God’s Calendar

Time. A subject that has mystified people throughout history. In their efforts to organize time, many cultures developed a calendar based on cycles of the moon. Historian Daniel Boorstin observed that the Egyptians seem to have been “the first to discover the length of the solar year.” In Greece, “each city-state made its own calendar.” Many communities dated events based on the years their own king reigned.

In the sixth century, after Christianity became dominant in Europe, a monk and mathematician named Dionysus Exuguus proposed a new system that recognized the centrality of Jesus in history. He proposed the use of “AD” (Anno Domini, or the Year of Our Lord) as the standard scheme of dating. But it took centuries for “AD” to become accepted.

The companion concept was to call the time before Jesus birth “BC.” This didn’t come into common practice until the seventeenth century.

While people have developed their own ways to measure and organize time, the Bible makes clear that time is important to God. At the beginning of creation, He provided signposts to mark time. He established days, weeks, and years to remind us of the past, and to have His perspective on the world and our lives.

But He also established a specific calendar for His people. And, on His calendar, this is a special time of year. Rosh Hashanah, which began at sundown yesterday, marked the beginning of the Jewish year (Leviticus 23:24-25).

Today, ask God to give you His perspective on your life. Remember that He “has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). He encourages us “to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). And, faced with many choices, we are called to redeem the time (Ephesians 5:16).