February 23, 2023

Spiral Bible: The Books of Poetry

 

In the past decade, many Bible publishers have kindly sent me review copies of fresh translations or editions of God’s Word. Each Bible is special in some way – sometimes because of wording that makes scripture more accessible or sometimes because of an innovative approach to the layout.

With the beloved King James Version (KJV) for the text, the Spiral Bible grouped together related books of scripture in its several offerings. For example, my review copy collected the biblical books of poetry: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. The lay-flat spiral binding, sturdy cardboard backing, and ample margins for note-taking encourage readers to interact with God’s Word.

For some of us, writing little notes or jotting down prayers in the margins of a Bible is a common occurrence, whether the text has a paper cover or a leather one. But other readers hesitate to mark up their Bibles either because they don’t feel comfortable doing this or because ink bleeds through the typically thin pages. However, the Spiral Bible resolves this issue with thicker paper and note-taking lines, allowing you to respond to God’s Word with your words in an intimate conversation with your heavenly Father. What a blessed way to begin Lent!

 

©2023, Mary Harwell Sayler

 

April 11, 2022

The Biggest Story Bible Storybook

 

Published by Crossway, who kindly sent me a copy to review, TheBiggest Story Bible Storybook is loaded with colorful artwork by Don Clark and kid-friendly Bible stories retold by Kevin DeYoung.

Immediate orders might make it in time for Easter, but these timeless stories bless readers anytime, especially because they show the connection of the biblical books with Jesus. As the Introduction says:

“The Bible is filled with many stories – some sad and some scary, some happy and some holy…. But ultimately there is one story. And it’s a true story right down to the smallest details. The one story is the Biggest Story, and it’s all about Jesus.”

“Jesus is the one that the Old Testament foretold….”

“Jesus is the one that the New Testament makes clear is the Messiah…. the Son of God…. the Son of Man…. the exalted Lord…. the Word made flesh…. the heir of all things…. our God and Savior….”

“He is the theme. He is the goal. He is the good news.”

Divided into seven parts, the first one – the Pentateuch – covers stories in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. Part 2: History touches on the major stories from Joshua through Esther. Part 3: Poetry briefly highlights Job, Psalms, and Proverbs, and Part 4 provides a peek into The Prophets.

Almost half of the book is devoted to stories from the New Testament -The Gospels, the Acts and Epistles, and Revelation. One of the most important is taken from Luke 25, “Jesus Lives,” which takes us through the first holy week, from Good Friday through Easter – the week where we are now!

“Jesus knew he was going to die and that he wouldn’t stay dead.

“Friday was dark and sad. Saturday was stone-cold silent. But Sunday – the third day – was not just another day or another week. It was another age. A new time had begun. The Biggest Story had turned a page. The world would never be the same.”

This story never ends! But the retelling concludes, as each of the stories does, with a prayer:

“We thank you, God, for the resurrection and the new life we have in Jesus. Amen.”

May God bless your Holy Week and your continued reading of God’s Word.

 

©2022, Mary Harwell Sayler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 8, 2022

The Septuagint: What It Is and Why It Matters.

 

In this comprehensive paperback resource that Crossway kindly gave me to review, authors Gregory R. Lanier, PhD, and William A. Ross, PhD, address The Septuagint: What It Is and Why It Matters. Although the title sounds straightforward enough, this Greek translation of scripture follows a meandering path.

Until the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586, Hebrew scriptures were well-attended by priestly scribes. Once the Temple was destroyed, however, a central depository no longer existed. Then,

As the biblical text was copied in disparate areas over the following centuries with much less coordination or oversight by the Jerusalem priesthood, textual variations both large and small inevitably started to enter the picture. Although the reconstruction of the temple around 516 BC reinvigorated priestly scribal activity, some measure of textual diversification of the Hebrew Bible had already begun. The results of this process are visible in the biblical manuscripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered in the 1940s but include scrolls dating as early as the third century BC.” In addition, “ancient copies differed from each other to varying degrees.”

