For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

    The writer warns us against those who see easy money in taking advantage of the innocent or unwary. They may seem like easy prey, but not everyone who appears to be unwary is the easy mark they appear. Those who seek to ambush the unwary will, sooner or later, find themselves caught in the trap they laid for others.

    Our enemies may say that God will not rescue us, but we can sleep safely in the knowledge that He will indeed do so. I will put my trust in God and seek to allow His Spirit to guide my actions. Then I will be confident that He will rescue me from all dangers.

    When the religious leaders came to where John was baptizing, perhaps to be baptized (the text is unclear), John called them out. They had not come in response to his message. Rather they had come in order to feel superior to those they felt needed to heed his message. They did not need to repent, they were teachers of the law. John was having none of it. They were not better than anyone else and their heritage would not save them.
    When we read this we often think of the Pharisees and the Sadducees as the hypocritically religious. That is not wrong, but there are others who are not traditionally religious who fall into the same category. The Pharisees and the Sadducees thought they were better than everyone else. They felt that the “common people” should listen to them and run their lives according to the rules which they, the Pharisees and Sadducees, laid down. But those rules did not really apply to them. Oh, it was important to put on the appearance of obeying the rules, but they did not have to actually follow them, just appear to do so.
    You can spend a lot of time trying to figure out who the Pharisees and Sadducees of today are. I will tell you the only important question to ask yourself: Am I a Pharisee or a Sadducee? If your response to that question is, “Oh no, I am much better than they were.” you are one of them. If on the other hand, you read the passages and either wish you had it that together (even with the condemnation they receive), or worry that you are one of them, you are, at least, on the path to NOT being one of them. I talk with someone from time to time who spends a lot of time identifying who the modern Pharisees are, the thing is, it is always some group with which he disagrees. When he does that, I always get the feeling that he is being one of them.

    We have here the account of Noah building the Ark to prepare for the flood and then of the flood itself. I remember that as I was growing up, and since, hearing Noah described as a man who stood up in the face of ridicule for following God. As I read this passage today I realized that there is nothing in this story to make us think that anyone took any particular note of what he was doing. I actually think it likely that Noah was off somewhere away from everyone else, except for his family. How else was he able to get two of every type of wild animal. In addition, if he was around other people, they would want to know what he was doing. When he told them, most of them would have laughed at him, but some would have wanted to stop him and made efforts to destroy the Ark before it was completed.