For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

    The guilty do not move in a straight line. Everything they do is round about and indirect in an attempt to hide their true motives. The innocent move directly towards their goal. They do not attempt to disguise their purposes. We should judge our own actions by this standard. Are we direct and open, or do we hide our true motives and attempt to keep people from recognizing our goals?
    The wicked desire evil, even those closest to them can expect to be treated badly.

    If we love what is just and good, we will sing praises to God. His love will fill us with joy causing us to burst forth in song. We know that He speaks the truth in all He says. Look at His great power, He merely spoke and the universe came into being in all of its wonder and grandeur. God’s plans will come to pass, His intentions will be carried out. But no matter how powerful the person or nation, their goals will only be accomplished if they serve the purposes of the Lord. Let us praise His wonderful name>

    This is one of those passages which is both clear to me, and difficult for me to explain. The example he uses of meat offered to idols gives a lot of nuance to what he is teaching here. First, Paul agrees with those who say that since idols are merely imaginary and not real gods, there is no harm in eating meat offered to idols. It is important to point out something that is not common in our society that we might otherwise overlook. Eating meat that had been “sanctified” by being blessed by a pagan priest and offered to a pagan god was an element of many worship practices. Eating meat sacrificed to a particular idol was part of the worship of that idol by those who worshiped it.
    Paul tells us that, since these idols were nothing but statues carved by men, there was no harm in eating food that another had offered to them. However, not everyone saw it that way. If we knew that a fellow believer felt that it was wrong to eat meat offered to an idol, we should not push them on the issue. If our fellow believer perceived that eating such meat was taking part in the worship of the idol we should avoid doing so, even if for us there was no such intention. If we attempt to convince them that it is OK to eat meat offered to idols, we may succeed in getting them to eat it without first removing the reverence for the idol which goes along with that practice from their minds. Let us avoid practices which might lead our fellow believers to sin.
    When I was growing up my father demonstrated an application of this which have always made this passage clear to me. When I was very young, the Mennonite Church (which I was raised in and am still a member of) taught that men should wear the “plain coat”. While I was still young, the Church stopped teaching and enforcing this rule. My father was among the last in my acquaintance to stop wearing the plain coat. He explained that he continued to wear the plain coat because there were some men who thought that it was a sin to wear a suit jacket other than the plain coat and if he stopped wearing it, they might feel shamed into wearing an ordinary suit jacket even though they thought that a sin. My father’s actions in this case were a clear example of what Paul was talking about. This was a two-fold decision. One, it was important that my father continue to wear the plain coat, and did not matter so much that others did not, because of the respect many in the Church had for my father’s spiritual wisdom. Two, many in the Church had respect for my father’s spiritual wisdom because he did this.

    Nehemiah gives us a great example of what a leader of the people should be like. He did not use his position to acquire wealth for himself. He did not even use it to offset the expenses that went along with his position. He recognized that the people were burdened enough with the things which needed doing, rebuilding the city walls and providing for its defenses). He refused to be a further burden upon them. This is in contrast to many of our leaders today, both secular and spiritual, who use their positions to acquire great wealth for themselves (this in no way applies to those pastors, or politicians, who earn a wage from their position which is close to the average household income for their constituents).
    Nehemiah also gave an example for all of us on trusting God when we face danger. When his enemies tried to convince him to come leave Jerusalem so that they could more easily strike at him, he refused. Yet, when a credible threat arose of an attack against him, he refused to seek greater protection than the people he led would be able to take advantage of. He refused to be enticed into a place of greater danger, yet trusted God to protect him when he went about his normal day-to-day activities.

     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.

     Nehemiah recounts how he never drew on the food allowance of the governor for the twelve years he was the governor of Judah, nor did he use his position as governor to acquire land. He and his men devoted their time to working on the wall. As the work on the wall reached completion Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem the Arab sent word requesting that Nehemiah meet them in a village outside of Jerusalem. Nehemiah suspected that they were plotting to ambush him and replied that he was working on an important project and could not take the time to come to meet them. Nehemiah’s enemies sent the same message to him requesting a meeting outside of the city to him four times. He sent the same reply to them every time. Finally, they sent a personal message with a message threatening to send word to the king of Persia alleging that Nehemiah was plotting to have himself named king of Judah and rebel against Persia. Nehemiah told the messenger to pass the word to his master that such allegations were baseless and that he was not going to meet with him.
     Later, Nehemiah went to visit a shut-in named Shemaiah. Shemaiah told Nehemiah that his enemies were coming to kill him that night and that they should go to the Temple and bolt the doors. Nehemiah refused to follow such advice to barricade himself in. Shortly after this they completed the walls and set up doors in the gates. During this time many letters went back and forth between nobles of Jerusalem and Tobiah. The nobles kept praising Tobiah to Nehemiah and passed everything Nehemiah said on to Tobiah. Many of the nobles in Jerusalem had sworn allegiance to Tobiah because of his family connections. After the wall was finished, Nehemiah appointed his brother as governor over Jerusalem and gave him instructions on keeping the city well guarded.

     Today Paul moves on to another topic, whether or not Christians may eat food offered to idols. This is not a topic of much concern to us today, but there is much we can learn from what Paul says on the topic. The first thing Paul tells us is that it is more important to love one another, and to act towards one another with love, than it is to have the correct knowledge. He further says that it is only through love that we gain full knowledge.
     From there Paul goes on to the specifics of eating meat offered to idols. He starts by expounding on the fact that idols are not truly gods. There is only one God. Some people worship many different gods, but we know that those gods are not truly gods at all. However, not all believers know this, more importantly, some believers are used to believing and behaving as if certain idols are real gods. As a result if and when they eat meat that has been offered to idols, they think of it as worship of those idols. We do not win God’s approval by what we do or do not eat. We do not lose anything in God’s eyes if we do not eat specific foods, nor do we gain anything if we do eat them.
     Paul goes on to tell us that since we neither gain, nor lose, by what we eat, we should consider the consciences of those whose faith is weaker than our own. He tells us that we should be careful to make sure that we do not exercise our freedom in Christ in such a manner as to cause someone with a weaker conscience to stumble into sin. If our actions might encourage our brother or sister in Christ to sin, we should choose not to take those actions.

     The psalmist calls on those who are godly to sing for joy and praise the Lord. It is fitting that those who He has purified praise Him. We can trust everything that God does. If something is just and good, we can be sure that God loves it. The psalmist tells us all we need to know of God’s power in verse six:

     The guilty follow a path that winds and twists, while the innocent are direct and open about their intentions and where they are headed. If you desire evil, you are evil.