I feel great sorrow for those for whom these proverbs do not apply; those who do not have a father and a mother; those whose parents, while technically being in their life, have chosen to be their “friends” rather than their parents. For all the rest of us, this is indispensable advice.
If we have truly turned to God for our salvation and trust in Him to provide it, whom shall we fear? If we trust in God and turn our lives completely over to Him, it is our enemies who will stumble and fall. We need not muster our forces and deal them a defeat in battle. God will cause them to trip over their own feet.
However, let us always remember in this life the question is not, “Is God on our side?” Rather the question is, “Am I on God’s side?” Let us strive, in every situation, to be on God’s side. If we succeed in that effort, we will always emerge on the victorious side.
Jesus tells continues His theme about those who have been religious, yet reject God’s will. The several parables He tells on this theme are important because we can make too much of the images He uses in one or another of them. One of the key points in all of them is that the religious leaders of His day were invited by God, more than invited, perhaps chosen would be a better word, to do God’s work and enter into heaven. The other key point is that when those religious leaders refuse to act according to God’s will, God will extend the invitation to, will choose, those whom the religious leaders believer, not without cause, to be unsuitable to replace them. The message here is that what God wants done, will be done. God will find those willing to do His will.
There is an interesting side story in Jesus’ parable about the wedding feast. Once the feast is in progress, the King is circulating among the guests and notices one who is not wearing wedding clothes. God invites us as we are, dirty, sinful people, but we cannot get into Heaven if we stay as we are. We need to allow Him to change us.
The passage begins with the Israelites praising God for rescuing them from the Egyptian army. However, the rest of the passage is story after story of the Israelites complaining because they are facing troubles. First they complain when the water at Marah is too bitter to drink. God showed Moses how to make the water drinkable, supplying the Israelites with water. Then they complain because their food is running out and they are afraid that they are going to starve. God provided them with quail and with manna to eat. The final story in the passage tells us that they came to camp at a place where there was no water. Once more the Israelites complained.
Time after time God demonstrated His power and His ability to care for their needs. Yet, time after time the Israelites complained and rebelled. Are we any different? Have we learned to trust God to provide for our needs and our safety? The Israelites mistake was not in crying out to God when they ran into troubles. Their mistake was crying out to God demanding that He meet their needs, rather than crying out to God asking Him what He wanted them to do now. When we find ourselves at the end of our rope, with needs that we have no idea how to meet, let us cry out to God, “What do You want me to do now?” Actually, let us start each day that way, “Oh Lord, what do you want me to do today?”
I am trying something different now. Previously, I have always placed my comments on the passage in the order of Old Testament passage, New Testament passage, Psalm, Proverb. For the near future I am going to post them in the order in which I prepare the comments. This is likely to be the reverse of how I was doing it previously, but I foresee changing it up depending on what strikes me first. Please let me know what you think of this change.
I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. In order to make that possible I read the passages and write my thoughts a day, or more. in advance. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.
The proverb writer reminds us of the importance of remembering what our parents taught us. It does not matter whether we had good parents (which, by God’s grace, I did) or bad parents, there were things they taught us that will help us live a better, happier life.
This is a psalm where I like the NIV take on it better, especially the first verse:
The Lord is my light and my salvation—
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?
I will seek one thing and one thing only, to dwell in the house of the Lord for all of the days of my life. With such a dwelling place, I have nothing to fear.
It has been done to death, but in today’s passage Jesus asks the Pharisees whose image is on the Roman coin. When they reply “Caesar’s”, He tells them to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. There are many things to be said about this and how it applies to our lives. However, today the thing that strikes me, not for the first time, is that in Genesis we are told that God made man in His own image. So, while our money may have been made by Caesar with his image on it, WE have been made by God with His image on us. Let us give to God what is God’s, Caesar can have the rest.
God saved the Israelites in dramatic fashion and they praised His name. Then a short time later they were complaining because the water they came to was too bitter to drink. Moses went to God and He told Moses how to make it drinkable. Then they traveled a little further and began complaining because they did not have good food to eat. So, God sent them manna from heaven to eat. Then they came to a place where there was no water to drink, and once more they complained. And once more God provided for their needs.
Notice the pattern here? Time and again they were in a difficult situation and rather than trust God to bail them out, they complained and accused God and Moses of leading them to their deaths. Time and again, God showed that He was faithful a performed a powerful act to relieve their difficulty. Do we see ourselves in their actions? Can we learn to trust God? God is faithful and He will provide for us.
I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. 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.
Today’s passage begins the description of the Israelites travels in the desert. After crossing the sea, they traveled for three days without finding water. When they finally found water, it was bitter and undrinkable. The people started to grumble against Moses and Aaron. Moses cried out to God and God showed him wood that when placed in the water made the water fit to drink. They traveled on from there and entered into the Desert of Sin. At this point their food supplies started to run low. Again the people grumbled against Moses and Aaron saying that they would have been better off if they had stayed in Egypt.
God responded to their complaining by telling Moses that He would give the people bread in the morning and meat in the evening along with a test to see if they would listen to His instructions. Moses passed God’s message on to the people along with His instructions. They were to gather the food, enough for the day, but they were not to keep any until the following day. The exception to this was on the sixth day, when they were to gather twice as much as normal, because there would not be any on the seventh day. The first morning this food arrived the people asked each other what it was. When Moses told them it was the bread that the Lord was providing them they called it “manna” which sounds very similar to the Hebrew for “What is it?” Despite the instructions that Moses had given them some people tried to save some of the manna for the following day. The next morning the leftover manna was full of maggots and stank. On the sixth day, Moses repeated the instructions to gather extra and not to go out to gather on the seventh day. Nevertheless some people went out to gather on the morning of the seventh day, but they found no manna.
