Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ezekiel 22-23.

When I read today’s passage I see parallel’s to our society today.  Ezekiel describes Jerusalem as a society which condemned itself by the blood it shed and the idols it made.  All too many of those in its government use(d) their power solely for their own interests, even when it brought suffering and bloodshed upon those whose interests they were supposed to look after.  Children are taught to treat their parents with contempt.  God tells people through Ezekiel that they have despised His holy things and desecrated His Sabbaths.  He goes on describing behaviors which sound so much like our society today.  Then He tells them that they have forgotten Him.  They do all of those terrible things because they have forgotten God…and they have forgotten God because they want to do all of those terrible things.  Perhaps the greatest failing Ezekiel mentions is that of the religious leaders.  They intentionally fail to distinguish the holy from the common and teach that there is no distinction between that which is sinful and that which is good.  With a society of whom those things are true, God is looking for people who are willing to build up the wall against such things, by pointing out the distinction between that which is clean and that which is unclean.  God is looking for people who are willing to stand in the gaps in the wall against such wickedness, pointing out that which is unclean.  Will He find such people in our society today?

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ezekiel 20-21.

The thought which struck me here was how Ezekiel listed out the failures of previous generations to faithfully follow the instructions God had given them, but he did not condemn the current generation for the failure of their ancestors to live righteous, faithful lives.  No, he condemned the current generation for their own failure to live righteous, faithful lives.  When Ezekiel looked at the failures of the past generations, he pointed out that their failure was a failure to follow the guidelines of what they knew to be good.  The failure of the current generation was not that their ancestors had failed to do what was good.  The failure of the current generation is their rejection of what their ancestors knew to be good, and that they also know to be good.  The failure of the previous generations was not that what they claimed as the standard of good behavior was not good.  The failure was that they did not live according to that standard.  In the same way today, the failure of our ancestors was not that the standard they proclaimed was bad.  The failure of our ancestors was that they did not live up to that standard.  Ezekiel did not say that the failure of the previous generations to live up to their standard meant that we should abandon that standard.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ezekiel 17-19.

I have rarely given much thought to the message of chapter seventeen.  However, today I realized it gives us an important lesson for understanding the implications of how a country implements its foreign policy (and from that, some lessons on our own actions).  When King Josiah ruled, Judah was an ally of Babylon against Assyria, while Egypt was an ally of Assyria.  Josiah was killed in battle trying to prevent Egypt from marching to Assyria’s aid.  Egypt deposed Josiah’s eldest son and put his second son (Jehoiakim) on the throne as a puppet.  A little over a decade later, Babylon deposed Jehoiakim’s son and put Zedekiah on the throne.  As part of that process, Zedekiah swore oaths of loyalty to Babylon.  However, he was soon convinced to renounce those oaths and rely on Egypt for support against Babylon.  In this passage Ezekiel condemns Zedekiah for breaking his oath to Babylon, pointing out that Babylon had provided Judah with the means to thrive during a tumultuous time.  Zedekiah thought that by throwing his support to Egypt he could capitalize on being in between these two powers.  The end result was that instead of thriving as a client state of Babylon Judah became a mere province of Babylon, and later of Persia.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ezekiel 13-15.

Today’s passage begins with a prophecy against false prophets, against those who prophecy out of their own imagination.  He compares them to masons who whitewash a wall to hide where it is starting to fall apart rather than repair it.  I really love this metaphor, and the way Ezekiel keeps coming back to it throughout his prophecies.  Prophets are called to speak a message which addresses the places where people are falling short of God’s will, a message which addresses the ways in which people are behaving unjustly.  Ezekiel is condemning those who prophesy things which cover up the ways in which people behave unjustly, which cover up the ways in which people anger God.  God sends prophets to tell people about the things they need to change, those who tell people they can keep on doing whatever they want are false prophets.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ezekiel 9-12.

