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Daily Bible Study

September 27, 2024 Bible Study — God Has Sent His Messenger to Bring Good News

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Nahum and Habakkuk.

As I read through the Old Testament prophets I see many prophecies of God’s judgement upon His people for their sins.  I see many prophecies which might lead one to despair concerning the future when we look around at the sins of our society.  Today, Nahum prophesies that the enemies of God’s people will be brought down.  Nahum tells us that despite the seeming dominance of those who oppress God’s people, He will bring them down and bring peace for those who serve Him.  We look around and see the wicked gaining ever more power, the merchants who serve them, and are protected by them, are getting ever richer, but Nahum promises that they will all be brought to dust and that those who serve Him will once more live peaceful, prosperous lives.  As bad as the future looks today, God will send His messenger to bring good news.  In fact, He has already sent His messenger.  When I read Nahum, I decided to write the above before reading Habakkuk, thinking that I would write a completely separate paragraph on Habakkuk.  However, Habakkuk has a very similar theme to Nahum.  It also speaks of how the wicked will be overthrown to the benefit of the righteous.  Habakkuk talks about raising up the Babylonians in a way that no one would believe, which suggests that he is also talking, in part, about the downfall of Assyria.  And Habakkuk has an important message for us about preparing ourselves for this coming overthrow of the wicked.  He tells us that the enemy is puffed up and arrogant, ensnaring many in his net, but that the righteous will live by faith.  So, when we see the wickedness, and the suffering it brings with it, around us, let us keep our faith and know that God has redeemed us.

 

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

Daily Bible Study

September 26, 2024 Bible Study — Those Who Are Truly Humble Love Mercy and Act Justly

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Micah 3-7.

Usually when I read the prophets of the Old Testament condemning false prophets I think of people who use religion for their own benefit, but don’t actually believe in God.  I think that at the beginning of today’s passage Micah is referring to people who think they are preaching God’s message but have allowed their self-interest to distort what, and to whom, they preach.  Micah warns them that if they do not stop telling people what they reward them for saying rather than God’s message, God will stop speaking to them.  That would not be a punishment for those who do not believe in God.  Which causes me to think differently about a quote from an Old Testament prophet which I really love:
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God.
All too often, those to whom God has given a message, or who think that God has given them a message, fail on that last line.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, those who seek to serve God all too often fail on the entire requirement, but it seems to me that it starts with a failure to walk humbly with God.  When we lose our humility it is not long until we stop loving mercy and acting justly.

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

Daily Bible Study

September 25, 2024 Bible Study — Bad Things Will Happen to Us if We Refuse to Speak the Message God Gives Us to Speak

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

Reading Jonah’s story today reminds me of a video I watched a few weeks ago where Jordan Peterson talked with Bill Maher about the story of Jonah.  What Jordan Peterson said gave me new insight into the message of Jonah.  He said that the first part of the Book of Jonah tells us what happens to us if we see others doing things which will lead to their suffering and we refuse to speak to them about it.  Jonah didn’t want to tell the people of Nineveh that their actions would lead to bad consequences.  He recognized that if he stayed where he was, someone might hear him speaking God’s message about Nineveh and take it to them, even though he himself did not go there.  So, he got on a ship and tried to go as far from Nineveh as he could imagine being.  Jordan Peterson points out that by trying to avoid letting God’s message getting to Nineveh, Jonah put not just himself in danger, but everyone around him in danger.  At that point, Jonah had a choice, he could allow everyone around him to suffer along with himself, or he could sacrifice himself for them.  Jonah chose to sacrifice himself, and ended up in the worst place he could imagine, a place that was far from God, and from all human interaction.  Only when Jonah surrendered to God and resolved in his mind to do as God had instructed him,  had decided that he would take God’s message to Nineveh, did Jonah come back from that place of torment.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to write anything about Micah, but after I read these first two chapters I felt like I should add a comment on them.  First, Micah tells the people of Israel and Judah the Lord is coming to judge them for their rebelliousness.  He writes that sorrow awaits those who think that because they have the power to do something they have the right to do so.  Then he writes about those who tell him not to make such prophecies.  In Jonah we learned that if we do not speak the message God gives us, we will suffer, as will all of those around us.  In Jonah, the people of Nineveh were receptive to God’s message.  Here, the people do not want to hear it.  Nevertheless, Micah spoke God’s message, and despite most of his audience not wanting to hear the message a few listened.  Micah assured those who listened that God would redeem them in His time.

