PSA Bible Reading Challenge 2025-2026

We begin our reading today with the 10 Commandments in Deuteronomy, providing us with a recap of what we saw live in Leviticus. Again, this is a bit of a recap by Moses to the people of Israel basically explaining to them, and to himself, why they and he cannot enter the promised land. We then transition to the bulk of the life of Jesus in Mark, which is short enough to give us a lot of material in these 5 chapters. Consistently in Mark Jesus tells the people to not tell others about his powers or his miracles.

There is a constant theme in this Scripture of Jesus being surrounded by mobs of people who press in on him and so he looks for places to go and to get away from them. I often think of ministry and how there are seasons and times in ministry when there are crowds who want to be a part of the ministry that is taking place, and then, inexplicably, those crowds disappear. Jesus sees that in his hometown of Nazareth where he was amazed that the lack of faith of the people. That is something that you can feel and that you can tell is whether a people is following what you are saying and doing their “homework” or not.

We have two very different readings today, even though they both begin a new book of the Bible for us. Deuteronomy is a bit of revisionist history from the perspective of Moses. He goes over with the people a series of: “Remember when?” We hear basically all that has taken place from the perspective of Moses, even the reason why they were forced to wander and why Moses was not allowed to enter the promised land. Twice Moses says that it is your fault that not even I am allowed to enter. He even asks the Lord if there is any chance that he might be able to bend his decree by allowing Moses to enter just so that he can see the land. God says, I don’t want to hear this any more. I will allow you to climb the mountain and see the land that is before you, but you shall not enter, Joshua will do that. It is fascinating to hear the stories of the people of Israel from a very direct, singular perspective from someone who is either Moses, or someone who is definitely within the Moses camp.

I was surprised by the Gospel of Mark. It has been a while since I read that Gospel, and I had always considered it the cliff notes of the Gospels. Meaning, I had always considered it the shortened version of the Gospels that only touched upon the necessities. I’m not sure that is correct. But notice that it does not contain any of the birth narratives. We begin with John the baptist, and the first chapter includes the calling of all of the disciples. The first chapter also includes, or maybe the second, a reference to Capernaum as Jesus’ home, and the healing of the paralytic man takes place within Jesus’ home, so that is something new that I had not noticed before. I really like Mark and I am noticing things in this Gospel that I had not seen before. Enjoy!

As we close out Corinthians we find ourselves with many different cultural commands that Paul gives which remind us that we live in a day and age that is so very different from Paul’s day and age, and yet the words of the Lord stand firm and do not waver. We find the very familiar and popular I Corinthians 13, the love chapter, that leads the way. It is very similar to Psalm 23 which is one of those Scriptures that provides comfort in it’s familiarity. Do not hesitate to reflect on the words on what love truly it. It is servant love and humble love and anything else is, well, something else.

We find in Numbers more sorting out of the tribes and opportunities for God to establish that the land that he had given to the people of Israel he would surely give to them. There are a number of tribes who want to stay on the other side of the Jordan River, it would be the east side, but promised to send their armies to conquer the west side of the Jordan. They promise that they will not establish themselves until all of the land has been subdued. They will just put their women and children in temporary establishments where they will eventually settle, on the east side of the Jordan, then they will battle with all of the Israelites, and then they will return and create their cities and live. Moses gives the green light for that.

In I Corinthians we find following the chapter 10 description of the bread which you will see in my last blog, the words of institution which I use every time we have communion. They are comforting and familiar and they provide us with the understanding of what we are doing every time that we take communion. I hope you read them and find some peace in the familiarity.

The Midianites are defeated and they bring back the booty, but Moses is angry because with the booty the soldiers kept those who had tempted the Israelites into sinning. It was a planned strategy to have the Israelites wander away from God at the hands of the married women of Midian who then led the weak men of Israel into sacrificing to the idols of Midian. Moses commands the soldiers to kill all those who were married. So, these are the Scriptures that people who do not know the Lord object to. Okay, even those of us who do know the Lord can object to this Scripture as well. We do not understand why the nature of the Lord was to eliminate His enemies, in this case to massacre people who ostensibly had nothing to do with the leadership and are innocent bystanders. It doesn’t, for me at least, contradict the nature of Christ. God is a jealous God and will act to save His people from syncretism, which is the amalgamation of different religions into something that is completely unnoticeable. There is one God, and one God alone and anything that would disturb the monotheistic approach needs to be eliminated. I’m okay with that.

So we find in I Corinthians 10:17 the words that I use to describe what it means to be the body of Christ and how the bread at communion is a part of the unity. I had no idea that this was in Scripture. I know that I must have heard it somewhere, probably another past who was doing communion, and early on I liked it and I picked up and I have used it ever since. But the concept that the single loaf at communion not only is the body of Christ which is broken for us upon the cross and that the single loaf is for us the single body of Christ in the church has always been a part of the liturgy of communion for me. Now I have a Scripture from which it came. That is pretty exciting to me.

We find the prophesies of Balaam which are somewhat homogenous in that all of the nations are predicted to fall in the sight of Israel. We also see at the end of our reading in chapter 27 the baton pass from Moses to Joshua. It is in this Scripture where we see our tradition of laying hands on people who are chosen for a specific duty. Even the word commissioning is mentioned in this passage as what Moses does to Joshua so that a spirit of his leadership and a part of the Holy Spirit that was with Moses would be handed down to Joshua. When we commission people or groups it is with the same thought. The quote is: “Give him some of your authority.” When we go outside of the walls of the church and we do the work of God we do it with some of the authority that rests upon the church. We no longer act for ourselves, but we represent the church and Christ. This Scripture lays the groundwork for that.

