The Bible in 365
Beginning on December 1 2009 we’ll begin our program of reading The Bible in 365.. To take part in this classroom, go to the link below from the ELCA website and get a copy of the schedule, or pick up a copy in the church library. Begin reading the daily Bible selections on December 1. Over the course of the next 365 days, we’ll read the Bible from cover to cover following the daily reading schedule. It doesn’t matter which version, translation, or paraphrase of the Bible you use, in fact a mixture should make the conversation more interesting. In the spring, we’ll come together as a group with Pastor Morris to discuss our experience.
To get started, review what the ELCA says about the Lutheran perspective of the Bible. A handout was provided at our first session and you can find more copies in the library. A very brief segment follows but it should be read in its entirety. (See http://www.elca.org/What-We-Believe/New-or-Returning-to-Church/Dig-Deeper/The-Bible.aspx)
The Bible as encounter with the living Word
Lutherans believe that the Bible is the most important of all the ways God’s person and presence are revealed to humanity. That is because it is in reading the biblical books that we most reliably hear and encounter the living Word of God, who is the risen Jesus.
The Bible’s very name begins to tell us what we have between its covers. In Greek “the Bible” literally means “the books.” The Bible that Lutherans use is a collection of 66 books produced over a period of as much as 1,000 years. Each of these books had a life and use of its own prior to its incorporation into what we know as the “sacred canon.”
The Bible contains the story of God’s interaction with humankind, first through the understanding of the Jewish people (Old Testament, 39 books), and subsequently to all people through God’s self revelation in Jesus (New Testament, 27 books).
The Bible’s authority rests in God
ELCA Lutherans confidently proclaim with all Christians that the authority of the Bible rests in God. We believe that God inspired the Bible’s many writers, editors and compilers. As they heard God speaking and discerned God’s activity in events around them in their own times and places, the Bible’s content took shape. Among other things, the literature they produced includes history, legal code, parables, letters of instruction, persuasion and encouragement, tales of heroism, love poetry and hymns of praise. The varying types and styles of literature found here all testify to faith in a God who acts by personally engaging men and women in human history.
See the link below for the daily schedule or check below for a monthly schedule through the spring:
http://www.elca.org/What-We-Believe/The-Bible/Read-the-Bible/Read-the-Bible-in-One-Year.aspx
Monthly Schedule
December - Genesis chapter 1 through Leviticus chapter 11
January - Leviticus chapter 12 through Joshua chapter 4
February - Joshua chapter 5 through 2 Samuel chapter 13
March - 2 Samuel chapter 14 through 1 Chronicles chapter 23
April - 1 Chronicles chapter 24 through Job chapter 34
May - Job chapter 35 through Proverbs chapter 3
June – Proverbs chapter 4 through Isaiah 50
July - Isaiah chapter 51 through Ezekiel 19
August – Ezekial chapter 20 through Zechariah 6
Fall 2010
Getting Back to Basics: Augsburg Confession & Small Catechism*
Timothy Wengert, is known for artfully mining the treasures of the Reformation. In this course these old documents come alive through his engaging style and approach. The Book of Concord, which contains the basic creeds and confessions of the Lutheran Church, has been used in many ways since it was first published in 1580. This course looks in detail at its two main documents: the Augsburg Confession and the Small Catechism, with some help from the other Lutheran confessions contained there. What we discover are people caught in the act of confessing their Christian faith, especially the author of the Small Catechism, Martin Luther (1483-1546), and the chief drafter of the Augsburg Confession, Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560), Luther’s colleague at the University of Wittenberg. Thus, the Book of Concord does not simply get its authority from later Lutheran churches or pastors but from the event of confessing precisely when that confessing moves us to confess our own faith in the God revealed in Scripture.
This course contains ten sessions, each with three parts, constituting over ten hours of material. It includes discussion questions and a comprehensive study guide with bibliography.
Timothy Wengert teaches and does research in Reformation History and the Lutheran Confessions. In 1981 he discovered and published notes on two of Martin Luther’s sermons from 1520. In 2000 a new English edition of The Book of Concord appeared edited jointly by Robert Kolb and Timothy Wengert (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Publishers). His translation of Luther’s Small Catechism from that volume is used widely throughout the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
* This in-depth program was created for the SELECT Video Resources of the ELCA and is an offering of the School for Lay Ministry. Details will be made available later as we plan our version of this wonderful program on the foundation of our Lutheran theology..
