I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

     This is an account of how a man of Israel set up for himself an idol and hired a Levite to be his priest. Some time after he had done so, members of the tribe of Dan came through the area he was living and stole away his idol and his priest. I really have no idea of what the point of this story is except that it says “the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.”

     In this passage, Nicodemus, a religious leader and apparently a learned man, comes to Jesus at night. Perhaps he came at night because he did not want anyone to know he was coming to talk to Jesus. Or, perhaps he came at night because he wanted to have a discussion without crowds around so that they could have a more in depth discussion. We cannot tell from the passage which if these motivated Nicodemus, or even if perhaps there was some other reason. The story begins with Nicodemus telling Jesus that he believes that Jesus’ miracles are a sign from God that Jesus was sent to teach people God’s way. Jesus responds by telling Nicodemus that he must be born again in order to see the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus takes Jesus to mean a physical birth and asks how that is possible. Jesus explains that He was talking about a spiritual birth using an analogy where He compares the Holy Spirit to the wind. Nicodemus again asks how this is possible. I think that Nicodemus was still caught up in the idea of a physical rebirth and did not understand that Jesus meant something different.
     There is a lot packed into this passage. It contains Jesus’ first reference to the crucifixion when He says that the “Son of Man must be lifted up” just as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole. Then we have that classic summary of Christian doctrine, “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” Finally we have Jesus talking about how those who do evil avoid the light because they are afraid that it will reveal their sins. While those who do right revel in the light because they want people to see what they are doing. I think this is something that we need to pay close attention to when thinking about the appropriateness of our actions. When we feel compelled to hide our actions from others, we should be concerned whether or not what we are doing is Godly. I find that most of the time, actions which I want to keep from the view of others are actions I should not be undertaking. Most of the time when I am doing something that is Godly and righteous, I do not mind who sees me doing it. On the other hand, when I am doing something that I feel compelled to hide from the view of others, it is almost always something that I should not be doing.

     This psalm talks about how magnificent God is and how magnificent His creation is. It praises God for how all of creation is designed to fit together so that everything works. One of the interesting things that modern science has learned is how feedback loops work in the world around us. In many aspects of nature, we have discovered that when something gets out of balance, something changes somewhere else to bring it back into balance. All of the pieces of the world act to maintain the equilibrium that is necessary for life to continue. This psalm credits God with creating the world to work that way.

     Certainly there are those who will claim that this all happened by random chance, but I will give praise to God for creating the world this way. I think that this psalm tells us part of the reason that Christians should not get caught up in any of the various scare mongering about the environment that comes along, such as the current theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming. God has designed the world with feedback loops to keep things in equilibrium up until the day that He has decided to end the world. Keeping this in mind, we should still be good stewards and care for this world that God has put into our charge. It is God’s world and we should do our best to maintain its beauty. On the other hand, we should not get caught up with those who try to tell us that we are destroying this world, God has set things up to keep it all in balance, and He has accounted for our actions, even when we are not willingly following His will. We should choose our actions with care and consideration, not rushing into things based on poorly understood ideas.

     Today we have two proverbs that are in a way mirror images of each other. One is a proverb about the way things are. The second is a proverb about how we should behave. People look down on those who are poor and seek to be friends with those with wealth. This is human nature. This passage tells us that it is a sin to look down on our neighbor and that God will bless those who help the poor. This is a theme throughout the Bible. In April I read the passage in Luke where Jesus held up the widow, who gave all of what little she had, as one to be more admired than the wealthy who gave a lot, but only out of their surplus.