Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ezekiel 13-15.

Ezekiel speaks out against those who prophecy without first looking at how the world is.  They base their proclamations about how people should act on how they wish the world to be rather than on how it actually is.  Rather than seeking to learn what God has to say, rather than seeking to understand how the world really works, they proclaim that whatever gives people pleasure is good.  Instead of seeking out what was broken in society and attempting to repair it, they covered it over and proclaimed it good.  There is a second, closely related group which Ezekiel condemns.  This group seeks to make people feel better about themselves, but instead of telling them to stop doing the things which makes them feel badly about themselves tells them to stop feeling badly about doing those things.  Further, this group condemns those who tell people, “if doing that makes you feel badly about yourself, stop doing it.”  There are many in our society who begin with the truth that people should not feel bad about themselves, but instead of telling people to stop doing the bad things which make them feel bad about themselves they tell them to stop thinking those are bad things.  Ezekiel calls us to tell people that the first step to stop feeling bad about yourself is to stop doing bad things and start doing good things: stop sinning and start doing God’s will.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.