camp. The pillar of cloud also moved from the front and stood behind them. 20 The cloud settled between the Egyptian and Israelite camps. As darkness fell, the cloud turned to fire, lighting up the night. But the Egyptians and Israelites did not approach each other all night.

The angel of the Lord made the very visible pillar of cloud and fire, but just a few verses later:

NLT'07 Exodus 14:23-25:
23 Then the Egyptians— all of Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and charioteers— chased them into the middle of the sea. 24 But just before dawn the LORD looked down on the Egyptian army from the pillar of fire and cloud, and he threw their forces into total confusion. 25 He twisted their chariot wheels, making their chariots difficult to drive. “Let’s get out of here— away from these Israelites!” the Egyptians shouted. “The LORD is fighting for them against Egypt!”

There are Bibles that capitalize the word for Angel in these cases where God is so closely connected with some physical manifestation. In Genesis the same thing happens. When angels appear, they most often speak God’s words directly using the first person for God. Now the word in both Hebrew and Greek that we translate as ‘angel’ means messenger. In later OT books (and especially Daniel) angels are indeed just that, messengers, and sometimes even with names, who speak about the Lord in the third person.

Now let’s look at the 10 plagues that God wreaked upon Egypt. Our consultant, Norm, had us compare the similarities and differences in

* location, at the river, or more likely at the palace?

* Whose staff was used, Moses’ or Aaron’s? Or did God say to lift up their hands, or did Moses just pray?

* the magicians’ reaction, or the reaction of Pharaoh’s officials

* Pharaoh's reaction, in particular, Did Pharaoh harden his own heart, or did God do that?

If you do the analysis, you will notice patterns and a crescendo building toward the 10th plague.

Then there is something I only recently learned from a different source: I perhaps heard in a sermon, but never remember looking into the claim that each of the 10 plagues showed that God is more powerful than Egypt’s gods. Rather than repeating information penned by others, let me suggest that you search on the Internet for ‘ten plagues of Egypt’ and choose the article by GotQuestions.org, or find the link here in the episode notes:

https://www.gotquestions.org/ten-plagues-Egypt.html

This site also has a beautifully done video with the same information as their excellent article.

I find the 9th plague particularly interesting:

“The ninth plague, darkness, was aimed at the sun god, Re, who was symbolized by Pharaoh himself. For three days, the land of Egypt was smothered with an unearthly darkness, but the homes of the Israelites had light.”

“The tenth and last plague, the death of the firstborn males, was a judgment on Isis, the protector of children.”

Remember that Pharaoh’ own son and heir to his throne died on that night. (Ex. 11:5)

Next, have you ever had trouble visualizing the sacred tent or tabernacle? I certainly have! Let’s concentrate on chapter 26:1-6. 

Exo 26:1-6: "“Moreover, you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet yarns; you shall make them with cherubim skillfully worked into them. The length of each curtain shall be twenty-eight cubits, and the breadth of each curtain four cubits; all the curtains shall be the same size. Five curtains shall be coupled to one another, and the other five curtains shall be coupled to one another. And you shall make loops of blue on the edge of the outermost curtain in the first set. Likewise you shall make loops on the edge of the outermost curtain in the second set. Fifty loops you shall make on the one curtain, and fifty loops you shall make on the edge of the curtain that is in the second set; the loops shall be opposite one another. And you shall make fifty clasps of gold, and couple the curtains one to the other with the clasps, so that the tabernacle may be a single whole."

One of the problems is that the Lord (or Moses) didn’t organize the material to make it easy to understand for those who didn’t get to see the virtual guided tour or YouTube shown to Moses up on Mount Sinai. (Actually, I am sure that Moses was shown something much better than a YouTube.) First we are told to make ten curtains of linen that are 42 feet by 6 feet. These sheets are called ‘curtains’ by both ESV and NLT. So I ask you, when I say ‘curtain’ do you envision something laying horizontally or hanging vertically? My problem in understanding started here, because these are not curtains that hang vertically, but would be better called sheets of cloth that lay over something. These sheets will lay over a framework to make the roof and hang down over the walls on the north and south, and also on the west. The front door faces east.

Then the text says that the curtains were joined together on ‘one side’. Because of the word curtain, I always imagined joining the long sheets on the short side, and imagined we were making the curtain fence that was made to surround the Tabernacle. That is wrong again. The Hebrew text never clearly says, but these 42 foot long sheets were actually joined on the long side. That's why joining them required 50 clasps. To me, it helps a lot to simply say right from the beginning of the description that all this is to make the roof of the Tabernacle.

There are also other things that are not clear. The Hebrew text doesn’t specifically say that they were to ‘sew’ the 10 sheets into two sets. The Hebrew says they would be ‘joined’ or ‘attached’. The ten sheets were probably sewn together, with five in each set, sewn along the long edge. Each set would then measure 42 feet by 30 feet. 

Above the linen layer, there was a slightly bigger goat's hair layer. Over those two layers of cloth, they made a ram’s skin leather layer. The skins were dyed red. Think how many male lambs were sacrificed to make that?! Then a mysterious final layer was placed on top of that. We really don’t know how to translate the material for the top layer. It has been translated as fine goat’s skin, or as sea cow hide. The way we translated it (since no one  knows what it was made of) is to say that it was ‘water proof leather’.

Now that you understand about the 4 layers of the roof and walls, let’s take another look at the linen cloth. The NLT says,

NLT'07 Exodus 26:1:
1 “Make the Tabernacle from ten curtains of finely woven linen. Decorate the curtains with blue, purple, and scarlet thread and with skillfully embroidered cherubim.

The Hebrew text is not clear that the pattern was applied by embroidering. Think of the 42 by 30 foot long sheets being spread out over a frame that is 15 feet high. Inevitably there would be a lot of rubbing and friction on the decorated surface of the cloth due to frequent disassembly and reassembly. If the design was embroidered, it would quickly become abraded. Instead, I propose that the beautiful designs of blue, purple, and scarlet were woven directly into the fabric. As we worked on this book with our translation consultant, we found evidence that Egyptians of this period had linen cloth with elaborate woven designs. The Hebrew slaves would likely have been involved in this art.

Note also, whether or not the design was woven into the material, it would take a seriously big loom to make 6 foot wide bolts of cloth. Where would the Israelites have gotten all the tools to make bronze castings, and to engrave gemstones, and to weave cloth? Think how magnificent the visual result would have been!

Someone with the initials R W has created 12 wonderful Youtube videos of the Tabernacle construction. You can find them by searching for ‘Youtube 3D Tabernacle The boards’ and especially see ‘Youtube 3D Tabernacle The curtains’. This is a series of 12 videos. 

Now I want to shift our attention to the Gospel of Luke. In the last episode in the Take Note series, I mentioned that I was reading a book entitled Perspectives on the Ending of Mark. The last chapter in that book is by David Alan Black. He defended his position supporting the longer ending of Mark based on evidence for the order of the writing of the first three Gospels. Let me very briefly summarize.

According to some ancient sources, Mattew was written first, and written at a time when most believers were from a Jewish background. That Gospel was carried far and wide as Christianity spread. 

However, as Paul spread the Gospel among the non-Jews in far away places, the need became increasingly apparent for a Gospel to be told from a Greek world view, instead of the Jewish world view. Luke came with Paul to Jerusalem as one of those who brought financial help to the believers. (Acts 20) He evidently stayed in the area during Paul’s two year imprisonment, which is the most likely time for him to pen his Gospel. One wonders how often Luke came to Caesarea to visit Paul and share about his research, such as interviewing Mary the mother of Jesus, and other early followers of Jesus. It might be that Paul was the one who asked Luke to write his own well-researched account. All the exact details that Luke included would appeal to Greek readers. Luke followed much of the outline of events as given by Matthew, with a notable exception in the accounts of John the Baptist’s and Jesus’ birth.

If Luke took the draft of his Gospel on the voyage to Rome, I wonder how he kept it dry in the shipwreck at Malta! Somehow he must have. The problem, as Black reconstructs the situation, is that a Gospel from a non-witness like Luke would not have been accepted well, so Luke delayed the release of his Gospel. During some part of the time that Paul was in Rome, Peter was there as well, along with Mark. So Black further posits that Paul arranged with Peter to have public lectures in Rome where Matthew’s account of a portion would be read, then Luke’s account, and afterward Peter would give his recollections of the same event. I would have loved to be present at those lectures!

Evidently in Rome, there were scribes that were experts at shorthand. Black again posits that one such person was employed to write down Peter’s words. That account, then could be used by Mark to write his Gospel, which everyone recognizes shows Peter’s influence. This explains why events where Peter was not present (like the birth of Jesus) are not told in Mark’s Gospel. The ordering of Matthew first, Luke second being based on Matthew, and Mark third based on Peter’s reactions to both Matthew and Luke— does a fair job of answering why various details are differently related between the three accounts.

Well, you may remember that I started the Digging Deeper Reading plan with Mark as the first NT book in the year because I said that it was written first. It turns out that there are various theories.

