Author: Bible Society, 5 December 2017
As we reach December, Tom looks back on his penultimate month of Bible-reading for 2017.
Ezekiel was a tricky read. The first chapter sticks out to me with its vivid depiction of Ezekiel’s vision; winged creatures and wheels! The rest of Ezekiel was quite hard to get to grips with. It was a relief moving onto Daniel at the end of the month.
One of the passages that stuck out in Daniel was chapter 3 when Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refuse to worship the gold statue and are thrown into the fiery furnace. Their bravery and faithfulness to God (v17), whatever might happen (v18) is extraordinary. It’s a theme of the whole book.
Using a Bible handbook in conjunction with reading Hebrews helped me understand its purpose. The book of Hebrews is aimed at Christians who had a Jewish background and were in danger of falling away from their new faith back to their Jewish past. This letter was quite insistent at showing how Jesus superseded the Jewish law.
But how is this relevant for Christians today who don’t have the same Jewish background? What it does is show just how remarkable the good news of Jesus was for the Jews at that time.
Daniel’s humility in rightfully giving God the honour for Nebuchadnezzar’s dream interpretation in chapter 2 was inspiring (v27-28). He could easily have pretended he interpreted it himself. But he attributes the glory to God. Shame it didn’t inspire Nebuchadnezzar to humble himself (see next chapter!)
I was 9 days behind at one point – and I’m on a catch-up mission now. I’m going to try and read two days' worth of readings in one go each time for the next few days. It would be nice to finish properly on 31st December!
Tom Newbold is Bible Society's Digital Fundraising Officer.
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