Week 23

June 2-6
[M] Proverbs 3-5; Romans 10
[T] Proverbs 6-7; Psalm 7; Rom 11
[W] Proverbs 8-10; Psalm 144; Rom 12
[T] Proverbs 11-13; Psalm 8; Rom 13
[F] Proverbs 14-15; Rom 14

Dwell Plan Day 111-115 | CSB | Digital PDF | Printable PDF

Notes from Jon & Chris

Monday
Proverbs 3:1 | This text reminds us that true wisdom isn’t just about knowing facts but about letting those truths sink deep into our hearts. Head theology can make us smarter, but heart theology changes how we live and love. God calls us to live out his Word with both mind and soul, embracing a faith that transforms from the inside out.

Proverbs 3:5 | The word for “trust” here is also the Hebrew word for gullibility. There’s something about that which invites us into radical dependence. We must be “gullible” when it comes to God’s promises. This describes the wisdom that looks so foolish to the world, rejecting your own “understanding” itself. This becomes the ongoing crisis. Will we look to our own judgments or will we submit to wisdom? Will we try to create our own way or try to discover God’s ways? It’s a binary response, even when the world looks like shades of gray. Wisdom brings more and more light to the grayest parts of our moral thinking, inviting us to look for more than more information, more than a moral to-do punch list. This invites us in to think about our thinking, our living, and our faith.

Proverbs 4:1-10 | There are three references to a son in this passage. We know that Solomon is writing this, and we know who Solomon’s dad is: it’s David. There’s a lot of dysfunction in David’s family, and three of David’s sons wind up murdered because of their folly. It’s disastrous. The writer of 1 Kings 1:6 mentions that David didn’t rebuke Adonijah by challenging his behavior. But here in this chapter Solomon tells us about David’s parenting. It’s very intentional, spiritual, and explicit. David’s parenting was not completely at fault for his children, not from what we learn in Proverbs. Perhaps he interacted differently with his kids when they were adults—we see the same passivity we saw with Absalom. But in this text, we see David’s heart for his children, what they would have heard from when they were young. This is a comfort to parents, who can sometimes feel as if their children’s bad choices are the fault of their parenting, and here we can see that it isn’t. We can do our best and we have no control over what our children ultimately do. What we must do, as much as we are able, is give them the tools to be wise.

Romans 10:2 | In our culture, we often hear that sincerity is all that matters, that if you’re authentic and earnest in your pursuit of truth, then you’re on the right path. But Paul is clear that you can be sincerely wrong—zeal without knowledge won’t lead to life. The Bible insists that the object of your faith is everything; it’s not enough just to feel passionately about spiritual things. Only faith in Jesus Christ saves because only he is the one who secured salvation by his life, death, and resurrection. Authentic faith is not just about how you feel—it’s about who you trust.

Tuesday
Psalm 7:12–16 | This is a powerful reminder that God is not indifferent to sin; He is a righteous judge who will deal with it. In today’s reading, we also see Proverbs 6:16–19, which lists seven things the Lord hates. It’s baffling how some try to set aside the Bible’s teaching about the wrath and judgment of God, when it’s woven through every page of Scripture. This passage shows us that God prepares His weapons against those who stubbornly refuse to turn from their sin. These reminders show us that sin is not something God winks at—it’s something He opposes completely. And yet, in the middle of this warning, we find the good news: in verse 12, God has made a way out through repentance. He hates sin enough to really deal with it on the cross. If we turn in faith to Christ, we find a Savior who bore the wrath of God in our place, so we can be reconciled to Him forever.

Proverbs 6:27 | It’s talking specifically about adultery, but the principle applies to all sin. Playing with sin is like holding fire close to your chest; it’s a terrible idea, and you’re bound to get burned. God warns us that there’s no safe way to handle sin—it will always leave its mark.

Proverbs 7:4 | Intimacy is where wisdom comes from, and what intimate friend could this be other than our God Himself? Wisdom is personified by a woman in this book in contrast with the woman of folly—the adultress. But this poetic metaphor veils who this really is to the Old Testament reader. It’s only when we discover how Christ is the wisdom of God that we can unlock some of the riddle of Proverbs. That’s what makes sense of this verse, where we’re told to “call insight your intimate friend.” Only Jesus unlocks the deepest insight you can hope in. Praise Him.

Romans 11:33–36 | This passage celebrates the unfathomable depths of God’s wisdom, knowledge, and ways. These verses remind us that we will spend eternity learning about God’s character and love, yet we’ll never exhaust their riches. God’s glory will always be fresh and new. Eternity isn’t about repeating what we already know—it’s about ever-deepening wonder and awe. We will never hit the bottom of the well of God’s beauty and grace.

Wednesday
Proverbs 10–29 | These chapters are probably what you think of when you hear the word “Proverbs”—a collection of wise, punchy one-liners. They are filled with practical wisdom about work, money, relationships, and speech. As you read through these chapters, remember that they’re not ironclad promises that always come true in a mathematical way. Rather, they’re wisdom sayings that show us how life generally works in God’s world. They’re about living in step with the grain of the universe that God has designed. And as you soak in these proverbs, you’re learning how to navigate life in a way that honors the Creator and brings peace to your own soul.

Proverbs 10:27 | This is a classic example of how the proverbs are not absolute guarantees. Sometimes, people who live godly, wise lives still die young. Think of the Apostle James or Stephen, both killed in the book of Acts. Think of David Brainerd, who died of tuberculosis at 29, or Corrie Ten Boom’s sister, Betsie, who died in a concentration camp. But in general, this is wise advice for living. Living in a biblical way means avoiding many of the things that kill people early, like reckless decisions or destructive habits. It also means caring for yourself and those around you with compassion and integrity. And above all, it means trusting that your lifespan rests in the hands of the sovereign Lord, who numbers our days for His glory.

Romans 12:12 says to be “constant in prayer,” which means prayer isn’t just for Sunday mornings—it’s an ongoing conversation with God. It means turning to Him throughout the day, not just in crisis but in every moment. This is about living with an awareness that God is near and listening. Being constant in prayer is how we invite His presence and strength into every part of our lives.

Thursday
Psalm 8:3–4 | A few times a year, I (Jon) read a verse like this about how big God is and then I go watch a video about the size and scale of the observable universe. It blows my mind every time to see how huge and powerful God’s creation is, and how tiny we are in comparison. But then I think about how the same God who placed those stars in the sky also cares for me—little old me! It’s easy to feel small and forgotten in a big world, but verses like this remind us that God’s love is personal and specific. Even though He holds the universe in His hands, He also holds us close to His heart. That perspective is so important; it humbles us, but it also fills us with gratitude and wonder. It’s an invitation to worship and trust the God who cares so deeply for His people.

 
 

Proverbs 11:1 | The kingdom of God isn’t just about future salvation, it’s about that future reality breaking into our lives right now. It means that justice and mercy are part of God’s kingdom here on earth, and they shape how we treat others in our daily lives. Living in step with God’s kingdom means valuing honesty and fairness in everything we do. In the ancient world, merchants would sometimes use false weights and measures to cheat customers by tampering with scales to make it look like there was more or less than there really was. God sees this kind of injustice, and He hates it because it harms people made in His image. God’s kingdom is built on truth and fairness, and when we live that out, we’re showing the world what His kingdom is like.

Proverbs 12:15 | This truth is powerfully illustrated in the story of Rehoboam, found in 1 Kings 12 and 2 Chronicles 10 (the son of the guy who wrote this proverb). Rehoboam refused to listen to the wise counsel of the elders, choosing instead to follow the harsh advice of his idiot friends. That foolish choice cost him most of his kingdom, leading to a tragic division that allowed Jeroboam to take the ten northern tribes. When we’re wise enough to listen to godly advice, we honor God and avoid unnecessary ruin.

Romans 13:1-7 | This is an exalted view of God’s sovereignty over human government. What makes it so remarkable is that the Roman authorities, who this applies to here, were one of the most corrupt, sadistic, racist, slaving, and violent empires that has ever existed. And none of that matters or is brought up. It’s irrelevant when it comes to respect, obedience, and paying taxes. Obey as if you’re obeying God.


Friday
Proverbs 14:12 | In our culture, the popular advice is to “just follow your heart,” but that’s terrible advice. The Bible tells us that the heart of man is sinful and deceitful. We shouldn’t follow our hearts—we should follow the wisdom and words of God in Scripture. His Word shows us the path that leads to life, not death.

Proverbs 15:1 | The way we respond to conflict has the power to heal or to harm. James 3 reminds us of how powerful the tongue is—like a fire or a rudder, it steers the whole direction of our lives. Our words should build up others and spread the gospel, not tear down for personal gain. Choosing a gentle response isn’t weakness, it’s using our words in a way that honors God and serves His kingdom. When we choose soft answers, we reflect the heart of Christ who came to reconcile and heal.

Romans 14:14 | Paul has clarity about all sorts of stuff. He knows what’s unclean and what’s not. You could say that he was “In the right” in his teaching and practice. But to Paul, it doesn’t matter if he’s wrong or right, because the only thing that matters is how he’s loving his brother. That’s more important than being right! When it comes to stuff that isn’t central to what we believe, where Christians have different opinions and experiences, we must surrender things that get in other folks’ way. It isn’t whether the theological position is correct, it’s whether the posture of that position is humble and loving. Being “right” can be quite a dangerous place to be, because it can blind you to what’s important. As believers we can be obsessed with being “correct” and yet miss being compassionate and loving. 

Week 22

May 26-30
[M] 1 Chron 22-25; Psalm 78; Rom 5
[T] 1 Kings 1; 1 Chr 26-28; Rom 6
[W] 1 Kings 2; 1 Chr 29; Rom 7
[T] 1 Kings 3; 2 Chr 1; Ps 42; Rom 8
[F] 1 Kings 4; Prov 1-2; Ps 43; Rom 9

Dwell Plan Day 106-110 | CSB | Digital PDF | Printable PDF

 

Notes from Jon & Chris

Monday
1 Chronicles 25:3 | Some teachers take a very narrow view of prophesy and prophetic work, narrower than the Bible uses itself. Some of this instinct comes from a desire to maintain the authority of the Bible, which isn’t a bad thing. But the Scripture doesn’t need protecting. It isn’t fragile. It’s God’s perfect word and we can trust that. But here we see prophesy in such wonderfully personal terms—it’s the work of singing, thankfulness, and praise! We are all prophets in this sense, much like we’re a kingdom of priests. Let this give your personal devotional life a new vigor and hope and joy. Your private time of prayer and worship is prophesy. Praise Him!

Psalm 78 | This Psalm reminds us how vital it is to know the story of God, and to keep telling it. The psalm opens with a call to teach the next generation the mighty works of the Lord, not just so they remember, but so they trust Him. Israel’s downfall, the psalmist says, came when they forgot what God had done. Stephen echoes this in Acts 7 as he tells the story of Israel to the religious leaders, not just to inform them, but to show how their hearts had become hardened by forgetting the very God who rescued them. Paul does the same in Acts 13 when he preaches in Antioch, walking through Israel’s history to show how it all leads to Jesus. The story of God isn’t just history, it’s fuel for faith—especially when you’re weary or doubting. Preach that story to yourself often: God rescues, God keeps His promises, and God is still writing the story through Christ.

Romans 5:3 | Paul describes a chain of cause and effect here, similar to James 1, where our suffering is clearly made essential to God’s work in us. It’s the way He shapes us—and from these texts it’s clear it’s the only way He does it. These passages are bedrock for us, a place where we can track our own hopes when suffering and trials come. Here our God rescues us from our pain being meaningless, from our hurts and griefs having no purpose or plan.

Romans 5:12 | One of the slogans of our age is “born this way.” The Scripture is in full agreement with this idea, but doesn’t allow it to be an excuse for whatever way you may have been born. It doesn’t matter what weakness or disposition or personality or desires you were born with—you’re guilty because of the “startup sin” of Adam, the first human. Your corruption is explained, but isn’t excused. This is all a setup, though, for something really wonderful. It is bad news at first, but it’s a prelude to gloriously good news for all of us. If it can all really go bad for humanity because of this startup sin of Adam, then it can also get fixed by an even greater man—the God/man Jesus Christ. If one man can ruin it all, the Son of God can bless all. Praise Him.

Tuesday
1 Chronicles 25-28 | All of this organizational stuff can be challenging to read. Lots of names and responsibilities that we don’t easily relate to. But there’s a larger message. The kingdom has structure and roles, with authority and job descriptions—and it’s all holy. This becomes an invitation to figure out where your name would go on these lists. This becomes, in the New Testament, a picture of a body with different parts working together. Our Father’s kingdom is the same as it always was.

1 Chronicles 28:12 | Somehow the temple and its design were in David’s mind, something he must have obsessed over and constantly thought about. He talks frequently in his poems about the house of God and living there. Here we find out that his imagination and planning were how Solomon knew what to do. It’s an invitation to us to imagine and dream of what we can build in our Father’s kingdom—building not with stones and wood, but with the Spirit—with us as living stones.

Romans 6:1 | If your message about God’s grace never makes someone ask, “Wait—doesn’t that mean I can just go on sinning?” then maybe you haven’t quite tapped into how radical His grace really is. That’s the exact tension Paul had to address in Romans. It’s always better to risk sounding too grace-filled than to slip into a gospel that’s mostly grace with a little bit of works sprinkled in. God’s grace doesn’t just rescue us, it changes us from the inside out.

Romans 6 | We are one with God through Jesus Christ. And unpacking what that must mean is the work of the Bible, your faith, and all of eternity. Frankly it’s shocking, amazing, and beyond our wildest dreams.

Wednesday
1 Kings 2 | This is about tying up loose ends. We’ve been witness to the brutality of Joab all through these histories. We saw the evil of Shimei as he cursed David at his lowest point. We’ve seen before how David’s other sons ignored his authority and his will (with Adonijah not learning anything from Absalom.) This can read a bit like a political thriller or a mob movie, and it is a bit like that. Solomon has to remove these threats or his kingdom will never be established. He’ll always be looking over his shoulder. The lesson here continues into the New Testament—we must be ready for wolves, for folks who are about their own purposes and not God’s. The kingdom of God is the same, with the same threats and the same hopes and the same need for wisdom. 

1 Chronicles 29:29 | This is a little note about all these histories we’re reading. The authors are two “seers” and a “prophet.” What’s the implication? The historians of the kingdom are directly inspired by the Spirit, as the Scripture tells us again and again about its authors. Trust the Bible. 

Romans 7:4 | This verse tells us that through Christ’s death, we have died to the law so that we might belong to Him. To “die to the law” means we are no longer bound by its demands as a way to earn righteousness—it no longer holds power over us. Instead of striving to be good enough, we now live in union with the One who fulfilled the law perfectly on our behalf. Our new purpose is not rule-keeping, but fruit-bearing: a life of love, obedience, and holiness that flows from being joined to Christ. In Him, we don’t serve under fear, but in freedom and grace.