Therefore, “…it is an oversimplification to say that the Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible in a straightforward way, since the translators were not working with a standardized text (or with the same text we use today).” Also, the name “Septuagint,” which commonly refers to the seventy or so Greek translators, is somewhat of a misnomer. i.e., That likely did take place, but other attempts to bring the Bible into the Greek language also occurred.

Does this mean we should ignore the Greek, as some have done? Not at all! For one thing, the Septuagint can be useful for informative and devotional purposes. And “…because of the dynamics in translation, students of the Greek Old Testament can gain insight into Jewish interpretive principles, theology, and messianism by studying the Greek translations, particularly where they deviate from the known Hebrew.”

In a way then, The Septuagint is like having the four perspectives of the Gospel writers, or, perhaps more aptly, like the many fine translations into English we now have, each of which contributes greatly to our overall understanding of God and His Word.

 

©2022, Mary Sayler, poet-writer, pray-er, and lifelong student of the Bible

 

 

December 8, 2021

ESV Concise Study Bible

 

If you can read fairly small print (7.75-point font), the new ESVConcise Study Bible, which Crossway kindly gave me to review, provides an excellent, hardback edition to carry to your Bible discussion group as it features over 12,000 study notes, over a dozen articles on the scriptures and/or Christian life, and loads of maps within the text to keep you grounded in the biblical terrain.

 

The highly popular ESV Study Bible, which my husband gave me in gorgeous leather and which I reviewed almost a decade ago, includes more articles and aids, but its encyclopedic size kept me from taking it to study groups. Therefore, it’s on my desk, waiting for me to research a biblical theme I plan to write about or prepare me for my weekly Bible discussion group.

 

Like its larger counterpart of the English Standard Bible study edition from Crossway, the ESV Concise Study Bible also includes helpful features such as “The Time between the Testaments,” illustrations such as “The Temple Mount in the Time of Jesus” as well as charts and diagrams within the text. It also includes study questions to think about such as:

 

Who is involved in the passage?

What are they saying?

Are there any repeated words, clauses, or themes?

What is the passage’s historical and literary context?

Do the verses before and after this passage help me to understand more about the verses?

 

Bible students are also asked to consider:

 

What does this passage teach me about God and his work in his world?

At what point in God’s story is this passage taking place?

Is this passage fulfilled in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection?

How does this text inform my faith?

 

Ultimately, Holy Scriptures are meant to be applied to our lives. For instance, “The Bible: God’s Message to Us” asks us to ask ourselves:

 

What should I do or believe because of the text?

How does this text impact my life?

What does God expect from me?

How can this text encourage my faith?”

 

Well, there’s more – much more packed into this concise edition, which aids our understanding of life in Israel, the Trinity, teachings of Jesus, and even curses! For example, the Glossary defines a “curse” as the consequence of breaking covenant with God then goes on to say: “Such curses are always intended to lead to repentance so that one’s relationship with God can be restored.”

 

May God restore, renew, and bless our relationship with Him, our loved ones, and our fellowship with other Christians in this Christmas season and throughout all of our coming years.

 

©2021, Mary Sayler, poet-writer, blogger, Bible reviewer

 

 




November 6, 2021

Bible people, Bible-based poems


After centuries of the King James Version of the Bible and Douay-Rheims providing the main English editions to choose from, biblical scholars and interdenominational committees revisited the ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic texts to provide us with contemporary versions we could more readily understand.

For quite a while in the 20th and 21st centuries, Bible publishers regularly released new translations, updated versions, and reader-targeted editions of God’s Word.  But then, with the ebbing of that flood, we now have fewer Bibles to review.

Most likely, this will change as new archeological finds and knowledge of biblical languages and cultures increase. Meanwhile, I hope you’ll welcome some Bible story poems that, I pray, will speak to your spirit.