A remark by Augustine of Hippo at the beginning of the fifth century presents the gospels as composed in their canonical order (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), with each evangelist thoughtfully building upon and supplementing the work of his predecessor. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoptic_Gospels#:~:text=A%20remark%20by%20Augustine%20of,hypothesis%20(Matthew%E2%80%93Mark).)

However another wikipedia article under the title of Marcan priority, states that 

The tradition handed down by the Church Fathers regarded Matthew as the first Gospel written.[3] This view of Gospel origins, however, began to be challenged in the late 18th century, when Gottlob Christian Storr proposed in 1786 that Mark was the first to be written.[4][5]

Gottlob Storr’s opinion was largely ignored for a while, and then picked up and debated. And by the time of the last century, the Wikipedia article states:

Many scholars in the twentieth century regarded Marcan priority as no longer just a hypothesis, but an established fact.[14]

So it turns out that the theory I took as ‘an established fact’, which I picked up from various sources, was really 20th century opinion. But that opinion was strongly influenced by the scepticism of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Dr. Black’s reconstruction of the order of writing is supported by writings of Eusebius, who is a far earlier source than the experts of just 170 years ago. Eusebius of Caesarea (260/265—339/340 AD), EH6.14.5–7, speaking of (*?no longer extant) writings of Clement (35-99 AD) states

5 Again, in the same books, Clement gives the tradition of the earliest presbyters, as to the order of the Gospels, in the following manner:

6 The Gospels containing the genealogies, he says, were written first. The Gospel according to Mark had this occasion. As Peter had preached the Word publicly at Rome, and declared the Gospel by the Spirit, many who were present requested that Mark, who had followed him for a long time and remembered his sayings, should write them out. And having composed the Gospel he gave it to those who had requested it.

7 When Peter learned of this, he neither directly forbade nor encouraged it. …

I think Eusebius is right, and probably Dr. Black has perhaps filled in too many details, but is pointing us in the right direction. It just goes to show: In the realm of historical information circulating about the Bible, ideas regarded as established facts in our time are often just opinions currently in vogue.

Because I have mentioned reading a book or two, I want to admit that I seldom sit down to read books. But wonder of wonder, I am actually in the process of reading another book. It is How People Grow, by Dr Henry Cloud and Dr. John Towns. I have been so impressed with this book that a few days ago I ordered 5 copies to give away. Lots of authors share how to make your life better or how to become a more effective person. But these two authors have a breadth of counselling experience and they have learned Biblical principles that actually work. It turns out that how people grow is related to how our Creator has made us, plus other principles found in God’s Word. Even at 71 years old, I want to keep growing. I hope you do too.

GW’20
Luk 11:34-36: "Your [eyes are//eye is] the lamp of your body. When your [eyes are//eye is] healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when [they are//it is] bad,** your body is full of darkness. 35 Therefore be careful lest the light in you [become//be] darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.”"

**Translation note: The Greek use the singular eye (ὀφθαλμός), but there is no reason to not use plural in our translation, as this is more natural, and Luke would have used plural had he been writing in English.

Footnote in our Indonesian translation:

eyes are bad Literally, “your eyes are evil/diseased.” Jesus was speaking to the Jewish leaders, including the members of the Pharisees and the Law experts. In the context of this chapter, we see that they had seen many miracles which proved that Jesus was sent by God, but it’s as if they became blind to all of those miracles. (11:29-30) In fact, they say that He worked by the devil’s power. Bad eyes are also frequently interpreted as meaning greedy for money, as in Matt. 6:19-24. See Luke also 16:14.

GW'20 Luke 14:34-35:
34 “Salt is good. But if salt loses its taste, how will you restore its flavor? 35 It’s not any good for the ground or for the manure pile. People throw it away. “Let the person who has ears listen!”

Many people can’t fathom how salt could lose its flavor. Modern pure white salt crystals never lose their flavor. But when we were living with the Orya people, they had salt that could lose its flavor. Out in the forest, around a hundred miles from the coast, there are salt springs. Back in the early 1980’s when we first were there, the people would still go out to the spring and boil salt water in pans until the water would evaporate and salt would be left. The water was not clean and smoke went into the pan, so the resultant salt was black and gritty with impurities. They kept it wrapped in leaves hanging over their cooking fire, so that it would stay dry. They called it ‘black salt’. In the tropical climate, black salt that wasn’t kept dry would collect moisture and the salt water would drip out. If that happened, all that was left was slightly salty black sand. Just like Jesus said, it is good for nothing and people throw it away.

But what’s the point? Why did Jesus give this teaching about salt? For people groups who have trouble figuring out why Jesus would talk about salt (and who don’t figure out that He is speaking figuratively), translators can explicitly give a hint: “You are like salt.”

ESV Colossians 4:6:
6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Jesus finished his teaching with a favorite saying of his, and I have found it very hard to translate. 

ESV Luke 14:35b:
He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

This memorable saying always comes at the end of something Jesus is teaching. It is pointing backwards. In other words: “Listen to that, what I just said.”

Here’s how we translated those verses in Orya and Indonesian:

34 “Each of you who follows Me is like salt. Of course, salt is used to make food tastier. But if its taste has disappeared, the salt won’t be useful at all,

35 either for the field or as fertilizer. In the end such salt is just thrown out.

“Don’t let that last teaching of mine go in your right ear and out your left! Meditate on it.”

Let’s pray:

Truly, Father, please transform us so that we might be called the salt of the earth and lights in this world. Please help us to keep our spiritual eyes clear. When we have opportunities to give a word of testimony about You or don’t know what to say to people, we pray that you would bring to mind what we have read from your Word. Teach us how to keep your Word in mind and to meditate on it. We pray that we would have the joy of feeling your presence as we lean and rely on You.

Amen.

May the Lord bless you ‘real good’.

Check out this episode!

Reader: Take note, Days 15-27

Reader: take note, for days 15-37

Greetings and welcome to this second edition of the Reader: Take Note series. This is an occasional series aimed at providing extra commentary and encouragement for those following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. No matter where you are in the reading calendar, I hope that the things I share in this episode will support the idea that God’s Word has many treasures for us, and it always pays to dig deeper.

If you have questions or comments, my favorite way for you to send messages to me is via the contact button at dailybiblereading.info. I’m always interested to hear your thoughts.

On day one of our journey I mentioned Solomon in connection to Job. I challenge you to find similarities to Solomon’s writings in Job, in particular, I am most often thinking of Ecclesiastes. Actually, not all commentators think that Solomon was the writer of Ecclesiastes. But that need not concern us. As for Job, I found in a Wikipedia article that scholars consider that Job was written surprisingly late, from the 7th to 4th century BC. However Solomon lived in the 10th century BC. Other writers think the writing of Job to far predate Soloman. So far I have found no one who supports my hypothesis that Solomon wrote the book of Job. Nevertheless, let’s look at some parallels.

Job hated his life and so did Solomon.
GW'20 Job 7:16:

16 I hate my life; I do not want to live forever. Leave me alone because my days are so brief.

GW'20 Job 9:21:

21 If I am a man of integrity, I have no way of knowing it. I hate my life!

GW'20 Job 10:1:

1 “I hate my life. I will freely express my complaint. I will speak as bitterly as I feel.

GW'20 Ecclesiastes 2:17:

17 So I came to hate life because everything done under the sun seemed wrong to me. Everything was pointless. ⌞It was like⌟ trying to catch the wind.

GW'20 Ecclesiastes 2:18:

18 I came to hate everything for which I had worked so hard under the sun, because I will have to leave it to the person who replaces me.

Both Job and Solomon complained that life is hard and futile.

GW'20 Job 7:1-4:

1 “Isn’t a mortal’s stay on earth difficult like a hired hand’s daily ⌞work⌟? 2 Like a slave, he longs for shade. Like a hired hand, he eagerly looks for his pay. 3 Likewise, I have been given months that are of no use, and I have inherited nights filled with misery. 4 When I lie down, I ask, ‘When will I get up?’ But the evening is long, and I’m exhausted from tossing about until dawn.

GW'20 Ecclesiastes 1:2-3:

2 “Absolutely pointless!” says the spokesman. “Absolutely pointless! Everything is pointless.” 3 What do people gain from all their hard work under the sun?

Job chapter 9 is full of the idea that it is futile to argue with God, which agrees with Solomon’s complaints.

GW'20 Job 9:14-22:

14 “How can I possibly answer God? How can I find the right words ⌞to speak⌟ with him? 15 Even if I were right, I could not answer ⌞him⌟. I would have to plead for mercy from my judge. 16 If I cried out and he answered me, I do not believe that he would listen to me. 17 He would knock me down with a storm and bruise me without a reason. 18 He would not let me catch my breath. He fills me with bitterness. 19 If it is a matter of strength, then he is the mighty one. If it is about justice, who will charge me with a crime? 20 If I am righteous, my own mouth would condemn me. It would declare that I am corrupt even if I am a man of integrity. 21 If I am a man of integrity, I have no way of knowing it. I hate my life! 22 It is all the same. That is why I say, ‘He destroys ⌞both⌟ the man of integrity and the wicked.’