Romans 7:13-24 | How often have you said, or heard someone say, “I can’t believe I did that” referring to some mistake or sin they committed? Whenever we do that, we express our disbelief in what the Bible predicts about us. Here Paul is telling us we shouldn’t be surprised at all. The Bible predicts our struggle. This part of Romans is precious to us for that reason. It describes something that every believer has experienced: the battle between what you oftentimes desire and what you really and truly want. They aren’t the same thing. This battle inside is so constant and so fierce at times, that it can lead to frustration, bewilderment, and discouragement. It often does in many Christians. We can’t believe the things we sometimes do or want to do, and how often we fail to do good. It’s hard on us. Such double-mindedness can lead us to seriously doubt God’s work in us. But it’s at this very point of despair that gospel assurance meets us. The blessing of Romans 8:1 is one of the most powerful statements of mercy in all the Scripture, and it’s meant for those who struggle with how much they struggle. Praise Him!

Romans 7:15 | This is one of the most honest and relatable verses in all of Scripture. Paul, the great apostle, confesses a deep and ongoing struggle with sin, something every Christian knows intimately. It’s not just that we fail; it’s that we fail in the very places we long to be holy. This inner conflict exposes that sin isn’t just bad behavior—it’s a power, a force at work in us, and it runs deeper than willpower alone can fix. But the beauty of the gospel is that God doesn’t save us because we win the battle, He saves us while we’re still in the fight. Jesus knew the full weight of sin’s pull, yet never gave in, and now He stands not just as our example, but as our righteousness. When we hate the sin we keep doing, that hatred is itself a sign of the Spirit’s work in us; it means our hearts are alive. The real hope isn’t in our performance, but in the One who has already delivered us and promises, one day, to finish what He began.

Thursday
1 Kings 3:1 | This is our first warning about Solomon. It’s a red flag, not a beige one. Going back to Egypt was one of Israel’s great crimes and became symbolic of all disobedience. Solomon is already compromised just as he is seeking wisdom. His request for wisdom should inspire us to do the same, but it should also give us real fear. Solomon started off so right, like so many of us do. But he becomes a cautionary tale. The greatest king and wisest man of history winds up being foolish in the end. The seeds of his hope and his destruction are all right there together in one package. I don’t want to be a cautionary tale, do you?

Romans 8 | Can you highlight a whole chapter? I think that would defeat the purpose, but if you were to try it, this would be the chapter.

Romans 8:26 | Confused, halting, wandering, uninformed prayer is good conversation to our Father. 

Romans 8:29–30 |  This passage gives us one of the most powerful summaries of how salvation works, often called the ordo salutis—Latin for “the order of salvation.” It’s a sequence that reveals how God, from beginning to end, is the One who saves. Paul tells us that those whom God foreknew—which in Scripture always means a deep, covenantal love, not just awareness—He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. In other words, before we ever reached for God, He had already set His love on us and determined to make us like Jesus. Then in time, God called us—not just outwardly with words, but inwardly by the Holy Spirit, breaking through our resistance and awakening faith. Those He called, He also justified, declaring us righteous because of Christ’s perfect record. And those He justified, He also glorified—spoken in the past tense, because in God’s eyes, it’s already a done deal.
This means salvation isn’t a ladder we climb, but a gift God gives. We aren’t saved because we were smarter, more spiritual, or more open; we’re saved because God acted in love and grace. The ordo salutis shows us that grace isn’t just how we start the Christian life, it’s how we finish. And if every step is God’s work, then every failure on our part can be met with assurance, not fear. We don’t have to anxiously hold on to God—He’s the One holding on to us. That’s the kind of security and joy that leads not to passivity, but to deep worship and transformed lives.

Romans 8:30 | Glorified is in the past tense in this verse, described by the verb form as something that’s already happened. How can this be true of us? Let me put it another way: do you feel very glorified? Of course not, which is, I suppose, the first lesson. The Scripture speaks about us in realities that we can’t really perceive or understand. Emotions and feelings are not a sure and reliable guide. Your gut instincts are going to be wrong, especially about God’s kingdom. That’s why He makes the point about His ways looking nothing like our ways. So feeling glorified is irrelevant. We must learn to trust His word, even when we can’t connect to its truth. So how are we glorified? In one sense, if our God promises something, it can be said to be done. God’s future actions can be described in the past tense because they’re so certain. That’s a deep comfort. But this isn’t enough yet. This text and the context drive home a new glorious reality for the children of God. Somehow being “glorified” is something to describe us now, not just as a reference to the future. There seems to be something deeper here, as if we had some “glory self” that we need to live into, some inner part of us where God’s secret work has already taken shape.

Friday
Romans 9:14 | This is one of the most important theological chapters in the entire New Testament. I (Jon) grew up in a pretty run-of-the-mill Arminian evangelical church. The idea that God chooses whom He saves wasn’t just unfamiliar—it felt wrong. But everything changed for me after hearing an episode of R.C. Sproul’s Renewing Your Mind podcast, where he was teaching through this very verse. That moment shook my theological foundation. I had already been studying the doctrines of election and predestination and starting to wonder if the Arminian view I had inherited actually lined up with what Scripture taught.
I remember exactly where I was—on my motorcycle riding down Highway 1 to Santa Cruz with the wind in my face and the ocean air all around me—when R.C. unpacked this verse. He said something to the effect of, “Paul knows what people are going to say about what he’s teaching. He anticipates the objection: ‘Wait, that’s not fair!’” And then R.C. made the point that changed everything for me: if Paul is expecting people to cry “unfair,” then he can’t possibly be teaching the Arminian view. No one hears “God chooses those who choose Him” and thinks that sounds unjust. But if Paul’s teaching makes people bristle at God’s fairness, then he must be presenting a view of election where God chooses—not based on foreseen faith, but according to His own mercy and purpose.
Since that moment, I’ve come to see the beauty, the grace, and yes—even the love—in the truth that God is sovereign in election. But for me, it all began with the uncomfortable but honest admission: I may not like this at first, but I’m pretty sure this is what the Bible actually says.

Proverbs | Please take a look at the Bible Project video for Proverbs, it’s great.

Proverbs 1 | What are the first warnings about foolishness in this book about wisdom? What threats are the most serious, the most immediate danger to us? The greatest challenges you will ever face are: the lure of easy money, the influence of bad friends, and the honey pit of pleasure. Wisdom and folly don’t seem to have changed much in the past three thousand years.

Week 21

May 19-23
[M] 2 Samuel 13-14; Acts 28
[T] 2 Sam 15-17; Psalms 3, 63; Romans 1
[W] 2 Sam 18-20; Psalm 34; Romans 2
[T] 2 Sam 21-23; Psalm 18; Romans 3
[F] 2 Sam 24; 1 Chr 21; Romans 4

Dwell Plan Day 101-105 | CSB | Digital PDF | Printable PDF

 

Notes from Jon & Chris

Monday
2 Samuel 13-18 | When we read this whole Absalom narrative, we instinctively identify with David—the wounded father, the rightful king. But Scripture often holds up a mirror, and if we look closely, we’re more like Absalom than we care to admit. Absalom was handsome, persuasive, and deeply rebellious; he stole hearts and plotted against the very one who loved him most. In our sin, we too reject God’s authority and grasp for control, trying to take the throne of our own lives. Absalom’s rebellion is not just a political coup—it’s a picture of our spiritual condition. But where Absalom’s story ends in ruin, the gospel tells us of a King who was betrayed, not to condemn rebels, but to save them through His own sacrifice.

Acts 28:31 | The narrative just ends! It doesn’t wrap anything up, finish the details of the characters’ story arc, or answer all the questions that arise! But that’s the point. All of Scripture is written like this. It’s really all about our God and His kingdom. It’s His “character arc” that we follow, learning who He is as He reveals Himself through His words and actions. You may have heard of a church planting organization called Acts 29. It was a good work of God for a time, and it really captured this sense of an incomplete narrative in the book of Acts by taking on that name “Acts 29”. Pretty cool idea! We are the continuing story of God’s kingdom!  

Acts 28 | The book of Acts ends without a clear resolution—not because the story is unfinished, but because the mission of the church continues. Luke leaves Paul preaching in Rome as a reminder that the gospel is still advancing through God’s people across every generation. We are part of that same story, carrying the message of Christ to the ends of the earth. One day, the final chapter will be written when Jesus returns and the story ends in glory, with Christ reigning in the new heavens and new earth among His redeemed people.

Tuesday
Romans | Today, we begin the Book of Romans. Instead of writing an introduction to this book myself, I thought it’d be better to let the late great R.C. Sproul do it. This is the intro from his commentary on Romans that was adapted from a sermon series he preached where he went through this book verse by verse.

On the first page of Romans in my Greek testament, I have scribbled at the top of the page a few significant dates. The first one is the year AD 386. In the latter part of the fourth century lived a young man whose father was a pagan and whose mother was a devout Christian. This young man had devoted himself to immorality. He had already sired one illegitimate son, yet his mother continued to pray for his soul and sought the counsel of her pastor, Bishop Ambrose of Milan.

This young man was pacing one day in a garden where a copy of the New Testament was chained to a lectern. As he was walking, he overheard children playing in the grass, singing a refrain to one of their childhood games: Tolle lege, tolle lege, which means “take up and read.” So this young man, whose name was Aurelius Augustine, went to the Scriptures that were there. He allowed the volume of sacred writ to fall open where it would, and in the providence of God it fell open to Romans 13. Augustine’s eyes fell on this passage:

And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts. (Rom. 13:11–14)

As Augustine read these words, the Spirit of God took them and pierced between joint and sinew, bone and marrow, to the very depths of this young man’s soul. By the power of the Word of God with the Spirit attending it, Augustine was converted to the Christian faith, and we know him today as Saint Augustine of Hippo.

Later in church history, in 1515, an Augustinian monk who had diligently pursued his doctoral studies in the works of Augustine was consigned to a university to be the professor of biblical studies. He had already delivered his first series of lectures on the book of Psalms, and now his task was to teach his students the book of Romans. As he was preparing his lectures on Romans and studying this epistle’s first chapter, he found a notation from an ancient manuscript of Augustine defining the righteousness of Christ. Augustine said that when Paul speaks of the righteousness of God in Romans 1, it is not the righteousness by which God himself is righteous, but the righteousness that he freely gives to those who put their trust in Christ. For the first time in his life, Martin Luther, whose conscience had been wounded by the burden of the law of God that daily exposed his relentless guilt, understood the gospel of Christ. The doors of paradise swung open and he walked through, and it was from Paul’s teaching on the doctrine of justification by faith alone that Luther stood against the whole world in the sixteenth-century Reformation.

Another date I have scribbled in my Greek testament is the year 1738, when a man who was already ordained to the ministry in the Anglican church in England was listening to a message being delivered outside in London at Aldersgate. He mentioned later that as he was listening to the words of Romans, he felt his heart was strangely warmed. He said that was the moment of his authentic conversion, and it defined the life and ministry of John Wesley for the rest of his days.

I could mention the impact of Romans on John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, and a host of others throughout church history, but as we come to it now, I simply remind you that God has richly blessed those who have devoted themselves to the study of this book.

Romans 1:11-12 | Paul’s humility is the way he leads. It’s the Spirit’s work in Paul, leading out of love and grace. 

Romans 1:18 – 3:21 | Paul uses an outline technique by using repetitive phrasing. So “the wrath of God revealed” is parallel with “the righteousness of God made manifest.” This is a structure for you to see the development and completion of Paul’s thoughts. 

Romans 1:18-32 | There is a progression of unbelief, rebellion, and immorality. Paul makes this point of an inevitable descent into moral madness. All cultures and humans experience this in one way or another.  

Wednesday
2 Samuel 19 | After David’s sin, the rest of the story of 2 Samuel is dark and disturbing. Family horror fills David’s life, seeing the death of his sons—the deepest of all parental fears. But the worst of it is David himself. He seems weak and pathetic. Even though he knows the forgiveness of his sins and writes poetry that captures and foreshadows Jesus’ love for sinners in Psalm 51, he’s broken. He can’t seem to figure out how to discipline his family or lead with strength. It might be a feature of multiple wives. One key fracture line in many marriages is how to raise the kids. One parent is too patient for the other and another parent is too harsh. It often leads to arguments and stalemates on child rearing. Imagine if you had twenty wives having that discussion and tension. It would be overwhelming and unmanageable.
But there seems to be something deeper going on. Watching the unfolding of the results of his sin seems to have immobilized him. No “inquiring of the Lord” any longer. In this chapter, after Absalom’s death, Joab tells David off about his self-pity and lack of leadership. Joab is family, so perhaps that’s why he can talk to David like that. Joab is certainly no angel. He’s a hard-bitten general. But he speaks with some clarity into David’s life. His frustration with David is bitter. But what’s the lesson here for us? In ministry you do see this pattern happen. Folks who know God get into some sin they shouldn’t be messing with. That sin grows through cover up and fear into something that wrecks lives and families and churches. Then there’s repentance! Exposure and revelation lead to embarrassment and a turnaround. But then it just feels like there’s no more power in that person’s life. Almost as if their confidence has been shattered. Demoralized and discouraged, they will often drift in and out of churches, immobilized by a sense of guilt and shame that they can’t shake. David’s is a cautionary tale in this way. Believers can be forgiven horrible sins, but the wounds they inflict on themselves and others are terrible. Limping and grieving, their spiritual lives often lack power for the rest of their lives. 

2 Samuel 20 | In this chapter, Israel is once again in turmoil as Sheba leads a rebellion against King David. After all the pain of Absalom’s uprising, this new revolt reminds us how fragile human kingdoms are and how quick our hearts are to resist God’s chosen king. Sheba’s cry, “We have no portion in David,” echoes the deeper rebellion in every human heart—we often say the same about Christ, rejecting His rule in favor of our own way. Joab’s ruthless tactics to end the rebellion show how human justice is often swift but flawed, filled with ambition and bloodshed. The chapter ends in uneasy peace, but not true restoration. That kind of peace would never come through David—or any earthly ruler—but only through the Son of David. Jesus, the true King, enters our rebellion not with a sword, but with a cross. And through His death and resurrection, He brings the lasting peace our hearts truly long for.

Romans 2 | As you read the opening chapters of Romans, you’ll notice how much emphasis Paul places on sin and the breaking of God’s law. He starts this way because we can’t truly understand the good news of the gospel until we’ve faced the bad news about ourselves. Paul wants us to see just how deep our guilt runs so that we can truly feel our need for grace. The law pulls back the curtain on our rebellion and strips away any illusion of self-righteousness. Only then are we prepared to see Christ—not merely as a wise teacher, but as the Savior our broken hearts desperately need.

Romans 2:24 | Paul quotes this from the prophets. They were tired of how embarrassing to God the behavior of His people could be. Although it was written about Israel, it seems like it might fit the modern American church at times. 

Thursday
2 Samuel 21:1–14 | This is one of those passages that makes modern readers uncomfortable, especially those of us shaped by Western ideals of individual rights and fairness. The idea that seven of Saul’s descendants are executed to atone for his past sin against the Gibeonites feels deeply unjust to us. We instinctively ask, Why should children suffer for the sins of their father? But in the ancient Near Eastern context, there was a strong sense of communal identity—leaders represented their people, and consequences often extended beyond the individual. God honors covenants, even those made generations earlier, and this story reminds us how seriously He takes justice and promises. At the same time, we’re shown a picture of deep sorrow and costly reconciliation—especially in Rizpah’s long vigil for her sons. Her grief compels David to act with compassion, gathering the bones of Saul and Jonathan to give them a proper burial, bringing closure to a broken story. This passage leaves us wrestling with justice, mercy, and the cost of peace. But ultimately, it points us to Jesus; the one who, though innocent, bore the consequences of sin on behalf of others. In Him, justice and mercy finally meet, not through the death of Saul’s sons, but through the death of God’s Son.

