Contemplative Bible Reading

2 Peter 1:2 (New Living Translation)

May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.

Peter is writing to Christians—those who share the same precious faith as Peter, faith in Jesus.

Peter wants his fellow followers of Christ to have more peace in their lives. The path to peace that Peter describes comes through knowledge of God and Jesus.

Peace—an emotional well being—comes through knowledge—something in the brain. At least peace and knowledge seem that way to me.

Want more peace? Read more Bible. Want more peace? Talk to God more (prayer). Want more peace? Sit quietly and listen. For me, write more about God as that causes me to listen more to God. For others, music and Godly lyrics brings listening to God. For others, there are other things that cause listening to God and knowing God more.

Each of us should seek the thing that helps us listen to God, to grow in knowledge of God and Jesus. That thing will probably change as our lives change. Change with it.

Want more peace? Do what helps grow in the knowledge of God. Please God, help me to do so.

3 John, verse 5 (New Living Translation)

Dear friend, you are being faithful to God when you care for the traveling teachers who pass through, even though they are strangers to you.

John is writing to a dear friend named Gaius. John urges his friend to care for the traveling teachers who pass through. This holds true for those traveling teachers whom the friend does not know.

Where I live now—in this time and place—we don’t have traveling teachers who pass through. I guess we’ve outgrown or changed in some way that differs from the time of John and his friend.

There are plenty of persons on TV and the Internet who are teaching and are strangers to me. Are they part of the “traveling teachers” that John mentions? Should I care for those persons? All of them? Some of them?

I would like some help understanding this. Am I only to care for resident teachers these days?

Genesis 22:18 (New Living Translation)

And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed—all because you have obeyed me.

Abraham had just acted faithfully towards God. He had followed God’s command to sacrifice his only son Isaac. As a result of Abraham’s faith, his descendants—one of whom was Jesus of Nazareth—would bless all the nations, i.e., peoples of the earth.

I am one of those peoples blessed by Jesus of Nazareth. Everyone I have every met are part of those peoples.

Thank you God for blessing us through the descendants of Abraham. Thank you Abraham for your obedience.

Please God, help me each day to live as an expression of thanksgiving. Please help me in my unbelief.

Malachi 1:8 (New Living Translation)

When you give blind animals as sacrifices, isn’t that wrong? And isn’t it wrong to offer animals that are crippled and diseased? Try giving gifts like that to your governor, and see how pleased he is!” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

If you are of a certain age, you may recognize the title of this post. “Sunday best” referred to clothing that was kept aside to wear only on Sunday when attending church services. You “looked good” and “respectful” when going to the church building.

Of course this “Sunday best” was misused by some. In some places, if a boy didn’t have a tie, he was not allowed in the church building, and if a girl didn’t wear a dress, she was barred as well.

Misused? Yes. Of no merit? No.

We read verses such as from Malachi above. God didn’t need animals. God created all animals. God desired a sacrifice. That means giving something to God that means something to me.

I can give God all the cauliflower in the grocery store. That stuff means nothing to me. As far as I am concerned, cauliflower is a waste of everything. God can have it all!

Silly example.

Perhaps we should think about what we wear to the church building. “This is good enough for God” has replaced “Sunday best.” Perhaps we have swung a bit too far in the other direction. Of course we can misuse all this and abuse other people with my interpretation of sacrifice.

And perhaps my words above are all jumbled and sound wrong. I apologize for my failings. Please don’t be angry with me, but pray for me. And please God, help me in my unbelief.

Galatians 1:7b (New Living Translation)

You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ.

The writer chides the Christians in Galatia. They are falling for a twisted version of the truth. So sad. What truth was twisted? The truth about Christ.

What was the truth about Christ? See a couple of sentences earlier: “Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live.”

Please note: the twisted truth was not about church buildings, what songs to sing, how to give money, how to spend money, or how to do all sorts of things that we often argue today. The truth twisters denied that Jesus died to rescue us. That’s a big deal; that’s a big thing.

Let us try to remember that the little things are the little things. Please God, help me in my unbelief.

Ephesians 2:6-7 (New Living Translation)

6 For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. 7 So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.

Do you want to see “incredible wealth?”

Look in a mirror.

I don’t have to watch “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” or “Extreme RVs” or anything like that. I just look in the dingy mirror of my poorly lit bathroom.

Christians are examples of the incredible wealth of God’s grace and kindness. WHOA! Let that sink in. We’re all incredible wealth walking around. Look about us: see all that incredible wealth? In the right setting, we’re surrounded with incredible wealth.

Thanks be to God.

Ephesians 2:4-5 (New Living Translation)

4 But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, 5 that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)

The writer is addressing a group of Christians. The writer states a simple fact that is complex beyond understanding:

We are dead; we are alive.

We are dead in our sins; we are alive in God’s Son. We are dead AND alive—at the same time.

I don’t understand how that works. I believe that it works. I cannot explain myself. Thank you God that I am not required to explain myself. I only need to accept God’s words.

2 Peter 1:1 (New Living Translation)

This letter is from Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ.

I am writing to you who share the same precious faith we have. This faith was given to you because of the justice and fairness of Jesus Christ, our God and Savior.

Peter opens his second letter discussing the precious faith we have in Jesus Christ. This precious faith was given because of a couple of attributes of Jesus Christ. Those attributes are:

Justice and Fairness (?!?!?!)

Huh? This must be some mistake in translation or a typo or something. Surely the precious faith stems from something else like, well, uh, er, maybe power and glory or majesty and honor or something.

Justice and Fairness?????

Yes, Justice and Fairness. These words are found throughout the Bible. We might as well chisel these in marble or titanium or something permanent and place them at the door of our homes and our churches and across the bottom of our Zoom meetings in this year of the virus.

Justice and Fairness.

Amen. There is much grey area in these words. They are neither measurable nor black and white. To be just and fair means I have to extend myself beyond the reasonable. “Half way there” is not just and fair. Far over 50/50 brings me closer to just and fair.

God, please help me in my unbelief.

1 John 5:21 (New Living Translation)

Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts.

John ends his first letter with a simple bit of advice.

Keep away from that stuff.

That stuff is anything that might take over our hearts. Well, certainly John could be a bit more specific than “anything.” How about a list, huh? No, times change. Things change. This is hot, that is not. One year its a Polaroid camera (some readers may need to look that up on Wikipedia), another year its an MP3 player (another thing to look up), another year its an iPhone.

Am I thinking about something much of the time? Am I thinking about some person much of the time? Yikes, we can also fall into that one. Are those things and those persons taking God’s place in my heart?

Let’s stay grounded in God. Stop. Breathe. Reflect. Do this daily or hourly or every minute or two. That old “what would Jesus do?” idea wasn’t such a bad one.

1 John 1:4 (New Living Translation)

We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy.

John writes a letter to fellow Christians. Why? Well, to teach, I guess. That is what all these writings in the Bible are about, right? Yes. To some degree, but look at the above sentence.

John is full of joy. John wants the reader to have this same joy. John is a “joy writer.”

Hmmm. Ever know someone who walked in the room and the room changed from whatever to laughter? The person “livened up the party?” Well, this is the letter from John. Not happy? Read the letter from John.

What is so “happy and joy” about the letter from John? Simple. God is in the light. We are in the light with God. We aren’t slowly and fearfully feeling our way in the dark. We aren’t stubbing our toe on that chair that someone didn’t put under the table where it belongs.

John is a joy writer telling us of the joy of running around and enjoying a life in the light.