For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

    Pessimism and depression are a vicious cycle. When you are depressed, or expect the worst outcome in every situation, you notice the things which go wrong, and indeed, things are more likely to go wrong for you. On the other hand when you are happy and optimistic, you focus on the good things going on around you and dismiss the things which go wrong, and things are less likely to go wrong for you. This cycle means that when you become depressed it is very hard to break out of that depression.
    The second two verses are closely related. You will be happier serving the Lord in poverty than living for yourself with great wealth. I would rather have a simple salad with people I love than a great feast with people I cannot stand.

    Lately I have been struggling with finding the right words for what the psalms make me think and feel. Part of that is because the psalmist does such a good job of expressing their thoughts, part of that is just the difficulty of turning the poetic into prose. I will praise God, now and forever, because He is great enough to create and guide the entire universe, yet caring enough to reach out and help the poor and needy. His very presence causes obstacles to move out of the way of those who serve Him.

    I think this is perhaps my favorite story of Jesus’ miracles. My father first pointed out what is the key point in this story for me (I’m sure others did it before him, but he was the one who first brought it up in my presence). Jesus healed a man born blind. The religious teachers and leaders of the day brought the man before them and questioned him. They were looking for something to hold against Jesus, or some evidence that He was a fraud. They confronted the man born blind with their conviction that Jesus was a sinner. The man born blind knew he could not argue theology or doctrine with these men, and did not try to do so. In the face of all of their learning and arguments against Jesus he replied with one of the great statements of faith, “I don’t know about any of that. What I do know is that I was blind and now I see.”(I am paraphrasing here).
    This is the important thing for us to remember. We must never allow arguments and debates about theology or doctrine distract us from the central Gospel message. I was blind, but now I see. In my case it was not physical blindness. Nevertheless, I was blind and it was not until I allowed faith in Christ to take root in my heart that I gained the ability to see God’s will for my life. I was proud of my intellect and ability to reason things out. It was only when I accepted that there were things which I am unable to understand, that my reasoning and logic will never fully explain how the world works, that I was able to truly see God. It is only by the working of the Holy Spirit that someone will come to God. I will never be able to give someone faith. I can only give them God’s love.
    I pray for everyone I meet that they experience Jesus’ miraculous healing so that they too will receive sight from God.

    Reading this story always makes me feel sorry for Jonathan. Jonathan was a good man who was loyal to David and probably would have made a good king. It also shows us how irrational Saul’s hatred of David was. Saul wanted to kill David because he considered him a threat to Jonathan taking the throne. Yet, he was willing to kill Jonathan when Jonathan refused to aid him in killing David. Yet, in all of this, David did not act against Saul’s interest.

For today, One Year Bible Online links here. Why, yes, I do like cats. Why do you ask?

    Those who mock others resent it when you point out that their mockery is unjustified, especially when you show them how they are the ones being stupid or foolish. You will notice that those who most enjoy mocking others avoid those who could/would teach them to understand those with a different view of the world from themselves.
    When I read the third of today’s proverbs it reminded me of the entertainment choices people make. Some people choose to spend their leisure time learning and gathering knowledge, others spend their leisure with things that distract them from thinking about anything. There is nothing wrong with limited amounts of the latter, but the wise are hungry for knowledge and will fill up their leisure time acquiring it. The fool has no interest in knowledge and will avoid like the plague any leisure activity which requires thought, let alone the acquisition of knowledge. If they spend their leisure time involved in anything which involves the acquisition of knowledge, it will be knowledge which is of no lasting value.

    Those who fear the Lord and take delight in in following His commands will be filled with joy. They are willing to lend money generously and are fair in all of their business dealings. As a result good comes their way and evil will fail its attempts to overcome them. Overall I love the message of this psalm, but struggle with writing a meditation on what it means to me.

    This passage starts with one of Jesus’ most famous statements, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” That is a very true and important statement. However, the exchange which follows probably gives us more insight into living our lives. There is one thing which I have never heard anyone preach about when they talk about this exchange. Jesus was talking to those who believed in Him. Yet, despite this, their first reaction was to take offense at Jesus telling them that they would be set free.
    Jesus points out that everyone who sins is a slave to sin. He then points out that there are some in the crowd who want to kill Him. Rather than accept that those who were trying to kill Jesus were in the wrong, they took offense. I always find this passage difficult to digest, but not because the message is so hard. I get caught up in the dynamics of the conversation between Jesus and the people so that it distracts me from the message Jesus is preaching here. I actually run into that a lot when I read the Gospel of John.
    Those who love God and are born of God will hear and love the truth. Those who are born of Satan lie, murder and steal. Or, to put it another way, truth and love are characteristics which come from God. Lies and deception come from the devil. The more we are truthful in what we say, and treat those we meet with love, the closer we are to God. The closer we are to God, the more we will be truthful and treat those we meet with love. On the other hand, the more we use lies and deception the closer we are to the devil and the farther we are from God. The farther we are from God the more we use lies and deception.

