For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
This proverb warns against about the danger of impulsively changing the rules. There is a reason our predecessors put the “boundary markers” where they did. Let us give careful thought before we decide that we can move them.
The wealthy and powerful will offer artisans of great skill benefits which those of lesser wealth and power cannot match.
Those who truly believe that there is no God are fools. They do not do good, but only serve their own interests. This is not much of a stretch because when God looks on mankind, He sees that all have turned away from Him. All too many people are unwilling to learn that God will indeed bring judgment upon evildoers. Nevertheless, those who do learn and turn to God will rejoice when He restores them to Himself.
Paul warns against being taken in by teachers who are great orators, but poor theologians. He does not give us a lot to go on in this passage for identifying these false teachers, but he does give us some clues. The first clue he gives us is that these false teachers will teach about a Jesus who is different than the one portrayed in the Gospels and traditional Church teachings. He also gives us a way to identify genuine teachers. Genuine teachers do not seek to get rich from their teaching. Let us be careful of false teachers who attempt to pass themselves off as servants of God
Isaiah warns us that when a people become fully ensnared by sin, they will have no true leaders because they will not tolerate true leaders. They will follow leaders who provide for their wants rather than leaders who teach them how to work to earn their needs. When the young insult their elders and the vulgar sneer at the honorable, God’s judgment will not be long delayed.
So much of this passage strikes me as applying to the society I live in. I look at our world today and see what God intended to be His pleasant garden, but instead He finds this:
but instead he found oppression.
He expected to find righteousness,
but instead he heard cries of violence.
The prophet goes on to warn those who buy up house after house and field after field, those who accumulate more wealth than they can spend in many lifetimes. He warns against those who are too busy partying to notice what God is doing. And here is the key thing I see being fulfilled,
that evil is good and good is evil,
I see this happen more and more.