Today, I am reading and commenting on Daniel 11-12.
My lovely wife married me 22 years ago on the 23rd of this month. So I am going to wish her Happy Anniversary every day from now until then.
Happy Anniversary, Darling!
When I was young, Christians spent a lot of time trying to interpret the apocalyptic prophecies such as those in this passage in an attempt to determine when Christ would return. Sometime in the 1990s the Church in the United States got away from doing that. While I think that is a good thing, as I believe Jesus made it clear that we will not know the date of return until it happens, we have also, for the most part, stopped trying to understand those passages. That being said, I find it hard to know what to write about today’s passage. However, the parts where the messenger talks about the end has some messages which we should take to heart. He tells us that some of the wise will stumble, but they will be purified and made spotless by what they experience. There will be a time of great distress, but those whose names are found written in the book will be delivered and those among them who have died will be raised to eternal life. Then comes the part I want to focus on. The messenger said that those who impart wisdom (the translation notes offer this as an alternative translation to what is translated as “who are wise”) and those who lead others to righteousness will shine brightly among those who are raised to eternal life. While part of me wants to say that we should strive to impart wisdom and to lead others to righteousness, I have observed that most of the time the people who strive the hardest to do that have neither wisdom nor righteousness. So, instead let us strive to live with wisdom and move towards righteousness. Additionally, imparting wisdom and leading to righteousness are so closely related that they are almost the same thing. We lead others to righteousness, to Christ, by imparting wisdom to them. But, if we think we can impart wisdom because we are somehow better than those to whom we are imparting it, we lack wisdom and have not been led to righteousness.
I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.