I am but a broken record when blogging on the book of Job. I know…I understand that at some point in my life I’m sure something within these chapters we’ve been reading from Job will resonate with my soul, not because I want them to but because I understand, “in this life you will have trouble,” and when that day comes I pray that I will have the strength to continue to say, “I will hope in Him” (13:15b), but I also hope that I will not accuse or blame God.
I guess that is a truth though that should be comforting to many, even if they have blamed or been angry at God, the book of Job shows us that God is big enough to take it and also that God is gracious to us in our ignorance.
I will say about chapter 14 we see some truth about the state of the dead,
“So man lies down and does not rise.
Until the heavens are no longer,
he will not awake or be aroused out of his sleep.” -Job 14:12
and then…
“You will call (*at the resurrection morning*), and I will answer You;
You will long for the work of Your hands.” -Job 14:15
Keep being patient with the book of Job as God was with Job, it begins to transition around chapter 20 🙂
Tomorrow’s Reading: Isaiah 34-39
Today Psalm 19 stirred my heart and filled me with a desire to be more like Jesus.
This psalm acknowledges the two books that reveal His character, nature and the scriptures (referred to by David and at this point in history, “the law”).
Psalm 19:1-6 are about God’s works seen in the power of creation. I particularly like the following,
“The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.
Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.” -Psalm 19:1, 2
David is stating that all creation, each and every day testifies to the existence of a creator God. No wonder the devil attacks the theory of creation so intensely!
Then Psalm 19:7-11 speak of God’s character and will for humanity being revealed through His “Word.”
The verse that particularly touched my heart is verse 13,
“Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins;
Let them not rule over me;
Then I will be blameless,
And I shall be acquitted of great transgression.” -Psalm 19:13
After walking with Jesus for nearly 20 years, oh how I wish I could say all presumptuous sins were behind me, but there have still been some and there are still times of struggle with these sort of sins. So David’s prayer is the cry of my heart today,
“Let them not rule over me!…Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.” -Psalm 19:13b, 14)
I want to get to the place where my only thought is “what is pleasing, what is acceptable to You Jesus?”
If you want to pray for me you can pray that on my behalf!
Tomorrow’s Reading: Job 13 & 14
For all the good of Gideon’s life and story how tragic that it ends with this note,
“Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, “Rule over us, both you and your son, also your son’s son, for you have delivered us from the hand of Midian.” 23 But Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you; the Lord shall rule over you.” 24 Yet Gideon said to them, “I would request of you, that each of you give me [t]an earring from his spoil.” (For they had gold earrings, because they were Ishmaelites.) 25 They said, “We will surely give them.” So they spread out a garment, and every one of them threw an earring there from his spoil. 26 The weight of the gold earrings that he requested was 1,700 shekels of gold, besides the crescent ornaments and the pendants and the purple robes which were on the kings of Midian, and besides the neck bands that were on their camels’ necks. 27 Gideon made it into an ephod, and placed it in his city, Ophrah, and all Israel played the harlot with it there, so that it became a snare to Gideon and his household.” -Judges 8:22-27
Verses 22 & 23 show such great character, but then verse 27 show that for such a grand gesture in verses 22 & 23 there was still a part of him that wanted an aspect of the people’s “worship.”
James 2:20 tells us,
“faith without works is dead”
Judges 10:10-17 seem to show evidence of this concept in the Old Testament.
The people cry out to God to deliver them. But God does not answer their prayer the way they desire. So they cry out again, but this time they also destroy their idols and God delivers. Maybe some would say that seems like righteousness by works, but since the idols were a symbol of worship as long as they kept them it showed their faith was not 100% focused upon God.
These are the two stories that spoke to me in todays reading and both are reminders that half-way with God always comes up all the way short.
Tomorrow’s Reading: Psalm 18-20
No big lesson into today’s post, though there are many. I do want to point out several insights I found interesting:
24:6–“Beware that you do not take my son back there!” = The promise of Isaac was a promise to Land. The seed of Abraham was never to leave this land, this land was to be his offsprings heritage forever. Abraham saw Isaac and the Land intrinsically tied together. Here is the insight though I find somewhat ironic, through in part Isaac’s actions of favoring one son over the other he drove his son Jacob to the very land he was never supposed to go (27:43).
