For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

Proverbs 21:3

    God prefers us to do what is right and just to following rituals. No matter what rituals or sacrifices we make, they will not offset doing evil.

Psalm 31:9-18

    Even when we are suffering and ostracized because of our sins, we can turn to God. If we turn to God in our distress, and allow Him to turn us from our sin, He will rescue us and redeem us. Those who remain in their sins will be silenced. God will not allow the accusations of the wicked against the godly to stand. The wicked will not avoid judgement by leveling false accusations against the godly.

1 Corinthians 6:1-20

    If we have a dispute with a fellow believer, we should find someone in the Church to resolve the issue for us. It is better to be defrauded and cheated than to take our disputes to the courts. Paul is unequivocal here, no matter what the circumstances we should not take our disputes with those who claim to be our fellow Christians to the courts. Our disputes with our fellow believers should be resolved by the moving of the Spirit and God’s will, not by the letter of the law. If we are not willing to accept the judgement of a tribunal of believers to settle our disputes, we reveal ourselves to be more interested in worldly matters than God’s kingdom.
    As believers in, and followers of, Christ we have been granted complete freedom. However, just because we are free to do anything that does not mean that some things are not bad for us. Self-destructive behavior us a sin and something which we are called to avoid. Sexual immorality of all sorts is bad for us and destructive of both our bodies and our souls. Most sins involve and affect our spirits and our souls, but sexual immorality also affects our very bodies. When we have sex with someone, we form a bond with them. That bond involves changes in our hormones and the way we physically react to that person. Having sex with a different person disrupts that bond causing physical and spiritual damage. No matter what position the Church takes on the issue of sexual immorality, it cannot change this fact. When the Church condones any sort of sexual immorality (including homosexual behavior), it is conspiring to encourage people to act in a self-destructive way.

Ezra 10:1-44

    This passage has always troubled me because most translations use the words “foreign wives” where the NLT uses the words “pagan wives”. However, as I read this today I realized that the NLT is probably in some ways more accurate than those other translations. The reason this seems to be the case is because the answer was not just to send these wives and their children away. Those with foreign wives needed to appear before a tribunal, with witnesses from the elders and leaders of his town. This suggests that some sort of judgement was being made on a case by case basis. I may be reading too much into that, but it appears to me that the only possible judgement regarded whether the foreign wife had embraced the worship of God and given up pagan practices.

     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.

Ezra 10:1-44

     When Ezra had finished confronting the people of Israel over marrying pagan wives and following their idolatrous practices he laid face down in front of the Temple, weeping and praying. A large crowd of Israelites joined him in this activity. One of the leaders of Israel came to Ezra and declared that the people were prepared to confess their sin and send their pagan wives away. He told Ezra to get up and direct them in how to proceed.
     A proclamation was sent out demanding that all of the returned exiles gather in Jerusalem on pain of forfeiture of their property, unless they had special dispensation from the leaders and elders of the people. When the people had gathered, Ezra stood up and confronted them over the sin of marrying pagan women and following their practices. Ezra told them to separate themselves from the people of the land and these pagan women. The people responded that Ezra was right and that they needed to do as he said. However, they said that since so many had done this it would take time to address the issue. They requested that delegates be selected to act on behalf of the people because it was the rainy season and they could not remain gathered in the open long enough to go through each case.
     It was proposed that each person with a foreign wife come before the assembled leaders at a scheduled time. This proposal was adopted with only four of the leaders disagreeing with this plan of action. The chosen leaders spent the next three months talking to the men who had married pagan wives and addressing the appropriate action for those men to take.

1 Corinthians 6:1-20

     In today’s passage Paul addresses the issue of lawsuits between believers. He tells us that we should not go to secular courts if we have a dispute with fellow believers. Rather we should select someone from within the church to arbitrate between us. Paul asks how we can possibly expect to get a good ruling from judges who do not share our values, nor understand our priorities. Wouldn’t it be better to be cheated than to ask outsiders to judge between believers?
     Paul goes on to say that the actual situation is even worse than that. In a situation where, as believers, we should be willing to be cheated, some of us are cheating others, and not just outsiders (which is bad enough), but our fellow believers. Paul points out that cheaters, along with those who practice many other types of wrongdoing, will never inherit the Kingdom of God. Paul goes on to list a series of types of people who will not inherit the Kingdom of God. That list includes the sexually immoral, men who have sex with other men (both actively and passively), idolaters, adulterers, the greedy, thieves, drunkards, slanderers, and swindlers. Paul lists three types of sexual sin (possibly four, since some idol worship involved sexual behaviors) in this passage, but he does not limit it to sexual sins.
     Paul goes on to speak about our freedom in Christ. He tells us that we have the right to do anything, but that some things are not good for us and we should not let anything gain mastery over us. He points out that our bodies were not made for sexual immorality. Rather we were made to be joined with one other person and one other person only. We have been made part of the body of Christ, how can we then join the body of Christ with that of a prostitute? When we have sex with another person, our bodies become one.

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     There are some very basic teachings here for us to pay attention to. The first is that while Paul clearly states that homosexual behavior is unacceptable for those who claim to be followers of Christ, so is any other form of sexual immorality. In addition, Paul lists some other sins which he says also disqualify us from heaven if we practice them as a matter of course.
     There is one other point that Paul makes here that I want to pick up for closer examination. He tells us that our bodies were not made for sexual immorality. I believe that he was addressing a cultural attitude that is prevalent in our society today. The attitude that sex is something that people are going to do, that it is unrealistic to expect people who are not in a committed, lifelong relationship with someone of the opposite sex to abstain from sexual acts. Paul is telling us that it is not unrealistic. I will say from my experience that it is possible, not easy, but possible. Through the grace of God I was able to remain celibate for ten years before I met my wife. There were times when I resisted temptation and there were times when I went seeking to break that celibacy but by God’s grace did not find an opportunity to do so. It was not by my righteousness that I was able to remain celibate for that ten year period of time. Rather I was able to do so purely on the power of the Holy Spirit intervening in my life.

Psalm 31:9-18

     Today’s psalm is a difficult one for me, because the psalmist spends most of the psalm describing his troubles. However, I take two things away from it. The first is where the psalmist says, “Sin has drained my strength;”. He is admitting that his own sin is the origin of his troubles. When I face troubles in this world, they are, more often than not, a result of my own sins (I will not speak for others here, only for myself). The second one is cause for joy. Even though his troubles are the result of his own sins, the psalmist is confident that now that he has repented of his sin and turned back to God, God will hear him and rescue him. If we repent and turn back to God, He will rescue us from the troubles that our own sin got us into.

Proverbs 21:3

     It is more important to God that we do the right thing than that we perform the rituals correctly.