We all know someone like those described in this psalm, people who laugh at the idea that they should feel guilty for what they have done wrong. They go through life rejecting responsibility for the pain they have caused others. However, those we should truly admire (and whom most of us do) acknowledge when they have caused others pain and seek to make up for it. Let us strive to be like the latter.
God is king over all of the earth, despite what various rulers and government officials may think. Ultimately, it is God who is sovereign. Those who acknowledge this will experience joy. Those who refuse to acknowledge it will experience judgment. God has established fairness and justice throughout the earth. I will praise and exalt Him for it.
The Roman officer who oversaw Jesus’ crucifixion was so impressed by His behavior that he worshiped God as a result. Do we demonstrate behavior during difficult times that will lead witnesses to recognize that we are servants of God and to praise God?
The account here of the women being the first to discover Jesus’ resurrection is one of the strongest arguments against it being made up story. Women at the time were considered unreliable witnesses. Not only were the women the first to discover Jesus’ resurrection, the men were unwilling to believe them. If this was a made up story, it would have been one of the prominent disciples who discovered the empty tomb. It would have been Peter, Andrew, James, or John, or some combination of them who came to the empty tomb.
I just noticed something in this story that never occurred to me before. Many people talk about the parallels between the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection and various mythological accounts about how winter and spring came to be, mythological accounts which discuss the cycle of life. The thing is that the Gospels make no such connection. The Gospels do not connect Jesus’ death and resurrection to the seasons the way those myths, from which the story supposedly derives. However, there is one mythological idea to which I think this account alludes. There are several mythological stories of people going into the Land of the Dead to find someone they loved. The angels in this account allude to this when they ask the women why they are looking for Jesus among the dead. There is an important lesson here for us. We do not have to enter the Land of the Dead to be reunited with our loved ones who serve God.
After Gideon’s victory the people of Israel asked him to become their king and start a dynasty. Gideon declined, telling the people that it is God who should rule over them. However, despite refusing to become their king, he did gather gold from them to create an ephod which would serve as a focus for the people of Israel. I am quite convinced that by doing this Gideon set the stage for his son Abimelech killing most of the rest of his sons as recounted at the end of this passage.
There are two ways to deal with our feelings of guilt. Fools dismiss guilt as being silly. The wise and godly acknowledge their guilt and do what they can to make amends. Only you can know the depths of your hurt, but you are also the only one who can experience the heights of your joy. No one can ever fully know what someone else feels.
Let us exalt the Lord our God and bow before Him. Let us remember how our forefathers in faith cried out to God when they were in trouble and He answered them. He will do the same for us. He is a forgiving God, but He will discipline us for our sins. He will discipline us in order to teach us how to live according to our best interests.
When the women heard the message delivered to them at the tomb, they remembered what Jesus had said about dying and rising again on the third day. So they rushed back to tell the rest of the disciples what they had seen and heard. But the men did not believe them because it sounded to them like nonsense. Peter, at least, went to check out their story. When we hear stories about how God is working that sound incredible, do we check it out for ourselves? Or do we dismiss it as nonsense?
Gideon had many sons by many wives and made no provision for who would lead the people of Israel after his death (whether one of his sons, or someone else). As a result one of his sons, Abimelech, turned to his mother’s relatives, who were prominent in the city of Shechem, to gain power. They gave him money which he used to hire some “rough customers” to follow him. He led his band of troublemakers to his father’s house to kill his brothers. One of his brothers escaped and cursed both Abimelech and the people of Shechem who had supported his power grab. The people of Shechem backed Abimelech because they thought he would serve their interests. They gave no thought as to whether he would be a good ruler. They supported him despite the fact that he started his rule with an evil act.
I have been using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study for almost a year. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I started writing this blog because the only way I can get myself to read the Bible everyday is to pretend that I am teaching someone about what it says to me. 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. I hope that the Spirit is moving in others through these posts as the Spirit has definitely been convicting me.
After his victory the Israelites wanted to make Gideon their king and set up his family as a royal dynasty. Gideon rejected the idea of becoming king. He did, however, collect a gold earring from the plunder that each of the Israelites had taken. He took this gold and made an ephod. He placed this ephod in his hometown. However, the Israelites soon started worshiping the ephod rather than God (or perhaps in addition to God), even Gideon and his family. Nevertheless, Israel had peace for the rest of Gideon’s life.
As soon as Gideon died, the Israelites returned to worshiping Baal. One of Gideon’s sons, Abimelech, went to visit his mother’s brothers in Shechem. He asked them, as his flesh and blood, to gain the backing of the citizen’s of Shechem for him to become ruler of Israel over his half-brothers. The leaders of Shechem agreed to this and took 70 silver pieces from their temple to Baal and gave it to him. Abimelech used this money to hire a bunch of thugs (or as the passage describes them, troublemakers). He used these thugs to kill his 70 half-brothers. However, his youngest half-brother, Jotham, escaped. Then the citizen’s of Shechem and a neighboring city gathered and made Abimelech their king.