In chapter eight, which I read yesterday, Ezekiel was given a vision of various ways in which the people of Jerusalem, in particular the leadership, committed detestable idolatrous practices while claiming to worship God.  In chapter nine, which begins today’s passage, that vision continues with Ezekiel seeing God send a “man” to mark those who were grieved by those detestable practices and who lamented that people did them.  God then sent six “men” to follow that man to kill those whom the man did not so mark.  After the man was finished marking people he returned to God’s presence and Ezekiel saw the glory of God depart from Jerusalem’s temple and from Jerusalem.  So, the question we need to ask ourselves: are we grieved by the detestable acts the people around us perform?  Do we lament the failure of those who claim to serve the Lord to remain faithful to Him?

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ezekiel 5-8.

God gave Ezekiel a prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem and the disaster He was bringing upon the people of Israel for the sins they had committed, and were continuing to commit.  As part of this prophecy, God told Ezekiel that the result of all of these terrible things would be that then they would know that He was the Lord.  God was bringing this judgement upon the people of Israel because they had not listened to the prophets and nothing He had done had brought them to Him.  So, He was going to do this terrible thing, and then His people would turn to Him.  Only when everything else has failed to turn us to Him does God bring His terrible judgement upon us, and even then He only does so in order to get us to turn to Him.

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

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

I always love Ezekiel’s description of his vision, although it makes me wish I had the artistic talent to draw or otherwise create a visual representation of it.  That being said I like the way God gave Ezekiel his mission.  God begins by telling Ezekiel that He was sending him to a stubborn and obstinate people, but that he must not fear to speak God’s message to them.  Ezekiel was only required to speak God’s message, whether or not the people to whom he was sent listened was not his responsibility.  The same is true for us.  God sends us to speak His message to those around us.  If we speak God’s message we are not responsible if those to whom He sent us fail to listen.  I also like the metaphor of scroll which God gave Ezekiel to eat, containing the words he was to speak.  Before Ezekiel spoke God’s word to the people to whom he was sent he needed to internalize God’s words and learn to live according to them.  The same is true for us.  When God gives us words to speak to people we must live according His words before we begin to speak.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ezekiel 46-48.

Ezekiel continues describing his vision of the new temple that he foresaw being built when God restored the Israelites to the land which He promised to Abraham’s descendants.  As he finishes that description, he describes a stream of living water which will flow out of the new temple down to the east to the Dead Sea.  It starts out as a trickle which becomes deeper and wider as it flows away from the temple until it is a mighty river when it reaches the Dead Sea.  This river will bring life to everything along its path, even converting the Dead Sea into a fresh water lake.  I believe that this stream of living water represents Jesus and the Church.  When Jesus founded the Church it was a small organization which did not even represent a significant portion of the people living in Jerusalem.  But as time has passed the Church has become a mighty force which changes the world.  As those who make up the Church allow the Holy Spirit to transform them into the likeness of Christ, they become vessels of the Living Water which is Christ.  As we allow the Spirit to work in us, we become, all combined, a life giving river.  I pray that the Spirit transforms me so that others may gain life from being exposed to God’s Spirit in me.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 44-45.

As part of his prophecy about the new temple in his vision, Ezekiel condemns the Israelites for putting foreigners who did not worship God in charge of the sanctuary of God.  He refers to those who had been put in charge as uncircumcised in flesh and in heart.  Then Ezekiel goes on to talk about those who will be priests in this new temple he sees and what they are to do.  They are to teach God’s people the difference between the holy and the common, and show them how to distinguish between the clean and the unclean.  Other translations say sacred and profane instead of holy and common.  I think that the other translations give us a clearer understanding of the job of our religious leaders, and a better idea of the importance of learning this distinction.  The NIV leaves us with the impression that there is the ordinary and the holy, and, while that difference is important, that it is OK to be ordinary.  When, in fact, everything we do is either sacred or profane, clean or unclean.  So, that makes it very important that we learn to distinguish between the sacred and the profane, between the clean and the unclean.  Here Ezekiel condemns the Israelites for, in the past, bringing the profane, the unclean, into the sacred spaces of God’s temple and warns them against doing so in the future.  In Acts 10 Peter was told not to call unclean that which God had made clean.  These two commands tell us the importance of having leaders who can teach us to distinguish between the sacred and the profane.  We must not bring into God’s presence that which is profane, but we also must not exclude those whom God has declared clean.

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