Brian McLaren's "From Genesis to Revelation": March 2009 Archives

Beliefnet is pleased to present an inspirational devotional from the gifted Christian author Brian McLaren. This is week 4 of the 8 week-long devotional. If you missed the previous entries, stay subscribed to this feed to start over.

Abraham leaves his home in Ur and journeys west to Canaan and settles there. Isaac and Jacob live in the land, but a famine forces Jacob's sons to flee south to Egypt, where their rejected brother Joseph forgives them and provides for them. The Egyptians enslave them for 400 years, until Moses follows God's call to lead them to freedom. Because of unbelief and disobedience, they wander 40 years in the desert until Joshua leads them to resettle Canaan. Even after being miraculously liberated, the people forget God and worship the little idols of the surrounding nations. Eventually they seek a kingdom with a king like the nations around them; but of their many kings, only a few are good, like David. Although prophets call them back to faithful living, they lapse into civil war, and eventually, they are conquered and carried off as exiles to Babylon. After 70 years in exile, Nehemiah leads them back to Canaan to rebuild under the eye of their oppressors.

Through all these experiences, the people argue, wonder, rage, encourage, pray, listen, doubt, believe, and otherwise express in a thousand different ways the wonder and agony of life in this unfolding story with God. The Scriptures preserve a record of this dynamic conversation with and about God. The voices of priest and prophet, sage and poet, leader and common people come together in an honest, inspiring, and sometimes troubling conversation across generations--a conversation into which we are invited today.

All Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God maybe thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16)

For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Romans 15:4-5)

JOURNALING PROMPTS:

11. Imagine that you were invited to contribute to an anthology entitled "Life with God in the 21st Century." Your only assignment: to share an honest paragraph or two about what it feels like to be you, in relation to God and God's story, today.
12. It surprises people to discover how often in the biblical conversation doubt and rage are expressed to God. Read Ecclesiastes, for example, or Psalm 88. You might discover how expressing doubt and rage to God are actually acts of faith by composing an outpouring of your own questions or frustrations in faith to God.

--Brian McLaren

Beliefnet is pleased to present an inspirational devotional from the gifted Christian author Brian McLaren. This is week 3 of the 8 week-long devotional. If you missed the previous entries, stay subscribed to this feed to start over.

God doesn't abandon creation, but intervenes, establishing a special relationship with a man named Abram and a woman named Sara. Their descendents, beginning with Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, will bring blessing to all the peoples of the world. They will be God's people, pioneering a path of faith for all people to follow, in covenant with the living God.

The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." So Abram left, as the LORD had told him . . . . (Genesis 12:1-4)

JOURNALING PROMPTS:

8. When have you felt in some way contacted by God? How have you received a sense of calling for your life? Tell that story.
9. Sometimes we feel that a sense of calling like Abram's is missing in our lives, or that it's not articulated well enough. Write a prayer or other expression of desire for a clearer sense of mission.
10. Take the calling of Abram above and paraphrase it into terms that apply to you. What do you have to leave? Where do you need to go? What will you become? What might God want to do "through you"?

--Brian McLaren

Beliefnet is pleased to present an inspirational devotional from the gifted Christian author Brian McLaren. This is week 2 of the 8 week-long devotional. If you missed the previous entries, stay subscribed to this feed to start over.

Unsatisfied with the immeasurable gift of being created in God's image, unwilling to live within limits as God's creatures in creation, we want more--to be gods ourselves, living without limits, setting our own rules. We reach for knowledge and taste its bitter fruit--alienation between man and woman, brother and brother, humanity and creation. We live on the edge of self-destruction, riding the rising tide of our own flood of evil, trying to build great and prosperous cities that mask our own spiritual poverty.

The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. (Genesis 6:5-6)

JOURNALING PROMPTS:

5. Where in the last 24 hours have you most seen human evil at work? Express your sadness, outrage, despair, or frustration at what you've seen.
6. Focus on a powerful experience you have had as a victim of evil. Tell that story. Why is remembering it important for your life?
7. Focus on a powerful experience you have had as a perpetrator of evil. Tell that story and why remembering it is important in your life.