    After his battle with Goliath David became one of Saul’s chief subordinates. Everything Saul asked him to do David did, and he did it well. David was so successful that the people began singing his praises. They began praising David as greater than Saul. Saul, rather than taking this as a compliment for his good judgment in selecting David, became jealous of David. David continued to be a faithful servant to Saul and to put all of his efforts into serving Saul’s interests. Saul felt threatened by David’s success and his reactions to that perceived threat made it more real. Despite Saul’s actions, David did nothing against Saul’s interests, except act to preserve his own life. One of the reasons Saul lost his throne was because he acted to diminish the power of any subordinate who was too successful.

For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

    It does not matter how big of a donation you make to good causes if your gained your wealth through evil acts. The prayers of a righteous person will make a bigger difference in the world than the billions of dollars spent on “good works” by the wicked.

    While I am certain that the composer of this psalm was referring to King David, I am also certain that the New Testament references to this as a prophecy about Jesus are completely appropriate. This psalm is clearly a prophecy about the Messiah, God’s Anointed One.

    In the story of the woman caught in adultery there is an interesting discrepancy. If she was caught in adultery, they must have caught the man as well, but he was not brought to be stoned. The Old Testament law calls for a man caught in adultery to be stoned as well as any woman so caught. This tendency to view a sin committed by one person differently than the same sin committed by a different person is something we need to examine in ourselves.
    However Jesus does not address that issue. Instead, when the men asked His position on the Mosaic command was, He stooped down and wrote in the dust. He did not answer their question. They kept badgering Him, insisting He answer the question of whether or not she should be stoned. Finally He stood up and told them that they were right to stone her, but the first stone had to be throne by someone who was without sin. Then He returned to writing in the dust. I wish we knew what He was writing in the dust, but it probably does not matter. Perhaps He was writing out the Ten Commandments. Or perhaps He was playing tic-tac-toe with Himself. As I write this I realize that at least part of why Jesus wrote in the dust was to get the temper of the crowd to cool off. The reason the older men drifted off first was because they were the first to realize that no one was going to throw the first stone. The younger men were hoping that someone else would throw the first stone, then they could join in.
    There is a final point to be made here. When the entire crowd had dispersed, Jesus asked the woman where her accusers were, if none of them had condemned her. When she replied that no one had, Jesus told her that He did not either. However, what He said next was at least as important as His lack of condemnation. He did not say, “Well, then, I guess you can go back to what you were doing.” No, He said, “Go, and sin no more.” When we come to Jesus, He does not condemn us. But He does tell us to go and sin no more. When sinners come to us, let us do likewise, both by refusing to condemn them and by calling on them to sin no more.

    Samuel told Saul that God had instructed him to destroy the Amalekites and all of their livestock. So, Saul mobilized his army and attacked the Amalekites, wiping them out. However, he took their king captive and allowed his men to keep the best of the livestock. In doing this, Saul did what was politically expedient. Saul believed that if he allowed them to keep the livestock they found appealing they would be more loyal to him in the future. Saul chose political expedience over principle. Those who choose expedience over principle will always fail to build something which lasts.
    Later, when God had sent Samuel to Jesse to anoint one of his sons as the next king of Israel, Samuel immediately thought that it would be Jesse’s eldest son, Eliab. However, God told him not to judge by appearance or height, Eliab was not God’s chosen. This contains an important lesson for us, we tend to judge others by their outward appearance. God judges people by their hearts. We would do well to seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance to do the same, not just in those we choose to follow, but in all of our interactions with others.

For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

    It is foolish to ignore a parent’s discipline, no matter what your age. The wise learn from correction regardless of the source. Take advice where you can find it. Anyone who offers you advice has some wisdom you can learn from, only a fool has no advice to give.

    We will, and do, face the sorts of accusations which the psalmist recounts. However, let us never stoop to the level of our accusers. Let us love them, even though they accuse us. Let us pray for them, even as they seek to destroy us. They will accuse us of persecuting the needy. They will claim that we curse others. Let us call out to God to protect us from such accusations and do the opposite even while they are saying these things about us.

