Tag Archives: 2 Samuel 12:1-31

May 27, 2015 Bible Study

For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

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Proverbs 16:4-5

    Everything and everyone will serve God’s purposes. Even the wicked will serve God’s purpose. When they come to their day of disaster they will serve as an example to others.

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Psalm 119:65-80

    I believe in God’s commands. It is through them that He teaches us good judgment. Since God is good and He does only good, if we follow His instructions we will do only good. When we falter and fail in our attempts to keep God’s law the arrogant will smear us and claim that the fault lies with God’s instruction. And here in verse 73 is my prayer for the day:

ou made me; you created me.
Now give me the sense to follow your commands.

It is only through the intervention of the Holy Spirit that I will be able to be wise enough to keep God’s commands.

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John 16:1-33

    Jesus warned His disciples that they would be expelled from the synagogues for their faith in Him. When we read this we see it as something which happened in the past, something which happened when Christians were thrown out of fellowship with Jews. There is truth in that, but I believe that there is more to it than that. Those who faithfully follow Jesus will be expelled from Churches as well. You can see it happening to a degree today. It is rarely an explicit, active expulsion, but those who are faithful followers of Christ are made to feel unwelcome in many of our Churches today. Fortunately, Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit so that we might continue to follow Him in the face of those who distort and misuse His teaching.

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2 Samuel 12:1-31

    David’s reaction to the illness and death of his first child with Bathsheba gives us a lesson for dealing with those same thing. When the child became sick, David fasted and prayed, pleading with God for the child’s life. He refused all efforts to convince him to eat and rejected every attempt to comfort him. However, as soon as he became aware that the child had died, he cleaned himself up, worshiped and praised the Lord, then got something to eat.
    David’s explanation should guide our behavior. As long as the child was alive, there was a chance that God would heal the child and allow him to live. Once the child had died, there was no longer any reason to fast, mourn, and pray about him. Let us spend our time and effort on those who yet live, where our prayers and concern might still change things. (The wording did not come out quite as I had hoped. I apologize to anyone who might find what I have written insensitive.)

May 27, 2014 Bible Study — “Take Heart, I Have Overcome the World!”

For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

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Proverbs 16:4-5

    God made everything that exists and He made them for a purpose. Even the wicked serve His purpose on the day of destruction. God will punish those who proudly believe they are better than others. He will show them that all people are equally loved by Him, and that He shows favoritism to none.

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Psalm 119:65-80

    I love this psalm. Indeed God does only good and gives us the measure of what it means to be good. I have wandered from God’s path for me, but He disciplined me and brought me back to Him. Difficult times are good for us because they teach us to follow God’s commands. Following God’s instructions is more valuable than any amount of wealth. God created me and formed me into what I am. I pray that He continue to form me into one wise enough to do His works. I will join with those who fear the Lord.

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John 16:1-33

    Jesus could not remain on earth among us because He could only be in one place at a time. By returning to the Father, He was able to send the Holy Spirit to us. The Holy Spirit is capable of being with each and every one of us. The Holy Spirit by its coming shows that we do not need to be controlled by sin. We will have grief and sorrow on this earth, but that grief and sorrow will only be for a short time. The Holy Spirit will come to us and bring us joy. We may have peace in Christ, because while the world will bring us many trials, sorrows, and troubles, Jesus has overcome the world.

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2 Samuel 12:1-31

    In many places throughout the Bible, we are told how much God loved King David. Here we see that even though God truly loved David, He still punished him for his sins. David was not satisfied with his own multiple wives. He lusted after the wife of Uriah, his faithful follower. In order to get her, he arranged to have Uriah killed. He seemed to have escaped judgement for his sin, but God knew. God held David accountable when no one else could. The same will hold true for us. We may think that we have escaped punishment for our sins because there are none who can hold us accountable. But there is always One who can, and will, hold us accountable, no matter how powerful we are, or how careful we have covered our tracks.

May 27, 2013 Bible Study — Grief Will Be Turned to Joy

     I have been using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study for almost a year. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I started writing this blog because the only way I can get myself to read the Bible everyday is to pretend that I am teaching someone about what it says to me. 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.

Magrat the mighty hunter
Magrat the mighty hunter

2 Samuel 12:1-31

     After David had taken Bathsheba, the widow of Uriah, as his wife, the prophet Nathan confronted him. Nathan told David a parable about a rich man who steals a poor man’s lamb to feed his guests rather than butchering one of his own. When David becomes furious at the rich man and vows to punish him, Nathan tells David that he is the rich man. Nathan tells David that his own family will rebel against him because of his sin. David admits to Nathan that he has sinned against God. Nathan tells him that God has forgiven him and will not take his life for his sin, but that the child will die.
     The child of David and Bathsheba became deathly ill. During its illness, David fasted and spent the night on the floor rather than a bed, begging God to spare the child’s life. His advisers pled with him to eat, but David refused. After seven days the child died, but David’s advisers were afraid to tell him, fearing that since he behaved this way while the child was sick, he might do something even more extreme when he learned of the child’s death. David noticed them whispering, realized what had happened and asked them if the child had died. When they confirmed that the child had died, David got up, washed, dressed and ate a meal. His advisers did not understand his reaction. David told them that while the child lived, there was the possibility that God would listen to his plea and heal the child. However, now that the child was dead, it would not return to him. He then said something that should be a comfort to all parents who lose a child. That while his child would not return to him, some day he would go to it.

