Thursday, January 8, 2009

How Majestic is Your Name!

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook then you have probably heard that my church (Clear Creek Community Church) has asked us to commit to reading the Bible 15 minutes a day which will put us through the Old Testament once, Psalms twice, and the New Testament twice. There is a very useful website that CCCC put together at www.gettingthebible.com which contains a plethora of resources including old test / new test overviews, how the Bible was formed, an article about translations, and the daily readings.

The daily readings can come to you through RSS, email, iCal, etc... or you can just view it online. They are pulling out all the stops to make it easy for
you to commit to reading the Bible in a year! It may seem like a daunting task but there are many benefits to taking on the challenge. See Hebrews 4:12, John 8:31-32, and 1 Timothy 2:16-17 for a sample!

Another resource you may
find useful is the daily / weekly exposition of the Bible through my friend, Christopher Nelson, at www.christopherlnelson.com. Chris is doing a fantastic job of blogging about general overview information to help you as you read each book and also digging in deeper while pondering the tougher questions that may have come up in your mind as you read.

Having said all that... I hope you will join me in reading through the Bible!

I'd like to share a highlight from today's reading. The Psalm reading for today is one of my favorites
(Psalm 8)! The words have been put to music many times. After you read it, you'll see why!

Psalm 8

How Majestic Is Your Name

To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.

O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

That's the shiniest website I've ever seen for a church!

Anonymous said...

Psalm 8 has got to be one of the favorite Bible passages of all (believing) space cadets! Ps. 8:3-4 was what Buzz Aldrin reportedly carried to the Moon with him:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/religion/5148387.html

That's some interesting history. Psalm 19:1 is similar and was apparently Wernher von Braun's favorite. The reference is on his grave marker:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Von_Braun_Wernher_grave.jpg

That's great your church is helping everyone to read through the Bible. I've done it a couple of times, and can guarantee you'll still find plenty of stuff you didn't notice before.

Even folks who aren't Christians really ought to do this. An English teacher of mine put it best, she said that the Bible is behind so much of western culture and history that you should read it for its educational & literary value, if for no other reason.