Week 4, January 18–24: Matthew 5–25
- Sun Jan 18 Matt. 5–7
- Mon Jan 19 Matt. 8–10
- Tue Jan 20 Matt. 11–13
- Wed Jan 21 Matt. 14–16
- Thu Jan 22 Matt. 17–19
- Fri Jan 23 Matt. 20–22
- Sat Jan 24 Matt. 23–25
We are into the fourth week of this year’s read thru, and I hope and pray you are starting to get into a bit of a rhythm as you incorporate Bible reading into your day. Whether this is the first time you have read these stories in Genesis, or whether they are very familiar to you, reading them is helping to form a view of the world and of the God who is involved in the world he created. It is his perspective of our world we are gaining as we read of these ancient people.
It is good to keep reminding ourselves of the purpose for doing a read thru like this. We could think of many benefits, like the value of doing this together as a church. That is one thing I am especially excited about. We will hear connections from the Sunday sermons to passages we have covered in the read thru, and it will be rewarding and encouraging to be able to talk with each other about what God is teaching us, knowing others are reading the same things we are. There are many other valuable reasons for us to be reading through the Bible in a year, as individuals and for us as a church.
Broadly speaking, we could put the main purposes for doing a Bible read thru into two areas. It may be helpful to summarize these two points generally, then unpack them a little more over the next few weeks.
First, we are reading through the Bible in a year to meet with God regularly and hear what he has to say. And second, we are doing this to cultivate a lifelong habit of growing in our awareness and understanding of God through his word, and being shaped by what we learn.
We will dig more into both of these points and explore together some of the many ways reading through Scripture can be a valuable and lifegiving part of our lives as followers of Jesus. As we do, it is important to keep reminding ourselves that we are not reading just to read. We are doing so to invest a little time each day to receive from God the communication he has graciously given us. And we are reading God’s word so that we can know him and so we will live in a way that honors him, both in our devotion to him and in our love for others.
We are in the Gospel of Matthew all week, and we finish the book on Sunday. Matthew’s Gospel ends with Jesus’ parting words to his disciples:
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:18–20)
In this charge, which we call the Great Commission, Jesus gives his disciples and us today the outline for our task as his followers. Jesus’s disciples have been with him for a while by now. They have walked with him, watched him in action, and heard him teach. By this point, at the end of the Gospel’s narrative, they have seen their Lord crucified, and now he is alive again. He has risen and will soon ascend to be with the Father; but before he does, he leaves them with these instructions. He sends them out on a mission to tell the world what they have seen and heard, and to call others to follow him too.
Gresham Bible Church’s mission is to carry on this same task, to be disciples who make disciples, all for God’s glory and by the transforming power of the gospel. We have the same mission Jesus gave to those first disciples. It is the same mission the Church has always had since Jesus’s ascension, and it will be our mission until he comes again. Our hope and prayer is that reading the Bible together as a church will help us in this mission. May we, like the disciples, take what we are seeing and hearing and spread the news. As we come to know our glorious, triune God better, we will want others to know him too.