GW'20 Ecclesiastes 7:13-15:

13 Consider what God has done! Who can straighten what God has bent? 14 When times are good, be happy. But when times are bad, consider this: God has made the one time as well as the other so that mortals cannot predict their future. 15 I have seen it all in my pointless life: Righteous people die in spite of being righteous. Wicked people go on living in spite of being wicked.

Unique in Job: The need for a mediator

Job 9:32-33: "A human like me cannot answer God, ‘Let’s take our case to court.’ There is no mediator between us to put his hand on both of us."

Uncertainty of an afterlife

Job 14:10,14: "But a human dies and is powerless. A person breathes his last breath, and where is he? … “If a person dies, will he go on living? I will wait for my relief to come as long as my hard labor continues."

Eccl 3:19-22: "Humans and animals have the same destiny. One dies just like the other. All of them have the same breath ⌞of life⌟. Humans have no advantage over animals. All ⌞of life⌟ is pointless. All ⌞life⌟ goes to the same place. All ⌞life⌟ comes from the ground, and all of it goes back to the ground. Who knows whether a human spirit goes upward or whether an animal spirit goes downward to the earth? I saw that there’s nothing better for people to do than to enjoy their work because that is their lot ⌞in life⌟. Who will allow them to see what will happen after them?"

The wicked often have seemingly blessed lives

Job 21:7-8,13: "“Why do the wicked go on living, grow old, and even become more powerful? They see their children firmly established with them, and they get to see their descendants. … They spend their days in happiness, and they go peacefully to the grave."

Eccl 8:10: NLT "I have seen wicked people buried with honor. Yet they were the very ones who frequented the Temple and are now praised in the same city where they committed their crimes! This, too, is meaningless."

Eccl 8:14: NLT "And this is not all that is meaningless in our world. In this life, good people are often treated as though they were wicked, and wicked people are often treated as though they were good. This is so meaningless!"

Where is wisdom found?

Job 12:12,16: "“Wisdom is with the ancient one. The one who has had many days has insight. … “God has power and priceless wisdom. He owns ⌞both⌟ the deceiver and the person who is deceived."

Job 28:28: "So he told humans, ‘The fear of the Lord is wisdom! To stay away from evil is understanding.’ ”"

See all of chapter 28.

There are many verses like that in Proverbs 1-9. I will quote only the most famous:

Prov 9:10: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. The knowledge of the Holy One is understanding."

We see in these examples that Job is a book to display the author’s struggle with accepting the boundaries that have been placed on human existence by God. This book is much more than just a debate on why God allows good people to suffer.

For any of my listeners who actually say, “I hate my life,” I beg you to remember these points:

• God has given these books of wisdom to help you, and particularly to tell you that He understands your struggles.
• The writers of the wisdom literature in the Bible did not yet have the wonderful knowledge and promises revealed through Christ.
• I encourage you to be in close fellowship with believers, and especially with older, experienced believers, who will take the time to listen and pray with you.

Turning to Mark

I found some interesting ideas about Mark’s Gospel while doing some other reading. Maurice Robinson reports that Warren A. Gage discovered an Elijah sub-theme in Mark. Unfortunately, Gage’s unpublished research was only summarized by Robinson, and I have not been successful in getting a response from Dr. Gage to get his complete article.

According to Gage, we could say that Mark presents Jesus as the new Elijah. (Evidently there is a similar sub-theme in John’s Gospel with Moses.) Not only does Mark overtly use Elijah’s name 9 times, but he alludes to Elijah around nine more times. Allusions to Elijah frame the beginning and the end of Mark, and the overt mentions occupy a long stretch in the middle of this Gospel. 

Mark 1:2 (Mal. 3:1; 4:5)

WEBBE Mark 1:2:

2 As it is written in the prophets, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you:

WEBBE Malachi 3:1:

1 “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, behold, he comes!” says the LORD of Armies.

WEBBE Malachi 4:5-6:

5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”

When Mal 3:1 and 4:5 are paired together, we see that the messenger prophesied to come is identified as Elijah. 

By the way, Mal 4:6 should remind you of what John’s father (Zechariah) said a week after John’s birth.

1:6

GW'20 Mark 1:6:

6 John was dressed in clothes made from camel’s hair. He wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey.

In our Indonesian translation, we have a footnote at this verse which says that John’s clothes and food choices would have reminded Jews of his day of Elijah. After all, Elijah spent a long time living alone in the wilderness.

12–14

GW'20 Mark 1:12-13:

12 At once the Spirit brought him into the desert, 13 where he was tempted by Satan for 40 days. He was there with the wild animals, and the angels took care of him.

This can remind us of when Elijah was in the wilderness and ravens brought him food (1Kings 17), and chapter 19 when an angel fed him before Elijah took the long journey to Mt. Horeb.

7:24–25

GW'20 Mark 7:24:

24 Jesus left that place and went to the territory of Tyre. He didn’t want anyone to know that he was staying in a house there. However, it couldn’t be kept a secret.

This can remind us of Elijah, when the stream dried up, and when he then went and a widow in this same area took care of him. Both stories take place in the same Gentile territory. In the case of the widow of Zerephath (1Kings 17), Elijah raised her son from death. In Jesus’ case, He expelled a demon from a Greek woman’s daughter.

————Explicit mentions of Elijah

GW'20 Mark 6:15:

15 Others said, “He is Elijah.” Still others said, “He is a prophet like one of the other prophets.”

GW'20 Mark 8:28:

28 They answered him, “Some say you are John the Baptizer, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.”

GW'20 Mark 9:4:

4 Then Elijah and Moses appeared to them and were talking with Jesus.

Note that Elijah is mentioned first by Mark. Both Matthew and Luke put Moses first.

GW'20 Mark 9:5:

5 Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it’s good that we’re here. Let’s put up three tents—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

GW'20 Mark 9:11-13:

11 So they asked him, “Don’t the experts in Moses’ Teachings say that Elijah must come first?”

12 Jesus said to them, “Elijah is coming first and will put everything in order again. But in what sense was it written that the Son of Man must suffer a lot and be treated shamefully?

13 Indeed, I can guarantee that Elijah has come. Yet, people treated him as they pleased, as Scripture says about him.”

————Another allusion to Elijah

12:1–7 

Jesus tells this parable:

GW'20 Mark 12:1,7:

1 Then, using this illustration, Jesus spoke to them. He said, “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, made a vat for the winepress, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to vineyard workers and went on a trip. … 7 “But those workers said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’

This reminds us of 1Kings 21 where Jezebel connived to murder Naboth in order that Ahab could confiscate Naboth’s vineyard. Naboth had refused to sell the property because it was his inheritance.

————————Explicit mention of Elijah

 GW'20 Mark 15:34-36:

34 At three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” 35 When some of the people standing there heard him say that, they said, “Listen! He’s calling Elijah.” 36 Someone ran and soaked a sponge in vinegar. Then he put it on a stick and offered Jesus a drink. The man said, “Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down.”

————————Two more allusions to Elijah

16:19

GW'20 Mark 16:19:

19 After talking with the apostles, the Lord was taken to heaven, where he received the honored position— the one next to God the Father on the throne.

GW'20 2 Kings 2:11:

11 As they continued walking and talking, a fiery chariot with fiery horses separated the two of them, and Elijah [was taken up/went] to heaven in a windstorm.

LXX+ Βασιλειών Δ 2:11:

11 καὶ ἐγένετο αὐτῶν πορευομένων ἐπορεύοντο καὶ ἐλάλουν, καὶ ἰδοὺ ἅρμα πυρὸς καὶ ἵπποι πυρὸς καὶ διέστειλαν ἀνὰ μέσον ἀμφοτέρων, καὶ ἀνελήμφθη Ηλιου ἐν συσσεισμῷ ὡς εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν.

RP'2018 Κατά Μάρκον 16:19:

19 Ὁ μὲν οὖν κύριος, μετὰ τὸ λαλῆσαι αὐτοῖς, ἀνελήφθη εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν, καὶ ἐκάθισεν ἐκ δεξιῶν τοῦ ϑεοῦ.

Gage (reported by Robinson) includes

• the allusions to Malachi 3:1 and 4:5 at the beginning of Mark's Gospel; 
• the placing of Elijah ahead of Moses in 9:4; 
• and the question whether Elijah will come down to rescue Christ from the cross in 15:36, 
• where the latter text “anticipates the conclusion of the Gospel wherein Jesus is translated into heaven in a manner remarkably like Elijah (16:19).”

————

Residue: I can’t see why Gage (via Robinson) listed these verses:

**3:22 and 4:41; 14:12–14; 15:25, 31–39

————

GW'20 Mark 16:15-19:

15 Then Jesus said to them, “So wherever you go in the world, tell everyone the Good News. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 “These are the miraculous signs that will accompany believers: They will use the power and authority of my name to force demons out of people. They will speak new languages. 18 They will pick up snakes, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them. They will place their hands on the sick and cure them.” 19 After talking with the apostles, the Lord was taken to heaven, where he received the honored position— the one next to God the Father on the throne.

