For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

    It does not matter how big of a donation you make to good causes if your gained your wealth through evil acts. The prayers of a righteous person will make a bigger difference in the world than the billions of dollars spent on “good works” by the wicked.

    While I am certain that the composer of this psalm was referring to King David, I am also certain that the New Testament references to this as a prophecy about Jesus are completely appropriate. This psalm is clearly a prophecy about the Messiah, God’s Anointed One.

    In the story of the woman caught in adultery there is an interesting discrepancy. If she was caught in adultery, they must have caught the man as well, but he was not brought to be stoned. The Old Testament law calls for a man caught in adultery to be stoned as well as any woman so caught. This tendency to view a sin committed by one person differently than the same sin committed by a different person is something we need to examine in ourselves.
    However Jesus does not address that issue. Instead, when the men asked His position on the Mosaic command was, He stooped down and wrote in the dust. He did not answer their question. They kept badgering Him, insisting He answer the question of whether or not she should be stoned. Finally He stood up and told them that they were right to stone her, but the first stone had to be throne by someone who was without sin. Then He returned to writing in the dust. I wish we knew what He was writing in the dust, but it probably does not matter. Perhaps He was writing out the Ten Commandments. Or perhaps He was playing tic-tac-toe with Himself. As I write this I realize that at least part of why Jesus wrote in the dust was to get the temper of the crowd to cool off. The reason the older men drifted off first was because they were the first to realize that no one was going to throw the first stone. The younger men were hoping that someone else would throw the first stone, then they could join in.
    There is a final point to be made here. When the entire crowd had dispersed, Jesus asked the woman where her accusers were, if none of them had condemned her. When she replied that no one had, Jesus told her that He did not either. However, what He said next was at least as important as His lack of condemnation. He did not say, “Well, then, I guess you can go back to what you were doing.” No, He said, “Go, and sin no more.” When we come to Jesus, He does not condemn us. But He does tell us to go and sin no more. When sinners come to us, let us do likewise, both by refusing to condemn them and by calling on them to sin no more.

    Samuel told Saul that God had instructed him to destroy the Amalekites and all of their livestock. So, Saul mobilized his army and attacked the Amalekites, wiping them out. However, he took their king captive and allowed his men to keep the best of the livestock. In doing this, Saul did what was politically expedient. Saul believed that if he allowed them to keep the livestock they found appealing they would be more loyal to him in the future. Saul chose political expedience over principle. Those who choose expedience over principle will always fail to build something which lasts.
    Later, when God had sent Samuel to Jesse to anoint one of his sons as the next king of Israel, Samuel immediately thought that it would be Jesse’s eldest son, Eliab. However, God told him not to judge by appearance or height, Eliab was not God’s chosen. This contains an important lesson for us, we tend to judge others by their outward appearance. God judges people by their hearts. We would do well to seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance to do the same, not just in those we choose to follow, but in all of our interactions with others.