Tag Archives: Daily Commentary

Daily Bible Study

March 2, 2019 Bible Study — Remembering What God Has Done For Us

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Deuteronomy 8-10.

Today’s passage could easily be divided up into a couple of different themes, but they all seem to be tied together.  Moses starts by reminding the people, and us, to remember what God has done for us.  After all, that was why he had rehashed the story of their journey before getting to this point.  However, Moses warns us not to forget God when we become successful.   We have a tendency to think that we succeed because we deserve success, especially when others seem to suffer at the same time.  Moses wants us to understand that our success and their suffering is not because we are better, more deserving people.  If we stop giving God credit for our success and stop recognizing the need to do His will, even if we seem to be successful, everything will turn to dry dust in our mouths.  If we have success in this life, let us give thanks to God for His grace, and not begin to think that we deserve it.

Moses reminds us to never forget that if God gives us success He does so in order that we may do His will.  God wishes for us to love Him and live in a way that pleases Him.  How do we know what pleases God?  Moses gives us a few examples.  God ensures that widows and orphans receive justice.  He loves the foreigners who live among us, giving them food and clothing.  We should do likewise, ensuring that widows and orphans receive justice and showing love to the foreigners who live among us.  **I want to make a note that this has little to do with the current debate on immigration going on in the U.S..  The current immigration debate is about which foreigners should be allowed to live among us.**

Daily Bible Study

December 15, 2018 Bible Study — Do not seek persecution, but rejoice when you receive it

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Timothy 1-4.

In this passage Paul talks about the fact that the norm for faithful followers of Christ is to experience persecution. We should not be ashamed when people make fun of us or persecute us for our beliefs. Rather we should be proud. Further, when we are made fun of or persecuted we do not need to ask what we are doing wrong. Instead, we need to ask that when we are not being persecuted or made fun of. That does not mean that we will always be persecuted or made fun of. Just that we should expect to be. It also does not mean that not being persecuted or made fun of indicates that we are doing something wrong. Just that we might be.
When Paul tells us that we should be happy to experience persecution he is not telling us to seek persecution, or to act in ways designed to elicit persecution. Rather, he is telling us that persecution is a sign that we are faithfully following Christ’s example. Let us not choose our actions so as to provoke persecution, but let us choose to follow Christ in such a way that those who persecuted Him will persecute us.