Jesus passes on his mantle, so to speak, as Elijah did. 

• The apostles and other followers will work miraculous signs like Elijah’s successor (Elisha) did. 
• Jesus was taken up to heaven like Elijah was, using the same turn of phrase.

Now before I bring an important point about all this, I would like to point out that one of the characteristics of Mark’s Gospel is that he likes to not leave loose ends. As Robinson says,

Mark's consistent habit is to demonstrate the reliability of Jesus' words by narrating their fulfillment, even when that narration is incidental to the flow of the main story. 

• In Mark 7:29, for example, Jesus tells the Syrophoenician woman who comes seeking healing for her daughter, “You may go—the demon has left your daughter.” The reader can trust Jesus' words; the pericope can conclude. But it doesn't. Mark 7:30 says, “So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.” 
• Similarly, in Mark 10:46–52, Jesus heals blind Bartimaeus. In verse 52a Jesus says, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Surely Jesus' words will come to pass. Yes, we know they come to pass because Mark tells us they do in 52b: “Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.”

Following the same pattern of tying up loose ends, the fulfillment of Mark 14:62 (being seated at God’s right hand) is recorded in other places in the NT, but of the 4 Gospels, only Mark contains the fulfillment. (16:19)

Mk 14:62: NLT "Jesus said, “I AM. And you will see the Son of Man seated in the place of [honor//power] at God’s right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven. ”"

Mk 16:19: NLT "When the Lord Jesus had finished talking with them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand."

(Matt 22:44; 26:64; Luke 20:42; 22:69; Acts 2:33–34; Rom 8:34; Eph 1:20; Col 3:1; Heb 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2; 1 Pet 3:22; cp. the hints in Rev 5:1, 7.)

I didn’t tell you above that the book that I have been reading is Perspectives On The Ending Of Mark, which gives the text of four presentations from a seminar that was given at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2007. The first presentation was given by Dr. Daniel Wallace. I was shocked that this eminently respected scholar, and the driving force behind the New English Translation, represented the view that Mark intended his Gospel to end with chapter 16, verse 8.

I will remind you what Mark 16:8 says:

NET Mark 16:8 NET:

8 Then they went out and ran from the tomb, for terror and bewilderment had seized them. And they said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

I can’t imagine anyone thinking that could be the ending intended by Mark!

Robinson says,

“A Markan intention to end at 16:8, expecting the reader(s) to supply what is “missing” on the basis of subjective reflection, and thereby intuitively filling in gaps in light of a community-based “resurrection faith” or some such concept, requires a sophisticated postmodern viewpoint not typically found within ancient classical literature (even the short Fables of Aesop required moralia to explain the point).”

Remember what I showed above. Mark doesn’t like to leave loose ends. And he is not intending to present a bunch of stories and leave the reader to decide. Had he been doing that, he would not have started his book with

GW'20 Mark 1:1:

1 This is the beginning of the Good News about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Since Mark was presenting a case for Jesus being the Son of God, certainly he would end with Jesus at the place of honor beside the Father (as shown above). And if Mark were presenting Jesus as the new Elijah, then it is a nice touch to say that Jesus was taken up to heaven in words recalling Elijah’s being taken up. And just like Elijah leaving behind his mantle and miraculous gifts for Elisha, Jesus leaves miraculous gifts for his apostles in chapter 16:17-18.

Many other reasons for the authenticity of Mark 16:9-20 are found in my 5th EveryWord podcast from last year.

This is where my reading and study intersected with my desire to give you extra insights to think about in Job and Mark. Before I pray to close this session, I think it fitting to read the last verse of Mark:

NLT Mark 16:20:

20 And the disciples went everywhere and preached, and the Lord worked through them, confirming what they said by many miraculous signs.

I’m thankful that Mark tied up that final loose end, telling us what happened to the disciples. The exciting thing is that this process is still continuing. The Lord Jesus is still working through people who go and preach the Good News. He is still confirming the Gospel in human hearts, bringing people to repentance and new birth, and working in many other miraculous ways. If you tell me that you haven’t seen this happening, then I encourage you to go and start preaching.

Let’s pray:

Our Lord and our God, through your Word which You have preserved for us, we almost are taken up on the holy mountain where we can still hear the echo of your words, “This is my Son, whom I love and in whom I delight.” In our spirits we feel the confirmation of the treasure you have given us in your Word. So our desire is to pay attention to it, as to a light that shines in a very dark place, and we wait with increasing confidence for the day of your coming, when the morning star will fully rise in our hearts. Amen.

And may the Lord bless you ‘real good’.

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Reader: Take note! Days 1-14

Greetings and welcome to this first edition of an occasional series of podcasts that I am starting to add extra commentary for those following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. I hope that the things I share in this episode will be relevant to those who have arrived at day number 14.

I have taken the title for this series from Mark 13:14 (GW). As Jesus is prophesying in that chapter about the destruction of Jerusalem, he says, “When you see the disgusting thing that will cause destruction standing where it should not (let the reader take note), those of you in Judea should flee to the mountains.” [God’s Word Translation]

The parenthetical note, “let the reader take note” probably was addressed to the one who read out loud to others. In Mark’s day, not many people in a congregation would know how to read. The Greek word for ‘read’ in this verse actually means ‘to read out loud’. Because of that, some commentators feel that this warning to understand was not just for the reader, but was intended as a plea to the reader to explain to his listeners about Daniel’s prophecy that mentions ‘the disgusting thing that will cause destruction’. So here I am, your reader (for the whole Bible, not just Mark’s Gospel). I thought it might be helpful to you to give some information that doesn’t fit in the daily podcasts, but I still, of course, will not have time to answer all questions. My intent is to encourage you to dig deeper by sharing things I find to be interesting and inspiring in the passages you have read or listened to already in the 3D plan.

If you have questions or comments, my favorite way for you to send messages to me is via the contact button at dailybiblereading.info.

Incidentally, from now on I will quote a lot from the translation called God’s Word for the Nations, because I am personally reading that version in my own devotional readings this year. And this year I personally am reading a real-book Bible. See the godsword.org site linked in the episode notes for information on how you can get a gorgeous GW Bible at a great price. And the newest edition is available in YouVersion and the MyBible app. (GW'20)

The first verse I would like to share about is Genesis 1:1 (NLT). “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Some translations say ‘heaven’ singular, but the Hebrew is actually plural, ‘heavens’. When my team and I translated that into Indonesian, because Indonesians haven’t previously known a concept of plural heavens, we translated this verse as, “… God created the levels of heaven and the sky.” 

When Scripture talks of plural heavens, the sky is the lowest layer, and ancient people had the concept that there were three or perhaps seven layers of heaven. Some of you will recall that Paul was caught up to the ‘third heaven’ in 2 Corinthians 12.

It is for this reason that I see verse one as not being a summary of what is to come in Genesis 1-2, but as a hint of acts of creation that we are not told about which happened before the creation of this world. There were principalities and powers and myriads of angels in the heavenly places that were put there before God started counting the six days of creation. To me, it is kind of awesome to think about that.

Now quoting from Genesis 1:14 (NLT), “Then God said, “Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them be signs to mark the seasons, days, and years.”

Instead of ‘seasons’ the God’s Word translation translates ‘religious festivals’. 

The word that can mean ‘seasons’ as NLT translated it is normally translated ‘religious festivals’ all throughout the rest of the OT. In our Indonesian translation, we translated it as ‘seasons’ but we provided a footnote to tell readers that this word often is translated as ‘religious festivals’.

Here’s the thing I think that is neat about this: Translators have frequently chosen to translate ‘seasons’ because it is kind of strange to talk of religious festivals when there are not yet any people on earth on the 4th day of creation. BUT consider this: God was preparing all of creation, including the sun and moon, to support humans who would worship Him. We can say that the love and worship of Himself was God’s ultimate goal in the creation of the universe. We exist for his worship.

In Genesis 4:19-21 we read that, “Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah. Adah gave birth to Jabal. He was the first person to live in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal. He was the first person to play the harp and the flute.”

Isn’t it interesting that the harp and flute are mentioned so early in human history! Certainly Jubal not only played the flute and harp, but he invented and constructed the first ones as well. I think this little story shows that God wanted to provide for glorious worship of Himself.

Did you realize that when you hear an instrument play a note, that you don’t just hear that note, but harmonic frequencies above that note. It is the relative strength and weaknesses of the harmonics that lets us hear the difference between the sounds of a harp, flute, trumpet, and all the other instruments. 

As I play a low D on the piano, I will help you hear the harmonics.

Fundamental note D, octave D, 5th above that, then the octave again, and then another D, and the last that I will play is a third, F#. That forms a D major chord.

This happens to be the same overtones that can be gotten with a simple flute made of PVC pipe keeping all my fingers down. The natural harmonics of the strings of a harp or piano or guitar, form a major chord. The natural harmonics of well-constructed flutes form a major chord. God built this system right into the atmosphere and physics of our world.