As a life-long lover of the Bible and an avid reader of most of the translations I’ve reviewed, I enjoy getting to know God’s people – those present and those long past. Since my first writing love is poetry, it was inevitable that some of my Bible favorites would find themselves portrayed in A Gathering of Poems – the 2020 collection of my previously published (and a few new) poems.

 

Returning People

They’ve come, you know.
They've come through
Genesis singing Psalms
and Lamentations and landing
at your kitchen table. Sometimes
they walked. Sometimes they
danced. Sometimes they dragged
themselves through First and
Second Chronicles into one
war then another around a world
that rolls like parchment across
four walls where you sometimes
think you’re cornered until
they remind you that you’re not.

Listen. They come with slings and
tambourines, flatbread and wine.
They come carrying poems,
prayers, and sometimes swords –
whatever it takes to get them
through a chapter and onto the
next revelation of what it means
to have a body, know a body
and be one, upright, with you,
around the table.

“Returning People” was included in the book What A Body! published by CSS Publishing

 ...

Choosing Judah
from Genesis 49

No matter how you brace yourself,
your father’s death moves toward you
like a sirocco, steering dust and famine.
What do you want stirred before he dies?
A word of love? Respect? Or at last, just
an acknowledgement that, yes, you lived.

How quickly time has passed! As you
gather for your father’s final blessing,
the Promised Land consists of little real
estate – little more than a grave or cave
for burying, little more than an avowal
to hand down instead of deed and title,
but with that breath of blessing comes
a word from God, inherited by faith.

Judah, of all of Jacob's offspring, you
alone have shown you know a day will
come when each of you must stand
on the indwelling of a word with deed –
as though the promise is as real as
land or life or the breath of a dozen
sons and daughters. Brace yourself
for the embrace of the wind. Can
you stand to be the Father’s chosen?

"Choosing Judah” first appeared online on Catholic Exchange

 ...

 
The Object of Conversation
from Genesis 15 and Numbers 12 

They’re talking about you, Miriam. They’re
talking about how you should have married and
had a family of your own instead of hovering
over the one drawn from the water, long ago. 

They’re talking about you as though you’re
absent – as though no female prophet, past or
present, could count herself as blessed as any
man who speaks, face to face, with God.

Outside the camp of jealousy in the weak site
of leprosy, can you forgive your brother Moses
for having to intercede for you and pray when
you would prefer it to be the other way around?
Neither forgiveness nor forgetfulness will come
by your welcoming death, so save your breath!

And just so you'll know, this talk goes on and
on in Bible circles where we discuss how rivalry
erupted, corrupting your pores with your longing
to speak for God – to stand alone and yet belong
among the prophetically great leaders of the world.
So we interpret you as we see fit: appraising right,
assessing wrong, but even now we sing your song.

Jewish journal, Bridges, first published “Object of Conversation.”

...

Jesus touches the untouchable
          prayer-a-phrase from Luke 5

In a town
[yes, in town where lepers were not allowed]
a man filled with leprosy came to Jesus
and fell down onto the ground on his face -
[his pitiful face, which, maybe, had only a little left
of a nose, a lip, a chin.] 

And when he’d fallen face-down before the LORD,
he implored, “If You will,
You can heal my skin and make me clean again.” 

“I will!” Jesus said. “Be healed!”

and He reached out His immaculate hand
to touch the untouchable man.

 “Jesus Touches the Untouchable” initially appeared in Altarworks

 ...

Four Corners Come
                   from Mark 4

and the wind grows
in its wildness,
and waves rush
into the Sea of Galilee,

and old stories of swine
drowning in these
waters rise and surface, 

churning whitecaps
as Jesus calls:

“Be still. Be

still,” and the waters

calm, and you and I

will settle this in peace.

"Four Corners Come" was first published in the National Catholic Reporter

 ...