Romans 3:11-18 | What is the biblical view of sin and the brokenness of humanity? This string of Old Testament quotes sums up the Bible, and it isn’t pretty. Notice the corruption is head to toe in the quotations.   

Romans 3:21-26 | This is the heart of the whole Bible here, with more theology and gospel truth than could be summed up in a hundred volumes. You will grow and gain wisdom and increase in worship if you meditate on these verses deeply. This is our God’s heart for us; this is what faith is. And this is what Christ dying on a cross meant. These verses have awakened men for thousands of years. Pray that the Spirit will awaken you through these words, because that is your deepest hope.

Friday
2 Samuel 24, 1 Chronicles 21 | David makes a critical mistake by taking a census of Israel, revealing his trust in numbers and military strength rather than in God. Though it seems like a practical decision, it exposes a deeper spiritual failure: relying on human effort instead of divine provision. We often fall into the same trap when we measure our worth or security by what we can achieve, rather than resting in God’s grace. Like David, we slip into a kind of works-based thinking, believing that our efforts can earn or secure God’s favor. But God’s mercy is not something we can count, earn, or control—it is freely given. David repents and offers a costly sacrifice, and it is there, on that altar, that God’s wrath is turned away. This foreshadows the greater sacrifice of Christ, who rescues us from the weight of works-based living by offering Himself as the final and perfect offering.

1 Chronicles 21 vs. 2 Samuel 24 | Different accounts are sometimes used to criticize your Bible. Don’t let it get to you. If it all agreed, down to every detail, the critics would say it was all forced to agree–which would be fair if it was all identical! Human accounts always have variations. Always, because of how differently we see things, how differently we express what we see, and how different our goals can be. Many “variations” in the story are the result of actual different accounts, not made-up facts. Sometimes the variations are due to manuscript errors. How did the numbers of the census get different between 1 Chronicles 21 and 2 Samuel 24? We don’t know. There have been copies upon copies over the past 3,000 years. That doesn’t mean the text isn’t reliable or inspired. Far from it. It just means the text we have in our Bibles, what our God has preserved for us, isn’t “magically” perfect. And that’s a good thing. It’s perfect beyond that, and even despite that. God allowed discrepancies to enter into the textual record to keep us from worshiping the text rather than Him. It’s His mercy to keep us from idolatry, otherwise we’d simply worship our Bibles rather than the Creator. We are always tempted to do that. 
With that assumption in place, looking at the differences in the accounts becomes compelling. Instead of looking for details to disbelieve, you start reading details for insight into the writer and his goals.
When we compare the accounts, we see they both include the supernatural, but Chronicles describes the angel in more detail—describing how Araunah and his kids saw it too, just like David did. The writer of Chronicles also includes the wonderful little detail of the angel sheathing his sword.
What’s going on here? We can’t be sure, but we can try to be discerning. Who needs to hear more about angels? Is it folks without hope, struggling to rebuild their ancestral homes in Palestine, with all the great biblical heroes just being ancient history? That’s the writer of Chronicles! But the writer of the book of Samuel has a different audience. It’s the same general subject matter: a history of God’s people from when they first started having a monarch, but these folks in Babylon have a lot more of Jerusalem to remember. These stories are more hard-nosed, including much of the failures of David and Solomon, with a much less romantic perspective.
What are the biblical writers teaching us? Know your audience when you communicate—that’s what love looks like. Know their fears, their unbelief, and their worship. Then you’ll know what details are important for them to know. Thankfully, between the Old Testament national histories and the New Testament gospel histories, we get varying accounts to teach us this wisdom. 

Romans 4:17 | One of the most abstract statements about God in the Bible and one of the most important. He is the God that deals with what is NOT. That’s what He creates and what He works with, because then He alone gets the glory. This is what faith is: it’s a NOT. It’s just a trusting belief, and that in itself is nothing. But the person we believe in, the “object” of our faith and trust—He’s the one who makes our faith create something.

Week 20

May 12-16
[M] 2 Sam 6; 1 Chr 13; Ps 60; Acts 23
[T] 1 Chron 14-16; Acts 24
[W] 2 Sam 7-8; 1 Chr 17; Ps 132; Acts 25
[T] 2 Sam 9-10; 1 Chr 18-19; Ps 89; Acts 26
[F] 2 Sam 11-12; 1 Chr 20; Ps 51, 32; Acts 27

Dwell Plan Day 96-100 | CSB | Digital PDF | Printable PDF

Notes from Jon & Chris

Monday
Samuel and Chronicles | Four out of the five days this week (and several more times in the weeks to come), we are going to read parallel passages from the books of Samuel and Chronicles. The books of Samuel and then Kings were probably written before or during the exile to tell the story of the sin of the people of God. Chronicles tells the same stories, but with a more hopeful emphasis on the faithfulness of God during that time. As you read the parallel accounts, don’t get annoyed and think, “Ugh, I already read this…” Take a bit of time and look at the differences and similarities. When you do that, you’ll have a better grasp of what’s going on.

2 Samuel 6:14 | David’s dancing before God is something we don’t imitate in our worship. What’s odd is he didn’t dance the first time they tried to move the ark, but he did the second time. In verse 8 we learn that David had to process some anger about what had happened. Uzzah had reached out to steady the ark, so it wouldn’t tip out of the oxcart it was in, and he died. The whole scene is regrettable, because it all could have been avoided by obeying the rules that God had explicitly laid down for them. The eruption of judgment is sudden and severe. David’s anger isn’t spelled out for us. We don't know who he’s angry at or the specific reason he’s so upset. Was it his own negligence? Was it frustration that others hadn’t been careful to be holy? We don’t know.
After Uzzah dies, they stop moving the ark, and let it sit at someone’s house. David hears how blessed that house has become, and he takes action. Time to go get the ark again. This time he sacrifices an animal every six steps! And he’s praising and he’s dancing. What’s changed? David knows two things clearly now which charge his heart with an electric and dynamic worship. First, God is holy. Holy in ways that terrify us and reveal all of our sinfulness and filth. The Holy God must judge us. We can’t stand before Him, we can’t look at Him, and we definitely must not touch Him. But the second truth is even greater than the first truth. This Holy God wants and seeks to love and bless us anyways. Despite our unholiness. And realizing that transports David into radical and expressive joy. May the Holy Spirit do the same work in us.

Tuesday
2 Chronicles 16:4 | David’s leadership included making sure that the Levites were doing their job of worship. This accountability in God’s kingdom is essential. Everywhere we see it, it calls us to be accountable ourselves, and points towards how selfish independence is a dead end. The rule and oversight of God’s kingdom is intertwined with the worship in God’s kingdom. 

Acts 24:14 | Here, Paul defends himself before Felix by saying, “I worship the God of our ancestors as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect.” Before Christians were called Christians, they were known as followers of the Way—a title rooted in Jesus’ own words: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). This early name captured the movement’s identity: not just a belief system, but a distinct path centered on Jesus Himself.

Wednesday
Acts 25:23-27 | King Agrippa and Bernice enter with great pomp—surrounded by power, wealth, and applause. Paul, in contrast, stands before them in chains. To any bystander, it would have seemed obvious who held the power in that room. But the kingdom of God doesn’t operate by worldly standards. Two thousand years later, Paul’s words have shaped nations, hearts, and world history, while the family of the Herods are largely forgotten. What looked like weakness was actually the triumph of God’s unstoppable plan.

2 Samuel 7:1–17; 1 Chronicles 17 | This is one of those lynch pin moments that holds the whole story of the Bible together. David wants to do something good: he offers to build God a house, a permanent temple. But God flips the script and says, “Actually, I’m going to build you a house.” He’s not talking about bricks and mortar, but a dynasty—a promise that one of David’s descendants will reign forever. It’s a clever play on words, but more than that, it’s a stunning promise of the Messiah to come. Even though David’s line would eventually stumble and fall (as we’ll read in Kings/Chronicles), God’s plan never would. Jesus, born from David’s family tree, is the ultimate fulfillment of that promise. He now reigns—not just over Israel, but over all creation. This covenant shows us how deeply committed God is to saving His people through His chosen King. And that King, Jesus, rules with justice, mercy, and grace that will never end.

2 Samuel 7:27 | There’s a wonderful turnaround in this conversation between David and God, with Nathan the prophet being the message bearer for God. David wants to build God a house. Makes sense. David isn’t living in tents any longer. In fact, most of God’s people live in houses now so God needs a house! But then, in tenderness and grace, God says no. No can be hard to hear, and it can grieve our hearts. But look again at how tender and gracious our God is. He tells David that He will build a house for David! A house that lasts forever! This is the promise of Jesus and our becoming the family of God, with Christ as our older brother. The lesson is this: sometimes you are the one who goes and does God’s work. And sometimes you are the work yourself. Praise Him.

Thursday
2 Samuel 9 | In this section, David seeks out Mephibosheth, the disabled grandson of King Saul, not to punish him, but to show him kindness. Though Mephibosheth came from the family that once opposed David, and although the normal practice in that culture and time period would have been to execute a rival, he was instead given a place at the king’s table, like one of David’s own sons. This act of mercy is a powerful picture of the gospel. Like Mephibosheth, we were spiritually helpless and undeserving, yet Christ sought us out. He didn’t come to condemn, but to show grace and welcome us into His family. David’s kindness in 2 Samuel 9 points forward to the even greater kindness of Jesus, who gives His enemies a place at His table forever.

Psalm 89:1 | The psalmist opens with a bold and beautiful declaration: I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord, forever. At first glance, it sounds poetic, something you might expect in a worship song or prayer. But if we pause to think about what this really means, it’s staggering. Forever is a long time. The psalmist isn’t exaggerating or being sentimental—he’s touching on a deep truth about who God is.
If God is truly infinite in His being (as Scripture reveals), then His love, too, is infinite. It has no edges, no end, no limits. His steadfast love is not just an emotion, but a covenant promise grounded in His very nature. And if that’s true, then this verse isn’t just a nice idea. It’s a preview of our eternal future. We will truly spend forever diving deeper into the heart of God, exploring the riches of His mercy, grace, and love.
Imagine an ocean with no shore, a well with no bottom. That’s what it means to know the steadfast love of the Lord. In Christ, we have been invited to sing of that love—not just now, but forever, with voices that will never tire and hearts that will never stop being amazed.

Acts 26 | In this chapter, Paul stands before King Agrippa and tells the story of how Jesus saved and called him. This moment fulfills what Jesus said at Paul’s conversion—that he would bear His name before kings. Years earlier, the Lord told Ananias that Paul was His chosen instrument for this very purpose (Acts 9:15). Now, that promise is coming true. One way that we could look at this passage is as a tragedy: one of the most important leaders in the early church is on trial for his life. But Luke (the author of Acts) gives us another perspective. Paul is here because God, in His sovereignty, has placed him here. Paul is in this situation because God is using Paul to move His kingdom forward.

Acts 26:28, | And Agrippa said to Paul, “In a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?” | Uh…yeah…that’s kinda the point of my whole life…

Friday
2 Samuel 11-12 | On Monday, we explained about the differences between the stories in Samuel/Kings and Chronicles. Chronicles focuses less on the sins of the people that eventually would lead to the exiles in 722 and 586 BCE, and more on the faithfulness of God during this period. That’s why there is no parallel story in Chronicles.

2 Samuel 11:1 | David is at home, in Jerusalem, during what this verse calls the time when kings go out to battle. This is a very famous phrase, because it indicts David without actually accusing him of anything. What’s the indictment? He wasn’t doing what he was supposed to be doing. It reminds me of the expression my mom used: idle hands are the devil’s playground. That isn’t in Scripture, but it sure is a biblical truth. The prelude to our apostasy, the introduction of our own self destruction by sin and temptation, all it has to be is laziness. It doesn’t take much for us to wander far, destroy our family,  and hurt ourselves terribly. That’s the lesson for us plain and simple. David had real advantages: intimacy with God, and fantastic success. And it all comes to pieces in a weak moment. Don’t miss the warning. No one is safe when it comes to temptation.

2 Samuel 12:1 | David wrote psalms. He’s the warrior poet, and his poetry is still read 3,000 years after he wrote them. Wow. And those poems have a deeper understanding of grace than most modern Christians can articulate. My only question is this: the baby from David’s adultery has been born now. This means the news of all this bad stuff that David did—raping Bathsheba and arranging her husband’s murder—was already at least nine months old. And there’s no way it was a secret. Servants always know the private business of their masters. So every time I read about Nathan going to confront David, I imagine what the palace had been like for the past half of a year. Did David keep singing and composing songs? Did he continue to act as he was holy? Did he ignore God? We have such a clear view of his heart in his poetry. Perhaps that same dedication he expressed for God had been redirected towards his new wife? We don’t know. We do know that Nathan has to trick him into seeing himself, implying that a kind of hardness or blindness had set in. It’s a side of David that we can’t really see in the narratives, but we all really know because we share the same broken sin nature. And when we see it, when we see that David was blinded in his sin and rebellion, we can now be stunned by the grace he celebrates so deeply in his poetry. The clear and unobstructed vision of Psalm 51 is the amazing lovingkindness of God, something he now describes in ways that only knowing Jesus can make sense of. In and through his spectacular and horrific failure, God has provided for us a script in David’s poem. It’s a script we can all use when we discover again the extraordinary mercy of the Living God for ruined sinners. Praise Him.

Psalm 51 | This Psalm is David’s prayer of repentance after being confronted by the prophet Nathan about his sin with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, Uriah. It’s one of the most honest and broken cries for mercy in all of Scripture. David doesn’t try to justify himself; he pleads for cleansing, knowing his sin runs deep. He says, “Against you, you only, have I sinned,” showing that true repentance starts with recognizing our offense against God. But what’s striking is David’s confidence in God’s mercy—he asks for a clean heart, a renewed spirit, and restoration. That kind of bold repentance is only possible when we know the character of the God we’re coming to. David throws himself entirely on God’s grace, not his own efforts. Ultimately, this grace is fully revealed at the cross of Christ, where the true and better King bore the guilt David (and we) deserved. The cross shows us that God doesn’t just forgive sin; He deals with it in full, at great cost to Himself. Psalm 51 reminds us that real repentance is not rooted in fear, but in hope—hope in a God who is both just and merciful through Jesus Christ.

Acts 27:43 | In this verse, as the ship is breaking apart, the Roman centurion orders that Paul be spared—going against the standard practice of executing prisoners. The text says he did this because he wanted to save Paul. Throughout the voyage, Paul had demonstrated calm, courage, and deep faith in God. He spoke with wisdom, acted with integrity, and cared for others in the storm. Though the centurion was not a believer, Paul’s life had clearly made an impact. This moment is a reminder that a life shaped by Christ is one of the greatest apologetics. People may not believe our words right away, but they notice when our lives look like Jesus.