    Before Jesus began teaching at the Festival, no one was willing to publicly say anything good about Him. However, once He began teaching and preaching an interesting thing happened. More and more of the people became willing to declare that He must be the Messiah. It got to the point where the religious leaders decided to have Jesus arrested. They sent the Temple guards to arrest Him, but the guards were mesmerized by what He said and returned without doing so.
    The point I am getting at is that when the Festival started people were afraid to talk about Jesus in a positive manner. Yet when He actually stood up and started to speak they became more emboldened. This is a lesson for us. Our society attempts to silence the Gospel message and threatens those who proclaim it. Yet if we stand up and boldly proclaim it other people will be emboldened to embrace that message. We will not avoid persecution by keeping quiet about our faith.

    When Jonathan went with just his armor bearer to scout the Philistine camp he used an interesting method of deciding whether or not to attack. However, before that, he made his plans with the knowledge that he would only be successful with God’s help, and that with God’s help he could not fail. When he reached the point where he needed to determine if God was going to help him or not, he based his decision on the Philistine reaction to his presence. If the Philistines made it clear that they were going to do the smart thing and use the advantage of their position, he would return to the Israelite camp. If, on the other hand, the Philistines were foolish enough to allow him, and his armor bearer, to close with them, negating the advantage of their location, he would do so and attack. The Philistines chose the arrogant, foolish course of action. As a result, Jonathan and his armor bearer were able to disrupt the Philistine camp making the Philistine army vulnerable to the Israelite army. The key here was that Jonathan acted in faith and allowed God to direct his actions.

For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

    Choose your words with care. If you speak gently when someone is angry, you can defuse and/or deflect that anger. If you speak with anger, frustration, or other harsh emotions you will elevate the tempers of those around you. But there is more to choosing words wisely than cooling or raising tempers. By choosing our words wisely we can cause others to desire to learn.

    The key point of this psalm is in verse 2, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.”(KJV). I know that I do not tell others about my faith as much as I should. God has done wonderful things for me. He has redeemed me from my sins and I am grateful for the changes He has wrought in me.
    The psalmist describes some of the many situations from which people have been redeemed. Some were lost, hungry, and homeless; some were imprisoned in misery because they had rejected God’s words and scorned His advice; some were fools who rebelled against all authority; some suffered the damage wrought by nature (storm, earthquake, volcano, etc). They all had one thing in common, from the depths of their torment they cried out to God for help and He saved them. If you were one of those described, or if God redeemed you from some other tribulation, speak up! Let the people around you know what God has done for you. How will someone else suffering a similar tribulation know that if they cry out to God He will redeem them if you do not tell them what He has already done?

    The key phrase in today’s passage is when Jesus says that we must eat His flesh and drink His blood if we wish to receive eternal life. In my mind there are two ways to understand this passage, and both of them are correct. When Jesus said this He was telling us that we need to take His teaching and internalize them. We need to allow His words to transform us into His likeness. The saying that this brings to my mind is “you are what you eat.” If we “eat” Jesus’ flesh and blood we will become like Him.
    The other part of this message is about the importance of taking Communion/the Eucharist/the Lord’s Supper with our fellow believers. Jesus had not yet established the Lord’s Supper when He taught this lesson, but I am convinced that when He said “this is my Body, take and eat” and “this is my blood, drink this in remembrance of me” He was referring back to what He said here.

    Samuel gathered the people of Israel together at Mizpah in order to declare who God had chosen to be their king. Even though Samuel already knew who God had chosen, he went through the process of determining who that would be by lot. Despite this, there were those who refused to accept Saul as king. Shortly after this Nahash, the king of the Ammonites, besieged an Israelite city east of the Jordan (a manuscript of 1 Samuel among the Dead Sea scrolls contains a passage which suggests that Nahash had taken control of all of the rest of the Israelites east of the Jordan). Nahash demanded that the Israelite men have their right eye gouged out as one of the conditions of surrender. The men of the city agreed that they would submit to this if no one came to their rescue within seven days.
    When word of this reached Saul’s hometown the people wept to hear that their fellow Israelites would be subject to such a demand. But none of them suggested any action. Saul had been out in the fields plowing when word came. When he heard the news, he was outraged. He sent word throughout the land demanding that the warriors of Israel gather. He took the army which had gathered and relieved the siege. In doing so Saul completely broke the power of Nahash. When the battle was over, Saul’s supporters demanded that Samuel gather those who had refused to accept Saul as king so that they could be killed. Saul refused to use his victory as an excuse to rid himself of opposition. By doing so he actually managed to unify the people in a way which killing the opposition would not have done.