There is a reason why people think songs in major keys are happy sounding. Our ears like the resonance that naturally occurs due to the reinforcement of overtones. I think God intended this beautiful resonance. God created the human ear, in order to give the delight of hearing beautiful music. Note also that God designed the human hand so that simple instruments like a harp and flute can be played easily with our fingers, like when I play a scale on a flute with just 6 finger holes. Then consider how beautiful our voices are when we sing. My friend Arie Scholten says, “When people sing in unison together, we each coordinate 26 muscles together in unity, and the devil hates both the sound and that unity.”

Our Creator is awesome and deserves awesome praise.

Ps 66:1-2: "Shout happily to God, all the earth! Make music to praise the glory of his name. Make his praise glorious."

Now let me explain something that people always ask about:

NLT Genesis 6:1-4:

1 Then the people began to multiply on the earth, and daughters were born to them. 2 The sons of God saw the beautiful women and took any they wanted as their wives. 3 Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not put up with humans for such a long time, for they are only mortal flesh. In the future, their normal lifespan will be no more than 120 years.” 4 In those days, and for some time after, giant Nephilites lived on the earth, for whenever the sons of God had intercourse with women, they gave birth to children who became the heroes and famous warriors of ancient times.

NLT Genesis 6:5:

5 The LORD observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, …

So who are these sons of God? There are many interpretations of what kind of ‘sons’ are intended. Most interpretations can be classified into two alternatives: 1) The children of God intended are fallen angels— those who sided with the devil in his rebellion, then they were punished by God and thrown into this world. Those angels are now called evil spirits or demons. If so, maybe the spirits possessed male humans, and in that way married the girls. 2) Or, the children of God intended are descendants of Seth. This is in accordance with many verses in the OT that call the Israelites— all of whom were descendants of Seth— as ‘sons of God’. In Ex. 4:22, the nation of Israel is also called the ‘firstborn son’ of God. 

Personally the 2nd choice seems fanciful and naive to me. It seems that something ugly and evil is implied, so I go with the first choice. I think that we must admit that we do not always have enough information to interpret things like this. 

GW'20 Deuteronomy 29:29:

29 Some things are hidden. They belong to the LORD our God. But the things that have been revealed in these teachings belong to us and to our children forever. We must obey every word of these teachings.

The two interpretations I have shared are not harmonious with Job 1:6 and 2:1 where ‘sons of God’ are also mentioned. I don’t think you will find one totally satisfactory conclusion about this that will explain this for both contexts. Whoever the supermen were in Genesis, they were wiped out in the flood.

The two interpretations I just mentioned are not harmonious with Job 1:6-8 or 2:1. I don’t think a harmonious interpretation exists for the ‘sons of God’ in both Genesis and Job.

And so, let’s segue to Job.

GW'20 Job 1:6-8:

6 One day when the sons of God came to stand in front of the LORD, Satan the Accuser came along with them. 7 The LORD asked Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the LORD, “From wandering all over the earth.” 8 The LORD asked Satan, “Have you thought about my servant Job? No one in the world is like him! He is a man of integrity: He is decent, he fears God, and he stays away from evil.”

GW'20 Job 2:1:

1 One day when the sons of God came to stand in front of the LORD, Satan the Accuser came along with them.

The ‘sons of God’ here seem to be angelic princes who never lived on earth and did not participate in the fall. But whatever they are, it makes no difference because they play no part in the story. We just get the impression that the heavenly nobility have assembled for a meeting of the court around God’s throne. These heavenly nobility are part of the principalities and powers, like what I mentioned talking about Genesis 1:1.

Satan makes a crashing entrance here in Job. His name comes up only 14 times in the OT, and all but three times are here in the first 2 chapters of Job. His name means adversary or accuser. He is pictured without a name in other places, such as the ‘serpent’ in the garden of Eden, or is pictured as like the ‘king of Tyre’ in Ezekiel 28, etc. In the NT he is spoken of with his Hebrew name and also with his Greek name, διαβόλου, or the devil. That title or name means the same as the Hebrew name: false accuser, or slanderer.

Considering what an important role Satan plays, it is kind of amazing that his name comes up so infrequently. Our adversary has many names! And actually, he likes to stay anonymous. From start to finish, the Bible portrays a prolonged battle between the forces of Satan and God’s forces. We are living right in the middle of the battle field right now. 

In the Garden of Eden the serpent incited Eve to distrust God’s good intent.

What we see in Job is Satan acting according to his name. He accuses Job to God. Then God allows Satan to act, but only with limitations. 

GW'20 2 Corinthians 4:4, we see another way of referring to Satan.

4 The god of this world has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. As a result, they don’t see the light of the Good News about Christ’s glory. It is Christ who is God’s image.

Satan does not work all by himself, of course. There are the fallen angels (or demons) working at his command. They are working overtime now to spread spiritual blindness. In believers, they love to whisper accusations against us and to cast doubt on God’s good intentions for us. Let’s keep our spiritual armor on according to Ephesians 6. The spiritual battle is real, but God supplies our armor, and it is powerful and effective. It is important that we don’t start relying on our own power or trusting in our own supposed maturity in this battle.

To some listeners, I may seem really naive to believe that there is a being named Satan, or that demons exist. Let me tell you one of my experiences: I think it was the beginning of the summer of 1970. I was 20 years old, and driving home to Hutchinson, Kansas, from Wichita State University. It was an hour long trip which I made frequently while I was in school there, but on that day, it was the last trip home before the summer vacation. On campus, I was president of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, and probably people thought I had my act together. I was coming home to help out at Kansas Bible Camp, just outside of my hometown. But something very strange happened that made this trip to my hometown different from any other trip on that road. I had a deep sense of shame because I couldn’t control my thought life, and of course that means lust. Girls liked me, and I liked them … too much. So all during that trip I prayed out loud, crying out to God with tears. I couldn’t live with the hypocrite I had become. How could God forgive me when I had to keep asking for forgiveness for the same sins every single day? 

Pulling myself together, when I got into town, I stopped to go into a supermarket to buy a couple of things, like soap and shampoo. When I came out, a woman met me, a long-time family friend. This was a woman I had enjoyed looking at since I was old enough to notice women. She had seen me go in and had waited for me to come out. She hugged my arm repeatedly and invited me to come to her house where we could be alone.

What a thing to happen! One might make jokes about the timing, but I won’t. What could I do?! I couldn’t bring myself to go back on all that I had prayed to God. After bearing my soul to God so deeply, how could I take advantage of the perfect opportunity to make a plunge into sin. I stupidly mumbled something about being on my way to the Bible Camp, and turned her down. Too politely, I might add. In fact, I walked her to her car and said, “I’ll come another time.”

When I got back in my car, I couldn’t believe it! First, I was overwhelmed because I knew that this wasn’t just a coincidence. I said to God right there, “I should never doubt that You answer my prayers or that you are watching me!” And then it occured to me also, “Hey, wait a minute! Did God know that I was going to meet a big temptation and move me to pray? Or did Satan know that I was praying and set me up with that temptation to destroy any spiritual progress I was making?”

That summer I certainly had the time to visit that woman at her house, but I never did. God had so clearly forbidden it. For me to do that would be to totally leave any relationship with Him. 

So I leave you with these thoughts:

• Do not doubt that Satan and his dark forces exist. 
• Satan is out to get you.
• God is watching over YOU more intimately than you realize!
• God hears your prayers.
• Keep asking for God to forgive you. Confess your sins explicitly, not just saying, “Please forgive my sins.” After saying exactly what you have done, ask for insight on how to overcome persistent sin problems. Look for God to help you at just the right time.

Let me pray for you now. 

Our Lord God and our King Jesus, thank you for my friend who has listened to me in this podcast. Lord, I ask You to prove yourself to my listener and help him or her to find treasures in your Word that will be like keys unlocking spiritual growth and transformation. Please help us to confess our sins and keep our consciences clear in your sight. Amen.

 

Check out this episode!

December 31 Special

Greetings friends to this end of the year podcast! Before I share my own stories, I want to give you our last two Listener Stories for 2020, one from Tom and another from Tammy. I think Tammy’s story is especially interesting because the Coronavirus pandemic had a big impact on her. I think her story will resonate with many of you. 

Hello, my name is Tammy.  I recently retired from being a principal and before that a school teacher, a job I had done and loved for over 30 years.  I had oodles of plans for what I was going to do, places I was going to go and things I was really looking forward to doing-  like working with children at our church this summer.  When COVID hit and closed down school as we knew it on March 13, 2020, my life really changed.  I didn’t get to say goodbye to my students, parents and staff, it just all ended that Friday in March.  I was really struggling with what to me felt like a major loss. (This is in no way to disrespect those that have had greater losses due to COVID.)