This story gives us a good sense of how God’s provision works. When the people who went out and gathered manna, those who gathered a lot did not have too much. While those who gathered a little did not have too little. On the other hand those who attempted to save some to build up a surplus found that it went bad, except on the sixth day into the seventh day, when there was none to gather on the seventh day. God provided them enough for each day and only provided extra to allow them to prepare for the day when He was going to not make any available. Another key factor was that God let them know that they needed to gather extra on the sixth day. The lesson here is that God will provide us what we need to survive and carry out His will, when He provides us extra it is because there are lean days coming and we should save up for those days.
The people of Israel traveled on from there and once again found themselves without sufficient water. They began grumbling against Moses, demanding that he supply them with water. Moses became afraid that the people would attack him and cried out to God for an answer. God instructed him to take his staff and strike the rock at Horeb. Moses followed these instructions and when he struck the rock water flowed forth from it. This is the second time that God made provisions for the people to have water in the desert.
Jesus told a parable comparing the Kingdom of Heaven to a wedding feast prepared by a king for his son. He prepared a guest list and sent out invitations. When the feast was ready, he sent his servants to notify the invited guests, but they refused to come. So, he followed up by sending other servants. But his invited guests ignored these servants, going about their business, whether that was being a farmer or a merchant. Some of the invited guests actually seized the servants sent to tell them the feast was ready and killed them. The king was furious and ordered his army to kill the guests he had invited. However, he still had a wedding feast prepared, so he sent his servants out to invite whoever they could find who would come to the feast. The wedding hall was filled with guests. However, when the king came in to see the guests, one of the men was not wearing wedding clothes. The king asked him why he was not properly dressed and the man had not answer. The king had him thrown out into the darkness.
I saw two points when I read this. The first was that no matter how long we have been preparing to serve God, we need to respond when God gives us the call. The other is that when we respond to God’s call we need to make ourselves ready to serve the call He has given us.
After this the Pharisees approached Jesus and attempted to trap Him by asking Him a question about paying taxes to Caesar. The trap was a cunning one. They asked Jesus if it was right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? This was a cunning trap because the people had a strong resentment of the Roman occupation and there was a strong religious case that Jews should not pay taxes to foreigners. If Jesus came out in favor of paying the tax to Caesar it would seriously damage His reputation as a righteous teacher who was willing to take on the powers that be if they went against God’s will. On the other hand, if Jesus said that it was not right to pay the tax to Caesar, He was a revolutionary and the Pharisees could get the Romans to arrest Him. The Pharisees were cunning, but Jesus was clever. He called them out on the question by calling them hypocrites. Then He asked them to show Him the coin used to pay the tax. They promptly produce such a coin. Jesus asks them whose image is on it and whose inscription? These two questions sum up the point of Jesus’ answer and the fact that the Pharisees had such a coin in the Temple precinct indicates that they are indeed hypocrites. Jesus’ question about whose image and inscription are on the coin references two central elements of Judaism. The reference to whose image is on it is a reference to the command not to bow down to any graven image. The question about whose inscription is on it is a reference to the phrase “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” By calling attention to the fact that the coin has Caesar’s image and inscription on it, Jesus points out that possessing such a coin is idolatry…and the people who asked Him the question were carrying just such a coin. It goes even further than that, by producing such a coin the Pharisees demonstrated that they profited from the Roman occupation of Palestine and oppression of their fellow citizens. Ultimately Jesus answers their question by saying that we have to choose whether we are loyal to God or to the government. Jesus finally answers their question by telling them to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. However, He gives this answer after pointing out that everything is God’s even though Caesar claims everything as his own. There is a lot more to be said from this exchange. Perhaps I will do a blog on it someday.
Later that same day, the Sadducees attempted to trap Him with another trick question. They asked Him about a widow who was successively married to and widowed by seven brothers without having any children. They asked Him whose wife she would be at the resurrection? Now the Sadducees did not believe in resurrection, so they thought they had come up with the perfect logical conundrum for Jesus. There is an interesting assumption underlying their question. They assume that a woman would need to have a husband in the resurrection. This is a much simpler question for Jesus to answer than the one about taxes to Caesar. Nevertheless in answering the question, Jesus attacks the faulty logic underlying the question rather than just answering the surface question. First Jesus points out that at the resurrection women will not need a husband to enter in. He then attacks the assumption that the Sadducees started from that there was no resurrection by pointing out that God refers to Himself in the present tense as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God is the God of these men, He is not the God who was the God of these men. In answering both this question and the question about taxes to Caesar, Jesus refuses to allow His opponents to frame the debate (or to put it another way, He refuses to have the debate on the basis of their assumptions). Before answering the questions that have been asked of Him, Jesus puts the questions into a context that eliminates the trap they thought they had set for Him. It is a lesson that we as Christians need to learn. We should not argue with non-believers in the terms they use.
If we make God’s will all we desire, why should we fear anyone? Who can endanger us if God is our protector? No matter what is thrown against us we can have confidence because none can stand against God and be victorious. God will be our light and our salvation.
The Lord is my light and my salvation—
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?
The proverb writer reminds us to listen to what our parents taught us, that by doing so we will have light for our paths and guidance to keep us out of trouble. He reiterates his advice to stay away from immoral women (although I do not think it is a stretch to say that the gender of the sexually immoral person is irrelevant to this advice).
