“In the beginning GOD…” We need to be very aware that the Bible starts with God. We show up early in the story, on the sixth day of Creation, but it all starts with God. As we set out to read the Bible in a year we need to keep this important priority before us. The Bible is about God. It is written to us, and it is written for us, but it is about God. We learn things about ourselves along the way through the Spirit’s revelation and divine wisdom shared, and we learn about ourselves because we are created in God’s image (Genesis 1). But this special revelation that we call the Holy Bible, Scripture, Written Word, is about God. Special revelation is an important theological term to keep in mind as we read. General revelation is what we can observe in nature. We can behold the creation and see the handiwork of God, the beauty of this Architect and Artist who gave life and breath, order and being, color and structure. Creation is sufficient to know there is a God, but insufficient to know salvation. That’s as far as general revelation can get us. We need special revelation, God revealing himself to us, to get the whole picture and to know our Redeemer and redemption. A sunset is stunningly beautiful, but it isn’t Jesus. The Spirit can speak to our stilled hearts in the woods, but that isn’t the death and resurrection of Christ. We need the Bible to encounter and truly know God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If we try to make the Bible into a self-help book, that will only be an adventure in missing the point. That would be an attempt to make it about us, but the Bible is about God. We do need transformation, this is true. But the transformation, the renewing of our minds (Romans 12) comes from encountering the Living God. We encounter the Living God of Creation, the Word Made Flesh (Jesus), and the person of the Holy Spirit through opening the Written Word and reading our Bible. Transformation doesn’t happen through a magic formula or recipe; the true transformation we need happens when we encounter God, as we will see time and again in the Bible. There are numbers that will come up a lot this year as we read the Bible cover to cover, from Genesis to Revelation. Numbers like 3, 7, 10, 12, and 40 will make several important appearances. But today I’d like to note something about the number 12. Before we get to the 12 tribes of Israel or the 12 disciples of Jesus I’d like to note an interval of time: 12 minutes. Our reading plan takes about 12 minutes a day to read out loud. Can you find that 12 minutes? If not, why not? Misplaced priorities, idolatry, disinterest? After all, if this 12 minutes a day is just a chore to be done or something to puff ourselves up to boast of our discipline and spiritual fervor, we will fail to find the 12 minutes. But if this is really an opportunity to encounter God, then we ought to be eager and ready to find those 12 minutes a day and cherish them. And as we cherish those 12 minutes, may we learn and grow in our understanding of how much God cherishes us, from Creation to the Cross to Christ’s Return. - Pastor Steven