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

Daily Bible Study

September 24, 2024 Bible Study — Maximizing Profits at the Exclusion of All Else Will Come back to Bite Us

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Amos 6-9 and Obadiah.

Last year I wrote separate, unrelated, entries on this final part of Amos and on Obadiah.  This year I think I see a common thread, we will see if that comes together.  Amos prophesied against the people living in Israel, the Northern Kingdom, who saw the struggles others were having and complacently thought it would not effect themselves because of their wealth and power.  Those who have turned justice into a tool for their own power rather than seeking it in truth.  Amos accuses them of bragging about accomplishments which amount to nothing.  When I read the following I think of how many businesses operate today.:
When will the New Moon be over
    that we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath be ended
    that we may market wheat?”—
skimping on the measure,
    boosting the price
    and cheating with dishonest scales,
 buying the poor with silver
    and the needy for a pair of sandals,
    selling even the sweepings with the wheat.
The practices are not quite the same, but I think about how the idea of businesses being closed on Sunday is a thing of the past, and now businesses open late in the day on Thanksgiving in order to get a jump on Black Friday sales.  Businesses which choose to not to build quality products so that people have to buy replacements that much sooner.  People who give no consideration to the needs of others so long as they get what gives them pleasure.  And then in Obadiah, we have warnings against taking pleasure in the misfortune of others.  All of these behaviors come back against us, but at the end Amos tells us that God will call some of us to Him.  Those who turn to God, and care for their fellow man, will experience God’s blessing.

 

 

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

Daily Bible Study

September 23, 2024 Bible Study — Delay the Coming of God’s Day of Judgement by Calling People to Serve God

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Today, I am reading and commenting on  Amos 1-5.

But first, I want to wish happy anniversary to the love of my life, my beautiful wife.

Amos begins his prophecy by declaring God’s judgement on the nations surrounding Israel and Judah, before he gets to his prophecy against God’s people.  Most of those nations are condemned for selling people into slavery.  I get the impression that Amos is talking about more than just literal slavery, although that is part of it.  I think he refers to lands and peoples who profit from the sufferings of others.  Then as Amos gets into his prophecies against the peoples of Israel and Judah, his prophecies concerning God’s people, he tells us that God always reveals His plans through His prophets before He acts.  And just as in the time of Amos, God is speaking His word to us once more.  He calls us to seek Him and live.  He calls us to warn those who turn aside justice and who detest truth tellers.  God tells us to seek good and hate evil.  We may look at the evil around us and long for the day of the Lord, but Amos tells us that we should instead long for people to turn to the Lord.  The day shall come when God will judge the nations, but that will be a dark day, a day of suffering.  Instead of longing for that day, we should seek to delay its coming by calling people to serve God.

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

Daily Bible Study

September 22, 2024 Bible Study — Everyone Who Calls Upon the Name of the Lord Will Be Saved

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Joel 1-3.

Joel writes about a time when disaster overtook the land of Israel.  Locusts swept over the land, destroying all of the crops.  People who had been prospering were now suffering privation.  As I read it today, it reminded me of the economic situation we are experiencing now.  Which brings me to the message which God gave Joel for the people of Israel:
“Even now,” declares the Lord,
    “return to me with all your heart,
    with fasting and weeping and mourning.”
 Rend your heart
    and not your garments.
Return to the Lord your God,
    for he is gracious and compassionate,…
God does not ask us to pick the right politician, or to change our nations laws.  He asks us to return to Him, with fasting, weeping, and mourning.  Joel goes on from there and tells us to gather, to fast and mourn with our fellows.  Then, perhaps, God may be merciful and restore our fortunes, the fortunes of our land.  Further, God makes a promise that if we do return to Him, He will pour out His Spirit upon us, and everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

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

Daily Bible Study

September 21, 2024 Bible Study — It Is Time to Seek the Lord

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Hosea 8-14.

I struggle with reading Hosea.  The combination of the poetic form he uses and the metaphors he uses for his message challenge my ability to follow what he is saying.  Yet, for all of that, he uses some phrases which really strike me.  He writes about those who sow the wind and thus reap the whirlwind.  I think we often fail to truly comprehend that message because we do not think like a farmer.  When you sow seeds, say grains of wheat, or of corn, each seed you plant yields ten or a hundred times as much when the plant matures.  In the same way, when you sow sin, trouble, and wickedness, every little bit that you sow yields ten or a hundred times as much trouble and turmoil.  Instead of sowing the wind, Hosea tells us to sow righteousness, so that we might reap unfailing love.  If we break up our hardened hearts and seek the Lord, He will come and shower His righteousness onto us.  Hosea tells us that now is the time to seek the Lord, but instead of doing so, we have planted wickedness.  As a result we are reaping evil and eating the fruit of deception.

