For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
The guilty do not move in a straight line. Everything they do is round about and indirect in an attempt to hide their true motives. The innocent move directly towards their goal. They do not attempt to disguise their purposes. We should judge our own actions by this standard. Are we direct and open, or do we hide our true motives and attempt to keep people from recognizing our goals?
The wicked desire evil, even those closest to them can expect to be treated badly.
If we love what is just and good, we will sing praises to God. His love will fill us with joy causing us to burst forth in song. We know that He speaks the truth in all He says. Look at His great power, He merely spoke and the universe came into being in all of its wonder and grandeur. God’s plans will come to pass, His intentions will be carried out. But no matter how powerful the person or nation, their goals will only be accomplished if they serve the purposes of the Lord. Let us praise His wonderful name>
This is one of those passages which is both clear to me, and difficult for me to explain. The example he uses of meat offered to idols gives a lot of nuance to what he is teaching here. First, Paul agrees with those who say that since idols are merely imaginary and not real gods, there is no harm in eating meat offered to idols. It is important to point out something that is not common in our society that we might otherwise overlook. Eating meat that had been “sanctified” by being blessed by a pagan priest and offered to a pagan god was an element of many worship practices. Eating meat sacrificed to a particular idol was part of the worship of that idol by those who worshiped it.
Paul tells us that, since these idols were nothing but statues carved by men, there was no harm in eating food that another had offered to them. However, not everyone saw it that way. If we knew that a fellow believer felt that it was wrong to eat meat offered to an idol, we should not push them on the issue. If our fellow believer perceived that eating such meat was taking part in the worship of the idol we should avoid doing so, even if for us there was no such intention. If we attempt to convince them that it is OK to eat meat offered to idols, we may succeed in getting them to eat it without first removing the reverence for the idol which goes along with that practice from their minds. Let us avoid practices which might lead our fellow believers to sin.
When I was growing up my father demonstrated an application of this which have always made this passage clear to me. When I was very young, the Mennonite Church (which I was raised in and am still a member of) taught that men should wear the “plain coat”. While I was still young, the Church stopped teaching and enforcing this rule. My father was among the last in my acquaintance to stop wearing the plain coat. He explained that he continued to wear the plain coat because there were some men who thought that it was a sin to wear a suit jacket other than the plain coat and if he stopped wearing it, they might feel shamed into wearing an ordinary suit jacket even though they thought that a sin. My father’s actions in this case were a clear example of what Paul was talking about. This was a two-fold decision. One, it was important that my father continue to wear the plain coat, and did not matter so much that others did not, because of the respect many in the Church had for my father’s spiritual wisdom. Two, many in the Church had respect for my father’s spiritual wisdom because he did this.
Nehemiah gives us a great example of what a leader of the people should be like. He did not use his position to acquire wealth for himself. He did not even use it to offset the expenses that went along with his position. He recognized that the people were burdened enough with the things which needed doing, rebuilding the city walls and providing for its defenses). He refused to be a further burden upon them. This is in contrast to many of our leaders today, both secular and spiritual, who use their positions to acquire great wealth for themselves (this in no way applies to those pastors, or politicians, who earn a wage from their position which is close to the average household income for their constituents).
Nehemiah also gave an example for all of us on trusting God when we face danger. When his enemies tried to convince him to come leave Jerusalem so that they could more easily strike at him, he refused. Yet, when a credible threat arose of an attack against him, he refused to seek greater protection than the people he led would be able to take advantage of. He refused to be enticed into a place of greater danger, yet trusted God to protect him when he went about his normal day-to-day activities.