I was talking to my husband explaining how I was feeling such an absence of being needed and like I was just wandering looking for what I was supposed to be doing with my life at this time.  My sweet husband said some very wise words to me.  He said, “Tammy, I believe God is just giving you this down time to recharge you and prepare you for what He has planned next for you to do for Him.  Take this time and use it to its best.”  While I knew he was right, I have to say I DON’T  do down time well.  When you work 60 hours a week for oodles of years and have people consistently needing things from you, to have that come to a screeching halt, really put me off kilter.  

I was struggling trying to figure out what God wanted me to do.  Then one morning in my devotion time God put on my heart that I have been wanting to complete a read through the Bible in a year program for a long time.  Even though it was August, I thought, this doesn’t have to wait until January to be a New Year’s Resolution, it can be my New Life Resolution. What a blessing this decision has been!  I looked at all different types of programs.  I found Digging Deeper Daily and liked the explanation of how this program was laid out. I wanted to learn about the “threads that unify the message of the Old and New Testaments”. I also like the fact that there were brief devotional notes that I thought would help me see the connections clearer.  

I started this journey on August 20th and upon hearing the first reading, I fell in love with this journey.  Phil’s voice was so calming and yet assured in what he was saying and reading.  The brief stories he shares of his work as a Bible translator make me feel like I have a new friend.  This adventure has helped me grow daily in my understanding of God’s word.   Being a Christian since a child, I had heard many stories from the bible, now I understand more deeply what was happening before, during and after those isolated events.  It has really helped make the Bible come to life for me.  

Phil explains how he started this project as a gift to leave his grandchildren.  He wanted to read the entire bible to them.  I feel his love each morning as I listen to him read and explain the daily passage, its as if for those brief moments I have been adopted into his family.  This has not only been a way for me to learn more about the Bible, grow closer to God, but also to feel like I am being gathered into the fold each morning.  

The brief explanations at the end of the readings are so helpful.  I always look forward to the prayer Phil delivers to close the devotional time.  Often, I will replay the prayer a time or two more.  At the end of “our time together” I try to conclude with a prayer for Phil and all those doing God’s work to bring His word to the nations that don’t have the Bible yet.  This reminder of what a gift the Bible is to us, that I often take for granted because I haven’t known a time without it, has made my daily time with God even more precious.  

Early on in the program, Phil was reading to us from Matthew.  When He read Matthew 11:28 which says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” I cried.  This to me reiterated what my husband told me.    I was in need of this passage.  When Phil read this verse, with such love in his voice, I felt as if it was God speaking it to me.  I needed rest, yet I wouldn’t let myself admit it.  Now, each morning I consider my time listening to Phil read God’s word as a time of rest, connection and recharging.  

I can’t wait to find out what great adventure God has in store for me next, or where He needs me in this stage of life, what I do know though is that Phil Fields and Digging Deeper Daily will be on that amazing ride with me.  

Thanks so much, Tammy, for your story! And with a sincere blush, I also say thanks for your kind words. I am so pleased— more than that— filled with joy, when people are able to look through the kind of one-way mirror that podcasting is, to become my friends and even adopted family. 

Thanks to Tom giving me this next story. Tom is mainly a reader (not a regular podcast listener). The 3D YouVersion plan he has followed for 2020 is called Read To Me Daily. (Link given in the episode notes.) Tom is a long time friend, dating back to my music teaching days. There is one odd, totally unplanned, similarity between his story and Tammy’s. I think you will catch it.

My name is Tom and I am a sixty-year-old Arkansan.  I have read through the Bible several times using different plans.  The last few times, using electronic media, such as Digging Deeper Daily, has aided me greatly through ease of access.  Reading the Bible entirely in one year gives one little time for Bible study, but I value the discipline of daily reading which stirs my thoughts and continually whets my appetite to, what else, dig deeper.

I read through the Bible this year using the Amplified Bible, Classic Edition.  In the past I have used various translations and even some paraphrases and I may have been wiser to use the recommended New Living Translation or Good News Translation.  Instead, however, I wanted to use the AMPC this year to slow me down.  The many bracketed words and phrases in the AMPC which are used to further describe a translated word or passage, forced me to ponder over a word or passage and think about how an idea was being explained.  I did enjoy the New Living Translation as well as the Good News Translation versions referenced most often in the devotionals.  I found multiple translations of the same verses to be quite helpful.

Most years when using a daily reading plan I plowed right past the devotional passages and read only the scripture.  This year I was determined to include reading the devotionals, again, to slow me down and to help me think about what I was reading.  I enjoyed reading the Digging Deeper Daily devotionals which often gave the translator’s perspective of a passage, citing examples of difficult passages to translate and including real-life examples of working with an indigenous people group to help them understand the Bible.  In addition to translation notes, I appreciated the occasional summaries from prior days, reminding me of an important passage, even to the point of repeating some passages over consecutive days for emphasis.  I also appreciated being prodded by the devotional to live up to its title to, here it is again, dig deeper into particular passages.

I appreciated how the daily readings were divided up between Old and New Testaments, particularly saving Isaiah for the end of the calendar year with so many relevant passages for the advent season.  My favorite passage, personally, occurred late in the calendar year on September 21.  Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you.  Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” (NLT)  I am never more at peace than when I surrender to Christ’s yoke.

Finally, while I spent the year in the daily reading plan rather than listening to the daily podcasts, I did enjoy utilizing the audio podcasts through the Old Testament genealogies. 😊

Thanks for those great comments, Tom! I rejoice just as much for those who read the Bible for themselves, as I do for those listening to podcasts.

Before I share my own story, I want to say that I have revised the Read This First site, trying to make it easy to find information helpful to readers and listeners. The Read This First site is prominently linked at dailybiblereading.info.

For this first thing I want to share with you, I am reaching back to 1993. If you are one who reads along while listening, you will have noticed that I have a short list of words I substitute in the Bible text. When the text says ‘faith’, I normally read ‘fully believing’ instead. I have explained this in several podcasts, where I mainly just complain about how fuzzy the term ‘faith’ has become. However today I would like to tell the story of when this truth really came to my attention.

By 1993, we had been in the Orya translation project for 9 years. We had learned the language and translated books like Mark and James. The story I am about to tell happened when I was in the remote village of Guay without my family, and the translation team and I were working on revising Acts. A man I did not know well, Nahe, came up to me on Sunday morning and asked to have a private conversation with me that night. I agreed and he came. He told me this story:

You would not have heard this, but I died and came back to life. This happened in another village out on the coast where I was working. When I came to and started breathing again, the people were already building my coffin. While I was dead, I went to heaven. I saw how the people in heaven were rejoicing and so happy. But I was told to go back and enter into my body again. My body was revolting to me, but somehow I did that and came back.

After his story, ever so sincerely— with a tear and a shaky voice— he said, “I cry everyday because I know that someone like me can’t go to heaven. What do I have to do to get to heaven?”

“Wow,” I thought. “What a perfect opportunity!” I answered from Acts 16, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” 

He said, “But that’s just the problem! How can I tell if I have believed.”

Incredulous, I asked, “Can’t you tell if you have believed?”

He said, “We Orya people don’t think one can know that.”

Several things dawned on me at once. The first was, “This will probably not be the great missionary story I was hoping it would be.” And the second was, “Everything that we have translated will have to be revised, because we obviously haven’t been using the right word for ‘believe’.”

Starting that Monday morning my team and I spent the whole day discussing what the word ‘believe’ is supposed to mean. The conversation I related above is not quite accurate. Here is what actually was said:

Nahe asked, “What do I have to do to get to heaven?”

I answered from our defective translation of Acts 16, “Have faith in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” (I didn’t say “Believe in the Lord Jesus.” I actually said, “Have faith in the Lord Jesus.”)

He said, “But that’s just it! How can I tell if I have faith.”

Incredulous, I asked, “Can’t you tell if you have faith?”

He said, “We Orya people don’t think one can know that.”

The Orya word which they had used ever since at least the 1950’s to translate the concept of ‘believe’ literally means to have ‘inner fruit’. It can be illustrated as like a papaya, because a papaya has inner fruit. All ripe papaya look about the same externally at the market, but if you buy one and cut it open, on the inside it may be either yellow or pink. I prefer the pink ones. So someone explained to me, “We have assumed that when you die, at the gates of heaven you kind of have an operation to see if you have any ‘inner fruit’ in you. If you do, you can go into heaven. If you don’t, you go to the other place.” No one knows if they have any fruit inside them before dying.

The problem is this: In Greek, ‘believe’ and ‘faith’ have the same root word. They are pisteo and pistis (or pisteos). The visual similarity could be compared to the English verb ‘to be certain’ and noun form ‘certainty’. The words for ‘believe’ and ‘faith’ really OUGHT TO look and sound like they belong to each other, but they don’t. By some strange quirk of linguistic perversity, while ‘faith’ and ‘believe’ look and sound similar in Greek, they don’t look and sound similar in Orya, in Indonesian, and in English! 

It is precisely because of that lack of root-word similarity in English that the abstract noun ‘faith’ is fuzzy and the meaning wanders all over the place. Faith is not like the word ‘certainty’, which can never wander very far from the verb form to be ‘certain’. 