24:16–“The girl was very beautiful…” the word for girl “na’arah is the word indicating adolescent, yet in spite of her adolescence she showed more integrity of character than her older family members; yet again ironic that integrity was not sustained in later life (27:5-17)
25:9–“Then his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him…” whatever the struggles between these two lines were before or after, for a moment they put aside their differences to show honor to their dad. I like to think, maybe it is pastoral license, that this is an indication that in spite of Ishmael being “sent away” Abraham remained a good father to him.
26:7–“She is my sister…” Isaac repeats the sin of his father with even less truth. Sarah truly was Abraham’s half-sister, in this case Rebekah was in no way Isaac’s sister.
27:5-17–we see in these verses Rebekah doing the same as Sarah did in offering Hagar to Abraham. She knew that God had promised a child to Abraham and so she wanted to “help” God out. Rebekah knows that God has promised the blessing to Jacob and now she sees that maybe not being possible and so she wants to “help” God out. Maybe we should learn from both of these ladies “helping” God out in a deceitful way or undermining way never turns out well!
27:44–“Stay with him a few days, until your brothers fury subsides” Little did Rebekah know that her sons sojourn would be much more than a few days it would be 14 years. And, to our knowledge she never saw her son Jacob again. What was her statement, “Your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice…” (27:13) Truly this was a curse on her heart I’m sure for the rest of her days.
In today’s reading comes a chapter that is often used to knock not just one of Adventism’s beliefs, but two of them.
Eating unclean foods and Sabbath. Even some Adventists become particularly worried when asked to explain Romans 14:5, 6.
I would say to all Adventists sound exegesis should give you hope first and foremost that this text is not talking about the Sabbath. Two verses deal with a day surrounded by 21 verses that are discussing food.
So the issue is not a day of the week for worship, but a day of the week related to food, thus then also not about clean and unclean meat…
Here is an article by Angel Manuel Rodriguez former chair of the Biblical Research Institute that will hopefully fully illuminate your understanding of this text so that you never have to worry or be fearful of someone bringing up this passage again:
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In the study of a passage it’s important to notice not only what it says but also what it does notsay. In some cases what a passage does not state is more important than what it explicitly states. In this particular case we’ll concentrate on what the passage does not say, then we will make a suggestion about what Paul is dealing with in Romans 14.
1. Paul is not attacking biblical practices. Some of the recipients of this letter apparently believed that one should abstain from eating meat and drinking wine (Rom. 14:2, 21). The Old Testament does not require total abstinence from animal flesh, but only of the flesh of some animals (Lev. 11). Neither does the Old Testament consider grape juice unclean; only the high priest and the Nazarite are forbidden to drink it. The discussion is not over unclean (Greek, akáthartos) food, but over food that is considered common (koinós, the term used in verse 14) and therefore not proper for consumption under certain circumstances.
2. Paul is not discussing the Sabbath. Paul says that the individual who is “weak” values one day more than another, but he doesn’t explicitly state the reason for the distinction. There is no explicit statement from Paul indicating what was done during that day or why the day was considered special.
Whatever it was, the “strong” individual valued every day the same for the purpose or activity that he or she had in mind. Hence, the problem was not the activity, but the arguing over which was the best day to perform it. Those to whom he wrote doubtless understood what Paul had in mind.e should not jump to the conclusion that Paul is discussing here the Sabbath commandment. This is not stated or suggested by the text, and the simple mention of the word “days” does not justify that conclusion. He is not dealing here with the Old Testament torah, or law.
3. Paul did not put the emphasis on the problem of “days.” He dedicates only two verses to that subject and about 21 to the issue of food. Had he been discussing the Sabbath, he would have developed his thought much more, because of the potentially controversial nature of this subject. (A good parallel would be the topic of circumcision and the controversy that topic generated in the churches.) This suggests that for Paul, selecting one day over another was a personal matter, not one in which he wanted to be involved as a referee.
4. Paul is not attacking legalism. Paul is addressing a problem in the church based on differences of opinion. He apparently didn’t consider it to be a threat to the gospel. Whatever church members were doing, they were not going against God’s revealed will; therefore, he does not condemn the practices, but simply gives advice on how to accept the differences in Christian love. The fundamental issue is the unity of the church and the preservation of that unity in spite of the diversity of opinion in some unimportant areas. Paul is not attacking the legalism of false teachers among the believers.
