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.

     David prepared to move the Ark of the Covenant the rest of the way to Jerusalem. He summoned the priests and Levites and gave them the task of carrying the Ark. He asked them to purify themselves and consult the Law of Moses as to how the Ark should be moved. He appointed some Levites as musicians and escorts for the Ark. David then held a festival, offering sacrifices and holding a feast, when he moved the Ark to Jerusalem.
     In honor of this occasion David wrote a song. The song is a model for worship songs. It starts out by instructing us to give thanks to God and to tell the whole world what He has done. Then it tells us to sing to God and tell everyone of His wonderful deeds. We should rejoice as we worship God. We should search for God and continually seek Him. Our worship should include that God is a god of Justice and remind people of God’s promises. God has made promises that He has kept and will continue to keep. All other gods are mere idols, but our God created the universe. We should proclaim as part of our worship that God saves. We should continually tell all who will listen what God has done. We should call on all the earth to recognize God and give Him the glory He deserves. God’s love is faithful and endures forever. We should give thanks to Him and praise His name.

     Paul tells us here that there is no excuse for not knowing God because He has made His the truth about Him obvious in Creation. That in the effort to puff themselves up as wise, people have rejected wisdom. Instead of worshiping God, people have chosen to worship created things. As a result of their refusal to worship God, God has abandoned them to homosexual sex acts, women with women and men with men. Paul points out the negative health effects of homosexual acts as evidence of their sinfulness. Paul goes on to point out that sexual sins are not the only way that people who refuse to worship God sin. Paul tells us that these people know that their sins are deserving of death, but they commit them anyway. And worse yet, they encourage others to commit them.
     There is much packed into this passage. The first is that the nature of God is obvious to anyone who is willing to see it. Next people have chosen to reject God and as a result their thinking has become dark and confused. When people choose to act in ways that they know to be wrong, their thinking becomes progressively murkier and they have a harder time making good decisions, even in unrelated areas, as more and more of their thinking becomes tied up in developing justifications for behavior they know to be wrong. People who sin encourage others to sin because it helps them to justify behaviors they know to be wrong. Even when they know the behaviors are harmful to their well-being, they will encourage others to follow the same self-destructive behaviors because they can then use those others behaviors to justify their own actions. Sin feeds on itself.

     The psalmist tells us that the wicked are like a lion stalking its prey. They wait in hiding to pounce on their victims. But beyond that he tells us that the wicked believe that they will never be held to account for their wicked behavior. This psalm echoes the passage from Romans, telling us that the wicked brag about their evil actions. He goes on to tell us that even though it sometimes seems the wicked will get away with their evil, God does take note and He will bring judgement against the wicked. God will defend the helpless and weak.

     Today’s proverbs tell us that people seek to be close to those who can do good things for them, the rich and the powerful. But want little to do with those who have not the resources to give them things. We as Christians are called to not be like that.