When Jotham heard what they were gathering to do, he went to the top of nearby Mount Gerizim and shouted a prophecy down to them. He compared Abimelech to a thorn-bush. The he told the people of Shechem that if they had acted honorably towards Gideon and his family that he wished them joy of Abimelech as their king. But if they had not acted honorably toward Gideon and his family (and he pointed out that they had just killed seventy of Gideon’s sons), then Jotham called for fire to come out of Abimelech to consume the citizens of Shechem and its neighboring city and for fire to come out of the citizens of Shechem and its neighboring city and consume Abimelech. Jotham then fled to another city because he was afraid of Abimelech (justifiably so).
At about noon on the day Jesus was crucified, darkness fell across the land and it remained dark until three in the afternoon. Early Christian writers reference works by pagan authors who, also talk of a long “eclipse” at that time (I put the word eclipse in quotes because Passover occurred at the full moon and eclipses can only occur at the new moon). Unfortunately, none of those works by pagan authors survive to this day. Luke tells us that the curtain in the Temple was torn asunder. Then Jesus cried out to God and breathed is last. The Roman centurion who was overseeing the crucifixion was deeply moved by what happened and praised God. The people who saw this went home greatly saddened. Meanwhile Jesus’ followers stood at a distance watching. I am not sure I understand the significance of it, but Luke makes a point of mentioning the women who followed Jesus from Galilee.
After Jesus’ death, Joseph, who we are told was a dissenting member of the Jewish high council, went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body in order to bury it. Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a linen cloth and placed it in a new tomb (meaning no one else was buried there yet). The women followed to see where the body was buried. Then they went home to prepare the burial spices and ointments that were traditionally applied to a loved one’s dead body at that time. They were unable to complete these preparations before sunset, which was the beginning of the Sabbath, so they did not return and apply them that day.
On the morning of the day after the Sabbath (which was the first day of the week), they returned to the tomb with their prepared spices and ointments. When they arrived, they found the stone rolled away from the entrance of the tomb. They entered the tomb and found it empty. They stood there in confusion (think about how you would have reacted in a similar situation) and suddenly two men in dazzling robes appeared. The women were frightened (another very understandable reaction) and bowed their heads to the ground. The men who had appeared asked them why they were looking for the living among the dead and reminded them that Jesus had said that He would be killed and rise on the third day. When they heard this, they remembered that Jesus had indeed said that.
The women returned to where the disciples (the Eleven and others) were gathered and told them what they had seen and heard. The men thought this sounded like nonsense and did not believe them. Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. When he looked in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there and went away wondering what had happened.
I have several thoughts on this passage. The first is that we should take note that there were those on the Jewish high council who dissented from the decision to ask Pilate to crucify Jesus. We have no evidence that Joseph was a follower of Jesus, but he acted compassionately to mitigate a decision made by his fellows of which he disapproved. The second is that the account tells us that the first witnesses to the fact that Jesus had risen were women. Women were not considered credible witnesses in that day. It seems unlikely that a made up story would credit them as the first to believe that Jesus had risen. Finally, think about the state of Peter’s mind. He had bragged tat he would face death at Jesus’ side, yet when the time came he had denied that he even knew Him. Now, the women came claiming that Jesus had risen and when he went to see the tomb it was empty and the linen wrappings were left lying there. Peter had to be in a state of turmoil. Could he hope that Jesus was risen? But if Jesus had risen, what did that mean for him, who had denied that he knew Him? If Jesus had risen, it meant that He was the Messiah, but Peter, who had been among the first to call Him that, had abandoned Him when the chips were down. On the one hand, perhaps the man whom Peter had loved so much was not dead. On the other hand, how could Peter face Him again after failing to live up to who he had proclaimed himself to be? I can understand Peter’s turmoil.
Another psalm of praise that is a great one to read when I need a reminder to praise the Lord. One of the things I love about the read through the Bible in a year program that I am following is that it has a psalm as part of everyday. While some of the psalms are a little bit of a downer, most of them encourage me to praise God and lift my spirit. This psalm reminds us that God is a forgiving God, but will punish our misdeeds. God punishes our misdeeds, not out of spite, but in order to train us to behave in the manner that will lead to our greatest happiness. This knowledge leads me to exalt God and worship Him.
These two proverbs contain very important lessons. The first tells us that it is foolish to mock those who feel remorse for their sins, that fools mock the very idea of feeling remorse for sin. Further it tells us that the godly acknowledge what they have done wrong and strive to do what is necessary to be reconciled to those they have sinned against.
The second tells us that no one can truly understand either the bitterness or the joy of another person. While this is true, it does not mean that we should not try to understand the bitterness that others feel, nor that we should not attempt to share our joys. It is just that we should understand that in both cases we will not be completely successful.