Then what should we conclude? The reference to “days” in the context of abstaining from certain foods suggests days of fasting. This is the conclusion reached by some scholars, both Adventist and non-Adventist. According to them, Paul was probably addressing the practice of days of fasting, during which certain foods were considered “common” and improper for consumption. This would explain the dispute over food.
In addition, some individuals considered certain days as good days for fasting, while others considered all to be of equal value. This would explain the conflict. Fasting was an important topic in the early church. A document written in the second century encouraged believers to fast on Wednesday and Friday instead of Monday and Thursday, as was the practice among Jews (Didache 8.1). As far as we can tell, the Jews did not fast during the Sabbath.
****WARNING I MAY STEP ON TOES, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK”
As always there are dozens of points I could make in this reading, but I will share with you what particularly caught my eye. I wondered why it caught my eye and so I searched my heart and I’ll be honest the pericope I am going to share with you caught my eye because I am a pastor and as a pastor (and any pastor could affirm this) I (we) regularly have people inform us of their great angst about issues that are not doctrine of God. Whether it be the removal of furniture, standing on a different part of the platform, walking around when one preaches, moving a service time, non-men, i.e. young people and women picking-up offering, etc.. Angst to the point of being mean, not just in the church I am in, in every church I’ve been a part of. Why? Because we are all humans and we are all sinful and some sin is manifested in anger over issues that are not of significance to God. If we don’t believe having moral angst over such things is sin then we should read the text that caught my attention in my devotional time today.
Matthew 15:1-14
There is a “conflict” between Jesus and the church people (leaders) over something that they deem important. This something is found in verse 2,
“Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.”
Now let us understand something, this was not a question of hygiene, this was a question of worship. To understand in what way, find a good commentary and it will explain how this was an aspect of worship. So they are vexed thinking that Jesus is ignoring something that is not scripture, but is “tradition.” At least they acknowledge it is not holy writ. But that is the problem they are upset as if it is holy writ. Then Jesus points out to them in verses 3-6 that they get upset about things that are not in Holy Writ, but they are not bothered with God’s commands which are broken, even by them.
Jesus then references a very powerful statement,
‘But in vain do they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’” (15:9)
Jesus here defines false worship as teaching others “a preference of man” as if it were as important as scripture.
Isn’t this what we are doing when we become upset to the point of treating someone unkindly or shunning someone or making someone feel excluded based on a “preference of man?”
We then see what will take place in the hearts of people participating in this type of false worship, who hold their preferences and their traditions to such a high level.
They will become OFFENDED…
Have you ever met an offended Christian over something that is not clearly a “thus saith the Lord?”
Have you ever been an offended Christian over something that is not clearly a “thus saith the Lord?” I have!
When this is taking place…when we take OFFENSE over personal preference to this degree we are participating in false worship. We are worshiping our preferences, which means we are not truly worshiping God!
Jesus tells us how to deal with such folk.
“Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”
Pastors go back and read that again…Hold on I have to go back and read it again…
To my brothers and sisters serving the Lord in ministry whether as a volunteer or as a paid position.
What go counsel this is…
“Let them alone!”
The disciples are like so many pastors and or members, they are basically asking Jesus, “Jesus you’ve upset them, you’ve offended them, how should we appease them and make them feel better?”
A lot of pastors try to fix things that cannot be fixed.
(And members please know I understand there are bad pastors that offend without thought or unnecessarily)
Also a lot of pastors fail to do the right thing for fear of offending someone.
We need to heed the counsel of Jesus,
“Let them alone! Only other blind people that also like to participate in false worship will follow them, and eventually they’ll follow them right off the edge!”
Here is a great quote that I think applies to this situation:
“We should choose the right because it is right, and leave consequences with God. To men of principle, faith, and daring, the world is indebted for its great reforms. By such men the work of reform for this time must be carried forward.” –Ellen G. White, Great Controversy, p. 460
And to all of us I say, it is okay to not like when our preferences aren’t met, but let us not dislike this so much that we become “offended” and thus participate in the false worship of the spiritually “blind”.
Tomorrow’s Reading: Romans 13 & 14