Friday Five: bible faves

Today's Friday Five is about the Bible! You may play right here in the comments, or if you write a blog post, link it here.

Since we just finished reading the Bible in 90 Days, this is particularly current/relevant/awesome. :-)

1. What is your favorite Bible verse? Isaiah 55.8 "My thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your ways, says the Lord..."

2. What is your favorite book of the Bible? Isaiah for sure! If I had to pick from the NT I'd choose Mark, every time.

3. What is your favorite story from the Hebrew Scriptures? Today I think I'd go with Zelophehad's Daughters (from Numbers 27), or perhaps the widow who feeds Elijah and her jar of meal never runs out (1 Kings 17).

4. What is your favorite story from the Christian Scriptures? Mark 2, where the four people bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus and dig through the roof to get him in, and Jesus looks at them, sees their faith, and heals their friend.

5. What verse do you wish people would quote less often? John 3.16. Seriously? That's the best we can do? I might have to start sneaking in something like "1 John 3.16-17" just because it's so much better, and a subtle enough difference that people might not notice until later, and maybe they'll look it up. Or just noting lots of other 3.16s (both letters to Timothy have great chapter 3-verse-16, for instance...).

Bonus: What is your favorite obscure fact or verse or story or thing about the Bible? I don't know if this is my favorite or not, but I think it's my favorite thing I learned this summer when preaching through really strange things during the Bible in 90 Days...Jephthah says to his daughter that he has made a vow and he is therefore required to fulfill it. That's not true. I would never have noticed this if we hadn't just read the Torah a couple of days before, but: in the midst of all the lists of punishment for not fulfilling a solemn vow, there are provisions for what to do if a vow turns out to require something illegal (child sacrifice, for instance), and also monetary offerings that can be made if a sacrifice is impractical. So Jephthah's daughter was sacrificed to his ego and his just-enough-knowledge-to-be-dangerous, not to his vow. #thatllpreach

Thanks for playing!