Tag Archives: 07/16/13 Bible Study

I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.

Don't feed the ostriches! — Don’t feed the ostriches!

1 Chronicles 28-29:30

David summoned all of the leaders of Israel to give his final instructions to them and to Solomon. He told Solomon that God had chosen his family out of all of Judah to be kings over Israel, chosen David out of all of his father’s sons, and now chosen Solomon out of all of David’s sons. David gave Solomon an important piece of wisdom. He told him that if he seeks God, he will find Him. David then went on to give Solomon detailed instructions for building the Temple. David then turned to the leaders of Israel and told them what treasure he was giving from his personal wealth for the building of the Temple and asked them to do something similar. The leaders responded by giving a large amount of wealth. David gave over $3 billion worth of gold at today’s prices and the leaders of Israel all together gave over $5 billion worth. In addition, they, David and the leaders, gave silver and other metals for the construction.
David then prayed a prayer of praise where he acknowledged that everything which he had had come from God. He refused to accept any credit for the wealth which he had donated to the Temple construction, since that wealth came from God in the first place. David tells us that we have nothing to give to God, because we have nothing that did not come from God.

***
There are a couple of things in this passage I want to highlight as timeless messages. The first is what David tells Solomon, “If you seek Him, you will find Him.” That is as true today as it was in the time of Solomon. Anyone who truly, with all of their heart, seeks the Lord will find Him. Of course the rest of what David said to Solomon there is true as well, “But if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.” I will continue to seek the Lord.
There is a second message here that David gives in his prayer. Everything that we have comes from God. We have nothing that we can call our own to give to God. We are on this earth for a mere moment and all the joys and pleasures we experience are gifts from God. We have no basis to feel put upon when God asks us to give to His causes from the bounty He has provided us.

Romans 5:6-21

Paul tells us that very few people would be willing to die for someone who was a “good person”, a few more might be willing to die for someone who was universally acknowledged as good. But Christ died for us when we were sinners, enemies of God. If we were reconciled to God through Christ’s death while we were still in opposition to God, how much more will His life bring us salvation? Jesus has made us friends with God, allowing us to rejoice in our new relationship with Him.
Paul goes on to draw the comparison between Jesus and Adam. It was through Adam that sin and death entered the world. Adam’s one sin led to the sins of many. Christ’s obedience to God led to many being made righteous. Through Adam’s sin, sin came to rule over the earth, bringing death to everyone. Through Jesus’ obedience onto death, God’s grace wrested the rulership over the earth from sin resulting in eternal life through Jesus.

Psalm 15:1-5

Today’s psalm gives us a list of how we should attempt our lives.

speak the truth
refuse to gossip
refuse to harm our neighbors
refuse to speak evil of our friends
despise flagrant sinners
honor those who faithfully follow the Lord
keep our promises even when it hurts
lend without interest
do not accept bribes to lie about the innocent

If we do these things we will stand firm no matter what troubles come our way.

Proverbs 19:18-19

I read the first of these proverbs and could not help but think of reports I have read concerning the youth in our country. So many parents want to be their children’s friends and don’t want to anger their children. So rather than disciplining their children they are becoming a willing party to their death. I have watched several families raise their children. The children of the strictest disciplinarians went through life knowing they were loved. The children of the most permissive spent their lives looking for love.
The second proverb has a similar message. If you save someone who allowed anger to overcome their better judgment from the consequences of their actions, they will not learn their lesson and will repeat the mistake.

Daily Bible Study

July 18, 2013 Bible Study — Rooting For God’s Team

July 17, 2013 AttilaDimedici

1 Chronicles 26:12-27:34

Today’s passage discusses how the Levites were assigned as gatekeepers and to oversee the various Temple treasuries. It also describes how they were assigned roles as kingdom officials over various parts of David’s kingdom. The passage then goes on to describe how David organized his army and the various individuals he put in charge of managing the kingdom.

Romans 4:13-5:5

Paul tells us that it was not by the law that Abraham received the promise that he would be heir to the world. Rather it was by faith. If God’s promise is only for those who obey the law, it is pointless. Paul points out two reasons the promise would be pointless. The first is that if we received the promise because of obeying the law, there would be no need for the promise because we would be earning the reward. Second, no one can successfully keep the law. All the law does is show us where we fall short of God’s standard. God’s promise is given on the basis of faith and it is a promise of giving us a free gift.
Abraham continued to have faith that God would keep His promise long after a logical analysis would have said there was no hope of such a thing happening. Even when Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah beyond child-bearing years, Abraham believed God when God said that through Sarah he would become father to many nations. Abraham continued to believe that God had the power to do what He said that He would do. This faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness. This was recorded so that we would know that it was by faith that righteousness is received.

***
Paul concludes this section by advising us to boast about our hope in the glory of God. This is not a boast about something we have done, rather it is a boast about something God has done. It is similar to boasting about a sports team we root for, not boasting to the fans of other teams, but to those who we believe are, or should be, fans of our team. In the same way we should boast to those around us about what God has done, in order to convince them that they should be rooting for God’s team. To continue the sports metaphor, there are times when we look at a successful team that we say that a particular player “put the team on his back and carried them to victory.” One of the things that is meant by that statement is that the star player played so well and so hard that it did not matter that the other players on the team were not really good enough to deserve being in the championship game, let alone win it. This is sort of what it’s like to be on God’s team. We do not have what it takes to win righteousness, but, unlike in the sports metaphor, God does. God is able to carry us over the line to victory and give us righteousness despite our utter inability to even play the game, let alone being able to win.
***
I could stop right there, because that is the main message for me today. However, Paul says something else that I think we need to pay attention to in today’s passage. Paul says that we should not just endure suffering, but glory in it. We should embrace suffering. Why should we embrace suffering? Because suffering teaches us both how to persevere and to actually do so. But perseverance is not the product we are after. Perseverance develops character. When we persevere, we learn to behave in ways that make our character better. But even yet we are not at the goal. The goal is not to have good character (although that is a good thing). No, the goal is to have hope. As we develop character, we learn to have hope. And not just any hope, but hope in God. Our hope in God will not be disappointed. We know this is the case because we know that God loves us. We know that God loves us because God fills us with His Holy Spirit, who fills our hearts with God’s love (both for us and for others).