Sleeplessly mulling over my conversation with Nahe, I was amazed when I realized that the English Bible often tells us, “Ya gotta have faith,” but that abstract noun is so fuzzy that people will not know if they have obeyed or not. They will think that they have to wait to find out if they are saved until they are standing at the gates of heaven. This is NOT what God wants!

Here is what I want you to know:

• If you are a believer in Jesus, God wants you to know that you are on your way to heaven. See Romans 10:9-10.
• Believing is a volitional action. You know if you believe something or not. 
• The abstract noun ‘faith’ is not a volitional act, so many people don’t really know if they have ‘faith’ or not.
• That is why I think it is important to share the Gospel in terms of ‘believing’, because people can’t really tell where they are in relation to the abstract noun ‘faith’.
• Any time you see the word ‘faith’ in your Bible, you can almost always substitute the words ‘fully believing’.
• If some preacher or prophet starts explaining what ‘faith’ is and he or she doesn’t talk about ‘believing’ what the Bible says, run away. All kinds of rituals or crystal gazing are purported to increase your faith. Don’t believe it. The faith of people who teach such things is just fuzzy sweet-smelling incense.
• Hey, would you like to have bigger faith?! I’m serious! I can tell you right now how to increase your faith! Believe what the Bible says about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and yourself!

By the way: Eventually Nahe died and didn’t come back. His widow is a fine Christian. She told me what I already suspected. She doesn’t think Nahe ever truly believed in Jesus. He got mixed up in false teaching instead.

 

From EveryWord 001 podcast

Here is a quote from from Pickering, The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken, concerning Mark 1:23.

23 Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, 24 saying: “Hey, what do you want with us, Jesus Natsarene?!13

13 The name of the town in Hebrew is based on the consonants נצר) resh, tsadde, nun), but since Hebrew is read from right to left, for us the order is reversed = n, ts, r. This word root means ‘branch’. Greek has the equivalent for ‘ps’ and ‘ks’, but not for ‘ts’, so the transliteration used a z (zeta) ‘dz’, which is the voiced counterpart of ‘ts’. But when the Greek was transliterated into English it came out as ‘z’! But Hebrew has a ‘z’, ז) zayin), so in transliterating back into Hebrew people assumed the consonants נזר ,replacing the correct tsadde with zayin. Neither ‘Nazareth’ nor ‘Nazarene’, spelled with a zayin, is to be found in the Old Testament, but there is a prophetic reference to Messiah as the Branch, netser—Isaiah 11:1—and several to the related word, tsemach—Isaiah 4:2, Jeremiah 23:5, 33:15; Zechariah 3:8, 6:12. So Matthew (2:23) is quite right—the prophets (plural, being at least three) referred to Christ as the Branch. Since Jesus was a man, He would be the ‘Branch-man’, from ‘Branch-town’. Which brings us to the word ‘natsorean’. The familiar ‘Nazarene’ (Nazarhnoj) [Natsarene] occurs in Mark 1:24, 14:67, 16:6 and Luke 4:34, but in Matthew 2:23 and in fourteen other places, including Acts 22:8 where the glorified Jesus calls Himself that, the word is ‘Natsorean’ (Nazwraioj), which is quite different. I have been given to understand that the Natsareth of Jesus’ day had been founded some 100 years before by a Branch family, who called it Branch town; they were very much aware of the prophecies about the Branch and fully expected the Messiah to be born from among them—they called themselves Branch-people (Natsoreans). Of course everyone else thought it was a big joke and tended to look down on them. “Can anything good . . . ?”

Early this year, when doing the first of the EveryWord podcasts, I found a little golden treasure I had never seen before. In Mark 1:24, the demon called Jesus a ‘Natsarene’ in Wilbur Pickering's translation:

23-24 Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, 24 saying: “Hey, what do you want with us, Jesus Natsarene?!

 We all know that Nazarene is normally spelled with a z, but Pickering spells it with ts. 

Now Matthew 2:23 states, “So the family (that is Joseph’s family) went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: He (Jesus) will be called a Nazarene.” But the name Nazarene or Nazareth appears nowhere in the Old Testament, so how could this fulfill what plural prophets wrote? Here is the answer to this seeming mistake in God’s infallible Word:

In Hebrew, the word meaning ‘branch’ is netser. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah (plural prophets) refer to the Messiah as the Branch or Shoot. Isaiah 11:1 is one of those places:

Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot — yes, a new Branch (netser) bearing fruit from the old root. (NLT Isaiah 11:1)

We might call the original name for Jesus’ hometown ‘Netser-place’, or Natsereth. But when Natsereth was translated into Greek, the ts became a z, Nazareth. The cool thing about this is that several hundred years before Christ came, someone founded a settlement called Branchville. I don't think this happened by accident. God definitely planned this. But the people who did that may simply have had the desire to remind others that God promised to send a Messiah who was going to be called ‘the Branch’. So it is significant, and a fulfillment of prophecy, that Jesus is called ‘the man from Branchville’.

The other two prophets use a related form of netzer, which is tsemah. Look at the neat correspondences when we put these four verses mentioning the ‘Branch’ together:

NLT'07 Jeremiah 23:5-6:
5 “For the time is coming,” says the LORD, “when I will raise up a righteous [branch//tsemah//descendant] from King David’s line. He will be a King who rules with wisdom. He will do what is just and right throughout the land.

6 And this will be his name: ‘The LORD Is Our Righteousness.’ In that day Judah will be saved, and Israel will live in safety.

NLT Jeremiah 33:15-16:
15 “In those days and at that time I will raise up a righteous [branch//tsemah//descendant] from King David’s line. He will do what is just and right throughout the land.

16 In that day Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this will be its name: ‘The LORD Is Our Righteousness.’

NLT'07 Zechariah 3:8-9:
8 “Listen to me, O Jeshua the high priest, and all you other priests. You are symbols of things to come. Soon I am going to bring my servant, the [Branch//tsemah].

9 Now look at the jewel I have set before Jeshua, a single stone with seven [facets//eyes]. I will engrave an inscription on it, says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, and I will remove the sins of this land in a single day.

NLT'07 Zechariah 6:12-13:
12 Tell him, ‘This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: Here is the man called the Branch//tsemah. He will branch out from where he is and build the Temple of the LORD.

13 Yes, he will build the Temple of the LORD. Then he will receive royal honor and will rule as king from his throne. He will also serve as priest from his throne, and there will be perfect harmony between his two roles.’

Isaiah 742-695, 750-695 BC
Jeremiah 627-580, 628-588 BC
Zechariah active 520-518 BC, 520-515, 520-510

 

In line with the two verses from Jeremiah 33 that we just read, the people in the kingdom of Judah were looking for the prophesied King from David’s line. Like what blind Bartemaeus shouted on the road leaving Jericho, people were looking for the ‘Son of David’. But Jesus didn’t call himself that, as far as we know.

What I will share now is a very new insight for me, dating from October. To me this has been a major revelation. It has to do with Jesus’ favorite way of talking about himself, by the title the ‘Son of Man’. I was dissatisfied with the traditional translation of this title into Indonesian. The word for ‘Man’ that has been used in all Indonesian translations before now is ‘manusia’. Unfortunately that word is plural by default, so it comes out as  the ‘Son of Mankind’. Or to give you the idea, it means, Son of People/Humanity, and Indonesians have interpreted that to mean Jesus was very humbly claiming to be ‘no one special at all’. 

This doesn’t line up with how Jesus used the title the Son of Man. He used it in the following three ways, and supporting Scripture references from Matthew’s Gospel are found in the episode notes:

Jesus used ‘Son of Man’ as a Messianic title:

• He used it when He claimed that he had the right to give divine and kingly decisions in this world: Mat. 9:6; 12:8, 32; 13:37; 16:13.
• He used it when talking of his low status, taking on the role of a servant, and of his self-sacrifice: Mat. 8:20; 11:19; 12:40; 17:9, 12, 22; 20:18; 20:28; 26:2, 24, 45.
• He used it when speaking of his coming again in glory and victory: Mat. 10:23; 13:41; 16:27-28; 19:28; 24:27, 30, 37, 39, 44; 25:31; 26:64.

Jesus was NOT claiming to be ‘nobody special’ when He called Himself the Son of Man! 

Well, you listeners to the Daily Bible Reading podcast or those who have read the devotional material know that the title the Son of Man relates to Daniel 7. But there is something there I never saw before this year.

You may remember that God frequently called Ezekiel ‘son of man’. (GNT translates this ‘Mortal man’.) Not just ‘frequently’, but 93 times in that book! That’s almost twice per chapter. But guess what?! Literally in Hebrew the expression is ‘ben adam’ or ‘son of Adam’. Remember that in Genesis, Adam’s name means ‘man’. Biblical Hebrew doesn’t use capital letters to show whether adam is a name or the word man. So beginning in Genesis 3:20, there are verses in the OT where translators differ as to whether ‘adam’ is to be understood as Adam’s name or just the word for man. (Gen. 3:20; Job 31:33; Hos. 6:7)

Readers of the Chronicles of Narnia will remember Mr. Tumus’ question to Lucy, “Pardon me, are you a ‘daughter of Eve?” And the white witch called Edmund a ‘son of Adam’. Really, we can all say that we are sons of Adam or daughters of Eve.

