For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
Even though the wicked have established a permanent residence while the righteous are still living in transient housing (house vs tent), The righteous will flourish and remain while the wicked will be forced to move on. The second part of this proverb is an important warning, a path may seem like the right way to go, but lead to death. We must choose our paths carefully.
This psalm fills me with joy this morning. I am the Lord’s. I belong to Him and am glad to reside in His everlasting love.
Luke tells us about the two disciples walking to Emmaus because it gives us an insight into the thinking of all of the disciples on the first Easter. They had been sure that Jesus was the Messiah, but then things did not go the way they expected. He was arrested and crucified. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to work. He was supposed to emerge victorious over the Romans. They did not know what to think about the report from the women that Jesus had risen from the dead, after all, they were women. How often are we guilty of the same thing? We get a glimpse of God’s working and think we understand where He is going, then when it doesn’t work out that way, we think our initial insight must have been wrong. We rarely consider that maybe the insight was right, it was just our understanding of where things went from there that was wrong.
The people of Shechem realized their mistake in supporting someone just because he sounded good and rebelled against Abimelech. Abimelech heard of their rebellion and brought his army to Shechem, where he destroyed the city and killed the people. Apparently by then the rebellion had spread, so Abimelech took his army to the next town and attacked it. However, just as he appeared to have won the battle, he was struck down and died. The story of Abimelech reminds us of the importance of choosing our leaders with care. It also warns those of us who aspire to positions of leadership that we will pay a price for misusing the authority we are given.