One Sentence

If I had to say in one sentence the whole point of what I'm doing with Year-by-Year, what would that sound like? Hmmm....

Every 'verse' of scripture has a time, a place, a person's voice and some recent events behind it, and the scriptures as a whole have one overall sequence they belong to.

And if I had a second sentence? All believers deserve to have this view of scripture.

Yeah. That's a pretty good way to put it! I feel very strongly that most christians don't have a strong grasp on this, but we all need to... IF - that is - IF we want to understand our Bibles better. And sure, the long version currently underway is much too long and too detailed for most folks, but if I keep at it for several more years, the final (shorter) version is going to be dynamite! And you're all going to LOVE IT! :)

So stay tuned, keep praying, and feel free to send me ridiculous heaps of "speed-it-up money"! :)

But God willing, one way or another... we'll get there yet!

What I'd really like to know is... would some of y'all please leave a comment to say, in your own words, what this project might mean to you?

Update on Volume II

(Tenative Previews on Volume II posted earlier: part 1, part 2, and part 3.)
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Not a lot new on the project yet. (I'm still behind the curve at school.) Bible/History stuff is always running on a back burner in my brain, though, and I'm getting clearer about just how much rigor I NEED to put into Volume II.

I was going to skim through the teens & twenties to get to John the Baptist, but I need to show how Herod Antipas viewed the security of his own position as events happened throughout Tiberius' reign.

Here's a few short bits...

Tiberius (through Germanicus) gets aggressive in the East (Thrace, Cappadocia, Armenia) and Antipas has every right to get nervous. After Germanicus dies, Herod gets reports from Rome about Tiberius' prosecutions. The more it seems that people are being arrested for trivial reasons and/or just to enrich the Emperor and his state coffers... the more - I suggest - Herod Antipas must have worried about keeping his position as Tetrarch, which ultimately depended on keeping the good will (and avoiding the bad whims) of Tiberius.

It seems that Antipas goes to Rome the year before John the Baptist starts preaching. And it seems that Antipas made an alliance that year with Sejanus. (Josephus has Antipas' rival Herod-Agrippa dish that dirt years later to Caligula.) If this is true, then we would imagine Antipas feeling secure while Sejanus ran Rome as Tiberius' proxy. In those years, only enemies of Sejanus were being prosecuted.

But after Sejanus dies, Antipas has reason to worry again, and to be cautious. That dynamic shifts gradually from 31 until 36, and I want to examine it carefully. One thing I haven't been able to check yet is the record of prosecutions from 19 to 31, and whether there was a quick or gradual drop off as Macro & Caligula secured their control over things.

It's ironic to me - the main thing in the records of this period, the main thing I was thinking was irrelevant, the main thing I was hoping to skip almost compltely - was these prosecutions. But as someone once said, the study of a topic is driven by the questions asked about that topic. And I thought of a new question that has got to be explored: To what extent did politics in Rome influence Herod Antipas, before and after Sejanus? And how plausible is it that this helped keep Antipas from arresting and executing Jesus before his appointed time?

I think that's worth a bit of time.

When I started this thing, I knew the major events and the outline. The stuff I'm looking at now doesn't change much... it just makes it more complete. Hopefully, that also makes it more reliable, more consistently accurate, and more impressively plausible to the professional scholars whose opinions I need (eventually) to solicit.

We'll see about all that. All I know for sure is how much time it takes me! ;)

So basically, these days I'm doing what it says in the sidebar - I'm prewriting 24 Year Books. So this delay in posting on Year-by-Year may stretch on a few months... And I'm still chomping at the bit to write about Stephen & Titus. But "Patience is Christ!"

Please, y'all, remember to keep me in mind before the Lord.

And pray that we'll get this done yet.

Buy: Pagan Christianity

Frank Viola and George Barna are NOT trying to change everyone’s church practices.

That said, their new book, Pagan Christianity is an eye-opener about why most Christian groups “do church” the way they do. The truth is it has very little to do with scripture and quite a lot to do with historical changes over time.

But instead of saying, “We MUST do what the Bible says”, Viola and Barna are saying that what most of us were taught is NOT what the Bible says AND that Christians should make up their own minds on whether to try and be “Biblical” or not.

I agree... I've always believed God gives Christians the right to be “traditional” instead of Biblical. Even though the churches I’ve been part of were not traditional, we were never totally, perfectly Biblical either. Oh, there were many ways in which we aspired to “do church” much more like the early Christians did it in the Bible. But we never matched exactly and I’ve not met any group yet who does. (In spirit, maybe, but not in practice.)

It always bothers me when people claim, “We do everything just like the Bible says”, especially when they themselves are doing all these things that Christians never did in Bible days. Again, if they want to do those things, that’s fine with me. I just wish they wouldn’t beat on the Bible so hard and say so many "yougottas" when they don’t even know how incorrect they are.

I’d just like them to know the difference. I'd say, "Do what you like, but know the facts."

Early Christianity was put together very differently from present day traditional Christianity. (I’m talking about group practice – church life and gatherings!)

I believe George Barna and Frank Viola wrote “Pagan Christianity” to give people the facts – NOT to tell people how they must change – but to let readers decide what to do about the truth. And I guess that must be why Tyndale Publishing House was willing to publish this book. They knew "Pagan Christianity" has a gracious message that every believer should be able to agree with. And what believer wants to go on telling lies about the Bible?

In my opinion, if you want to hire a preacher, meet in a building and tithe… fine, go for it! Just don’t tell me I’ve gotta do it because it’s “in the Bible”.

We ought to – at the very least – be aware of the truth.

And then worship God as he leads…

Timeout

I'm teaching 8 classes now, instead of 6, so I gotta do some school stuff this weekend. The promised update to recent posts is still on it's way... just delayed.

Wonderful Failure

There's something about posting that helps me catch mistakes. Maybe it's knowing others might be reading... and in the five days since my last post here, I've noticed two or three details that were just a bit off. So isn't that great! ;)

Most of what I posted about Jesus and Herod Antipas still seems accurate. But there were a few bits to be fixed and/or improved. If only I could freeze time and not have to sleep or eat! But anyway...

As soon as I can, I'll put notes on those posts soon, and post corrections here soon, too. But I think I'll leave those posts up as is for the duration. It's part of the process.

Sometimes you have to break something to make it better, but before that you've still gotta start somewhere! Sometimes you've gotta try something ridiculously bold, just to see how close you can get. And then you fall short again, but you learn.

And you press on.

But Volume 2 may take longer than I'd thought...