Contemplative Bible Reading

2 Chronicles 13:16-17 (New Living Translation)

16 The Israelite army fled from Judah, and God handed them over to Judah in defeat. 17 Abijah and his army inflicted heavy losses on them; 500,000 of Israel’s select troops were killed that day.

In one of the battles between the tribes of Judah and the tribes of Israel, the army of Judah killed half-a-million men from Israel.

Half-a-million killed in one battle on one day. Did that ever happen again anywhere in the history of man?

I wonder why this happened. How did Jehovah allow such a slaughter? I can come back with a, “Well, you know, God was punishing Israel for its sins.” Okay, sure, but half-a-million killed? Punishment is one thing, but a slaughter of a nation? There are times when I don’t understand God, but I am not supposed to.

Ecclesiastes 10:20  (New Living Translation)

Never make light of the king, even in your thoughts.
And don’t make fun of the powerful, even in your own bedroom.
For a little bird might deliver your message
and tell them what you said.

When I say something, people will hear it; especially those people whom I never intend to hear it. Someone, perhaps a little bird, will deliver the message.

I have seen lives ruined by adults saying things about children (lazy, stupid, worthless, etc.) that the children were never supposed to hear. The children heard it and went about living their lives to show the adult was correct.

It doesn’t matter that the adult later quipped, “I was just kidding.” Don’t tell jokes about others. Jokes have a way of becoming serious, hurtful statements when they finally reached the ears of the unintended.

If I don’t say it, it will never be heard.

God, help me to control my tongue. Help me to control my thoughts. Help me to control my heart.

1 Kings 11:14-16 (New Living Translation)

14 Then the Lord raised up Hadad the Edomite, a member of Edom’s royal family, to be Solomon’s adversary. 15 Years before, David had defeated Edom. Joab, his army commander, had stayed to bury some of the Israelite soldiers who had died in battle. While there, they killed every male in Edom. 16 Joab and the army of Israel had stayed there for six months, killing them.

Joab—the commander of David’s army—had stayed in the land of Edom for six months killing every male. Joab stayed and stayed and killed, killed, and killed some more. This was all in accordance with King David, God’s king.

I have never felt that God wanted me to go somewhere and kill, kill, and kill some more. What a blessed life I have. What a blessed Father and God of all. What a blessed age of grace. God, help me each day to be somehow worthy of Your blessings.

Proverbs 24:11-12  (New Living Translation)

11 Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to die;
save them as they stagger to their death.
12 Don’t excuse yourself by saying, “Look, we didn’t know.”
For God understands all hearts, and he sees you.
He who guards your soul knows you knew.
He will repay all people as their actions deserve.

Gee God, I didn’t know such horrible things were happening in my community.

Sorry. Not an excuse, and not even a good excuse. God knows that we knew. God knows that we turned away from those who needed our love and time and resources.

There are horrible things happening in my community. The same is true for your community. We live on planet earth with sin all around us. Sin brings all those horrible things. We all know this.

Okay, time to stop pretending and start acting like we truly follow after the Messiah. God, please help me.

Proverbs 14:4 (New Living Translation)

Without oxen a stable stays clean,
but you need a strong ox for a large harvest.

Start with the second statement: an ox is a useful and sometimes necessary tool for farming. Now to the first statement: if you don’t have an ox, you don’t have to shovel the manure out of the stable. Ahh, a clean, no-effort stable, but then again, you can’t farm.

Funny how this works. Necessary tools bring necessary work to maintain the tools. If you have a church building, you have to repair the roof, replace the air conditioners and the carpet and the… It goes on seemingly forever. But then again, you can meet and you can do all sorts of other things that involve people who like to have a roof over their head.

Mark 10:51-52 (New Living Translation)

51 “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked.

“My Rabbi,” the blind man said, “I want to see!”

52 And Jesus said to him, “Go, for your faith has healed you.” Instantly the man could see, and he followed Jesus down the road

At one point in my life I studied the topic of sight. In discussions, I learned that people who had their sight restored often struggled physically, mentally, and psychologically for months and years to cope with being able to see. (A movie At First Sight illustrates some of the difficulties.)

Notice what happens to Bartimaeus the blind man: instantly he followed Jesus down the road.

A person who had his sight restored would not be able to instantly follow someone else down the road. They would stumble, fall, scream for help, and generally be so overwhelmed by the influx of sights that they would be incapable of anything.

God, however, sped up time for Bartimaeus. Months of therapy were bypassed. Time flew.

I can write an explanation of what happened for Bartimaeus. That explanation, however, does not mean that I understand what happened. I don’t. God’s way, God’s control of time, is beyond my understanding.

Mark 10:49-50 (New Living Translation)

When Jesus heard him, he stopped and said, “Tell him to come here.”

So they called the blind man. “Cheer up,” they said. “Come on, he’s calling you!” 50 Bartimaeus threw aside his coat, jumped up, and came to Jesus.

Many translations of this passage use the word “cloak” instead of “coat.” What seems a side note to me today was a significant act at the time.

The coat or cloak was a valuable possession 2,000 years ago. For a poor person, such as Bartimaeus, the coat provided shelter from the climate, a desk for the work of begging, a basket to carry any food he was given, and so on.

The idea that Bartimaeus would toss aside his coat shows his exuberance at the thought of being called to Jesus. Would I abandon my car or my  house if someone called me to see Jesus? Yikes, I doubt it, and I guess that shows how much  more faith that Bartimaeus had than I have.

God help me with my unbelief.

Proverbs 11:24  (New Living Translation)

Give freely and become more wealthy;
be stingy and lose everything.

These two lines are right from today’s “sharing economy.” Give your ideas away and everyone will come to you for help. And, by the way, they will pay you handsomely for your help. The source of all that new-found wealth is first giving. And so the “new” thought goes.

I guess the “new” thought isn’t so new and didn’t originate with any person.

2 Chronicles 6:18 (New Living Translation)

“But will God really live on earth among people? Why, even the highest heavens cannot contain you. How much less this Temple I have built!”

The magnificent Temple in Jerusalem is completed. It is built to honor YHWH God. The builder first admits that it is almost useless as it cannot contain God.

This is a “so what” for us today, but was significant at the time. Gods of that time had homes built by the people who worshiped them. Those gods dwelled in those homes. People went to those places to speak to those gods.

YHWH God was different—vastly different. YHWH was everywhere all the time. YHWH was radically different and more powerful than any other god worshiped by any people.

Sometimes we tend to forget the power and magnificence of God. What a shame.

John 4:25-26  (The Living Bible)

25 The woman said, “Well, at least I know that the Messiah will come—the one they call Christ—and when he does, he will explain everything to us.”

26 Then Jesus told her, “I am the Messiah!”

These verses are part of the conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well or the Sycharian woman. The woman knows something about the promised Messiah or the Christ.

Jesus tells her plainly, “I am the Messiah.”

Reaction: Yeah, right. Sure you are. The glorious Messiah is sitting here at a well in the middle of the day at Jerkwater, Palestine. Sure.

That is a reasonable reaction. It makes sense. In contrast, the “I am the Messiah” statement makes no sense. I guess that is a good description of Christianity: it really makes no sense. But, it is real and has dominated human thought, belief, and action for centuries.

God does things in ways that make no sense to us. I guess that passage about His thoughts being above and beyond our thoughts makes sense.