In the short book of Daniel, just like his contemporary Ezekiel, Daniel is called a ‘ben adam’ or ‘son of Adam’ in chapter 8, verse 17. But now let’s take a look a Daniel 7:13-14:

ESV Daniel 7:13-14:

13 “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.

14 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

But this key verse has a wrinkle I never saw before, and I apologize for this becoming a bit technical here. Parts of Daniel are written in Aramaic, not Hebrew. The all-important 13th verse for defining Jesus’ title is one of those parts. So in Aramaic, Daniel says that he saw ‘one like a son of man’, and Aramaic doesn’t say ‘son of Adam’. However one can say with certainty that the text would say ‘son of adam’ if it had been written in Hebrew. (And it would also have the ambiguity I have mentioned.)

All this made me ask an interesting question: What language did Jesus use when he called himself the Son of Man? Jesus lived in a multilingual situation. Ancient Hebrew would have been taught in synagogues and used for OT quotes or readings, but evidently Hebrew had not been commonly used in daily conversation in Israel for hundreds of years. In Jesus’ day, Aramaic was much more commonly spoken. But by Jesus’ day, people had for 300 years learned the language of their conquerors, first Greek, and more recently probably a smattering of Latin. Many Jews of the time quoted the OT from the Greek Septuagint. But in multilingual situations, people frequently borrow expressions from one language and sprinkle them into their speech in another language. So Jesus could have called Himself ‘son of Adam’ in Hebrew while speaking in Aramaic, or he could have called himself the Son of Man in Aramaic (like Daniel wrote), or could have called himself the Son of Man in Greek (as the Septuagint translates that expression).

In this way, I found that I reached a dead end in the study of the ancient languages. We simply don’t know enough about what languages Jesus used in different contexts to tell us what words He actually said. But remember that I am concerned with translating Jesus’ title meaningfully into Indonesian. Calling Jesus the Son of Humanity didn’t give the right meaning. It turns out that calling him the Son of Adam was rejected by my translation team. BUT Indonesian has an honorific word used for titles. Tacking on that word, the title becomes The Exalted Son of Adam, and that Works! 

Finally I get to share the special insight this gave me: What happens if we call Jesus the Prophesied Son of Adam? In Genesis 3 God said to the serpent:

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, 

and between your offspring and her offspring;

he shall bruise your head

and you shall bruise his heel.”

The prophesied Son of Eve, would by normal Jewish practice be called by Eve’s husband’s name. The Prophesied Son of Adam is the One all mankind has been waiting for since the Garden of Eden. Given this link, we find that Jesus’ title doesn’t just relate to Daniel 7, but it also relates all the way back to the first prophecy in the Bible. He is the One who vanquished Satan for us on the cross, who speaks with divine and kingly authority, and who will come again in glory and victorious power. This expansion of the meaning of Jesus’ title has been my biggest insight in 2020.

“Oh, how great are God’s riches! How deep are his wisdom and knowledge.” Rom 11:33

And how deep and amazing is God’s Word. “The word of God is alive and active, and sharper than any double-edged sword.” Heb. 4:12

Gale and I wish you a very happy New Year! May the Lord bless you ‘real good’.

 

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Four 3D Listener Stories

Today I am sharing four listener stories. 

Before I do that, I want to respond to Sunny and Nate, who commented on my pronunciation of Bible names in the podcasts. Surely others have wondered about this, so let me explain. Some may, like Sunny, assume that I am saying the names right. (Well after all, one would think a Bible translator ought to know the right pronunciation!) So here’s my (somewhat embarrassed) explanation of what I have done. After studying a few other languages, I consider the standard English pronunciations of the letters a, i, and e, in many Bible names to be ugly. I really wish I could start a trend to pronounce Bible names differently! Basically, what I have done is to take the English spellings and pronounce them with the pure phonetic vowels of the Indonesian language. I don’t like pronouncing the letter a or e in multiple ways like English, so instead of pronouncing the two a’s differently in ‘Ray-h@b’s name, I say her name ‘Rahab’. And instead of Heze’kEYEya, I pronounce his name He’ZEKya when reading the Bible text. When reading my introductions, I try to give the correct English pronunciation. So my pronunciations cannot be called ‘right’ or even consistent, but pronouncing names with the pure vowels of the Indonesian language happens to make some names more like the Hebrew or Greek pronunciation. I strived to be more consistent in my pronunciation choices in the GNT podcast series.

I send my thanks to Catherine and Luisa, who have given us our first two listener stories. Here they are:

Before I play the next two listener stories, I have some listener feedback from Joy. She had a story like Julie from my last podcast with listener stories, but she added this little PS: Along with following another whole reading plan this year, she also read the YouVersion plan named Day by Day with Billy Graham. This is a 366 day reading plan, which often gives a reading of only one verse and a very short and interesting and pointed devotional thought. This has got to be a good one, because it has 50,000 completions. The link to this reading plan is in the episode notes.

Our next story is from Iryna. I couldn’t place her accent, and when I took a guess, I was way wrong. She is from Crimea, which became a Russian territory in 2014. She writes that her name (Iryna) derives from Greek, which is true for many names in Russia and the Ukraine. Her name means peace. Iryna is married to an Australian and they live in Australia.

Many thanks to Iryna. She sent pictures of two of the verses she has illustrated for the walls of their home. These can be seen at the bottom of the home page of the Read This First site. The link for that site is in the program notes, and it is the first link found at dailybiblereading.info.

Next I want to send my thanks to Nicole for this last listener story today. Her testimony wins the prize for being the best recommendation the Daily Bible Reading Podcast has ever received. So thanks, Nicole, for your very kind words. 

If you have questions or comments, my favorite way for you to contact me is via the Contact link at dailybiblereading.info. 

As I said in the podcast a couple of days ago (Three 3D Stories from Listeners), I will publish a podcast on December 31 which will contain my personal story including insights from my own Bible reading and Bible translation work. 

1Ths 5:23-24: GNT “May the God who gives us peace make you holy in every way and keep your whole being — spirit, soul, and body — free from every fault at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you will do it, because he is faithful.”

May the Lord bless you ‘Read Good’!

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Three 3D Stories from Listeners

I am sharing three audio listener stories in this podcast in preparation for a Special Podcast that will be released on December 31. If you started the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan on January 1st this year, I hope you have remembered that this is a leap year. Some of you heard a Christmas day greeting today, that was one day early. Because of leap year, there would be no podcast released for December 31st, so I will release a special edition for that day.

I have received 8 encouraging listener and reader testimonies that I will share in the next days, and these will all be linked on the Read This First site that is linked at dailybiblereading.info. You can easily share these stories by using the share buttons, or all of them will be available all year on the home page of the Read This First site.

Before playing the first listener story, I would like to tell you that my YouTube video entitled How to Study the Bible — for beginners is back on the same page, the home page of the Read This First site. It is also linked in the episode notes for this podcast: https://youtu.be/sPyAp8ZxDBE

Beth started listening to the Daily Bible Reading podcast this year, and she contacted me early in the year. I later enjoyed a video call with Beth and her husband Steve, as they are interested in Beth getting involved in Bible translation. She sent me this message:

Our next listener story is from Julie. I will expand on some of the things Julie mentions. First let’s listen to her message:

Julie is correct, even though some people seem to listen to me for more than one year at a time, I don’t encourage anyone to do this. (Hey, you can always come back after a few years, like Julie will.) I am listing links to the three Bible reading plans I usually mention:
Daily Audio Bible with Brian Hardin
Bible in One Year 2021 by Nicky Gumbel
Daily Radio Bible by Hunter (and I don’t easily find his last name).

If you decide to still follow the Digging Deeper Reading plan, but would like to listen to a different voice for the Bible readings, Julie was right. My favorite option for the audio for the plan is to sign up for the Read To Me Daily YouVersion reading plan, listen to the NIVUK version, which is read by the famous actor David Suche.

Then Julie gives me the opportunity to say this also: There are two meaning-based translations that I hope every Christian reads all the way through at least in their lifetime. They are the New Living Translation (NLT) and the Good News Translation (GNT or GNB, also previously known as the Today’s English Version TEV). Many people fail in their plans to read the Bible in a year if they use a literal translation. Literal translations are great for study, especially when paired with a meaning-based translation. But literal translations are not friendly especially in audio form. That is why I have recorded the Digging Deeper Daily Bible reading plan in two translations: the NLT and the GNT. If you go to dailybiblereading.info, the GNT podcast site is right in the top bar. Here is the link: dailygntbiblereading.info.

Our last listener story is from Laura.

I want to say a big Thank You to Beth, Julie, and Laura.

The podcast on December 31 will contain my own story of things that have been meaningful to me this year, both in my reading and Bible translation work. I also have five more listener stories that I will publish like this in the next few days.

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