--Brian McLaren

Beliefnet is pleased to present an inspirational devotional from the gifted Christian author Brian McLaren. This is week 1 of the 8 week-long devotional. If you missed the previous entries, stay subscribed to this feed to start over.

Before anything is created, God exists. God is One--a community of Father, Son, Spirit in an eternal dance of giving and receiving love and joy. From God's fullness come the words, "LET THERE BE!" And everything we know--and more that we don't--springs into being. We are created "in God's image"--capable of knowing, enjoying, obeying, and partnering with God. We walk with God in the cool of the day, in harmony with our fellow creatures of earth. Our story begins!

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters . . . . (Genesis 1:1)

JOURNALING PROMPTS:

1. If possible, get outdoors, into some corner or place where you can experience the goodness of creation. Describe in detail one simple facet of creation that you can see or feel.
2. Remember one of your favorite places and moments when you could sense the goodness of creation. Describe that goodness. Why is its memory important to you?
3. You and your body are part of creation. Describe some aspect of creation that you see in yourself. This isn't bragging--it's being grateful and aware!
4. Write your reflections on creation in the form of a prayer or psalm, echoing Psalm 8, 19, or 104. Remember that nobody in the history of the universe has been given exactly your perspective on creation's goodness: you see things in a way nobody else has ever seen.

--Brian McLaren

Join author Brian McLaren for "From Genesis to Revelation," a 7-part journey through the biblical narrative. Once a week, you'll receive a set of new journaling prompts about a new part of the Bible story. Use these prompts in your own journal or in group discussion.

Introduction

A persistent and troubling question has plagued--or maybe blessed is the right word?--my adult life:

Why does Christianity, the faith I believe and the way of life that has given me purpose and direction, so often play on the wrong side?

Jesus taught us not to condemn, not to "cast the first stone." Why, then, are so many Christians typified as judgmental, critical, negative, and hypocritical? Why did the life and teaching of a man who died on a cross--actually practicing what he preached about turning the other cheek--become associated with religious people who seem too happy to justify war? Why do followers of a man who said God cared for every wildflower and common sparrow often careless about God's creation?

In other words, why do we so often miss the point, and do so with such amazing gracelessness?

My books have chronicled my grappling with these questions. I didn't start writing with answers in mind; rather, the questions drove me to write, and whatever answers I found emerged in the writing process.

So far, two discoveries have helped me begin not only to answer my nagging "miss the point" question, but also to begin imagining what to do about it.

First, Christian faith is at heart not a system of belief, not a list of abstractions to be defended, certainly not a list of rules to be followed. Rather, it is a story, and a way of understanding the human story-where we've been, where we are, where we're going. Christian faith goes sour when it misunderstands or loses track of its inherent story, but it germinates, grows, blossoms, and bears fruit when it is believed and lived as a vital narrative of Creator-and-creation in an ongoing relationship.

Second, Jesus' life and message make the most sense in the context of this unfolding story. To try to fit Jesus into some other context guarantees that we will miss the point. In short, Jesus (as I have come to understand him) came as a Jewish man with good news: God was inviting everyone, beginning with his fellow Jews, into a new way of relating, understanding, working, praying, and living. His life, death, resurrection, ascension, and sending of the Holy Spirit were ways of making that message visible and possible in our world.

That sets the stage for the journaling experience I would like to invite you to participate in. For those familiar with my writings, these prompts will relate primarily to The Story We Find Ourselves In (second in the "New Kind of Christian" trilogy), A Generous Orthodoxy, and The Secret Message of Jesus. But you really don't need any familiarity with my books, so long as you have a basic understanding of the biblical story.

In this journal, I'll guide you through the entire course of the biblical narrative. Each time you come to the journal, feel free to write as much or as little as you like, and to interact with other people's journals. You can also post photographs or any images you like that help your journaling experience. Every few days we'll encounter a new part of the Bible story, moving from God's great Beginning to the Consummation of all things. I hope that your journaling on this overview of the biblical narrative--told in seven episodes, with three or four prompts for each episode--will be as helpful to you as it has been to me. I look forward to seeing what you have to say.

--Brian McLaren