Year in the Bible Week 4

Job and His Friends - Ilya Yefimovich Repin (1844 – 1930)

Hi everybody! We are still reading Job this week and next, and then we start Exodus on February 1. This stormy, cold weekend is a great time to catch up if you’re behind, but I hope the reading is going well for you!

Someone I love once told me that his biggest problem with the bible was the book of Job. It seemed to my friend that in this book God inflicted pain on Job just for sport, and he couldn’t accept that as good news. But what would the bible look like without Job’s undeserved suffering? We need this book to show us that God’s plan for his people does not keep trouble away from them, and that even as we worship and obey, we can (and do) still suffer. It teaches the right perspective on that suffering in a beautiful poem.

Last week we saw Job’s friends wrongly accuse him of not being worthy of God’s protection and love, perhaps because of his sins (or his children’s sins), or because he is prideful about his righteousness before God, or because of some hidden fault. They simply cannot see the difficulty as more than a just punishment from God.

This week we will get better guidance and theology from Elihu, a new character in the poem. he correctly tells them that God lets suffering happen to His faithful so that they may be humbled and preserved from falling into evil. It is not that God is personally offended by the sins of a man (or a nation) and therefore avenges Himself, but rather that He lets suffering be inflicted upon His people to purify them from the world’s sins and be made anew. When the righteous suffer, it is to keep them in humility and to preserve them from falling intro evil. Job's three friends comment from the perspective of ancient Middle-Eastern wisdom, but Elihu gives the perspective of the Law and the Prophets.

Of course, as Christians, we understand something that was still out of reach for Job. I love verse 9:33, where Job begs for a bridge; someone who would understand God’s will and take the burden of sin on himself, connecting us to the all-powerful Creator and Judge. Job was begging for Jesus! Wow!

Year in the Bible Week 3

Joseph Sold Into Slavery By His Brothers by Donato Mascagni (also known as Fra' Arsenio Mascagni), 1602

Hello everybody! This week we get to one of my favorite chapters in scripture, which is Genesis 50. It is such a comfort to know that the plans of evildoers can easily be turned into something beautiful by our sovereign Lord.

Of course, this will end the book of Genesis, and land Jacob’s whole clan in Egypt. It’s going to be quite a while (historically) until God calls the Israelites out of Egypt, so what do we read about next? The book of Job.

There is a bit of controversy about the timeline when it comes to Job, but in this book it happens early, during the time in Egypt. We will spend two weeks in Job, so be ready for some heartache, but remember: we know how the story ends!

God bless you. See you next week.

Year in the Bible Week 2

"Esau Sells His Birthright” by Giovacchino Assereto c.1645

Hello YiB friends! Hard to believe that by week two of our journey God has already made his covenant with Abraham and reaffirmed it with Isaac, and we see tension rising between Jacob and Esau. Genesis moves really fast, so if you’ve fallen behind, please don’t be discouraged! It’s still easy to catch up if you double up on the daily readings, and its even easier if you do the audio in YouVersion. The audio plays while you’re driving, working around the house, etc. and you’re caught up before youknow it. Just text Christy or me for help if you want to get the YouVersion audio going.

God’s Word shows us a lot of bad behavior in this week’s chapters, including plenty of lying and cheating from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and still God blesses them in a covenant relationship. Reading this helps us be sure that God does not choose us to inherit the Kingdom because we are righteous, but by our faith in his promises alone. Hallelujah!

Folks, statistically the average New Year’s resolution only lasts 8-9 days. That means that if you decided to do Year in the Bible 2026 as a New Year’s resolution, this is about the time you might be thinking about putting this project down. Believe me, I understand, and there will be no judgment if you don’t make it the end. After all, this is not a small thing we are doing, especially if you aren’t in a daily reading habit. If you aren’t in the habit, I humbly suggest that you investigate ways to “create a new reading habit” online. See what you can do to build an atmosphere around this fifteen minutes each day so it becomes something you simply cannot do without. Meanwhile, I’ll be giving you links to the updates every week whether you’re keeping up or not, and then if you just can’t pull it off you’ll know what to expect when you hit it with us next year, and/or the year after that. We will get this done together!

Year in the Bible Week 1

Raphael’s “Noah Building the Ark”

Happy New Year! Hopeful New Year! Stronger New Year! Better New Year!

Welcome to Year in the Bible! Remember the four words above - happy, hopeful, stronger, and better - as you read daily. Research has shown that daily bible reading makes you happier, more hopeful, stronger in your faith, and better making choices. Do your best to keep up with the readings! This week we cover a lot of historical ground in a short period of time, so if you miss a day you’ll already feel the sting of being behind. Don’t worry, you can catch up! Christy Wilson found a neat way to catch up last year by going to YouVersion and choosing the audio option, which you can do in the shower, or while you drive, or whenever you can throughout a day. Hopefully you can find a time and place where you can just be with the Word every day, and you’ll find that those fifteen minutes become something you long for all the time.

This week we will do much of the story in Genesis, with supporting scripture from Chronicles. In the January 2 readings we see a great example of how this plan works. After we hear about Noah’s family from Genesis, we see it repeated concisely in 1 Chronicles, then we return to Genesis and finish the story. This happens over and over in the chronological plan, and it’s one of my favorite things about this method. It gives me a great sense of each moment in history, and repetition of certain facts and stories adds emphasis to them for me.

Let me know how you’re doing! Shoot me a message or an email and ask any questions you have. I’ll try to find good answers and post them.

IF YOU ARE READY TO START THE PLAN WITH US, JUST GO TO www.artistministries.org/year-in-the-bible and you’ll find all the info you need. You’ll be glad you did this!