Month: January 2018

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1/19 Reading (Nehemiah 13; Philippians 4)

Nehemiah 13: These seems to be a break in the time between the end of chapter 12 and the beginning of this chapter. Nehemiah was in Babylon and when he returned he had to set things back in order because people let things happen that shouldnā€™t have happened with respect to the temple. He then admonished people for working on the Sabbath. Finally, he had to remind the people not to marry foreign women. Seems like everything almost fell apart while he was gone. Didnā€™t take long.

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1/18 Reading (Nehemiah 10-12; Philippians 3)

Nehemiah 10: The signing of the pledge they made at the end of the previous chapter. Four groups sign it: Governor Nehemiah, priests, the levites, and the leaders of the people. The rest of the chapter focuses on what this covenant means and the things that they agreed to. Many of these come from the Torah.

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1/17 Reading (Nehemiah 7-9; Philippians 2)

Nehemiah 7: First few verses focus on Nehemiahā€™s instructions related to protecting the city now that the wall is finished. The overwhelming majority of this chapter focuses Nehemiah registering the families. And it was a lot of people (42,360).

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1/16 Reading (Nehemiah 4-6; Philippians 1)

Nehemiah 4: Opposition to the construction of the wall grew considerably as the people became more organized. Enough to the point that Nehemiah set up guards to protect the workers and prayed to God for his help. The opposition pulled back because they realized it would no longer be easy to destroy them.

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1/15 Reading (Nehemiah 1-3; Philemon)

Introduction to Nehemiah: Nice little tidbit from the introduction in the NRSV study bible: ā€œThe Nehemiah section of Ezra-Nehemiah depicts the final stage of Jewish reconstruction after exile, featuring Nehemiah as the Jewish governor under Persian rule, who rebuilds Jerusalemā€™s walls (1.1ā€“7.5) and oversees many reformsā€ (p. 685). Good to know.

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1/13 Reading (Ezra 10; Psalms 75-77)

Ezra 10: Ezra summons all the people to Jerusalem. There he tells them that everyone who married a foreign woman must send away their wives and children. They all agree as a community. That pretty much sucks!

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An update to the schedule

I decided to make an update to the schedule. I had slowly gotten further and further behind and began to feel more pressure. I reflected on this and realized a very important thing: this is my experience. There is no medal given at the end just because I finished reading the Bible in a year. So what if it takes me longer. The goal of this experience to actually get something out of it. For me to get something out of it. I began to feel so much pressure that I didn’t think I was actually getting something out of it. I say this because it is possible that the schedule could change again in the future. This is a very challenging experience and I want to make sure I learn something. Just in case someone is actually reading this thing, I’ve bolded the line where things changed on the schedule page.

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12/15 Reading (Ezra 7-9; Ephesians 6)

Ezra 7: We finally meet Ezra, ā€œa scribe skilled in the law of Moses that the Lord the God of Israel had givenā€ (NRSV Study Bible, p. 677; Ezra 7.6). Later text calls him a priest. The main part of this chapter focuses on a decree from the Persian King indicating how important Ezra was to the Persians. He seemed to have been a pretty powerful person. The king pretty much gives him full authority and tells everyone that they need to do what he asks of them. Ezra ends this chapter with a prayer of thanksgiving to God.

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12/14 Reading (Ezra 4-6; Ephesians 5)

Ezra 4: We see initial opposition to the reconstruction of the temple. The opposition stems from people who initially wanted to help rebuild the temple but were told they couldnā€™t help by those who returned from exile. They responded by getting the people on their side, bribing people, and writing to the Persian kings telling them that those who returned from exile will not pay tribute to the kings once they are able to rebuild the city.

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12/13 Reading (Ezra 1-3; Ephesians 4)

Introduction to Historical Books section in NRSV: The following quote comes from the introduction to the historical books section in the NRSV study bible:

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