The mighty hunter emerges from the grass
The mighty hunter emerges from the grass

John 16:1-33

     Jesus told His disciples that the time was coming when those who killed them would think that they were doing the work of God, but that is because they do not truly know God or Jesus. Jesus went on to say that while they were grieved that He was leaving them, it was for their benefit because if He stayed the Holy Spirit would not come. There was more that Jesus wanted to tell them, but they were not ready to hear it. However, the Holy Spirit would bring further understanding to them (and us). The Spirit will reveal to us things that go further than what Jesus taught, but which are consistent with what He taught.
     Jesus tells them that shortly He will be taken from them and the world will rejoice while they mourn. However, after a little while, He will return to them and their sorrow will turn to joy. No one will be able to take that latter joy from them. Once that has happened, they (and we) will be able to ask the Father for things in His name and the Father will give it to them. We will not need Jesus, or anyone else, to ask the Father on our behalf. As long as we are asking the Father to do His mighty works so that Jesus and the Father may be glorified, the Father will grant our requests because the Father loves us because we love Jesus and believe that He came from the Father.

Magrat plays with an insect
Magrat plays with an insect

Psalm 119:65-80

     The psalmist continues to extol the virtues of following God’s commands and promises to strive to follow God’s instructions. There is a line here that I want to make a prayer that I keep in my mind:

You made me; you created me.
Now give me the sense to follow your commands.

The best course of action is to do as God commands. It is the sensible thing to do and the path to true happiness. If we follow God’s commands. all of our grief will one day be turned to joy.

The mighty hunter kills its prey
The mighty hunter kills its prey

Proverbs 16:4-5

     God detests the proud and will punish them for the sins they commit in their pride. Let me have the appropriate humility before God and man.

May 27, 2012 Bible Study

     I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.

2 Samuel 12:1-31

     After David sleeps with Bathsheba and arranges for her husband’s death, God sends the prophet Nathan to tell David a story that brings home to David exactly how evil his actions were. David expresses his contrition by saying that he has sinned against God. I think that at this point David realizes that everyone knows what he has done and he realizes what a terrible witness this is. He has promoted himself as a man striving to serve God. He has not only had an affair with another man’s wife, but arranged that man’s death and everybody knows it. David has set himself up as a model of godly behavior and now, through his sinful behavior, he has given people an opportunity to mock God. This is the lesson I take from this for me today. When I sin, I will be found out. When I am found out in sin, it will damage my witness to those around me. This means that it is important to avoid sin whenever possible, but it also means that it is even more important that we make sure to let people know that we do not consider ourselves better, or more righteous, than they. Of course that means that we had better not think of ourselves as more righteous than those we interact with, because we are not.
     Another lesson we can learn from this is David’s reaction when his son becomes sick and then when his son dies. After his son becomes sick, David fasts and mourns and entreats the Lord for the child. Yet after the child dies, he goes back to his normal life because he knows that the child is no longer suffering and his actions will not bring the child back. David fasted and prostrated himself while the child was sick but yet lived. When the child died, David got up and washed and dressed himself and then went and worshiped the Lord. Only then did he return and break his fast.

John 16:1-33

     Today’s passage is Jesus wrapping up what must have been very difficult teaching for both the disciples and for Jesus. He is telling them that He is about to be arrested and killed and that they will all be scattered and none of them will stand by Him. He, also, tells them that, even so, He will not be alone, and, indirectly, that when they face similar trials later, they (and we) will not be alone. He further tells them that the Holy Spirit will guide them (and us) into “all truth”. I am not entirely sure what Jesus is telling us here, but part of it is that truth is knowable. One of the biggest things we have to struggle against in our society today is the idea that we can not know the truth, that the truth is unknowable. The logical conclusion of the belief that the truth is unknowable is that striving to learn the truth is a waste of time. Jesus here is teaching us that the truth is knowable, that if we strive to learn and know the truth God will reveal it to us. Now, saying that the truth is knowable is not the same as saying that I know the truth. I believe that as Christians we should continually strive to learn the truth and ask God to reveal it to us, but we should, also, acknowledge that in our current sinful state what we believe to be the truth may not, in fact, be the truth. As the apostle Paul says in I Corinthians 13:12, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
     At the end of this passage, Jesus reiterates what He has said several times through preceding passages. That the disciples (and we today) will face many trials and sorrows. But He tells us to take heart because He has overcome the world. We often talk about Jesus overcoming the world in His death on the cross, and I certainly think that there is truth in that statement. But here He is, the night before His crucifixion saying that He has already overcome the world. I am not quite sure what He means here, but I think that part of what He is saying is that He has already made the decisions that will lead to His sacrificial crucifixion. That He has not used His notoriety, fame and power to raise an army to lead into open revolt against the Romans. He has not given into the world’s temptation to follow the world’s methods of dealing with injustice and oppression. Instead, He has chosen to be faithful to God’s plan, and as hopeless as that plan may appear, He has chosen to accept God’s way of challenging injustice and oppression, not with force and violence, but with self-sacrificial love.

Psalm 119:65-80

     Once again today’s psalm reaches me on an emotional level. The psalmist says;

“I used to wander off until you disciplined me;
but now I closely follow your word.”

I understand this intimately, although I am not sure I can yet say that my wandering off is in the past tense as the psalmist says. I pray to God that He helps me keep to this, so that I can truthfully say with the psalmist that I now closely follow His words. Whether or not I have yet stilled my wandering spirit, I do agree with the psalmist when he says;
“My suffering was good for me,
for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees.”

And further when he asks of God;
“You made me; you created me.
Now give me the sense to follow your commands.”

I think that so sums up what I believe. If I truly have good sense, I will follow God’s commands. I know that I do not always exhibit good sense, but I strive to do better in the future. Part of that is recognizing that I can only do so through God’s grace, not through my own strength.

Proverbs 16:4-5

     This proverb says that everything, and everyone, serves God’s purposes. We can choose to strive to be godly and strive to willingly act according to God’s desires and receive joy, or we can be used by God to accomplish God’s purposes to our own loss. Those who are too proud to accept God’s guidance will suffer for it.