I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.
After David sleeps with Bathsheba and arranges for her husband’s death, God sends the prophet Nathan to tell David a story that brings home to David exactly how evil his actions were. David expresses his contrition by saying that he has sinned against God. I think that at this point David realizes that everyone knows what he has done and he realizes what a terrible witness this is. He has promoted himself as a man striving to serve God. He has not only had an affair with another man’s wife, but arranged that man’s death and everybody knows it. David has set himself up as a model of godly behavior and now, through his sinful behavior, he has given people an opportunity to mock God. This is the lesson I take from this for me today. When I sin, I will be found out. When I am found out in sin, it will damage my witness to those around me. This means that it is important to avoid sin whenever possible, but it also means that it is even more important that we make sure to let people know that we do not consider ourselves better, or more righteous, than they. Of course that means that we had better not think of ourselves as more righteous than those we interact with, because we are not.
Another lesson we can learn from this is David’s reaction when his son becomes sick and then when his son dies. After his son becomes sick, David fasts and mourns and entreats the Lord for the child. Yet after the child dies, he goes back to his normal life because he knows that the child is no longer suffering and his actions will not bring the child back. David fasted and prostrated himself while the child was sick but yet lived. When the child died, David got up and washed and dressed himself and then went and worshiped the Lord. Only then did he return and break his fast.
Today’s passage is Jesus wrapping up what must have been very difficult teaching for both the disciples and for Jesus. He is telling them that He is about to be arrested and killed and that they will all be scattered and none of them will stand by Him. He, also, tells them that, even so, He will not be alone, and, indirectly, that when they face similar trials later, they (and we) will not be alone. He further tells them that the Holy Spirit will guide them (and us) into “all truth”. I am not entirely sure what Jesus is telling us here, but part of it is that truth is knowable. One of the biggest things we have to struggle against in our society today is the idea that we can not know the truth, that the truth is unknowable. The logical conclusion of the belief that the truth is unknowable is that striving to learn the truth is a waste of time. Jesus here is teaching us that the truth is knowable, that if we strive to learn and know the truth God will reveal it to us. Now, saying that the truth is knowable is not the same as saying that I know the truth. I believe that as Christians we should continually strive to learn the truth and ask God to reveal it to us, but we should, also, acknowledge that in our current sinful state what we believe to be the truth may not, in fact, be the truth. As the apostle Paul says in I Corinthians 13:12, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
At the end of this passage, Jesus reiterates what He has said several times through preceding passages. That the disciples (and we today) will face many trials and sorrows. But He tells us to take heart because He has overcome the world. We often talk about Jesus overcoming the world in His death on the cross, and I certainly think that there is truth in that statement. But here He is, the night before His crucifixion saying that He has already overcome the world. I am not quite sure what He means here, but I think that part of what He is saying is that He has already made the decisions that will lead to His sacrificial crucifixion. That He has not used His notoriety, fame and power to raise an army to lead into open revolt against the Romans. He has not given into the world’s temptation to follow the world’s methods of dealing with injustice and oppression. Instead, He has chosen to be faithful to God’s plan, and as hopeless as that plan may appear, He has chosen to accept God’s way of challenging injustice and oppression, not with force and violence, but with self-sacrificial love.
Once again today’s psalm reaches me on an emotional level. The psalmist says;
but now I closely follow your word.”
I understand this intimately, although I am not sure I can yet say that my wandering off is in the past tense as the psalmist says. I pray to God that He helps me keep to this, so that I can truthfully say with the psalmist that I now closely follow His words. Whether or not I have yet stilled my wandering spirit, I do agree with the psalmist when he says;
for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees.”
And further when he asks of God;
Now give me the sense to follow your commands.”
I think that so sums up what I believe. If I truly have good sense, I will follow God’s commands. I know that I do not always exhibit good sense, but I strive to do better in the future. Part of that is recognizing that I can only do so through God’s grace, not through my own strength.
This proverb says that everything, and everyone, serves God’s purposes. We can choose to strive to be godly and strive to willingly act according to God’s desires and receive joy, or we can be used by God to accomplish God’s purposes to our own loss. Those who are too proud to accept God’s guidance will suffer for it.