How Power Season fits into the bigger story of God's campaign

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A campaign must have fire in order to get anywhere, and the whole campaign team has to catch the fire. The Bible readings for Power Season tell us how that happened with God's campaign to save the world from itself.

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Jesus had the fire, his enemies tried to snuff it out by killing him, but God re-lit his fire and raised him from death. Could the fire spread? Could the power that worked in Jesus when he was on earth ignite his followers so they could carry on his campaign after he returned to heaven? Or would they just repeat stories of what he did when he was here in person?

If they could keep doing the kinds of things he did, they would be walking evidence that the resurrection happened. Their actions would point people to the reality that Jesus is still alive, still powerfully connected to his followers, and still doing amazing things on earth. Jesus may not be visible, but his power sure is.

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The power is not automatic, though. There are no magic formulas that will work every time for his followers. Jesus is still deciding when the power obviously works and when it does not seem to. His strategy appears to be to make the power work in enough cases to convince open-minded people but not enough to compel the skeptics.

It seems that he will switch to the strategy of compulsion when he returns in person. Then every knee will bow to him, even the knees of the skeptics. But for the time being, we all still have a free choice about what to do with the convincing but not overwhelming evidence of his power. We may believe or not.

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Books of the Bible with special relevance for Power Season

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Old Testament--how power worked before the Messiah arrived and changed everything

• Judges: Israel's early experience shows that a society without any central power cannot hang onto its freedom. It keeps getting victimized by its neighbors.

• Ruth: The amazing little story of King David's great-grandmother, who was not Jewish by birth

• 1 & 2 Samuel, 1& 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles: The long and often sad story of Israel in the four centuries when it had its own kings. (1 Chronicles could also fit here, but it is allocated to Roots Season to spread the amount of reading evenly through the year.)

• Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Zechariah: Prophets who condemn the mishandling of power by Israel's kings and other kings. In contrast, they describe the proper way the Messiah will use power when he comes.

New Testament--how the Messiah transformed everything we thought we knew about power

• Acts: The "Light My Fire" book, the story of heaven's power working on earth through people like us who represent Jesus and his campaign

• 1 & 2 Corinthians: The church in the ancient Greek commercial center of Corinth showed us how not to use power, and Paul wrote these two letters to promote humility and unity

• Colossians: Magnificent reflections on the way Christ exercises his power from his throne now, transforming us who follow him

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"Testament" and the common alternative "covenant" have both become technical, legal words in current English usage. When we read the Bible, it may be more helpful to call the "Old Testament" the "Old Arrangement between God and humanity" or perhaps, "Phase 1 of the campaign". The "New Testament" is the "New Arrangement between God and humanity" or perhaps, "Phase 2 of the campaign".

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There is only one campaign in the Bible. The goals are the same from start to finish, but the strategy shifts from Phase 1 to Phase 2 when the campaign spearhead, the Messiah, arrives to lead in person. And the campaign obviously has a lot more power when the Messiah is present.

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Though it may seem backwards, the daily reading table below puts the New Testament readings before the Old Testament ones. That way we are always reading the Old Testament in light of the New. And if there is not time to read all the chapters on some days, at least we read the "Phase 2" chapters. Switch the order if it makes more sense to you to read the Old Testament first. 

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Looking back over all this, we gradually realize where and how we fit into this campaign story, and a fantastic thought dawns on us--God is in the empowerment business! He isn't a scorekeeper or even a coach. He gets into the game with us by his Spirit, coming inside us, enabling us to play better than we ever could have by trying harder.

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If you use the SYNC Bible reading guides for the other six SYNC "seasons," you will cover the whole Bible in a year. The big story of the campaign gets clearer and richer as you appreciate it from all seven seasonal angles.

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