PSA Bible Reading Challenge 2025-2026

Isaiah seems to move from predicting the coming of the Messiah and restoration, to a chapter on restoration, but the rest is on destruction and recompense for disobedience. It is within these types of chapters that Isaiah gets his reputation for being a prophet that describes the future destruction that is to come, and yet no one seems to listen to him. Not quite the weeping prophet like Jeremiah, but nevertheless we do see a message that is consistently delivered and consistently ignored. There is a real affinity to Isaiah’s message the nature of things in our day and age. God speaks, but we do not obey. We may listen, we may hear, but we do not follow. This has been the way of the Lord, always to give us His message of hope and restoration, but we consistently choose that which leads to destruction. The morbidity with which these words are given aren’t meant to discourage, but rather to motivate.

The prophet Isaiah is replete with references to the coming Savior, also known as the Messiah, or the anointed one. This Messiah is prophesied to be the one who will take Israel out of bondage into freedom, out of misery into joy, out of persecution into normalcy. These Scriptures for today give us two of the most well known Scriptures which define the coming Messiah as a baby. These are used often for the Advent Season as the prophet tells us of the coming of the Messiah as something for which we ought to anticipate.

Look at 7:14 and 9:6-7 which describe the coming of the Emmanuel, the God with us. Do we not always associate these Scriptures with Christmas? So much so that Handel even created a masterpiece called Messiah based upon these verses which are repeated over and over again as a description of the Messiah that is to come and who did come in Jesus, the Word made flesh. They are no longer words for an ancient people, they are words that we are able to use in order to love our Savior even more.

A word about Isaiah. We do not know what it is like to live in a country or a setting where might makes right in a most brutal and violent way. Isaiah was a prophet to Israel in a time that the kingdom was divided, north and south, and a time when in order to maintain or at least survive, violence was implemented and used. There was not peace in the land. Every day you wondered if your life was required of you. This is almost impossible for us to understand, although this is the setting for many people in the world. It is not dangerous for us to go to the marketplace or the grocery store. For many people this simple chore is one where you are taking your life in your hand.

As a result Isaiah is describing how the people of Israel have seen turmoil and are desiring a time of peace and tranquility which they have not experienced. We see the prophet speak about Israel in a way that it is described as a transgressor and so it will be transgressed against. Not a very comforting passage, even if there is hope here for the future which is not quite in reach. As we make our way through Isaiah there are certain verses that are well known. We see the phrase that there will come a day that we will learn war no more. How can we not think of Peter, Paul and Mary.

Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus, like Romans, is one that emphasizes the grace of God as it pertains to salvation. We see in the first chapter that Paul reminds us that we are saved by grace. This is a concept that might be hard to grasp if we have been trained to think that salvation only comes to the worthy. Every year when I do confirmation, even if I teach the kids over and over again that there is nothing we can do to earn salvation, on the test when I say we can earn our salvation by being good and having faith in Jesus, almost inevitably the answer comes True. But the truth is that we cannot earn our salvation at any time for any reason. Grace is just that, grace. It is not earned in any way shape or fashion.

Ephesians 5:21 is also quite important as it reminds us that we are to be subject to one another. This is a reminder that one is not be subject without the other being subject, especially when we are talking about spousal relationships. We are to be subject to one another. Often the subjectivity of the woman is emphasized because it seems like Paul emphasizes it. But we can’t overlook how he begins and this theme carries through. Be subject to one another.

I always remain amazed at the length of chapters that cover the passion of Jesus. The last week of Jesus’ live is given more space than his birth, much more space. It is also given almost as much space as his 30 years of ministry. It should remind us that this passion of Jesus, this last week of his life, where we see him ride into Jerusalem, spend time in the temple, take the Passover with his disciples, and be arrested and killed and rise from the dead, all within the span of a week, is vitally important to understanding who Jesus really is.

