I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. 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.
David realized why things had gone wrong when he first tried to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. He summoned the Levites to Jerusalem and told them to purify themselves. He then instructed that the Ark would be carried by Levites (rather than transported on a cart). He prepared a place for the Ark in Jerusalem and then summoned all of Israel for a celebration of bringing the Ark to Jerusalem. David organized singers and musicians. Once the preparations were complete, they all went to the house of Obed-edom and brought the Ark to Jerusalem with much singing and dancing. David himself led the parade dancing and jumping for joy. He made such a spectacle of himself that his wife, Saul’s daughter, Michal, held him in contempt.
We should take a lesson from David here. We should worship the Lord with all of our heart, soul and mind, having no concern about what others think of us while we are doing so. When we worship the Lord, we should become completely immersed in the experience.
David wrote a song of thanksgiving that he gave to the Levites to sing for this celebration. In it he reminds us to give thanks to the Lord. Let us tell all of the earth what He has done. Every day I will proclaim the good news that God saves and tell people about the wonderful things He does.
His faithful love endures forever.
Paul starts by telling us that God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against wickedness. This wrath is not against those who are wicked through ignorance because the nature of God is evident by looking at the world around us. There is no excuse for not knowing God. There are several authors who have gone into detail on what all we can know about God by looking at the world around us. C.S. Lewis is one such author.
Paul tells us that people intentionally chose to ignore what they could know about God from nature and refused to worship Him. To support their refusal to worship God they proclaimed foolish ideas as the height of wisdom, ignoring what could be known from observing the world around them. People refused to worship the true, eternal God and instead began worshiping created objects.
The result of willfully refusing to acknowledge God was that they became inflamed with sexual impurity, degrading themselves with one another. Rather than accept the truth about God, they embraced lies. And rather than worship God, who deserved it, they began to elevate things that were designed to serve man as things to be worshiped. The product of this refusal to worship God was women embracing unnatural sexual acts as opposed to those which are natural and men choosing to have sex with other men. Paul tells us that this sinful behavior results in health problems.
The more people reject the knowledge of God and His commands, the more they accept evil behavior. As people reject God’s clear instruction about how to live they become more accepting, both in themselves and in others, of evil behavior. They know that their behaviors are deserving of death yet they practice them anyway. Beyond that they encourage others to practice these self-destructive behaviors.
I see what Paul is talking about in the world around me every day. This passage speaks directly to our society. I read where Paul says that those who have rejected God are “gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.”(NIV) It describes so closely many of those who have managed to set themselves up as opinion leaders in our society. This sort of behavior is the inevitable result of rejecting God. We can move closer to God by doing our best to stop doing these behaviors. On the other hand, we can successfully overcome these behaviors by actively seeking to do the good things that God commands.
This psalm is a great follow up to the passage I just read from Romans. The psalmist tells us that it seems as if the wicked will never be held accountable for their wickedness. They believe that God does not see their sins and that they will not be held accountable. But the psalmist tells us that God does see the trouble and grief which they cause and will call them to account. God defends the orphans and the helpless are not mistaken to put their trust in God.
Today I have nothing to say regarding these proverbs. Except that I hope I do not behave this way towards others.