Tag Archives: 12.10.22 Bible Study

Daily Bible Study

December 10, 2022 Bible Study — Do Not Treat Others As Objects, Or Objects As More Important Than Others

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Colossians 1-4.

I have always struggled to explain Paul’s advice to not to be bound by rules with his condemnation of sexual immorality and greed.  I understood his point but found it hard to explain the difference between the rules we should not let bind us and the “rules” which should bind us.  I realized today that the rules Paul tells us to ignore are about items, what we eat or drink, following specific rituals, taking certain actions on specific days.  While the “rules” he tells us to follow are about how we treat, or think about, other people.  Sexual immorality involves treating other people as no more than objects to satisfy our desires.  Greed involves treating objects as having more importance than others.  Anger, malice, slander, and lies involve believing that others are less important than ourselves and our desires.  Foul language makes us feel that our anger and rage are justified.  Instead of those we should act with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.  All of these can be summed up, as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13, as love.  As I noted yesterday, if we make the effort to be thankful for the good we have received we will find it ever easier to do as Paul writes.  That is, the more we remember to be thankful for the undeserved grace which we have received from God the easier it will be to patiently, humbly, treat others with compassion and kindness.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

October 12, 2022 Bible Study — Do Good Deeds Because You Think It Is What Anyone Would Do

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Matthew 25-26.

Chapter 25 contains three parables about getting into the kingdom of heaven.  The first parable is about being prepared for the Day, despite not knowing when it will be.  The second parable is about making use of every opportunity we have to serve God, and how the more we make use of those opportunities the more we have. The final one is about serving God through serving others.  All three parables make closely related points.  However, I want to look more closely at an aspect of the third parable that we usually only think about in a secondary manner.  So, the third parable talks about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, and visiting those in prison.  But what I want to focus on is the reply of both the sheep when they were told why they were being rewarded: “When did we do that?”  They honestly did not remember doing the things which God was rewarding them for doing.  Or, to be more precise: their thought when they had done these things was, “But that doesn’t count.”  When I think about this, I think about  a book I own about a village in France during WWII which saved thousands of Jews from the Nazis.  After the war, several of the people in the village were asked why they did what they did.  Their answer was, “When they came to my door, I just did what anyone would have done.”  We know that that is not true.  Most people throughout France did not do what they did.  So, when you see people doing nice things for the homeless, or the sick, or the poor who would say, “Well, I just did what anyone would do,” you are seeing someone doing what Jesus said the sheep in this parable did.  They did not do it for reward, they did it because they cared.  Do we care?

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.