It has been a few days since I last blogged on this site. Without a doubt the death of my mother has hit me pretty hard, but like all things, we persevere and do not despair. Both of those things seem to be the case in my own situation. We begin Numbers with the death of Miriam, Moses’ sister. It is very matter of fact and not a whole lot of words goes into her death. We then move to the death of Aaron which has a whole sequence of events and the mourning of the community for 30 days. Seems a bit unfair that both of them die but only one of them is mentioned as affecting the community in the way that is significant.

We also see the banning of Moses from entering the promised land. Again, previously I had thought that this was where God had banned all of Israel, but that happened earlier. Here God only bans Moses, and Aaron and Miriam don’t enter because they die. So now we see the people of Israel wander with snakes to contend with and with other nations to contend with. God remains by their side and protects them even as they go from one place to the other for no particular reason. They are not in the promised land, just wasting time in the waste land.

Paul underscores two topics in these two chapters and we’ll address them backwards. In 6 he addresses sexual immorality and describes it as being more than just superficial, on the outside. He states that sexual immorality affects the heart and the spirit of the individual involved and so is more pernicious than other sins in which we may find ourselves. This is a strong warning to all. In chapter 5 he speaks of casting out the one who continue in his sin, which again, happens to be sexual sin. All of this is within the context of the Corinthian church which seemed to be rife with problems.

At the end of our reading in Corinthians Paul asks a question of the disobedient church: “Should I come to you with a stick or with love?” This could be our theme for both of our readings. We see once again the people of God rebel against Moses and his leadership, even to the point where there are leaders who are mentioned along with an army of men who are willing to go against Moses and Aaron and their leadership. It is an attempt at a civil war, it is our January 6 written out in Scripture, but we see how Moses handles it. He allows God to do the work and he separates the three leaders of the rabble mob from the rest of the congregation and the earth literally swallows them and their families and their tents whole. Then the other 250 are killed by the Lord. You would think this would teach those who rebelled against the Lord a lesson.

But then in the next chapter we read about more complaints from the people of Israel to the point where God sends a plague and Aaron has to hustle out there with his censer and incense to prevent the plague from spreading. But thousands of people still die as a result of the plague. You would wonder how bad did it have to be in order for the people to miss the presence of the Lord which seems so obvious in their midst to rebel against Moses and Aaron. But isn’t that the same question that we can ask for our time. The presence of the Lord is so obvious in our midst and yet we continue to miss it and we continue to wonder where God has gone. If we would only open our eyes.

In Corinthians we see Paul scolding the church because of the divisions that they have created which is centered around who they prefer: Paul or Apollos. I love how Paul talks about the building upon the foundation and that each builder leaves their mark, but it is still the foundation, Jesus, that remains and that is built upon. That can be seen so clearly in our church as well. So many pastors have come and gone over the years and yet Jesus has remained the foundation. Praise be to God!

It makes sense to combine these verses in Numbers and Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth. So here in Numbers we have the narrative of when God decides to punish the Israelites who complained against him so that they would not enter into the promised land. Moses sent spies out into the land, one from every tribe, and they all came back complaining about the land that the people there were giants and so would consume them if they tried to overtake them. The only two who did not complain were Joshua and Caleb. As a result of the other 10 no one in that generation who complained would enter the promised land. This is where they are getting their wish to wander in the wilderness rather than having to face the giants of the land. They actually said that, they would rather either go back to Egypt or wander in the wilderness. So God gave them this wish for 40 years and he commands that they take up their tent stakes and start heading back toward the Red Sea, from whence they came, to begin to wander.

Paul’s letters to the church in Corinth, which he founded and which he loved, is a letter of castigation and warning to a congregation who heard the Gospel and yet was not obeying the Gospel as they should have. Paul reminds them that God has chosen the weak and the foolish of the world to confound that which is considered wise and strong of the world through the preaching of the Gospel. He states that he was not called to baptize, but rather to bring the Gospel. He castigates the church because they are taking sides based upon those who were baptizing them within the church.

I always had thought that the banishment to the wilderness for 40 years took place when Moses struck the rock, but no, it is here in where the people refuse to listen to the promise of the Lord that they are going to be able to enter the promised land. I guess in theory Moses is still allowed to enter the promised land until he isn’t when he strikes the rock for water. That is coming up a bit later, we will see.

Israel is preparing itself to set out and to discover and enter into the promised land. All the pieces are now set. The details of the Tabernacle is in place, the tribes each have their responsibilities and their duties, the people have been consecrated before the Lord to carry out their duties, and now they are ready to move, and they do move. There are a couple of interesting verses that I wanted to highlight. The first is the Aaronic or the Priestly blessing. You can find that in 6:22ff where Moses commands the Levites and the sons of Aaron to bless the people with a blessing that is used to this day. It is a comforting blessing and one that rings familiar when we hear it.

The second Scripture that I want us to see, which is much less significant than the previous one and much less impactful than the previous one, is 8:25-26 where we read that the Levites should do the work of the Lord when they turn 25 but then at age 50 they are to retire from serving in the primary role, while they are still allowed to serve in a secondary role. This might be the only place where we see that people are told to retire from doing the work of the Lord in a specific way.

A little story that I wanted to share with you. I remember going to hear Tony Campolo speak in a small church and the premise of his talk, because the congregation was much older, was that the Lord never tells us to retire, we are to work for the Lord our entire life, regardless of our age. It is a great message, but in the congregation an elderly woman, very elderly, who apparently knew her Bible really well, pointed out this verse and left him speechless. It was the first time that I had seen him not know what to say. But of course we don’t apply this to our lives today. Retiring at 50 isn’t an option in this day and age for most of us, and not because of the financial impact, but because there is so much more that we can do after 50.