For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
We cannot buy God off. We will not deflect His judgement by making offerings and giving our money to help the poor. If we became wealthy by oppressing the poor, giving from that wealth by assisting the poor will not count in our favor. If we choose to follow the wrong path in life, God will send things to direct us back to His path for us. If we refuse to allow God’s discipline to guide us back to Him, we will die.
This psalm was interpreted as referring to Jesus by several New Testament writers. It declares that Jesus will rule over all of the earth and those who choose to be His enemies will be forced to submit. Those who follow Jesus will willingly go into battle for Him, but God will be all of the army which He needs.
The earliest manuscript copies that we have of the Gospel of John do not contain the story of the woman caught in adultery, but this story contains many lessons for us. We have the fact that the accusers say that they caught the woman in the act of adultery. Adultery involves two people. Where is the other one? Jesus could have gone there, but He did not. When the accusers demanded an answer from Jesus, He did not respond immediately. When they insisted the He give them a judgement against the woman, He accepted that they had interpreted the Law correctly. Then He told them that the one among them who was not equally guilty of breaking the Law should start the punishment. This is perhaps the second most important lesson of this story: when we look at the sins of others we should first consider the ways in which we have sinned. We are no less guilty of breaking God’s law than anyone else.
However, the most important lesson of this story is Jesus’ final statement to the woman, “Go, and sin no more.” Jesus does not condemn us for our sins, but He tells us to go and sin no more. Let us follow this command from Him. Let us also follow His example. When we are asked to condemn sinners, let us not condemn them. But that does not mean that we should encourage them to continue in their sin either.
In yesterday’s passage, Saul became impatient and offered sacrifices to God for his success rather than wait for Samuel to arrive as he had been instructed. Now today, Saul was told to destroy the Amalekites completely, both the people and all of their goods. He gathered his army and attacked them completely destroying the people, except for their king. Saul took the king captive and allowed his men to gather the best of the plunder from the wealth of the Amalekites. When confronted about his failure to do as God had commanded, Saul claimed that they had only kept the plunder in order to offer it as a sacrifice to God. How often are we like Saul? When we are caught doing wrong, we claim that we had the best of intentions. Rather than acknowledge his failure to obey, Saul made excuses.