For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
If you constantly find yourself getting into quarrels because of things you say, or if people beat you up in response to your words, you are probably speaking foolishly. If you find yourself trapped into actions you don’t want to do because of something you said, you probably speak foolishly.
Let every created thing give praise to the Lord! Today’s psalm continues the theme of encouraging us to praise God. The psalmist knows that there are many people who will not praise the Lord, but he also knows that they should. We owe God our very existence. Read this psalm, meditate on how great God is, then praise His name!
One thing we learn in this passage is that Paul was not always, if ever, a dynamic speaker. On his last day in Troas, Paul spoke late into the night. One of the young men listening to him speak fell asleep sitting in a window. The young man fell three stories to his apparent death. Paul rushed down to the young man and declared that he was OK. Reading this passage it is clear that Luke believed the young man to have died, although Paul’s statement seems to be that he found the young man alive.
Later when Luke recounts the message which Paul gave to the leaders of the Ephesian Church it resembles portions of the letters Paul wrote which we have elsewhere in the New Testament. The first point Paul makes to them is that he taught publicly. He taught the same message to everyone, both Jew and Gentile. Paul’s message, and hopefully ours, is that all must repent of their sins, turn to God, and have faith in Jesus. This is one of the most important things about our faith, we must declare our message publicly. There are no secret teachings reserved for those who have been properly initiated. And that message is the same for everyone, black, white, rich, poor, Jew, or Gentile. There is no group that gets to live by a different set of rules than everyone else.
The passage tells us that the Kingdom of Israel, the Northern Kingdom, fell to Assyria because its people worshiped gods other than God. They followed the practices of the people who had lived in the land before them and around them. In addition, they had adopted new practices which were contrary to God’s law. As I read the history of the people of Israel, I see that their fall to Assyria was not just God’s judgment upon them, although it was indeed that. It was the inevitable result of the practices they adopted. Rather than remain faithful to the practices God had instructed them in, which would have caused them to build a strong and prosperous nation, they adopted practices which weakened their nation and destroyed its economy.
The writer tells us that the people of Judah, the Southern Kingdom, followed many of the same practices which the people of the Northern Kingdom had adopted. However, God allowed them to remain in the land for a longer time. The difference was that Judah had leaders who attempted to be faithful to God, even when they failed to lead the people to be faithful. While the Northern Kingdom was weakening and falling to the Assyrians, Hezekiah was strengthening the Southern Kingdom and expanding its borders. Hezekiah was able to do so because he was faithful in obeying the Laws God had given to Moses. He went further than his predecessors because he destroyed the various idols and pagan shrines which had been set up. He did more than be faithful himself. He led his people to turn to God.