One Year Bible Reading Journey: Luke

Yesterday, we finished the Gospel of Mark.  Today we begin the Gospel of Luke.  If you are not already on a Bible reading schedule, would you like to join me on this journey through Luke during the remainder of March and on through the month of April in the One Year Bible?  Jump on the gospel train.  Join in the journey.  The Passion Week in Luke will end approximately one week after the Passion Week on the national calendar in April.

We need to be daily reading our Bibles.  George H. Guthrie, in his book, Read the Bible For Life (2011), writes, “Ask one hundred church members if they have read the Bible today, and eighty-four of them will say no.  Ask them if they have read the Bible at least once in the past week, and sixty-eight of them will say no.  Even more disconcerting, ask those one hundred church members if reading or studying the Bible has made any significant difference in the way they live their lives.  Only thirty-seven out of one hundred will say yes” (8).

So how are you doing in your Bible reading?  Guthrie writes, “Thus, reading the Bible ought to be as encouraging as a mother’s gentle touch and, at moments, as unsettling and disturbing as a violent storm.  In his work entitled Eat This Book, Eugene Peterson rightly notes that page after page it takes us off guard, surprises us, and draws us into its reality, pulls us into participation with God on his terms.”  This should be our experience of reading the Bible as we move from dry duty, beyond a checklist Christianity, slogging through the “reading of the day,” to an experience of the Bible that might be a “disrupting delight.”  If we are not being moved in heart and moved to new places in life—new levels of obedience to God—we are not really reading the Bible the way God wants us to” (4-5).

This morning, one specific phrase in Luke 1:1-25 hit me like a bolt of lightning:  “He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children.’ “  The Messiah turns fathers to their children.  I know my heavenly Father has my back covered.  It doesn’t matter my actions – past, present, and future – he loves me.  Let that divine love of the Father flow through my heart to my children.  I have their backs covered.

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