Week 19

May 5-9
[M] 1 Sam 26-27; 1 Chr 8; Acts 18
[T] 1 Sam 28-29; 1 Chr 9; Acts 19
[W] 1 Sam 30-31; 1 Chr 10; Acts 20
[T] 2 Sam 1-2; 1 Chr 11; Ps 96, 106; Acts 21
[F] 2 Sam 3-5; 1 Chr 12; Ps 122; Acts 22

Dwell Plan Day 91-95 | CSB | Digital PDF | Printable PDF

 

Notes from Jon & Chris

Monday
1 Samuel 26 | When we’re wronged, everything in us wants to fix it now—to take justice into our own hands. David had the chance to end Saul’s life, but he chose to wait on God rather than seize control. It’s hard to trust God’s timing when we’re suffering, but faith means believing that God sees and will act righteously in His perfect time. Jesus modeled this trust on the cross, refusing to call down angels or retaliate, entrusting Himself to the Father who judges justly. In Him, we learn to wait, to trust, and to let God be the one who makes all things right.

1 Samuel 27:1 | David said in his heart is not the same as David inquired of the Lord is it? What a contrast for our own hearts as well. David’s decision to live with the Philistines leads into all sorts of complicated moral and political waters. And David has a motley and bloodthirsty crew of men who he needs to constantly try to keep under control. Suddenly he’s leading on instinct? But leadership over warriors is one of David’s core competencies, honed over years in Saul’s service. So he trusts his own judgment. This is not the last time he will make this mistake. Just watch and see—but when it all falls apart, David is very quickly back to “inquiring of the Lord.” It reads like a page out of our own stories, doesn’t it? It’s easy to forget, to get distracted by all the day to day details, to focus on the mission, to raise the kids—and without even noticing it, you’ve made God irrelevant to your life. Then life comes unraveled. Money is scarce, your parents are sick, and work feels unstable—and suddenly we’re back to asking God what we should do. Learn from David! Turn it around today, and don’t be ashamed to go back to Him. I can hear David ask: what is more reliable than His mercy? 

1 Samuel 27:8-12 | David’s actions in this chapter show us that even God’s chosen leaders can act out of fear, deception, and moral compromise. In trying to protect himself, David lied and committed brutal violence—choices that Scripture reports but does not praise. This reminds us that the Bible doesn’t hide the flaws of its heroes, and neither should we expect perfection from human leaders. David’s failure here points us beyond him to the one true King who never acted out of fear or deceit. Jesus faced danger and rejection too, but instead of lying or lashing out, He trusted the Father and laid down His life for His enemies. In a world full of compromised leadership, Christ alone is the King we can follow without hesitation.

Acts 18:7 | I know that this is a true story and not a sitcom, but this is hilarious. Paul gets the boot from the synagogue and so, in what seems to be an almost petty move, he plants a church next door and slowly poaches members away. I don’t know if I’m supposed to, but I love it.

Tuesday
1 Samuel 28 | This chapter is a chilling reminder that the supernatural world is real—and that trying to access it apart from God’s way leads to darkness and destruction. Saul sought guidance through a medium, violating God’s clear commands and showing how far he had drifted from the Lord. God doesn’t deny the existence of spiritual power, but He calls us to seek Him—not spirits—for wisdom and direction. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are given safe and holy access to the supernatural, not through sorcery, but through the Holy Spirit who connects us to the Father and the Son. Our connection to the unseen world should draw us into the life of the Trinity, not into the shadows of evil.

Acts 19:12 | Healing hankies?! Magic aprons?! Sometimes God’s work is weird. It just goes in directions that you don’t see coming. Some disreputable and despicable “evangelists” have tried selling these kinds of amulets for a “donation,” claiming the hanky has been imbued with spiritual power to bless. Fleecing the gullible who don’t know better, and the desperate who will try anything.
So why did these things happen in the book of Acts? Why did God use these items in this bizarre way? We can answer this through the language of chapter 19 and the continuing story about the Jewish exorcists. As the story opens in verse 11 it plainly makes the point: this is God’s extraordinary work. Paul is superfluous. Paul is not a faith healer (and notice carefully) he doesn’t charge for anything. He’s an apostle announcing the power of Christ’s resurrection, and these attendant miracles are there to prove it. It connects Paul to Christ’s ministry, where we know a woman was healed by just grabbing at the hem of His robe. It’s communicating that Paul’s power and Christ’s power are the same power.
Then our author Luke continues with a part of the fallout of these amazing cloth based miracles. The first thing someone did was try to get in on it for themselves. Seven sons of one the high priests try to use Christ’s name as their “amulet” to control evil spirits. And immediately it goes sideways and they get a real beating. What’s the point of the second part of the story? Don’t do what those “televangelists” do. They’re hawking their holy hankies to make a buck. And that’s not just weird, that’s just plain wicked. They’re just like those seven sons. In the end they will be victims of the evil kingdom they pretend to oppose.  

Wednesday
1 Samuel 30. | Sometimes when we’re reading the Old Testament, we come across stories that seem to contradict each other—like when Saul devoted to destruction all the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15, but then David is fighting them again just a little while later here. This can feel confusing unless we understand how ancient writers used language. The Old Testament often employs hyperbolic or exaggerated language that was common in ancient Near Eastern warfare accounts, saying things like “all were destroyed” to describe a decisive or overwhelming victory, not necessarily total annihilation. This wasn’t deceptive; it was a culturally accepted way of emphasizing the completeness of a triumph. Modern readers tend to expect scientific precision, but ancient texts were more concerned with theological meaning and narrative impact. When we read the Bible, it’s important to interpret it within its own literary and historical context. This doesn’t make it less true; it means we must read it as it was intended, not as a modern textbook.

1 Samuel 30:11 | They found an Egyptian is just so random an event, and that’s the point. God already told David he would get back his people, He just didn’t tell him how. So bumping into this Egyptian guy isn’t outrageous luck. It’s the fulfillment of the word of God that David had just received. That itself is a great gift of grace, to see prediction and fulfillment so plainly and clearly.  It also makes another thing very clear: no one can take credit for this except God. You can’t plan to meet someone randomly in the desert. In and through these events, we see how the theology of the Psalms was crafted in David’s heart.  His experiences were of God’s direct sovereignty in his life, where God said it and it happened a day later. This is the God who saves his life out of the pit, and answers him in his time of need.  

1 Samuel 31 | Suicide is not the unforgiveable sin. The Scriptures do not teach this, it is a human-invented theology. Having said that, the examples of suicide that we do have biblically are not good, and do absolutely nothing to encourage it. Suicide is the arc of Saul’s unbelief at its endpoint. We first met him looking for donkeys, led by his servant to find Samuel, spiritually ignorant and unaware. Unfortunately, there’s nothing innocent about spiritual ignorance. This progresses into disobedience, fear, and rejection and descends into violence, paranoia, and demonic possession. In desperation he turns to necromancy, and in his final horror, takes his own life. Take note of that arc that Saul was on. Suicide is the endpoint of a progressively growing unbelief. This sort of deathwork in the human heart is very dangerous to us. Despair and fear can lead us into desperate places, and demonic forces are actively at work to destroy us. Although it is never taught in the Scripture that taking your own life automatically damns you to hell, it is no doubt that self destruction is created and fueled and set ablaze by demonic attack. It is never God’s will for his children that we do such a thing. Identifying the spiritual demonic battle and the arc of your own unbelief—and where you are on it—are vital for living faith. 

Acts 20:29-30 | Why do you think that so much of the content of the New Testament letters is about warnings of false teaching?

Thursday
2 Samuel 1:1-16 | When David heard that Saul was dead, he didn’t celebrate; he tore his clothes and wept. Even though Saul had hunted him for years, David still saw him as the Lord’s anointed and mourned his fall. The man who claimed to have killed Saul expected a reward, but David had him executed instead, showing how seriously he took God’s authority. David knew that the throne was not something to seize through violence, but something to receive in God’s timing. In a world obsessed with power and self-promotion, David’s response points us to Jesus—the true King who refused shortcuts (think about what Satan offered Him in the desert) and submitted fully to the will of the Father. His crown came not through force, but through the cross, and now He reigns with justice, humility, and grace.

2 Samuel 1:19 | This was the text for Billy Graham’s sermon at Nixon’s funeral. 

1 Chronicles 11:26 | The list of David’s mighty men and the descriptions of their achievements intrigued me as a twelve year old boy. They seemed like romantic heroes to me, more real than King Arthur and those legends. I knew these stories were true! But reading it as an adult, I see different things and find other joys as well. This list has so many folks in it who aren’t Israelites. It’s a bit startling. We forget that men and women could and did enter into Jewish society, culture, and religion. David’s leadership was a compelling reason to do so, especially as he lived out what he believed, living with so much courage and integrity that his men became fanatically loyal to him. What’s amazing is how much this anticipates Jesus and His kingdom. David is a mini picture of the expanding kingdom of God that Jesus initiates in His ascension. David’s mighty men and their diversity foreshadows the breadth and reach of God’s mercy and kingdom.

Friday
2 Samuel 3-4 | Ish-bosheth was Saul’s son, placed on the throne by human power after Saul’s death, but his reign was short-lived and marked by weakness and conflict. Though he ruled part of Israel, he was not God’s chosen king—David was. The struggle between Ish-bosheth and David wasn’t just political; it revealed the difference between man’s attempts to hold power and God’s plan to give it. Even in the chaos, God was moving His promise forward—establishing David’s throne, the line through which the Messiah would one day come. Jesus, the true Son of David, didn’t seize power by force, but received it by fulfilling the Father’s will and laying down His life. In a world full of ungodly leaders and fragile kingdoms, we can trust that God’s chosen King, Jesus, sits on His throne and He reigns forever.

2 Samuel 3:26–39 | The story of Abner’s death is messy, both politically and theologically. Abner had just made peace with David, helping unite the kingdom under God’s anointed king—only to be murdered by Joab in a personal act of revenge. Joab’s actions were driven by blood feud and fear, not justice or loyalty to God’s purposes. David publicly mourned Abner, distancing himself from the murder and showing that his kingdom would not be built through backroom deals or vengeance. This moment reminds us that even in God’s unfolding plan, sin and broken motives still complicate the story, but God’s purposes are never derailed. Jesus, the true and better King, builds His kingdom not through revenge, but through grace, peace, and sacrificial love. When we see the messiness around us (or even in us) we can still trust that Christ is building something better, one act of redemptive love at a time.

2 Samuel 5:13 | In this verse and the surrounding chapters, we see that David has taken multiple wives, a pattern that becomes more visible as his power grows. Though he was a man after God’s heart, David ignored God’s design for marriage laid out in Genesis: one man, one woman, in covenant faithfulness. The covenant union of one man and one woman is meant to reflect the exclusive, faithful love between Christ and His Bride, the Church (Ephesians 5:31–32). When marriage is distorted—especially through practices like polygamy—it blurs the picture of Christ’s singular devotion and the Church’s wholehearted response. God’s design for marriage isn’t just about human relationships; it’s a living symbol of the gospel, and any departure from that design weakens the witness to that greater love story.
God had even warned Israel’s kings in Deuteronomy 17:17 not to have multiple wives, because it would lead their hearts astray—and that’s exactly what happens. Throughout Scripture, polygamy always brings pain: jealousy, rivalry, fractured families, and spiritual drift. David, shaped by the culture around him, may have thought this was normal for a king. But God had already made His will clear, and David should have known better. Even faithful people can have blind spots, but God’s Word lovingly exposes them and calls us back to His better way. 

1 Chronicles 12:38 | After you’ve slogged through all of these genealogies, you might be in for a bit of a shock, especially if you’ve just read through 2 Samuel. The writer of Chronicles sums up nearly six chapters of violence in 1 Samuel with only these few verses, with most of the last few chapters just describing how awesome all of David’s mighty men were. None of the awful betrayal and bitterness is mentioned here. This version is happy and triumphant. If we have a flat view of the Scripture, we might find this frustrating. A flat view says that there’s only one way to report a story, and that’s factually. But it’s foolishly simplistic to think that way. There is a time and a place and purpose for the tell-all. And there’s a time and a place and purpose for just telling the happy ending. One is more for reflection, and the other is more for encouragement. The readers of 2 Samuel were in Babylon, in exile. They wanted to know what happened to God’s promises. Were they true? The writer of 2 Samuel does the tell-all: look how messed up we’ve been from the start. We abandoned God, and the seeds of our destruction were in us from the start. The readers of 1 Chronicles are the grandkids and great-grandkids of the folks who read 2 Samuel. Babylon is gone and many Israelites are restored back to Palestine, to Jerusalem and the surrounding area. The writer of 1 Chronicles has a different audience with different needs for encouragement and warning.

Week 18

April 28-May 2
[M] 1 Sam 18-19; 1 Chr 3; Ps 59; Acts 13
[T] 1 Sam 20; 1 Chr 4; Ps 56, 57, 142; Acts 14
[W] 1 Sam 21-22; 1 Chr 5; Ps 52; Acts 15
[T] 1 Sam 23-24;1 Chr 6; Ps 54; Acts 16
[F] 1 Sam 25; 1 Chr 7; Acts 17

Dwell Plan Day 86-90 | CSB | Digital PDF | Printable PDF

 

Notes from Jon & Chris

Monday
1 Samuel 18:1 | David’s relationship with Jonathan is so beautiful and intimate. There’s been a cultural revision of this story, trying to claim that this is an example of a homosexual relationship between them. That’s an intellectually dishonest interpretation, reading something modern into an ancient context. And it misses the point catastrophically. This is meant to reveal a work that God does, uniting us together in spiritual ways that connect us with a holy intimacy. What this story of mutual love reveals is the possibility of redemptive and transformative friendships. If David can find a Jonathan, so can you. The Scripture are opening up new possibilities for us to think of intimacy and friendship in new ways in God’s kingdom. This wonderful friendship anticipates what Jesus says to his disciples before his crucifixion: “I call you friends.” Praise Him.

Psalm 59 | A number of the poems in this week’s reading have a superscription. That’s the text right above the first verse, in the title of the poem, with a reference to an event in David’s life. There’s only a handful of these poems, with this connection to the Biblical story, but they give us so much insight. They tell us the internal and spiritual dimension of the story, what’s going on in David’s heart and mind. It invites us to “connect the dots” between the poem and story. Try to do that, asking for the Spirit to reveal things to you.
David’s attitudes and words in certain circumstances can seem strange or disconnected to the experience. But it’s what he was really thinking at the time, and how he was processing his faith and worship along with his suffering and conflicts. The challenge is to “get inside his head” as you read and study.  It’s remarkable to meditate on, because it teaches us what a godly response to hatred, plots against you, and fear of others looks like. As we explore David’s thought life in these poems, we’re challenged to examine our own thoughts and responses to our circumstances. 

Acts 13:1 | This verse gives us a striking glimpse into the beautiful diversity of the early church. Among the leaders in Antioch, we meet Barnabas, a Jewish man from Cyprus; Simeon who was likely a dark-skinned African; Lucius from Cyrene in North Africa; Manaen, who grew up in privilege alongside royalty; and Paul, a former Pharisee with an intensely religious background.
By every earthly standard, these people had nothing in common. Different cultures, different classes, different stories. And yet here they are—worshiping, praying, and leading together. Why? Because the gospel of Jesus has brought them together. Grace has done what nothing else could: it has united them into one family.
This is a picture of what the church is meant to be—a community formed not by similarity, but by shared salvation.

Acts 13:48 | and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed | There is an interesting dual perspective here. On the one side of the coin, we have Paul and Barnabas working to spread the gospel (this is the first missionary trip), but on the other side we see that the people who came to faith did so because God appointed them to eternal life. What are we to make of this? Here it is: God is sovereign in salvation from beginning to end, and in that sovereignty, He has appointed to use regular folks like us to accomplish His plan. The encouragement is obvious then, get out there and do the work of ministry trusting that our Father will gather people to His life.