If we depend on our own strength, the roar of battle with rise against us and our strongholds will be devastated.  However, if instead we return to God, wait for Him, and maintain love and justice, He will deliver us from the power of death.  Jesus has redeemed us from death so that it no longer threatens us.  Let us follow God’s ways, because they are right.  If we walk in His ways our path will be smooth, but if we rebel against Him, we will stumble and fall, facing constant struggles.

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

Daily Bible Study

September 20, 2024 Bible Study — Love the Unloved, and Make the Outcast Our People

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Hosea 1-7.

I always feel bad for Hosea’s first daughter and his second son.  Can you imagine growing up with the name “Not Loved” or “Not My People”?  The other thing that I wonder about when I read this passage is did Hosea KNOW that Gomer was a promiscuous woman when he married her?  Or, did he feel called by God to marry her and then discover her to be a promiscuous woman?  I do believe that God told Hosea to marry Gomer, but I wonder if, perhaps, Hosea did not know she would cheat on him until after they were married.  In any case, God used Gomer’s behavior to illustrate the problems which the people of Israel, both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms, had with remaining faithful to God.  Then God used Hosea taking Gomer back after she had left him to illustrate the way He would take His people back after they had left Him.  There is one last thing I want to write about today.  In verse one of chapter two, Hosea writes, “Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’”  I am not quite sure to whom Hosea is addressing that, but I am quite sure it references the name he gave his second son and first daughter, the ones he named, “Not My People” and “Not Loved.”  I believe that God is calling us to call people who are otherwise unloved “my loved one”, and to say to those who are outcast, “you are my people.”

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

Daily Bible Study

September 19, 2024 Bible Study — God Has a Plan

Today, I am reading and commenting on Daniel 11-12.

This is a difficult passage to read and understand.  It begins by describing the rise of Alexander the Great and the division of the empire he built into four parts.  Part of what makes it hard to follow is that it glosses over historical events in ways which make it hard to know where in the historical timeline the parts of this vision are.  For example: at the beginning it talks about a king arising in Persia who will “stir up everyone against the kingdom of Greece.”  Now there are two issues here.  The Persian king who first invaded Greece was Darius, but the passage appears to be referencing his son Xerxes.  The second issue is that Greece was not a single kingdom at that time, but rather an amalgam of city-states.  I will discuss why that is not the problem some would make it out to be in a moment.  It follows talking about the Persian king who stirred people up against Greece by mentioning a king who will arise and do as he pleases.  The fact that it then tells us that after the death of this king his kingdom would be split among four kings suggests that it is referring to Alexander the Great.  Now if you read this passage and did not know history, you might think that king was instead a Persian king.  I use the above as an example of how the writer glosses over details of history in a way which those who know the history in detail will find problematic, but which convey the flow of that history.  As we read this passage we get a feel for the way in which the land of Israel, and the people who lived there, got caught in the battles between the Seleucid Dynasty in Persia and the Ptolemaic Dynasty in Egypt.  This vision was not intended to give a detailed account of the future.  It was intended to remind those who lived through those troubling times that God had a plan for that future and that events would turn out according to what He had ordained.

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

Daily Bible Study

September 18, 2024 Bible Study — We Do Not Pray Because We Are Righteous, We Pray Because God Is Merciful

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Daniel 9-10.

When Daniel realized that Jeremiah had prophesied that the Exile would last seventy years, and that seventy years had almost passed, he began to pray.  I was struck today by the part of Daniel’s prayer where he said, “We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. ”  We do not pray and expect God to answer our prayers because of our righteousness.  In fact, as Daniel’s prayer makes clear, we are sinful and deserving of God’s judgement.  We expect God to answer because He has said that He will and because we know that He is merciful.  And even though Daniel expected God to answer his prayer, before he made his request of God he acknowledged that he and the Israelites had sinned and deserved God’s judgement.  We need to follow Daniel’s example and both confess and repent of our sins before we put our petitions before God.  I realized something else as I wrote this.  The phrasing I used about us expecting God to answer us suggests that I think we have the right to expect an answer.  That is not the case.  God is under no obligation to answer our prayers.  God answers our prayers out of His great mercy, not because we deserve those answers.

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