Message to Mary
     written between the lines of Matthew 28 and John 20

Her grief had killed him early,
coming like liquid into His lungs,
finishing the asphyxiation begun
on the Cross. And He felt grateful

for her not leaving Him. But
how He hated to see her, pacing,
kneeling, wailing, as she chased
away the dogs snapping at His feet.

No mother should have to see this,
He told Himself, tucking her tears
into the folds of His own body.

“It is Finished,” He cried aloud,
hoping she would hear.

She’d shown Him all a child should
know: how to hang His cloak
on a peg and roll a mat or fold blankets
so the bedding could be neatly stacked.

She would see Him again soon,
but He wished to end her grief sooner.

Taking off the shroud that bound Him
to the dead, He folded the fabric
of His funeral and left behind His linens
in the tomb for her to find.

“Message to Mary” originally appeared in The Anglican Theological Review

 ...

For You,

I turned water into wine, purified in the veins

of My own body. I climbed mountains, healed

crowds of hunger, warmed a leper’s skin. For

you I chastised leaders, halted stones, wrote on

the ground each word contained in Love.

 

I overturned unfair prices and low wages, tabled

discussions about who’s first or last, and enjoyed

the most unlikely company.

 

Before My execution, I tamed a donkey, became

your beast of burden, then bled from every pore.

 

Once for all, I buried death, and, when I arose,

some saw Me. Some heard Me as I broke through

the veil, cloaking time and eternity, and, yes,

for you, I’d do it all again.

 

Amen.

 

“For You,” previously published in Altarworks

 ...

©2021 Mary Sayler, poet-author, reviewer, pray-er, and lover of the Body of Christ in all its parts



  

September 24, 2021

ESV Expository Commentary: Matthew–Luke

 

My first impression of the ESV Expository Commentary: Matthew–Luke, which Crossway kindly sent me to review, is undeniable heft! With 1156 pages and a three-inch depth from hardcover front to back, the very weight of this volume illustrates its own aim toward comprehensiveness.

 

Using the highly acclaimed ESV translation (English Standard Version) as the basis of this massive work, the scholarly team referred to biblical texts in the original languages and also to noncanonical sources such as the books often referred to as the Apocrypha as well as writing from the early church. In addition to thoroughness and accuracy, the contributors wanted the commentary to be “globally aware – aimed as much as possible at a global audience, in line with Crossway’s mission to provide the Bible and theologically responsible resources to as many people around the world as possible.”

 

Beginning, of course, with the Gospel of Matthew, the Introduction of twenty pages adds another six to provide an outline with these headings:

 

I. The Origin, Birth, and Identity of Jesus (1:1-2:23)

II. The Preparation and Early Ministry in Galilee (3:1-4:25)

III. The First Discourse: Discipleship in Jesus’ Kingdom (5:1-7:29)

IV. The Kingdom’s Growth under Jesus’ Authority (8:1-11:1)

V. The Kingdom’s Growth in the Face of Resistance (11:2-13:58)

VI. Training the Disciples among Crowds and Leaders (14:1-20:34)

VII. Conflict and Teaching in Jerusalem (21:1-23:39)

VIII. The Fifth Discourse: Trouble, Perseverance, and the Eschaton (24:1-25:46)

IX. Death and Resurrection (26:1-28:20)

 

Once the actual text begins, each passage is followed by a Section Overview, Section Outline, Comment, and Response, the latter of which helps readers to consider and apply the biblical truths just discussed.

 

For example, after presenting the ESV translation of Matthew 5:1-16, the section overview tells us:

 

The Beatitudes only faintly overlap the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23 or other virtue lists such as Colossians 3:12-15 and 2 Peter 1:5-8. They also contrast with classic Greco-Roman virtues: courage, wisdom, temperance, justice. They are equally distant from the contemporary praise of authenticity, tolerance, determination, and honesty. Indeed, the Beatitudes seem to be traits no society admires.