Tuesday
1 Samuel 20 | These chapters have a bit of back and forth in them. The writer is telling a story that has lots of moving pieces and details. You’ll notice that Saul seems increasingly erratic as we go through the story. As Saul seems to fall apart and wildly change his mind from day to day, David is just trying to survive. If you get confused by the narrative, don’t be frustrated. Some of the chaos that was happening between Saul, Jonathan, Michal, and David is really captured by how the Biblical text tells the story. It goes back and forth sometimes, but that’s more proof of how historical it actually is. It’s a story full of faith, craziness, demonic possession, jealousy, and fear. It’s family drama and pathos at its worst. Good to know this is the stuff that God works with in His kingdom.

1 Chronicles 4:9-10 | The prayer of Jabez! It’s just a passing note by the writer. There’s a bunch of these little notes scattered throughout the genealogies: little historical details of interest and geography. It was all really important and practical for them. But the point of including these little people, these folks that we know nothing about except the dozen words describing their lives, is to keep revealing how God’s kingdom works.
The whole Jabez prayer/promise was a big thing for a month or so in American Evangelicalism a few years ago. You see these flashes of popular teaching over and over again in the story of the church. The Jabez story was used to encourage folks to ask God boldly for things. That’s okay teaching, but the point is sharper than that. Jabez is a nobody. He doesn’t really “count” in the big things of the world. He’s insignificant, a footnote sort of detail in a long list of strange sounding names. And God answered him. Why wouldn’t He answer you? 

Psalm 56:8 | David describes God with such loving detail and tenderness. Even with all of this conflict raging around him, David is captivated by the steadfast love of God. He praises it, celebrates it, and puts his trust in it. In this verse he describes God’s heart so beautifully. He says that God collects his tears. Then he says that God counts every time he turns over at night in restless fitful sleep. What do we collect and what do we count? We might count money, likes, and follows on social media. Only what is most precious to us, what we value most in this life, what we love and enjoy. So what is of value beyond price to our God? What does He carefully record and set aside for His own collection? Our suffering and the stuff that breaks our hearts, the stuff that keeps us up at night. Our Father is telling us how much all that stuff matters to Him—what a loving and tender God.

Wednesday
1 Samuel 21 | Jesus refers to this little story in Mark 2. David is actually on the run and is hiding that fact. Because he left so quickly, he didn’t have food. He gets to the tabernacle, which is their version of “church” back then, and asks the priest for something to eat. But the priest doesn’t have anything except the “showbread” which was bread cooked to be presented to God. Priests could eat some of the sacrifices, but only priests. The food was holy so the person eating had to be holy. David understands that and tells the priest how holy he and his men are. And they eat the showbread. How is that ok? Only the priests could snack on that, God’s rules are quite clear. So that’s how Jesus uses this story! Very religious folks are often experts on following rules. Their expertise is even better at making up more rules to follow. Jesus uses the story about David to upset the rule keepers. After all, David is the apple of God’s eye, so how could he be so disobedient? Why isn’t he condemned? God’s kingdom reveals something here. Sometimes being technically disobedient can actually be holy, and sometimes being technically holy can be pure disobedience. How can that be? Jesus uses David’s story to expose the empty posturing righteousness of religious people: following rules earnestly and loving no one graciously. 

Acts 15 | This chapter can be a bit confusing at first. It almost sounds like the early church is saying, “Yes, we’re saved by grace—just follow a few extra rules and you’re in.” But that’s not what’s happening. The apostles make it clear: salvation is by grace alone, through faith in Jesus. Full stop.
The guidance they offer to the Gentile believers isn’t about earning salvation, it’s about promoting unity. These new Christians were entering a community with deep Jewish roots, and the apostles wanted to remove barriers to fellowship. This is a moment of pastoral wisdom, not theological compromise. It reminds us that while grace saves us, love guides how we live together in the church.

Thursday
1 Samuel 23 | You’ll see this phrase over and over in David’s life: David inquired of the Lord. He checked in. When he had to make a decision, when he needed intel on his enemies, when he needed to know whether to go left or right—David inquired of the Lord. He asked God. What this means in this story is quite clear: he would ask the priest to throw the “holy dice” called the Urim and the Thummim that stayed in the high priest’s pocket, on his chest. So David would ask, and the priest would roll the dice. It’s amazing.
We don’t need dice anymore, we’ve got 66 books and the Holy Spirit inside of us. Between those two things, we have what we need to “inquire of the Lord.” And if one thing is clear from this story, it’s this: ask God about everything. Like that old song teaches, take it to the Lord in prayer.
But there’s another reason the writer includes this phrase over and over in David’s life. It’s so you take notice of this terrible thing that happens—which you might miss as you read this story. What terrible thing? It’s when this phrase “David inquired of the Lord” disappears from the story. And then David’s life and family go into a tailspin. 

Acts 16:6-10 | It always strikes me as strange that the Spirit would “forbid” them to preach the gospel in Asia (or, quite frankly, it’s just odd that the Spirit would forbid going anywhere at all! Doesn’t God want everyone to hear about Jesus?) But this question reveals the heart behind the question. Do we think we are more loving than God and His plans? That’s ridiculous. So what do we learn? We can’t trust our own hearts or our own ideas about what’s best. We like to plan and prepare and strategize, but then God seems to come along and scuttle all of our plans. It’s bewildering at times. But notice the simple and straightforward obedience of the apostles. Our attitude should be the same, and we shouldn’t be surprised that our plans get superseded or overruled by His. In fact, we should be thankful, because our God does all things well. We’re servants and we are to go wherever we’re told, whenever we are told to. It won’t always be so crystal clear, and sometimes it will just feel like uncontrollable circumstances. It isn’t. You can trust Him to direct you, and He will put you right where He wants you. And sometimes He just slams the door shut.

Friday
Acts 17:10–15 | The Bereans give us one of the best pictures in Scripture of how to respond to teaching: they listened eagerly to Paul, but they didn’t just take his word for it. They went straight to the Scriptures, examining them daily to see if what he said was true.
That’s the kind of heart God honors—open to truth, but grounded in His Word. In a world full of opinions, sermons, and social media takes, the Bereans remind us where our anchor is. Scripture is still the final authority, and God still calls us to be people who test everything by it. Don’t just absorb the teaching you hear, search the Word. God speaks through it; and when we go there first, we’ll grow in wisdom, discernment, and confidence in the gospel.

Week 17

April 21-25
[M] 1 Samuel 9-10; Acts 8
[T] 1 Sam 11-13; Psalm 38; Acts 9
[W] 1 Sam 14; Psalm 124; Acts 10
[T] 1 Sam 15-16; 1 Chr 1; Ps 39; Acts 11
[F] 1 Sam 17; 1 Chr 2; Acts 12

Dwell Plan Day 81-85 | CSB | Digital PDF | Printable PDF

 

Notes from Jon & Chris

Monday
1 Samuel 9:2, 18 | Hebrew storytelling is thoughtful and careful. It likes to show you details and let you put it together. Remember Hannah’s song from chapter 2; it’s the golden key to interpret and understand these texts, to read between the lines.
Let’s take a look at some “suggestive” details. None of these are disqualifications; they just raise some questions, don’t they? First, Saul is good looking and tall. That’s not a problem in itself, but anyone who knows God’s wisdom knows that outward appearances can be deceiving. Not always, but you’ve got to pay attention. Saul looks like a quarterback, he’s head and shoulders taller and he’s rich. Any warning bells ringing yet?
Notice that it’s Saul’s servant who comes up with the idea to find the prophet. It’s Saul’s servant who knows where the prophet Samuel lives, it’s Saul’s servant who knows what to do. It’s Saul’s servant who has a gift for the prophet. What’s the problem here? The servant is wiser, better prepared, and more spiritually aware than his master. Verse 18 says it all in a very funny moment. Saul walks right up to Samuel to ask him where he can find Samuel! It’s pure comedy! But it’s also a chilling moment. Samuel is the great religious leader of his day. Samuel the great pastor of God’s people and is leading them as their judge. What’s the point of Saul not recognizing Samuel? Saul is spiritually disconnected and ignorant. He goes to worship God so infrequently, he doesn’t even know who Samuel is. Now the warning signs are blaring at us. See if you can find other details that point out Saul’s inherent flaws and inability to lead! (Hint: in 1 Sam 10:22 he’s hiding in the baggage when they make him king.)

Acts 8:4 | Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. | Saul and the religious leaders thought they could shut down the Jesus movement by cracking down hard—violence, threats, arrests. But God wasn’t caught off guard. In fact, He used it. As believers were forced to flee Jerusalem, they didn’t go silent, they took the gospel with them. Everywhere they went, they shared the good news. What looked like a setback turned into a gospel wildfire. It’s such a good reminder that even when things feel out of control, God is still in control and He can turn even opposition into opportunity.

Acts 8:17 | Pentecost actually happens three times in Acts. First in Acts 2 in Jerusalem. Acts 8 is the Samaritan Pentecost. The Gentile Pentecost is coming up in Acts 10. Why does God repeat this dramatic outpouring of the Spirit? It’s to make something crystal clear: the gospel isn’t just for one group. The Samaritans and Gentiles aren’t second-class citizens in the kingdom. They’re fully welcomed, fully filled, and fully part of God’s family, just like the first believers in Jerusalem. 

Tuesday
1 Samuel 12:5 | The leaders in God’s kingdom have always been held to a higher standard of character, and this is revealed clearly in God’s descriptions of the Godly elders and leaders He wants for His churches. This consistency runs through the course of all Scripture. God’s kingdom is the same kingdom. Same rules, same holiness, same grace. Praise Him!

1 Samuel 13:8 | This is a leadership test straight from God. Wait seven days for my prophet is the instruction, but Samuel seems to be running late. Saul is now king and he’s nervous about it. What will the people think? They’re outgunned and outclassed by the Philistines. The Philistines have better tech for sharpening swords. Folks are starting to desert him and get scared. Waiting for the prophet isn’t working. It’s all falling apart and he’s barely begun to be king. He has to do something! Anything! Waiting for God to do something is just lazy isn’t it? Maybe Samuel marked the date wrong on his calendar. Where is he? This crisis grinds Saul down and he caves in. He doesn’t wait.
God tests many of us this way at some point. Will we be faithful when it’s difficult and it looks like the losing strategy? It’s a hard, hard test for us. Our self reliance and bias for action are tools for our pride and fear to take control with, and that ends disastrously for us time and time again.
Saul is meant to be a mirror for us, a mirror for our flesh and our broken unbelief. Saul has it all—God’s call, the power of the Spirit, a prophet behind him, success at everything he’s done so far, detailed descriptions of the future so he’d know it was God’s miraculous power. None of that matters. Saul is a cautionary tale for us, a picture of someone who has every opportunity to know God, and even appears to know God, but it’s all false. What a warning to us today.

1 Samuel 13:10–12 | What’s the difference between David and Saul? Both are leaders who think that their power and status puts them above the law. Both fall into grievous sin. When David is confronted by Nathan (we’ll get there soon), he repents and writes Psalm 51. When Saul is confronted by Samuel, he passes the blame off and makes excuses for his sin. That lack of repentance and hatred of sin shows us what’s going on in his heart, and it’s not devotion to YHWH.

Psalm 38 | Feeling beat up? Feel like God is taking you to the woodshed and disciplining you? This is your poem. Are you suffering and in horrible pain? This is your poem. Do folks avoid you because you’re so miserable? This is your poem. Have you been so wicked in your thoughts that it dismays you and discourages you? This is your poem. Feel like you’re about to completely give up? This is your poem. Need to ask God to hurry, to be closer to you, to not abandon you? This is your poem. This is your song and your anthem for all of those low down times, when you see how you messed everything up, when you can’t see a way out, when your internal world is complete chaos. And this is our God giving us a poem we can pray and express ourselves through, to give voice to our deep frustration with our sins and failures and all the disappointments we bring into the world. What a sweet God we have, that He gives us words like this, because sometimes these are the only words that make sense to us. What a message of grace this poem/prayer is for us to enact and pray for ourselves. Praise Him.

Acts 9:4 | This is how deeply Jesus is united to his people. Saul was persecuting the followers of Jesus, but when Jesus confronted him, He asked, “Why are you persecuting ME?” Think about what that means for how much He loves you.

Acts 9:26–27 | Think about this: when Saul tried to meet with the apostles after his conversion, they were terrified of him, and honestly, who could blame them? This was the guy who had been hunting down Christians. But then Barnabas stepped in. His name literally means “son of encouragement,” and he really lived up to it. He listened to Saul’s story, believed in what God had done, and personally brought him to the apostles, saying, “You turkeys need to hear this guy’s story.” Barnabas’s response is such a beautiful picture of the gospel in action. He believed that even someone with Saul’s past wasn’t beyond the reach of grace.

Wednesday
1 Samuel 14:44 | Rash leaders and their proud decisions are on display here. Saul’s folly seems to increase as he goes on his career as king. He makes commitments that are absurd. Telling the soldiers to not eat on pain of death, while you’ve got eight solid hours of combat ahead, that’s just plain stupid. And then, on top of stupid, to add stubbornness and saving face in front of everyone. Saul is ready to kill his own son just to not look dumb for a stupid decision he made. Saul can’t admit that. It reveals a heart more passionately concerned for his own reputation than he is for the life of his own boy. Makes you wonder how Jonathan felt. Watch leaders for this sort of foolishness. Saul is a warning about the destruction that an insecure and unspiritual leader creates in their wake. He’s also a warning to us in our own pride and anger. Don’t get blinded in your arrogance, and because of it limit the success and growth of God’s kingdom. It’s as much a problem today as it was thousands of years ago.

Thursday
1 Samuel 15:22 | Saul has been showing his true colors now. We’re seeing him for who he is. We’re seeing what a judgment he is on God’s people as well. This final test of Saul is what destroys him. It’s the Jericho test, the “things devoted to destruction” test. Remember that from Joshua? It’s rare, but several times God commands this kind of utter annihilation of a people group or city. It’s meant to be God’s people carrying out God’s justice. It’s severe and scary. It’s also very hard to do, because—as we saw with Achan at Jericho—there’s a lot of incentives to take some stuff for yourself. There’s incentives to let kings live too. After all, it’s just détente. In other words, if you don’t kill kings and you show some respect, then when you’re defeated in battle, the same respect will be shown to you. Kings do fight other kings for their stuff, but they also look out for each other. It’s just good foreign policy. God isn’t interested in Saul’s policy decisions. Saul fails the “devoting things to destruction” test. It’s a catastrophic failure. For him and for us. Father, help us pass this test of our hearts by the power of your Spirit. Amen.

1 Samuel 16:7 | This is the biblical principle that Christ puts into action again and again, seeing past the outward show that folks put on, and seeing into the heart. That’s how God sees stuff. That’s how God looks at our motives and desires and goals, weighing our actions against our hearts. Everything flows from the heart. This wisdom is all over the Scriptures. This crashes past our fakery, our pretensions to spiritual maturity, our desire to look good to others. 

