For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

    This proverb does not tell us anything we do not already know. Let us strive not to be the cause of annoyance which the writer describes.

    I am not sure that I have anything to say about this psalm. I will recommend that you take some time to read this psalm and meditate on the word picture it paints about God and His glory.

    Two different groups of religious leaders had attempted to get Jesus to say something they could use against Him. So, a third group asked Him a question which they were sure presented an unanswerable paradox. They created a hypothetical situation where a woman married seven different brothers, each one after she had been widowed by the previous, but had no children. They then asked who she would be married to in the resurrection. They were convinced that this was proof that there could be no resurrection of the dead.
    Jesus answered them by pointing out that they made two mistakes. The first was that they did not know Scripture. The second was that they did not underestimated the power of God. Jesus dismisses their paradox by pointing out that when God raises us from the dead we will not be married, nor be given in marriage. I take that to mean that when we are raised from the dead we will not be sexual beings. However, Jesus’ main point is that when God identifies Himself to Moses He uses the present tense in referring to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

    I struggle with the part of the passage where it discusses the method of testing a woman whose husband believes that she has been unfaithful. On the one hand the “rational” part of me looks at this and thinks that it is purely random as to whether or not a woman is found “guilty”. On the other hand, my faith says that God is perfectly capable of intervening so that only women who are guilty suffer the negative effects. Ultimately, I am convinced that this method of judging could be successful in a society where everyone thoroughly believed in the power and justice of God. And by succeed, I mean distinguish between the innocent and the guilty. However, it has no chance of working where a significant portion of society does not believe in God.

    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.

    If you are lazy, it will irritate your employer far out of proportion to any problems your laziness creates, just as smoke irritates the eyes far out of proportion it any injury it causes.Keep this in mind, sometimes that one extra step is the difference between making your boss upset and receiving a commendation from that same boss.

    As I read this psalm two thoughts/feelings go through my mind. The first is one of praise to God and gratefulness for His wonderful, unfailing love. The second is to think of modern Israel and wonder how much this psalm’s proclamation of God’s defense of Jerusalem applies to it. I do not like to go into the second much because it is tied up in politics and I am never sure to what degree God’s promises to the people of Israel have transferred to the Church. I know that the members of the Church have been grafted into God’s people as the descendants of Abraham. Yet, it is also clear that God still has a place in His plans for the biological descendants of Abraham. Reading this psalm I am reminded that those who have chosen to be enemies of the modern state of Israel have chosen to attack people God has chosen as His own. On the other hand, I know that those governing the modern state of Israel have done things which earn God’s strong disapproval (like those governing every modern state). Nevertheless, I will praise God when I see His hand at work in the world. When I look at the modern state of Israel, I see evidence of God’s unfailing love for the people of Israel. It gives me comfort, knowing that He has extended that same unfailing love to myself and to all who have chosen to follow His Son.

    When the Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, asked Jesus what they thought was a clever trick question, He not only avoided the trick, He showed them to not have much faith in God’s power. In His answer, Jesus gives us some insight into what Heaven will be like. He points out that when we are resurrected we will be like the angels and neither marry nor be given in marriage. Jesus finishes His point by showing that when God talked to Moses He talked about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the present tense.
    What happened next tells us something that is often overlooked. A teacher of religious law who overheard the previous exchange asked Jesus which commandment was the most important. Every exposition has focused on Jesus’ answer, and His answer is indeed important. However, I have never heard anyone take note of the fact that the man who asked the question affirmed Jesus’ answer. He followed up Jesus’ answer by saying that it is more important to love God with all of our heart, mind, and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves than anything else we can do. As we see here, not all of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day failed to understand and follow God’s word any more than all of the religious leaders of today do.
    There are two important reminders here. First (and this one runs throughout all of the Gospels), we cannot accept something just because a religious leader says it. We need to see what God has to say for ourselves. The second is that we need to judge every religious leader on their own merits. Just because we have witnessed that some religious leaders are hypocrites does not mean that every religious leader is a hypocrite.

    Moses gives careful instructions for how the Tabernacle will be packed up for travel. He describes how each clan of Levites will be responsible for various pieces of the Tabernacle and are to carefully pack things in a particular order. These instructions remind us of the care which we should take in our worship of God. We do not need to be ritualistic about it in the way described in these instructions, but we should think through what we are going to do when we worship God.