For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

    No nation becomes truly great unless its people are godly. A nation begins its fall from greatness when its leaders start to justify sinful actions on the basis of it being in the nation’s interest. Once that is accepted it is only a matter of time until sinful actions are justified on the basis of it being “in my interest”. Once the people of the nation start accepting sinful actions in their leaders because those actions are in their own interest, the nation is doomed. Godliness is not something that can be imparted by changing the laws. Only the work of the Holy Spirit can change people so that they seek to live a godly life. I do not seek for the United States to be a great nation. I seek for my neighbors to know the Lord, and thus lead godly lives.

    It has been awhile since I saw a theme running through more than one of the passages I read in a day, but today I am doing so with this psalm following the proverb I just finished writing about. The psalmist pointed out how the downfall of the people of Israel resulted from their adopting the evil customs and practices of the pagans among whom they lived. In the same way the downfall of the Church in America has been a result of us adopting the evil customs and practices of the society around us. He speaks of sacrificing their sons and daughters to the demons, something that is all too common in the U.S..
    If the Christians of this nation will not hold themselves to a standard of godly behavior, how can we hope to convince others to come to know the Lord? The issues that matter (abortion, sexual immorality, integrity, etc) are not about the laws of the land. They are about the behavior of individuals. Let us behave in a godly manner, and call those around us to do likewise by our example more than by our words. When we teach and preach against immoral, sinful behavior we should make it clear that we are directing our words to those who are seeking to follow Christ.

    My first thought when I read this was that the theme I found in the proverb and the psalms was not continued here. That is partially true, but there is a related theme here. The people crossed the Sea of Galilee looking for Jesus because He had fed them. When they found Jesus He told them they should be more concerned with spiritual food than with material food.
    All too often we follow leaders who promise to advance our interests in the material world. When we believe that such leaders will deliver on such promises we are often willing to follow them even when their behavior is selfish and advances their interest at the expense of others. Rather than follow such leaders we should follow leaders who sacrifice their own interests in order to advance our spiritual interests. The leaders who we should follow do not offer to give us anything except God’s work to do.

    When Samuel got old he appointed his sons as judges over Israel in his place. Unfortunately, rather than follow their father’s example they used their position to advance their own interests and accepted bribes to render judgments. The leaders of Israel decided that the answer was to select a king who would found a dynasty. Rather than a spiritual leader, such as Samuel, who called them to follow God’s commands they wanted a military leader. They no longer wanted their security and material interests to depend on God, which meant remaining faithful to God. They desired a king, a military leader, who would be responsible for their security and material well-being.

For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I hope those of you who regularly read my blog are not getting tired of pictures of flowers and of Magrat (my cat), because there are a lot more to come.

    The first of these proverbs reminds us that those who forgive those around them and are at peace with themselves live healthier lives than those who allow themselves to be filled with bitterness and envy.
    The second proverb tells us one side of this. Those who oppress the poor hold God in contempt and those who help the poor honour God. There is another side to this. No matter what they claim, those who hold God in contempt will oppress the poor. when all is said and done, only those who honour God truly help the poor.

    I struggled this morning with what to write about this passage. I am not sure how to phrase the message which this passage conveys to me, but here goes. The two pieces of this passage do indeed go together. Jesus tells us that those who listen to His message and believe in God have eternal life. When Jesus says this He means more than just hear the words and acknowledge the existence of God. He is referring to those whose behavior is different because they heard His message and believe in God who sent Him. If hearing Jesus’ message does not change our behavior, we have not truly listened.
    Then Jesus talks about the other ways we might hear how to receive eternal life. I believe that what He is talking about is the other ways people talk about when they say that there is more than one way to God (or Heaven, or eternal life). He is telling us that they are not wrong, well, not exactly. What He tells us here is that anyone who truly listens to what those other ways teach will be directed to Him. God will speak to some people by a means other than the New Testament, or Christians, but if those people listen to His message they will be led to Christ. It does not matter if God speaks to them directly, or through the writings of some other religious teacher. There are indeed directions towards God’s gift of eternal life in all of the religious teachings of this world. However, those who refuse to believe in Jesus will never hear the full message. There is a difference between those who refuse and those who have never heard that portion of the message.

    We are told in this passage that Eli confronted his sons about their sins, but they would not listen to him. It is clear from both how Samuel turned out and the advice which Eli gave Samuel when God called to him that Eli served God in the way he lived his life. Yet he failed to serve God in the way he raised his sons. Eli failed to discipline his sons. He was satisfied to tell them that what they were doing was wrong.