1 Chronicles 1 | You’re going to be tempted to skip this part. That’s okay. Try skimming through to catch the little details. One family names their kid after an earthquake (Peleg) and another has kids through a slave and another has a different issue. So why are these lists of folks and their little penny-ante problems in our Bibles? No little people! That’s God’s kingdom for you! There are no nobodies in God’s kingdom. You may find these names hard to pronounce and meaningless. That’s okay. They may be pointless and meaningless to you. But they aren’t to God, and that’s the point. Do you think that Peleg ever even knew his name would be written down in a book that would last thousands of years? Of course not. But there it is, he’s honored by God by being mentioned in a list of other folks we don’t know anything about. And there’s the joy for us. God is just as interested in your life as he was in Peleg’s. There are no people who are unimportant and don’t matter. That’s how the world works, not our God and not His kingdom. This is how we are to act as well. We’re to adopt the same sort of attitude that is on these pages. It’s only God that makes you matter, and when you matter to Him, you matter to eternal purposes. You’re a part of His grand design, however insignificant and unimportant you feel. You’re more than a conqueror. You. Wow, what a God and what a savior. 

Acts 11 | The early church in its first days goes through some real changes. After Jesus ascended, the disciples are now trying to work out God’s kingdom. They don’t see it all yet. They’re still culturally Jews, and that comes with a lot of baggage. There’s dietary rules and rules for associating with sinners and rules for just about everything in life. That’s the heritage of the Old Testament law. And the rabbis had added many more rules “just to be on the safe side.”  They weren’t supposed to do that. God said don’t add to My law. But they did it anyway. So these early church leaders had a lot to sort through. And God helped them. Here we see these Godly leaders processing all the stuff that’s happening. They’re looking for the evidences of God’s true work, and they can’t deny what Peter has seen and experienced. God’s kingdom is expanding and driving outwards, just like Jesus said it would. The church is trying to play catch up with God’s works! That’s comforting, because it seems we still have the same sorts of issues, and this is showing us we still have the same God to solve them. This encourages us to constantly process what God is doing and how He is moving and how we can align ourselves with that. 


Friday
1 Samuel 17:26 | The living God! This is one of my favorite names for our Father. This leaps off the page for me.
What does it mean for him to be living? First, He’s active in the world. This isn’t a God removed from life, but a God engaged with life in Himself as much as with us.
Second, this reveals how His eternity is actually personal. What is living is personal, not impersonal and distant. Gravity is a force. It’s impersonal and has no life. What it does, pulling us all towards the ground, it does unthinkingly. It merely is. But not our God! He’s alive and engaged. He can be known.
Third, if He is the living God, where did His life come from? It comes from Himself. It can’t come from anywhere else, or there would be something or someone greater than Him. It’s absurd and ridiculous to think anything is greater than God, because then He would no longer be God. Why? A part of what defines God as God is that He is greater than any being that you can even think of in your head. So His life, His living, is from Himself. Remember, from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. And the One who has life in Himself doesn’t need anyone else to give Him life.
This leads to the fourth implication: we live because He lives. Our personhood, our living self, is ours because our God is the living God, and he made us to be like Him—living creatures. He did this first in the work of creating the world, and then He did it again in His second great work of saving the world. In His first work, He breathed life into us, giving us living souls. (That’s what died when Adam sinned.) In His second redeeming work through Jesus, Jesus died and was resurrected. Why? It’s obvious: He’s the living God, He can’t be dead! And now this new living life is in us. The living God has gone further than before. At first we were a copy of Him. Living like He is living. Through Jesus we’re more than a copy or an image bearer. Now the eternal part of the living God’s life in Himself is being shared with us. Now if you trust in Jesus, you are a new creation. A new living person filled and transformed and united to the Living God. Praise Him! Praise the Living God!

Week 16

April 14-18
[M] Ruth 1-2; Acts 3
[T] Ruth 3-4; Psalm 37; Acts 4
[W] 1 Samuel 1-2; Psalm 120; Acts 5
[T] 1 Sam 3-5; Psalm 23; Acts 6
[F] 1 Sam 6-8; Acts 7

Dwell Plan Day 76-80 | CSB | Digital PDF | Printable PDF

Notes from Jon & Chris

Monday
Ruth 1:16-17 | Ruth’s words in these verses are a striking declaration of faith—especially coming from a Moabite. As an outsider, Ruth had no natural claim to Israel’s God, yet she chooses to leave behind her land, her people, and her idols to follow Naomi and trust in the LORD. Her loyalty isn’t just to Naomi; it’s a heartfelt conversion to the God of Israel. In her quiet steadfast faith, we see the grace of God reaching beyond the borders of the land of Israel.
Ruth’s story is a preview of God’s larger redemptive plan—to gather the nations to Himself. Though she was once far off, she is welcomed in, even becoming part of the lineage of Christ. Her faith reminds us that God’s kingdom is open to all who trust in Him, regardless of background. The same grace that brought Ruth in is the grace that brings us in too.

Ruth 2:2 | In the Old Testament, gleaning was a built-in provision for the poor, the foreigner, and the widow—God commanded landowners not to harvest the edges of their fields or pick up what was dropped during the harvest (Leviticus 19:9–10). This wasn’t charity as an afterthought; it was justice woven into the structure of Israel’s economy. Ruth, a poor Moabite widow, enters this story by gleaning, and through it, she not only finds sustenance but is drawn into the family line of the Messiah. In God’s upside-down kingdom, the last are seen, the lowly are lifted, and the margins become places of divine encounter. Gleaning reminds us that true faith always bears fruit in care for the vulnerable—and that God often works His greatest redemption through the humble and the overlooked.

Acts 3:8 | This miracle is amazing, elevating the disciples to the kind of power that Jesus displayed. This establishes a true continuity; this is the work of a risen and living Jesus. But notice how the miracle is both healing and full restoration. There’s no physical therapy or learning to walk. We know through modern medicine how these processes are absolutely necessary in the world’s form of healing. Not in the kingdom! It’s a picture of the full reach and extent and raw power of God. Christ is making clear, and the Holy Spirit is displaying it: ask whatever you wish in My Name, and I will do it for you. And in these heady early days of this new and beautiful kingdom, huge signs and wonders are happening as proofs and encouragements. It should make us bold to hope and to ask for works that will advance his kingdom now, whatever he chooses for those to be.

Tuesday
Ruth 2-3 | In ancient Israel, the kinsman redeemer (or goel) was a close relative responsible for rescuing family members from poverty, slavery, or the loss of land (Leviticus 25). Boaz steps into this role for Ruth—not out of obligation, but with compassion and covenant love—redeeming her from her vulnerable state and securing her future. In doing so, he becomes a powerful foreshadowing of Christ, our greater Redeemer, who took on flesh to rescue us—not just from material need, but from sin and death itself. Like Boaz, Jesus didn’t redeem us because He had to, but because He loved us. And like Ruth, we bring nothing but need, and receive everything in return.

Ruth 4:17 | As we peer back through Christ’s genealogy, you get this sense of the master plan, a glimpse of the meta story that’s going on. First we see God’s caring and providing providence, putting together His story in His way to His glory! The “happenstance” of Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz’s lives are all superintended by the loving grace and choices of our God. Watch it unfold in Scripture and you’ll begin to see a similar unfolding in the “chaos” of your own life.
Next it reveals, in a backwards sort of way, the trajectory of Jesus’ love and kingdom. After all, his bloodline comes from all over—different people groups—revealing the Lord’s purpose that the nations be folded into his kingdom. We’re in that trajectory today as God’s loving kingdom is still growing in us and through us, reaching the nations. Wow, what a God, and what a plan.

Psalm 37 | This poem is a meditation on the difficulty of handling evil people in this world. It’s hard emotionally: it makes you constantly angry. It’s hard personally: they’re opportunists, waiting to take advantage of you. It’s hard mentally: they take and take and never give back. We all have people like this in our lives. We can try to get away from toxic folks, but sometimes we don’t have a choice about family or work or other circumstances. This is a poem you turn to when you’re fretting—or getting hot under the collar—about how wicked people will often look like they are “winning” at life through their despicable tactics. We might be tempted to use some of those tactics ourselves. This poem is meant to warn you and guide you through those relationships, driving you back again and again to trust in the Lord even more. 

Psalm 37:11 | “But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace” | Sound familiar? 

Acts 4:23-31 | This is one of my (Jon) favorite prayers in Scripture. After being released, the apostles don’t pray for safety or to avoid arrest again. Instead, with the church, they pray and focus on two things. First, they declare who God is—sovereign, creator, and in control of all things. Second, they pray for boldness to keep speaking the word. It’s an amazing prayer, and God answers it. As we keep reading Acts, we’ll see exactly what they prayed for: the people of God speaking with boldness, and many coming to faith.

Wednesday
1 Samuel 1:14 | Hannah’s earnest prayer is so emotional that the priest thinks she’s drunk. Not sure what theological point this makes, except for the startling parallel with Acts 2. The disciples were accused of being day drinkers! Again the work of God is mistaken for drunkenness. Have you been so “intoxicated” with God that someone might mistake your passion or joy for something else?
But there’s also something else here, isn’t there? Perceiving God’s kingdom is something that God has to give you. Eli is spiritually blind. We find out how badly in the next few chapters, with his inability to restrain his son's wickedness. What’s happening here? We need God’s wisdom and grace, His Spirit in us, to perceive what He is doing. Even when it’s staring us right in the face. This becomes a constant refrain—as John tells us “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.” Let’s ask our Father to make us ready and discerning of His kingdom.

1 Samuel 2 | Hannah’s prayer here and Mary’s Magnificat in Luke 1 ring with the same melody of praise: both women magnify the Lord who lifts up the lowly and brings down the proud. Hannah rejoices in a God who gives strength to the weak and raises the poor from the dust. Mary, centuries later, sings of that same God who exalts the humble and fills the hungry with good things. The similarities show us what a godly woman Mary was. In the biggest moment of her life, what bubbles up? Scripture. Her prayer echoes the prayer of Hannah.
Both prayers celebrate not just personal blessings, but the character of YHWH—faithful, just, and merciful. These women saw beyond their own stories to the bigger picture: a God who is turning the world upside down with His grace. Their prayers invite us to trust that no one is too small for God to use and no situation too broken for Him to redeem.

1 Samuel 2 | There is also another dynamic here. The medium—in this case a nobody, a random country girl dealing with fertility issues—is also the message. Hannah reflects that her problems, which would look pretty insignificant to most folks, just aren’t viewed that way by God. She then describes how God’s upside down kingdom actually works. It values what no one else values. And so Hannah becomes the interpretive jewel for all of the histories that follow. A random country girl we never hear about again—she’s the one who understands what kings and wise men cannot. Her poem here becomes the way to interpret everything that follows. Wow. What a kingdom! And this further implies that however insignificant we might feel we are, God has other notions and a different perspective. 

Acts 5:20-21a | “Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.” And when they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak and began to teach. | The angel tells the apostles to go right back and do the very thing that just got them arrested. And the amazing thing? They actually do it. These are the same men who fled when Jesus was arrested—afraid, hiding, denying they even knew Him. So what changed? The only explanation is that they saw the resurrected Jesus. Nothing else could have turned their fear into fearless obedience.

 

Thursday
1 Samuel 3 | Read this chapter slowly and carefully, imagining all the details.
It's very quiet at night in the countryside, which you can only experience in remote areas in our time. The Scriptures talk again and again about God’s “call.” In this story, which still gives me chills all these years later, we get to see that idea of “call” fleshed out for us. This is a picture of what I pray to happen spiritually in all of us, both as we experience God in prayer, and as we read His word together. A sense of God calling you, personally addressing you, inviting you to know Him and trust Him in ways you never have before. And notice, this call to follow God is tested right away. Samuel has to tell all that God has told Him to tell. He doesn’t hold back. This is our God seeking us and chasing us and pursuing us. This reveals His invitation to us to personally know Him and how it’s possible. There it is—today, if you hear His voice, don’t harden your heart. Just tell Him “Here I am. Speak, your servant is ready to listen.”

1 Samuel 3:19 | None of his words fell to the ground. Or, in other words, everything he said came true and was true. God was behind them all. Gravity and time don’t affect God’s words—they stay standing. And if God is with a person, a man or woman who speaks His words, then the things they say will also be true and come true. It’s how you know if someone is really a prophet of God. It’s the test. You get to use that test too. One of the folks to ace that particular test is Jesus!

1 Samuel 5 | In this chapter, the ark of the covenant is captured by the Philistines and placed in the temple of their god Dagon. But instead of symbolizing defeat, this moment becomes a powerful declaration of God’s supremacy. The next morning, Dagon is found face down before the ark. The day after that, he’s broken to pieces. No one touched him—YHWH simply will not share His glory. This isn’t just a story of national rivalry; it’s a theological showdown. God is making clear that He is not one among many, but the one true and living God.
The Old Testament is filled with moments like this—clear, intentional polemics against false gods. From Egypt’s plagues, to Elijah on Mount Carmel, Scripture repeatedly shows that idols have no power, no life, and no voice. They fall before the presence of the Lord. And that same God still topples our modern idols—whether they be comfort, control, success, or self. The call is the same now as it was then: turn from what cannot save, and trust in the God who cannot be defeated.

Psalm 23 | If you do not know this poem as a treasure chest, as a spring of hope in the face of exhaustion, fear, conflict and suffering, then you have been robbed. Maybe you’ve read it too much. Then memorize it. Reading it through every once and while just doesn’t get these treasures into your heart properly. Meditate on it for a week. Rewrite it in your own words. Just make it yours so you can use it and pray it.  I have prayed this while fighting panic 500 feet up a rock wall. I have prayed it while fearing for my son’s life. I have prayed it at lonely hours of confusion and fear. I have prayed it when all hope felt gone. I have prayed it when I can’t understand why things are so hard or painful. I have prayed it when I have nothing left in my tank. I have prayed it before intense meetings and in the middle of conflict. May you do the same.

Acts 6:5 | …They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. | This verse speaks volumes about the unity and humility of the early church. When the Greek-speaking widows felt overlooked, the church didn’t ignore the concern—they came together to solve it. And what’s remarkable is who they chose: seven men, all with Greek names. Not a balanced mix to keep everyone happy. The Hebrew-speaking believers weren’t focused on protecting their own interests, they were focused on loving their sisters in Christ. By affirming these Greek leaders, the church prioritized justice and unity over representation, and in doing so, they avoided what could have become a major ethnic divide.

Friday
1 Samuel 7:12 | After God gives Israel victory over the Philistines, Samuel sets up a stone and names it Ebenezer, saying, “Till now the Lord has helped us.” The word Ebenezer means “stone of help” and serves as a visible reminder of God’s faithfulness. When we sing “here I raise mine Ebenezer” in Come Thou Fount, we’re echoing that same gratitude—acknowledging that every step of our journey has been sustained by God’s grace.

1 Samuel 8 | In this chapter, Israel demands a king so that they could be like the other nations, rejecting God as their true King. God grants their request, but not without warning—they will get a king who takes more than he gives. This chapter leaves us longing for a better King, one who doesn’t take but gives everything for His people—and in Jesus, the true and perfect King, that longing is finally fulfilled.