The lesson on the resurrection earlier in this reading is not by chance, it is given to us to remind us that the resurrection is not only real, but it is very different from what we think or what we might expect. It is not like what we think it is. Fortunately for us Paul takes a lot more time to describe the perfect body and the being in the presence of God in a way that is not fantastical, but rather mundane. This is to what we look forward in our own resurrection.

We have some of Jesus’ most popular sayings in this section. The prodigal son is a crowd favorite, but when heard within the context of the other kingdom parables, the lost sheep, the lost coin, it is clear that Jesus is describing God’s love for all people, and not a preference for certain people as some might think. There is no recoil in God when he is considering those who have disobeyed or those who have chosen to squander all that they have in that which God would not want. Disobedience takes us away from God’s plan, but does not disqualify anyone from the kingdom.

So much of what we read in the Gospel is not merit based, but rather grace based. We see consistently the faithfulness of God matched with our unfaithfulness, and guess which one wins out time after time? When we are faithful, like the widow who persistently knocks, we see God’s response. When we are unfaithful, we also see God’s response and it can catch us off guard. This is not an encouragement to be unfaithful, it is an encouragement to be faithful and to notice God’s response when it happens. Because it will happen.

We move from the charismatic very popular Jesus who was set up as the whimsical crowd favorite, to now the healer who every opportunity he gets touches those who are on the fringes of society. He tells stories about Samaritans who are the protagonists. He heals the children of those who are well respected but not within the religious inner circle, in fact, they are considered outside of the moniker of “people of God”. We see Jesus criticize and chastise the religious leaders, even as they continue to invite him over to their houses.

We don’t see quite yet the tide turning and the crowd becoming disinterested and even hostile to Jesus, but we are definitely moving in that direction because Jesus himself is moving in the direction of becoming quite a bit more critical especially of the religious leaders. It is my guess that the next chapters we will see a significant jump from Jesus being favored to Jesus being targeted.

It struck me this time as I was reading the beginning chapters that the story of the ministry of Jesus really doesn’t pick up until the middle of chapter 4 of Luke. On top of that se see the first two chapters are very very long chapters. In reality, we have the set up of Jesus as being consequential so that we are prepared for what comes next. Pretty much all of what we have read so far is Jesus who is performing miracles and all of the religious leaders as well as the people of the day are following him around to see what he will do next. He is potentially at the zenith of his itinerant career right now, in the early stages of his ministry.

It is also here where we see that he is about 30 when he begins his ministry and we know that three Passovers are mentioned which places the length of his ministry at 3 years. I do have burned in my mind that his disciples could have easily been teenagers when he called them. We also see that Peter and James and John were business partners in the fishing industry. There is so much detail in Luke, to say nothing of the birth narratives of John and Jesus that none of the other Gospels contain, that is fascinating. Luke is probably my favorite in setting the stage for the ministry of Jesus. He is at this stage of his career hugely popular. But we know that soon changes.

There are a couple of places in Micah that we find verses that we have used in the past. But the vast majority of it is the prophet complaining about the people of Israel to God. It is a stark reminder of what is happening in the land when God’s people disobey. The state of the land was such that the people of power were taking advantage of those who had no voice and making sure that they maintained their power.

The two verses that stick out are Micah 5:2 where we see the prediction of the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem. Appropriate for this time of year, and it was used by the seers of Herod to tell the wise men where they were supposed to go. We also see the very last verses in chapter 7 that seem to turn the tables from complaint to praise lifting up the faithfulness of God even in the midst of the unfaithfulness of the people.

There is a lot of conflict within the kingdom of David. Not only do the Philistines present themselves as a worthy adversary, but those within Israel and Judah go up against David as well. This was surprising to me to see how many times there is a “civil war” actively taking place within the kingdom of David. One would think that this portends to a bad leader, or someone who is not very popular among the people, I don’t know of another explanation. But I had never thought of David as someone who was not able to maintain the favor of the people.

He is driven out of Jerusalem more than once, but at the end of the day we see that he makes his way back into Jerusalem. There is one sequence where David sings a song after a victory and it is one that we know. It the one that goes: The Lord liveth, and blessed be the rock… You can see it below.