 

Besides this listing of God’s priorities, we’re reminded that “The Beatitudes are steeped in the OT.” With those biblical roots often found in Psalms, “The Beatitudes also align closely with Matthew’s portrait of Jesus.” I’ve omitted the many scriptural references below as the overview goes onto to say:

 

Seven of the eight beatitudes cite traits that Matthew later ascribes to Jesus, typically using the same Greek terms. Jesus repeatedly says that a disciple should be like his master. So Jesus blesses those who mourn, and Jesus mourns over Israel. Jesus blessed the meek, and he is meek. Likewise, Jesus pursues righteousness and shows mercy. He also grants and exhorts purity, offers peace, and endures persecution. Thus Jesus blessed disciples whose character conforms to his. Matthew frequently explores the way Jesus fulfills, and the disciples participate in the Beatitudes.

 

Following an Outline of this section, the Comment on Matthew 5:1-5 tells us:

 

Contextually, vast crowds are following Jesus at this time, largely because of his miracles. But Jesus seeks disciples, not merely a crowd of followers. The moment has come to describe the nature of discipleship.

 

“The first three beatitudes describe awareness of need. When Jesus says, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom,’ he establishes a kingdom virtue that clashes with other notions of virtue. To be poor in spirit is to know one’s spiritual neediness and dependence on God.

 

The Response following each section calls us to consider what we’ve read as we evaluate our own lives and pray for God’s help. In the Response to Matthew 5:1-16, for example, we read:

 

It is impossible to expound Matthew 5 without beginning to call for a response, as recent paragraphs show. First, every beatitude prompts self-examination…. Do I mourn sin in society or have I become cynical…. Am I merciful? Do I pursue peace or seek unnecessary conflict? Every question invites us to go deeper.”

 

Moving on to Mark, the Introduction provides this purpose for the book:

 

The ultimate intent of Mark’s Gospel is to present and legitimize Jesus’ universal call to discipleship as he inaugurates God’s eternal and universal rule and build his eternal temple made of ‘living stones.’”

 

The universal appeal of discipleship extended itself to children, too, as shown in Mark 9 and 10. In the Response to this passage:

 

“Jesus does not instruct his disciples to become childish. Instead he calls them to be childlike. In simple trust and humility before the God who atones. The power of humility resides in the fact that a humble person does not depend on his own limited strength. Rather, such a person entrusts himself to the powerful and deeply resourceful hand of God. Humility does not seek itself. Rather, it pursues God’s purposes in God’s way. In this way, a humble person may be very strong in character, since such a person trusts entirely in God’s power.

 

Turning to the Gospel of Luke, we again find a lengthy Introduction, which, as do the others, includes:

 

Overview

Author

Date and Occasion

Genre and Literary Features

Theology of Luke

Relationship to the Rest of the Bible and to Christ

Preaching from Luke

Interpretive Challenges

 

To give you an idea of “Genre and Literary Features, this section on Luke “zeroes in on the birth of the Baptist and the experiences of his parents, Elizabeth and Zechariah. At the same time, in contrast with Matthew, Mary’s perspective on the birth of Jesus is featured, and thus we read about Gabriel’s appearance to Mary, the visit to Elizabeth, her song of praise, her pondering in her heart the things said and done in those days. Luke also relays the story of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, precipitated by the census commanded by Caesar Augustus. At the same time, only Luke tells us of the revelation of Jesus’ birth to shepherds and of their subsequent visit. Unique to Luke as well is the narrative of Jesus’ presentation in the temple and the words of Simeon and Anna on that occasion. Finally, only in the Lukan infancy narrative do we read the narrative of Jesus’ traveling with his parents to Jerusalem for Passover, where he stays behind for conversations with religious leaders in the temple.

 

I’ve often wondered what became of those leaders and if they ever let themselves be led by Christ. But we can! With the Bible and Holy Spirit to guide us, this Expository Commentary from Crossway will help to open up The Way.

 

©2021, Mary Sayler, poet-writer, and lifelong lover of God’s Word