Acts 7 | Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7 is the longest in the book of Acts, and it’s all about Jesus. Standing before the Jewish council, Stephen walks through Israel’s history, not to give a mere lesson, but to show how all of it leads to Christ. From Abraham to Moses to David, Stephen highlights how God was always working through imperfect people to fulfill His promises. He shows that God’s presence was never confined to a building or a place, preparing the way to reveal that Jesus Himself is the fulfillment of all these hopes.
At the heart of Stephen’s message is a bold claim: just as their ancestors rejected the prophets, so have they rejected the Righteous One—Jesus. But even in the face of rejection, Stephen’s words are full of truth and grace. He doesn’t preach to win an argument, but to bear witness. His sermon calls his hearers—and us—to see Jesus as the true Savior, the One greater than Moses, the final temple, the fulfillment of all God’s promises.
What makes Stephen’s sermon even more powerful is how it ends—not just in death, but in a vision of glory. As he is being stoned, Stephen looks up and sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God, welcoming him home. His final words echo Jesus’ own: asking God to receive his spirit and forgive his killers. Stephen’s life, sermon, and death all point to Christ—not just as a message to believe, but a Savior worth dying for.

Acts 7:60 | This is what happens when the Spirit is working in all His fullness. Stephen is filled with Christ’s own words from the cross. “Forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.” But it isn’t just words. Stephen is filled with Christ’s own heart at the cross. Stephen is filled with grace equal to and even greater than the horror and suffering of that moment. So much so that he breathes and radiates forgiving love to those who hate him, in real time as another rock smashes his head. It’s supernatural and amazing. It’s the fullness of how the Spirit makes us like Jesus that we should all ask for, that we should all seek.

Week 15

April 7-11
[M] Judges 7-8; Luke 22
[T] Judges 9-11; Psalm 17; Luke 23
[W] Judges 12-16; Psalm 146; Luke 24
[T] Judges 17-18; Psalm 21; Acts 1
[F] Judges 19-21; Acts 2

Dwell Plan Day 71-75 | CSB | Digital PDF | Printable PDF

 

Notes from Jon & Chris


Monday
Judges 7 gives us a striking principle: God doesn’t operate the way we expect him to. From our sinful, culturally shaped perspective, so much of what He does seems backwards. Really think about it—what military logic is there in shrinking your army before a major battle? But in verse 2, God explains exactly why he does it: Lest Israel boast over me, saying, “My own hand has saved me.” He wanted to make it clear that the victory belonged to Him, not to their strength.
That same pattern runs through the entire story of redemption. God doesn’t just help us get saved—He saves us entirely. It’s not 99% God and 1% me. It’s all God, from beginning to end. Just like He stripped Gideon’s army down to show that the victory was His, He makes salvation entirely His work so that we can’t boast in ourselves.
Look at how Paul puts it: For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8–9) God chose what is low and despised in the world… so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:28–31)

Judges 8:27 | The conclusion of Gideon’s story is a stark warning for us all. Despite his many faithful deeds in service to the Lord, he ended up fashioning an idol that led the people away from YHWH. This teaches us that we require the same measure of grace and sanctification during times of prosperity as we do in times of hardship—those moments of peace and comfort can be just as vulnerable to the enemy’s influence.

Luke 22:15 | It seems odd that Jesus talks about what He most wants here. You can see the original Aramaic that Jesus spoke (Aramaic is a later dialect of Hebrew, common in Jesus’ time) in the grammar. It literally says that Jesus “desired, desired” just like that, repeating the word. This repeated word construction is not Greek syntax. This little repetition, used all the time in Hebrew, means a perfect version of whatever the word is. “Peace, peace” becomes “perfect peace.” Here “desired, desired” means the most powerful and perfect desire. And what is Jesus desiring? This last supper, this meal that he shares with them before His death on the cross, this meal that He instructs them to keep having, to keep doing and remembering Him and what He’s doing at that cross. Wow. Do you approach communion with such an all consuming desire to feed on Jesus? To have our God? Jesus’ perfect desire is everything the communion meal teaches and illustrates. Jesus loves sinners and comes to rescue them. Praise Him.  

Luke 22:54-62 | How do we know these details about Peter’s denials? It was just Peter standing there, warming himself by the fire, waiting to see what might happen to Jesus. What this implies is that Peter told everyone what he did. That may seem like a small detail, but it’s wildly important. The apostles lead us in two ways: by their lives and by their words. What we learn and see in their lives is humility. They tell the truth about their failures and weaknesses; they own their mistakes and even point them out for you. Why? Because there are no heroes but Jesus, and there is no righteousness except Jesus’, and there is no strength outside of Jesus. Peter knew that his failures would preach Jesus to you, so he made sure you knew them. This unleashes God’s power in the world: when we don’t look to our strength and glory and reputation but only to Jesus’. As we read both the Old and New Testaments, we see this strange emphasis—it isn’t about any human accomplishment or a particular person’s heroic story. Everyone is shown with their warts and pimples. And this reveals just what kind of slobby, warty, pimply people our God came to save. 

Tuesday
Judges 9:56 | After Abimelech’s death, the author steps in with a clear editorial note: it was God who brought justice, using even the unlikely means of a woman with a millstone to do it.
This chapter reveals two powerful truths. First, humanity is deeply sinful. What we see in Abimelech and the people of Shechem is not an anomaly—it’s a snapshot of the human condition throughout history. Second, God is a God of justice. He doesn’t overlook sin; He responds to it with righteous wrath.
Both of these truths are essential to understanding the gospel. You’re not meant to see yourself as the hero in this story—you’re meant to see yourself in Abimelech: self-centered, power-hungry, and under judgment. And that should lead to fear—unless you know the gospel.
Abimelech suffered a shameful death under the justice of God. So did Jesus. But Jesus didn’t die for His own sin—He died for yours. He took the punishment we deserved, and He did it out of love. Through Jesus, our sin is atoned for, and God’s justice is fully satisfied. That’s the hope of the gospel.

Judges 11:34-40 | This is insane. And this particular form of insanity is important for us to notice. At times in the Bible, folks will be described as having a lot of zeal or passion. And at times that is a passion that is uninformed by complete biblical truth. Jephthah has a real passion for God—but he doesn’t seem to really know the law, because he makes a rash vow before God and follows through in sacrificing his own daughter as a burnt offering. This was never God’s intention or desire or command. But ignorance wins the day, which it seems to win often. Biblical literacy isn’t much better in our day, and this same chaos—of uninformed or misinformed passion for God—still destroys families and communities and faith. We live in a time a lot like the time of the judges now. Pray against the insanity of this age for the glory of Jesus.

Psalm 17:8 | Practice the beauty of asking God to keep you as His favorite, or as the Hebrew literally says “watch over me like I’m the pupil in your eyeball.” You’re allowed to ask God to make you His favorite! The scriptures have always applied the same remedy for sinners: seek intimacy of relationship with God, and look for Him to make that intimacy happen. Seek first the kingdom.

Luke 23:9 | Like a sheep standing  in front of a butcher, He didn’t say a bleat. This is Christ’s grandeur, because it fulfills a prophecy, but it’s also a picture of His majesty. Pilate is using Jesus to win points with Herod. Herod is questioning Jesus because he’s curious, like he was curious about John the Baptist. But Christ is no victim, and Christ plays no games. What majesty and poise Jesus has here! Jesus does the worst thing He could do: He bores the tyrant and isn’t afraid. Jesus invites us into His majesty and poise by the Holy Spirit, so that when we face moments of testing and trial, we can have an answer. Or know not to answer. What a savior we have in Jesus. 

Wednesday
Judges 13-16 | The story of Samson is not a biblical version of a comic book hero—a man with super strength defeating villains with a little help from God. Instead, it’s the story of God’s relentless faithfulness to work through a deeply broken and sinful man. Samson’s life is not one of consistent obedience or noble character; rather, it’s a testimony to God’s ability to bring about deliverance even through human weakness and failure.
On the positive side, Samson’s story intentionally echoes elements of Christ’s: Both have miraculous births announced by angels. Both are set apart from the womb and called to save God’s people. Both are empowered by the Spirit, rejected by their own, and both achieve a kind of victory through their deaths. These parallels are not accidental—they point forward to Jesus as the greater deliverer.
But the contrasts are just as important, if not more so. Where Samson failed, Jesus triumphed. Samson was a moral disaster, breaking every part of his Nazirite vow. Jesus was perfectly obedient, fulfilling every requirement of God’s law. Samson lived for himself—driven by lust, pride, and revenge. Jesus lived for others—marked by humility, purity, and self-sacrifice. Samson was a man of violence, ruled by impulse. Jesus was a man of peace, ruled by love. The story of Samson shows us our need for a better Savior. And in every way Samson falls short, Jesus shines all the brighter.

Psalm 146:1 | One thing the Biblical poets teach us is how to talk to ourselves. Talking to yourself like this is an action, a proclamation to your own mind and consciousness. It’s different from “listening to yourself” which is more passive, something we experience often. When we listen to ourselves, we often act impulsively and reactively, making choices out of fear or a sudden desire. We hear thoughts, doubts, complaints, and excuses like a constant echo chamber in our souls. It can be a bit noisy in our thoughts at times. What can we do? Talk to yourself the way the Bible teaches you to! Look at how the poet starts with a command directed at his own being—praise the LORD! He tells himself what to do. No excuses or options are presented. This is self talk from God for us. This grabs God’s promises and hopes in Him through self talk. Use it.

Luke 24:27 | We used to joke in seminary, “How many credit hours do you think you could get if you had been one of the disciples on the way to Emmaus?” The answer was always zero—Jesus sought the accreditation of no man! But kidding aside, it’s a true “wow moment” in the Bible.
We all now know that from Moses all the way through the prophets you can find stuff about Jesus: predicting Jesus, describing Jesus, anticipating Jesus. The funny thing is that no details of the conversation are given to us! Why? How will we ever know what’s about Jesus and what isn’t?! That’s why we’re doing this whole Bible reading plan to begin with. It isn’t to make you more religious. It’s to show you, as much as we can,  it’s all about Jesus. And this little note from Luke invites us to do lots of thinking, reading, and studying to figure it out for ourselves! 

Thursday
Judges 17:6 | Two times in this book (here and the very last words of the book, Judges 21:25) we will come across this expression from Deuteronomy 12:8)—where God very plainly and directly tells his people, don’t do what is right “in your own eyes.” This is a social, religious, spiritual, and moral condition where everyone decides their own standards. This whole book, with all of its many stories, isn’t even clearly chronological. It’s chaos, and it often reads chaotically. Each story in the book describes a new cycle, often in a very different part of Palestine. It reveals the moral and spiritual chaos of God’s people all across the twelve tribes of Israel, a universal failure that seems inevitable time after time. There should be no surprises when we look at the modern church after reading this book; or perhaps it is better to say, we should always be delightfully surprised by those times when God’s people seek Him and His holiness. 

Judges 17:6 | In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. | This verse sums up the spiritual and moral decline that defines the book of Judges—a people rejecting God’s rule and replacing it with self-rule. The theme appears repeatedly, showing how Israel’s rebellion leads to deeper cycles of chaos and suffering (Judges 18:1; 19:1; 21:25). Each time we hear that “there was no king in Israel,” we’re reminded that without God’s authority, people define right and wrong on their own terms. The result isn’t freedom, it’s disorder and destruction. But this longing for a true king points us forward to Jesus, the righteous King who brings peace, justice, and order to those who submit to His reign.

Psalm 21 | The psalm speaks of a king who receives length of days forever and ever (v. 4). This promise finds its perfect fulfillment in Jesus, the risen and reigning King who lives forever. In Him, we receive eternal life as co-heirs of His victory.

Acts 1:8 | This is the most important verse in the book of Acts. Just before His ascension, Jesus gives His disciples a final word—not a farewell, but a commission. Acts 1:8 is more than just a promise of power; it’s a roadmap for the mission of the church. In this single verse, Jesus outlines the entire flow of the book of Acts: the gospel starts in Jerusalem, spreads to Judea and Samaria, and then goes to the ends of the earth.
But notice the pattern: the Spirit comes first, and then the mission begins. Jesus never sends His people out in their own strength. The same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead now empowers the church to carry the message of life to the world. And that mission hasn’t ended—it continues with us.
Your church in San Francisco is part of this unfolding story. You’re not a footnote in the mission of God—you’re a continuation of Acts 1:8. The gospel that started in Jerusalem has reached you, and now you carry it to your city, your neighbors, and beyond. San Francisco may not look like Judea or Samaria, but it is very much one of the “ends of the earth” where Christ’s name must be proclaimed.
And, let’s be honest, San Francisco isn’t always easy soil. The spiritual climate can be hard. The culture is often indifferent—or even hostile. But that’s exactly why Jesus doesn’t just call us—He empowers us. The Holy Spirit is not a relic of Pentecost; He is the ever-present fuel of the mission. You are filled with the Spirit to bear witness to Jesus—right where you are.

Acts 1 | Here is a link to one of my (Jon) favorite sermons of all time. It’s by Tim Keller and it’s about the ascension of Jesus. If you have time, give it a listen.

Friday
Judges 19 | Quick literary/study note: This chapter mirrors Genesis 19 (the story of Sodom), highlighting that Israel has become as depraved as the nations God once judged.

Judges 20:13 | Civil war is erupting in Israel because of this obscene thing that the tribe of Benjamin did. They have become like Sodom. But the most chilling moment is right here. When confronted, they just won’t listen. This creates an enormously bloody and sad conflict, with brother killing brother by the thousands. One of the things that divides the people of God is holiness, and sometimes that division is from God. Parts of God’s kingdom in His church will sometimes fall into complacency and compromise. They lack the will or strength to deal with wrongdoers in their communities. They protect themselves rather than humble themselves and admit there’s something wrong, and this creates the worst sorts of conflict. This story plays itself out again and again in individual churches and whole denominations. When those divisions are holy, they must happen for the sake of righteousness.
But this brings up a New Testament reality that is consistent with this experience. Paul warns the Ephesians that after he leaves wolves would rise up both inside the church and come from the outside to deceive. We will always be a kingdom in conflict; that’s a promise from Christ himself. At times that conflict is with the world. At times it’s with the parts of the church that have been seduced by the world. We must be ready for these things. The Scripture is consistent in its warnings. Don’t over-idealize the church or romanticize community. We are a kingdom in conflict until He returns.

Acts 2:3–4 | As the disciples gathered at Pentecost, something astonishing happened—tongues of fire appeared and rested on each of them. This wasn’t random or merely symbolic. It was a powerful declaration that God’s presence had moved.
In the Old Testament, fire was a visible sign of God’s presence. When the tabernacle was dedicated, fire came down from heaven and consumed the sacrifice, and the glory of the Lord filled the tent (Leviticus 9:24). Later, when Solomon dedicated the temple, fire again fell, and the glory of God filled the house (2 Chronicles 7:1). In both cases, the fire meant the same thing: God had moved in.
But now, in Acts 2, the fire doesn’t fall on a building—it falls on people. Tongues of fire rest on each believer, and they are filled with the Holy Spirit. The message is unmistakable: God no longer dwells in temples made by human hands. He now lives in His people. The church has become the new temple, and every believer is a living sanctuary of His presence.
This is both an incredible privilege and a sober calling. The same holy fire that once filled the tabernacle now burns within you. You carry the presence of the living God. So walk in holiness. Live with boldness. And remember: the fire of God is not behind a veil—it’s alive in you.

