Welcome everyone, back to Making Sense of the Bible. For those of you reading this who might not know me, my name is Mark Jones. I’m a Christian who has been a believer in Christ since April 2001. In fact at the time of writing (9 April 2023), it is three days until my the date I became a Christian 22 years ago. Around 2 years ago, I stopped writing blogs on one of my biggest passions in all, theology and the Bible. Blogging on theology is something I did for around 15 years before it quietly stopped in 2021. But now, I am recommitting myself to write about theology and the Bible once again. To put it simply, WE’RE BACK!!!

In this reintroduction post, I want to briefly talk about my plans for this blog, the content I’ll be covering and providing a bit of a sneak preview on what is coming down the pipeline with this blog in the coming weeks and months. So what’s coming in 2023?

What’s Coming to Making Sense of the Bible in 2023?

My honest hope is that in 2023, the main thing that I will achieve with this blog is consistency. In my honest opinion, I feel that apathy is the enemy of consistency. What do I mean by that exactly? What I mean when I say that apathy is the enemy of consistency is that if you don’t have the motivation or desire to do something (and I mean truly have a motivation or desire that goes beyond a mere want), you’ll never do it. So here in 2023, my hope is that I will begin to regularly write posts here on this blog. Simply that!

My aim is to write a minimum of one post every couple of weeks, but we’ll see how things goes from there. I do write a technology blog as well, related to my job, I’ll be continuing that as well, so I’ll be juggling two blogs at once. Giving a peek behind the curtain, I’ll be trying to get ahead of the curve a little bit by scheduling a number of posts to go out automatically, so the number of posts may rise to more than the once every couple of weeks goal I have. Now that we’ve talked about consistency, let’s talk content.

Content Coming to Making Sense of the Bible in 2023

I have quite a bit planned (at least provisionally) when it comes to writing content for this blog. I have some standalone posts that I want to put together, as well as working on a few different series’ which will hopefully become relatively regular set-pieces for this blog until the content well for it dries up. More series’ may be added over the course of the year, but we’ll see what happens.

In terms of standalone content, here is some of what can be expected to come this year:

• The Kings of Israel in Genesis? … Understanding Genesis 36 in Historical Context
• Write This on a Scroll to be Remembered … The Command That Eventually Brought About the Bible
• The Planned Apostolic Expansion into Europe … What Could We Have Seen?

I know that’s only three posts (so not quite enough to get us across the line in terms of one post every couple of weeks). The reason for mentioning these posts specifically is because these are posts I either have already begun writing (as of 9 April ’23) or have already decided to write. For example, the post on the Apostles in Europe is something I’ve wanted to write about for well over 5 years and I just haven’t quite gotten to it yet. We know from Romans 15:24 that Paul planned to travel to Spain as part of his missionary work, we also have traditions which claim that Paul may have actually come to the UK (where I live) and preached in London. I find that area of discussion particularly fascinating, so it’s something I really want to dive into to. Alongside that, I want to re-write an old piece I did on Genesis 36, several years ago I spotted an unusual reference to the Kings of Israel in that chapter, the thing with this is reference is that Genesis predates Saul’s inauguration as King by almost 450 years. So around a decade ago now, I wrote a piece on this verse and opened up a conversation around why this verse appears, asking the question of whether or not this was a late addition to the text, and if it was does that bring into question the historicity of the Bible. The final standalone piece on my list is one that unpacks the command found in Exodus 17:14-16 to write down the account of the Israelites victory over the Amalekites so that future generations would remember it for the rest of time. This command is so important in terms of the history of the writing of the Bible as it is the first command we have recorded to write down what would eventually form part of the Bible, in essence this small command from God led to us having the Bible as we have it today.

So those are the standalone pieces I’m working on, but what about series’?

Christological Archetypes

The first series on my list is one with the provisional name of Christological Archetypes. This series will take a look at characters in the Bible who are what we would call Archetypes of Christ. In terms of Biblical literacy, an archetype of Christ is a character of Christ who is painted in the Bible as someone who reflects one or more characteristics of Christ as a means of pointing towards the Messiah. Most of the archetypes of Christ appear in the Old Testament and includes the likes of Adam, Moses and David (just to name a few examples). This series will take a look at those archetype characters, review why they are an archetype of Christ, and what the Bible says to use those characters to point us to Jesus. This series will be one that is ongoing until I run out of characters to talk about. At the time of writing, I have one post in this series in draft focused on Isaac, so expect to see that soon.

Psalmodic Chronology

The second series on my list is one that focuses on a subject I’ve wanted to look into for a number of years now. This series will seek to put the Psalms in chronological order and connect that to other passages in the Bible. Much of the Psalms will fit within the times of 1st and 2nd Samuel, but overall this is a subject I’ve found to be extremely fascinating and is something I’ve wanted to read up on for a very long time now. Figuring out this timeline will allow us as Christians to have a deeper understanding of what was going on at the time each Psalm was written. Granted, this might not be a subject that everyone finds to be all that interesting, but once again to give a peek behind the curtain a little bit, a big part of blog writing is to write about content that you as the writer are interested in. This is because when it comes to blogs like this one, a lot of time and effort is put into the research that goes into writing the posts that form part of the blog. I don’t have this post in draft at all right now, but my hope is to begin putting this series together by the summer. So the first post will most likely come around July or August time. But we shall see.

Small Statements with Big Meanings

The final series currently on my list is one that will probably be a bit more sporadic. It focuses on what one could be termed as throwaway comments in the Bible. These comments are things that the Bible treats as small statements, almost as if they are footnotes in the wider context of the chapter and book they are a part of, however they are massively important in terms of their significance. The first and only post on my list for this series is one that is tied to Genesis 1:16 where in the middle of the account of Day 4 of the creation account we have the throwaway comment of “He also made the stars”. This small and seemingly insignificant statement in the creation account is so huge! After all, we’re talking about the suns of many galaxies, the significance of that statement is so huge! This series in my head will look to give some time to focus on these statements, explain them in their original Biblical context and to explain why they are so important to us. As I say, right now I only have one post for this series planned, but it will be a series that I will continue to put together as and when I have material for them ready to write up.

Now Over to You!

So that’s a bit of an introduction to the new version of Making Sense of the Bible. There will be a post going live soon, so keep an eye on my social media for that. For now though, I’d like your help. I’d love it if you can vote on which standalone post you’d like to see go live on this blog first. The options are the three options listed earlier in this post, to vote simply click on an option and vote away. The winning option will be the first standalone post I release here at Making Sense of the Bible. So get voting!!!

Thank you for taking the time to check out this post, I look forward to engaging with you online. May God bless you richly.