I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them. I hope that the Spirit is moving in others through these posts as the Spirit has definitely been convicting me.
In today’s passage, Moses continues the song he taught the people of Israel. He says that despite suffering the results of their sins the people of Israel would continue to sin and to suffer. Yet the time would come when God would stop punishing His people and allowing their enemies to dominate them. God will repay those who hate him. He will punish those who persecute His servants. When Moses completes the song, God instructs him to go the Mount Nebo and look out across the land of Canaan, which God is giving to the people of Israel. There Moses will die and join his ancestors.
Jesus tells His disciples to be ready and prepared for His return. We must be ready at all times because He will return at a time when He is least expected. Peter then asks Him if this illustration is just for the disciples or is it for everyone? Jesus’ answer is interesting. He tells Peter that a faithful, sensible servant will be given authority over other servants and responsibility for feeding them. He goes on to say that a servant who knows what the master wants and fails to do it will be punished more harshly than a servant who fails to do what the master wants because they did not know. Jesus concludes this teaching by telling His disciples that those to whom much has been given are expected to do more.
Jesus then tells His disciples that He has come to bring a fire onto the earth, a fire that He wished was already burning. He goes on to say that He did not come to bring peace, but rather division. That families would be divided over Him, some would support Him and some oppose Him. I think what He is teaching here fits in with His earlier teachings where at one point He said that whoever is not against us is for us and elsewhere that whoever is not with us is against us. Everyone needs to make a choice as to what side they are on. Are they for Jesus or against Him?
The psalmist tells us that despite suffering the results of their sin the children of Israel continued in their rebellion against God. They turned to the worship of other gods, gods that had no power. In His anger God allowed their enemies to overrun them and kill them. Today’s psalm sums a common problem of the human condition, all too often we fail to learn from our mistakes and continue in the sins that got us into trouble in the first place.
Those who work hard become leaders, those who are lazy are enslaved by others.