For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
God’s name is a place of refuge. When trouble abounds, run to God and you will be safe. Put your trust in Him, He will protect you from all foes.
Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Let us praise Him with everything we have. Do not let anyone doubt our devotion to Him!
When Paul got to Jerusalem he met with the leaders of the Church there and gave them a detailed report of what God was doing among the Gentiles to whom he had ministered. The leaders of the Jerusalem Church were blessed to hear Paul’s account. However, they were also concerned because of the rumours which had been spreading about Paul. There were people who were spreading the word that Paul was teaching Jews to abandon the Law of Moses. The leaders of the Jerusalem Church wanted to defuse the tension which had been created by those who opposed Gentiles becoming believers. So they asked Paul to join four men who were going to the Temple to complete their Nazarite vows (a type of vow described in the Torah). They believed that by doing so Paul would prove to everyone that he continued to faithfully follow the Law.
However, their plan backfired. Rather than defuse some of the tension Paul’s visit to the Temple was interpreted as a provocation by those opposed to his teachings about Jesus. There is an important lesson for us here. Those who are trying to divide people will spin everything we do into the worst possible light in order to further their agenda. There are those who are determined to be hostile to the Gospel message, there is nothing we can do to change that. It is only by the intercession of the Holy Spirit that such people will change.
When Isaiah told Hezekiah that the king of Babylon would conquer and sack Jerusalem after his death, Hezekiah was pleased because it meant that he would not live to see it happen. I think this to some degree reveals to us why Hezekiah’s son, Mannaseh was an evil king. I struggle with how to express my thoughts on this. Overall, Hezekiah was a good king and a good man. However, his reaction to Isaiah’s prophecy reveals a certain selfishness, or perhaps lack of love for his children, that I believe his son sensed. I suspect that Mannaseh’s behavior as king was, in part, an attempt to get back at his father.