Week 14

March 31-April 4
[M] Joshua 14-17; Luke 17
[T] Josh 18-21; Psalm 15; Luke 18
[W] Josh 22-24; Psalm 116; Luke 19
[T] Judges 1-3; Psalm 16; Luke 20
[F] Judges 4-6; Luke 21

Dwell Plan Day 66-70 | CSB | Digital PDF | Printable PDF

 

Notes from Jon & Chris

Monday
Joshua 14:6–15 | This passage highlights the remarkable faith of Caleb, one of only two men from the wilderness generation permitted to enter the Promised Land and one of the most remarkable men of faith in the history of God’s people. While an entire generation perished in unbelief, Caleb stood firm, trusting God’s promise when others gave in to fear. At 85, his strength had not waned, and his faith had not dimmed—he was still ready to take the hill country God had promised. When we read about Caleb, we are supposed to want to see more of this faithfulness in the Biblical story. Then, when we come to Christ, we see it fully and perfectly. Caleb’s wholehearted devotion reminds us of Jesus, who perfectly trusted the Father and secured the greater inheritance of eternal life for all who believe. 

Joshua 16:10 | However, they did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, so the Canaanites have lived in the midst of Ephraim to this day. | This is a massive bummer and it’ll come back to bite them later on.

Joshua 14-19 | For many of us, this will be tedious and boring reading. That’s the challenge of these detailed texts. It’s location and name after location and name—and you might recognize 1% of the names and places. It isn’t our turf or our homeland, so none of this minutiae is directly relevant to us. Or is it?
As you are reading, remember that this is Holy and inspired Scripture. This is telling you something important—God is about real estate. Why do they call it “real” estate? Because you may own a lot of things, but 99% of those things don’t last. They wear out or break. But land, land is permanent. That’s why they call it “real” estate, it’s property that lasts over generations. It’s practical, it’s walkable, and it’s workable land.
For most of human history only the rich owned land. Or the king. Not in God’s kingdom. There’s abundance and provision for everyone! This reflects Jesus’ comfort to His disciples in John 14:2. What an odd thing for Jesus to say. But it bears out—Jesus knows these land grants and inheritance for His people in the book of Joshua are just temporary blessings, and He promises a new and better heaven and earth. That’s the point being taught in these boring texts, God is committed to the day in and day out rescue of His people, to their ordinary and boring concerns about housing and shelter. His rescue and salvation are complete in every part. Praise Him.

Luke 17:5 | The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” | What’s striking is that Jesus doesn’t rebuke them for asking—He welcomes the request. This shows us that growing in faith isn’t something we accomplish by sheer determination or effort. Instead, faith is a gift that we humbly ask for. Rather than striving to muster it up on our own, we are invited to turn to the Lord and earnestly plead, “Give me more.” He is not offended by our weakness; He delights in our dependence.

Luke 17:11-19 | Ten lepers get healed. Only one says thanks. Besides being good preparation for general human rudeness, what else is in this story? It’s the Samaritan, the outsider in the group of leprous outsiders, who praises God. The good news is always erupting and pushing its way out, pushing the boundaries of grace and love out into the nations. This is the trajectory of God’s kingdom. That’s the forward and visionary message of this story.
But there’s also more. We’ve read the skin regulations about rashes and leprous spots in the law. What does that reveal about Jesus and His power? It keeps bringing us back to how it's all about revealing Jesus. He told us He didn’t come to get rid of all of those laws. No, He came to fulfill them and make sense of them. This is a message of hope and freedom from the law and its regulations, as well as good news of hope for those outside the kingdom—there is a way in through Jesus’ healing power and redemptive love. 

Tuesday
Joshua 20 | God sets up solutions to real world problems. Justice is a constant human problem, and folks don’t often take time to figure out if you killed their brother by accident or out of malice. They’re just upset that you hurt their family and they want to get revenge. It’s an ancient and thorny issue, and because of the complications and emotions involved, God sets aside cities of refuge. These are places of safety when demands for justice are being made.
What a picture of Jesus’ kingdom and His church, and what an enticing vision for us to seek in our time and from our God. The modern idea of sanctuary cities is similar, but it really isn’t the same. Sanctuary cities are political statements against policies. Cities of refuge are redemptive statements against human vengeance. But as we read, let us personalize this. There aren’t many truly safe places in this world. It seems that God has a vision of His people being such a place, and it’s something we should pray for God to build us into.

Psalm 15 opens with a piercing question: “O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?” What follows is a list of the kind of blameless, righteous life required to stand in God’s holy presence—a life marked by integrity, justice, truth, and purity. If we’re honest, reading this list should crush us, because we know we fall far short. On our own, we have no hope of dwelling with God. But then Jesus steps onto the scene—the only One who has ever truly lived Psalm 15. In His perfect obedience, both in action and in heart, He fulfills every requirement. And through what theologians call the great exchange, His righteousness is credited to us, while our sin is laid on Him. Now, because of Christ, we are welcomed into God’s presence—not as intruders, but as beloved children who belong.

Luke 18:9–14 | This is one of my (Jon) favorite sections in all of scripture. It’s so comforting, and it really shows us the beauty of the gospel story. In this parable Jesus teaches “to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt.” One man—the Pharisee—stood tall, listing his spiritual accomplishments like a résumé before God. He fasted, tithed, avoided certain sins, and measured his worth by comparison to others. The other—the tax collector—stood at a distance, wouldn’t lift his eyes to heaven, and simply prayed, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” And Jesus says only one of them went home justified, and it wasn’t the one who looked the part.
This parable hits close to home for many churchgoing evangelicals in the U.S. It’s easy to slip into a version of Christianity that measures faith by attendance, giving, and visible morality—mistaking performance for righteousness. But Jesus shows us that God is not impressed by outward religion or moral résumé. What He desires is a heart that knows its need. We must come to Jesus not clothed in pride, but in brokenness—not pointing to our achievements, but pleading for mercy. The good news is that when we do, we find a Savior who justifies the humble and lifts up the lowly.

Wednesday
Joshua 23:6-8 |This is Joshua’s parting advice for the people he has led. And basically, as soon as he kicks the bucket, the people ignore this advice and spend 400+ years during the period of judges in a cycle of turning away from YHWH.

Joshua 24:14-15 | Joshua tells the people to make a choice for God, and that call to “make a decision” has been an evangelical call for saving faith all of my life. But reread these verses carefully, and try to remove your American evangelical glasses for a moment.
Verse 14 has four commands in this order: fear God, serve God, put away idols, and serve God. Four imperatives, which in other languages is an emphatic order. In English, we would put an exclamation mark to make the same urgent point: Fear God! Serve God! Put away idols! Serve God! That’s pretty dramatic and strong and reflects the actual Hebrew grammar. None of those commands are options. They aren’t choices to be made. If there is a choice, it’s simply between what’s morally right and wrong, but that’s not what Joshua is saying. He’s ordering them to do these things.
Now notice what is jarringly said next. If you think it’s a wrong or evil or a bad choice to follow God, to obey these four direct orders, then just go ahead and choose whatever god you want. It’s on you. So it isn’t really about your choices. As broken and ruined people, we’re not that good at choosing well. Our choosing ability is broken too, something that exposes how democracy can’t really save the world. We will choose wrong over and over. Joshua tells them that even their “choice” for God is false, because they won’t really follow through.
What does this reveal that God needs to do? We need Him to do everything. We need Him to choose to fill our choices with the Holy Spirit and His new life in us. Otherwise we can’t do anything. Isn’t it amazing how the Old and New Testament are so unified in this: God loves sinners, and loves to make them new, to make new choices to fear, serve, and love Him. 

Psalm 116:1 | Let me share my (Jon) new favorite quote with you. It’s a little long, but I’m thinking if I use a small font, I could get this tattooed on my face. It’s that good. It’s from the late, great R.C. Sproul, “You can’t demand mercy. Mercy by definition is voluntary. The moment you think you’re owed mercy, it’s no longer mercy—it’s justice. You can’t demand mercy; you can only beg for it.”


Thursday
Judges | The entire book follows a repeated cycle that reveals both Israel’s unfaithfulness and God’s mercy. It begins with Israel’s sin—turning away from God to worship idols—which leads to God’s judgment through foreign oppression. In their distress, the people cry out to the Lord, and He responds by raising up a judge, a temporary deliverer who rescues them and leads them for a time. But after each judge dies, the people return to sin, and the cycle begins again, often worsening with each generation. Importantly, each judge (whether it’s Gideon, Samson, or Jephthah) is an imperfect savior, marked by flaws and failures, reminding us that no human leader can bring lasting peace or righteousness. These broken deliverers point us forward to Jesus Christ, the perfect and final Savior, who breaks the cycle of sin and delivers His people once and for all.

Judges 1:7 | Here’s a glimpse into the ancient wickedness and cruelty of the nations around Israel. This king, Adoni-bezek, had seventy kings he had conquered. When he defeated those kings, he humiliated them by cutting off their thumbs and big toes. Now, unable to walk or pick things up, they groveled every day at his banquet table, fighting for scraps of food to survive. What a horror. This is cruelty as sport, delighting in the destruction and suffering of others. So many of these ancient cultures had degraded themselves and others. It’s just a snapshot, but it gets at why God describes His own experience as being “fed up” with human evil. How could He not be?

Judges 1:20, 26 | In many parts of the Bible there are references like this: “it’s still like that to this day” or some version of that. It makes you aware of how the Bible is a living document, something written in real people’s lives, capturing their real experiences. These little notes ground the story for the reader. The writer is saying in effect: look, all of these things I’m telling you about, they all really happened. This isn’t “once upon a time” storytime, this is history, and the effects of that history are all around us and define us. Let these little notes encourage you, the person who wrote these things wants you to be encouraged. Our God is living and real. This isn’t abstraction or fable. It’s connected to your world. Just look around and you’ll see. And as you’re reading the Bible, remember this glorious fact: It tells us the truth of who we are and who our saving God is. And to this very day, we are the same needy people, and He is the same God who loves sinners. 

Judges 3:12–30 | This text recounts one of the most unexpected stories in Scripture—a left-handed man named Ehud delivering Israel from the oppressive hand of Eglon, the king of Moab. This moment in Israel’s history is more than just a clever underdog story; it’s rich with biblical theology and gospel echoes. The people of Israel had once again done evil in the sight of the Lord, and as a result, God gave them over to Moabite oppression for eighteen years. But in mercy, God raised up Ehud—a Benjamite (ironically, from the “son of the right hand”) who used his left hand to carry out a bold and unlikely rescue.
Ehud’s story reminds us that God often uses the weak, the unlikely, and the unconventional to accomplish His purposes. In the ancient Near East, left-handedness was often viewed with suspicion or weakness, yet God chose precisely that weakness as the means of deliverance. Ehud’s victory is a foreshadowing of the upside-down nature of the gospel, where strength comes through weakness and victory through apparent defeat. Just as Ehud penetrated the enemy’s stronghold and struck a decisive blow that led to Israel’s freedom, so Jesus Christ, in a far greater way, entered enemy territory, not with a hidden dagger, but with a cross—and there, through His death, struck the fatal blow to sin, Satan, and death.
Judges 3 leaves us not only with a historical rescue but with a longing for a greater Deliverer, one who would not merely bring eighty years of peace, but eternal redemption. Jesus is that true and better Ehud—unexpected, misunderstood, yet perfectly chosen by God to rescue His people. When we feel the weight of sin and the oppression of the enemy, may we remember that our salvation doesn’t come by our strength or strategy, but by looking to the Savior who won our freedom through weakness.

Psalm 16:8, 11 | Poetic imagery takes pictures and metaphors and uses them to play off of each other. In this poem it is “the right hand.” At first, in a surprising twist, God is the poet’s right hand! That seems reversed, wouldn’t it? And it would be, if it weren’t for the intimacy between God and the poet. The tension of the image is finally resolved in verse 11. Now he finds eternal pleasures where? In God’s right hand! The poetic images make deeply bold claims about intimacy with God. This becomes a picture of operative grace back and forth, as God is active in us and we are active in Him. This sounds like an echo of those New Testament texts where we are “seated in the heavenly places” in Ephesians, while still having to wrestle with spiritual forces in this world. In this poem, we get a model for how God works in us and we in Him, and so we can have hope against death and our own corruption. 

Luke 20 | Here, Jesus enters into a series of public confrontations with the religious leaders—a kind of ancient theological “rap battle” common in Jewish culture, where rival teachers debated in the temple courts and the crowd judged whose wisdom prevailed. Each group—Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes—takes their shot, but Jesus responds with unmatched authority, silencing them one by one. The people marvel, not just at His answers, but at the authority behind them. This scene reminds us that Jesus isn’t just another voice in the crowd—He is the true Word made flesh, whose wisdom exposes pride and whose authority demands our trust and surrender.


Friday
Judges 4–5 | These two chapters tell the story of Deborah, Barak, and Jael: three unlikely instruments God uses to deliver Israel from the powerful Canaanite oppressor Sisera. In a time of spiritual and moral chaos, God shows that He doesn’t need the strong or expected to accomplish His will—He works through the willing and faithful. The victory song in Judges 5 celebrates not just human bravery, but the God who goes before His people in battle. This story points us to Jesus, the greater Deliverer, who brings victory not through a sword or tent peg, but through a cross. Like Israel, we don’t need to be strong—we just need to trust the One who fights for us and sings over us in triumph.

Judges 5 | This is great and amazing poetry in its own right, but I love these prayers and songs by women in the Bible. Like Hannah in 1 Samuel 2 or Mary’s song in Luke1:46-55. Notice how similar these prayers are as well, the way that they reach into the heart of God’s kingdom values. A conservative denomination made a decision years ago to not allow women to read the Scripture out loud in worship. The decision made me angry. It is so outside the word of God as it is actually written. My response was and still is, “Huh, isn’t that funny? You’re not going to let a woman read the Bible out loud in worship? And yet more of the Bible was written by more women than by any man living. So tell me, does this mean Spirit made them write it, but stopped short of letting them read it? How does that work or make our Father’s kingdom anything but a joke?” 

Judges 6:36–40 | In this text, Gideon asks God for signs with a fleece—not once, but twice—because he’s struggling to trust God’s promise. While God graciously responds, this isn’t a model for how we should seek guidance today. We don’t need to lay out fleeces, because we have something far greater: the clear Word of God and the indwelling Holy Spirit. Instead of testing God, we’re invited to trust Him, knowing He’s already given us everything we need to follow Him faithfully.

Luke 21:20-24 | This is a very accurate picture of the destruction of Jerusalem over 40 years later in 70 CE. Because of that, most elite modern scholars teach that Luke had to be written some time after that date. It has to be. Modern elite scholars do not, can not, and will not believe that anyone can tell the future. That’s absurd nonsense to them. And so, since the elite modern scholars say it, many Christians uncritically believe it. But these modern folks do not know God’s word or His power. This prediction in Luke 21 happens alongside other predictions. In Luke 19:28-40 and Luke 22:7-13, Jesus describes the immediate future in amazing detail, telling His disciples what they will find as they walk along, what folks will say to them, and what they should say in response. Perfect knowledge of events in sequence, 40 minutes or more into the future. No one who has ever lived, other than Christ, could do that.
Hear what the word is telling you: trust God’s words. Jesus did tell the future, because Jesus was not merely a man. He told us what would happen. These prophecies are meant to reveal to everyone how Jesus must be the Son of God. Who else would know such things with such clarity and accuracy? Instead of humbling themselves before this God, they mock His words as artificial and phony, written after the events to make it look like it was said before. So they make the Scriptures into just a clever lie. But that is not where the clever lying is actually happening. They’re doing that to themselves.