September 2, 2024 Bible Study — Just Because Previous Generations Failed to Live Up to the Standard They Proclaimed Does Not Mean That We Should Not Try to Do So

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ezekiel 20-21.

The thought which struck me here was how Ezekiel listed out the failures of previous generations to faithfully follow the instructions God had given them, but he did not condemn the current generation for the failure of their ancestors to live righteous, faithful lives.  No, he condemned the current generation for their own failure to live righteous, faithful lives.  When Ezekiel looked at the failures of the past generations, he pointed out that their failure was a failure to follow the guidelines of what they knew to be good.  The failure of the current generation was not that their ancestors had failed to do what was good.  The failure of the current generation is their rejection of what their ancestors knew to be good, and that they also know to be good.  The failure of the previous generations was not that what they claimed as the standard of good behavior was not good.  The failure was that they did not live according to that standard.  In the same way today, the failure of our ancestors was not that the standard they proclaimed was bad.  The failure of our ancestors was that they did not live up to that standard.  Ezekiel did not say that the failure of the previous generations to live up to their standard meant that we should abandon that standard.

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