Bible in 90 Days {Week 10 Recap}

Better late than never, right?

Sorry…I’ve been out Spring Breaking with the kids. Maybe I should rephrase: we’re doing a tri-state tour visiting any relatives and friends we pass on the way. 🙂

But back to the Bible in 90 Days…good news! We are FINALLY in the New Testament! Happy dance! Happy dance!

However, before we made it to Matthew, we had to finish up the ol’ prophets. We read the end of Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi before we turned to that wonderful almost-blank page that said, “The New Testament.”

I didn’t have a lot of insights/questions on some of these minor prophet books; I ended up just doing a summary on many of them. In fact, I’ll admit that most of these books just didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me (hard to know what prophecies have already been fulfilled), but I always perked right up when I saw a prophecy about Jesus. I wonder if those guys really understood the full extent of Who/what they were talking about at the time.

Insights and Observations from Week Ten:

• There have been several references to death that have left me scratching my head throughout the Old Testament. There were a couple in Daniel including 12:2 and 12:13.  
• Read this verse regarding Ephraim that, apparently, was one of the tribes of Israel:

“Because of all their wickedness in Gilgal, I hated them there. Because of their sinful deeds, I will drive them out of my house. I will no longer love them; all their leaders are rebellious.
Ephraim is blighted, their root is withered, they yield no fruit.
Even if they bear children, I will slay their cherished offspring.” Hosea 9:15-16

Okay, I’m just going to avoid the whole “slaying of children” part for the moment and focus on the end of verse 15. Did God really just say he was not going to love them anymore??

(Also, for the record, I can’t believe I just referenced a Wikipedia page. That goes against my librarian nature.)

• Hosea 4:6 has always stuck in my mind: “…my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.” I think that though I’m learning that we can not know everything, I’m embarrassed about how little modern Christians know about our holy book.(It’s one of the reasons I felt convicted to commit to reading the Bible in 90 days.)
• Here’s another verse that seems to really be a picture of America and the modern world: “When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me.” Hosea 13:6
• I’ve heard Jonah’s story like a bazillion-gazillion times in my life, but I just noticed for the first time that in Jonah 1:7 it says that God provided the fish that swallowed Jonah. That fish is often seen as a curse, but it’s actually a blessing. God could have not provided the fish and let the ol’ boy sink to the bottom of the ocean!
• One of the things that I have seen repeated in the Old Testament and among the prophets is that God doesn’t rejoice in our sacrifice, but in our actions. I think Micah 6:8 sums it up well: “And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Wish me luck as I try to keep up with my readings in the middle of our Spring Break travels! Until next week….