Psalm 14:1-7

This psalm starts off with a beginning statement that is one of my favorites.

Only fools say in their hearts,
“There is no God.”
The NIV translation contains a note which says that the Hebrew word translated as “fool’ denotes someone who is morally deficient. People choose to deny that there is a God because they wish to do things for which they know God would hold them accountable. The thing that makes them fools is that these actions cause as much harm to those who do them as they do to others. The psalmist goes on to ask if the wicked will ever learn? People suffer the consequences of doing evil and fail to recognize that it was their own actions which caused their troubles. Rather than change their ways, they continue to do things which will cause them pain. Those who continue to do evil will find themselves gripped by terror, but God will be with the righteous (and we learned in the passage from Romans, that those are those who have faith in Jesus).
The psalmist tells us: All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.
This reinforces the message which I have seen in the passages from Romans over the last few days. We do not earn our salvation by doing good, because none of us is capable of doing good.

Proverbs 19:17

Something to always remember:

If you help the poor, you are lending to the Lord—
and he will repay you!
God always pays back His loans in full!

Daily Bible Study

July 16, 2013 Bible Study — All Have Sinned

July 15, 2013 AttilaDimedici

1 Chronicles 22-23:32

David decided that the place where the threshing floor of Araunah had been would be the place that the Temple of God would be built. He then gathered materials to be used in the construction of the Temple. Because he thought that Solomon would be young and inexperienced when he became king and David wanted the Temple to be grand and magnificent, David began making plans for the Temple. He instructed Solomon on building the Temple. David said to Solomon that God has told him, David, not to build the Temple because he had shed the blood of too many people. Rather David was to leave the building of the Temple to Solomon, who would reign in peace. David then gave orders to all of the leaders of Israel to assist Solomon in building the Temple.
David took a census of the Levites and assigned them to one of three divisions based on the clans descended from the three sons of Levi. He assigned the majority of the Levites to the task of supervising the work at the Temple. A second smaller division was to serve as officials and judges. The third division was divided between those who were to be gatekeepers and those who were to be musicians praising the Lord. David did this shortly before he arranged for Solomon to be crowned to take the throne in his place.

Romans 3:9-31

Having stated that there are benefits to being a Jew and to being circumcised, Paul asks if this means that Jews are better than other people. He answers his own question by saying resoundingly no. Paul tells us that all, both Jew and Gentile, are equally under the power of sin. He quotes several psalms in order to support this claim, pointing out that the psalmist tells us that:

No one is righteous—
not even one.
…
All have turned away;
Paul continues by telling us that the purpose of the law is to make us aware of our sin, no one can be made righteous by the works of the law because no one can keep it in its entirety.
From there, Paul explains that God has now revealed the way to be made right with Him, without keeping every last requirement of the Law. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. The Law and the prophets told us that this was coming. It applies to all who are willing to believe. Everyone has sinned and we all fall short of God’s standard. God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin and thus freed us from the power of sin. God will declare any sinner righteous who is willing to believe in and rely on Jesus for their righteousness. This means that our righteousness gives us no basis to boast, or to claim to be superior to someone else, because it is not based on anything we have done. It is something we receive solely on the basis of our faith in Jesus. However, this does not mean that we ignore God’s law. It is only as an expression of our faith that we are truly able to fulfill the law.
***
There are two lessons that Paul is attempting to teach in this passage. The first is that we do not have any basis for considering ourselves better than someone else. There is no way that we have lived i\up to God’s standard well enough to be able to say to someone else, “Well, at least I didn’t do that!” Every one of us has something in our life that other people, no matter how steeped in evil they may seem, can point to and say the very same thing about us. no matter how hard we have tried, we have failed to meet the standard which God has set for us. Nevertheless, God has given each one of us the option of accepting His free gift of His righteousness. Which brings us to the second lesson Paul is teaching in this passage. Once we have accepted God’s gift of righteousness, we will be inspired to do God’s will by living a life faithful to God’s commands.

Reading Phillies conference on the mound

Psalm 12:1-8

This psalm is a psalm of hope in a day when its opening line once more seems to be coming true.

Help, O Lord, for the godly are fast disappearing!
The faithful have vanished from the earth!
The psalmist tells us that the Lord has seen the violence done to the helpless and He will rise up and rescue them. The wicked may strut around displaying pride in their wickedness and evil may be praised throughout the land, but God will keep the needy safe and protect them from the wicked.

Proverbs 19:13-14

Fathers can give their sons an inheritance of houses and wealth,
but only the Lord can give an understanding wife.

I will not attempt to add anything to this, except to say that I have been blessed by God.

Fact and Fantasy

Tag Archives: 07/16/13 Bible Study

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July 16, 2013 Bible Study — All Have Sinned

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