Contemplative Bible Reading

1 Chronicles 26:13 (New Living Translation)

They were assigned by families for guard duty at the various gates, without regard to age or training, for it was all decided by means of sacred lots.

Here is yet another example of a decision made by casting lots. This was an important decision: who would guard what section of the wall. This was about life and death.

Note, the people were assigned regardless of age or training. How non-sensical can you be? Regardless of age or training? That was crazy, yet that is how it was done.

We are much more logical, practical, and a lot of other words ending in “al” that express our superiority of being  modern or post modern or post post modern (or whatever we call it this weekend) man. Have we missed something in our superiority? Have we left God and the sacred lots out? Note the use of the adjective “sacred” in describing the lots.

Where are we?

Psalm 35:1,6 (New Living Translation)

O Lord, oppose those who oppose me.
Fight those who fight against me.
^…
Make their path dark and slippery,
with the angel of the Lord pursuing them.

These two verses are from a Psalm of David. David asks Jehovah to oppose those who oppose David. The second verse listed above is verse 6 of the Psalm. Can you imagine the horror of that situation? You are slipping through darkness with the angel of Jehovah pursuing you.

Please God, keep me from such horror.

James 2:9 (New Living Translation)

But if you favor some people over others, you are committing a sin. You are guilty of breaking the law.

Sunday morning that guy sat on the pew next to me. You know who that guy is:

• he dresses funny
• his hair is fixed funny
• his cologne/shampoo/deodorant/toothpaste smells funny
• he shakes hands funny
• and, worst of all, he acts funny

Gosh. What a terrible hour sitting there with that guy next to me.

An hour later I read James 2:9. Ooooops, ouch, and lots of other single-word descriptors of how awful I felt. What a miserable person I am. Thanks be to God for grace.

Psalms 36:1-4 (New Living Translation)

Matthew 10:8 (New Living Translation)

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cure those with leprosy, and cast out demons. Give as freely as you have received!

Jesus is addressing some disciples as He is sending them out to spread the good news. These followers heard the good news without paying any money. In today’s words, they attended a free seminar.

Has anyone ever given you valuable information without charging you any money for it? If yes, do the same. It really is that simple sometimes.

John 9:6-7 (New Living Translation)

Then he spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and spread the mud over the blind man’s eyes. ⁷ He told him, “Go wash yourself in the pool of Siloam” (Siloam means “sent”). So the man went and washed and came back seeing!

This is part of the (hi)story of Jesus restoring the sight of a man born blind. Jesus rubbed mud in the man’s eyes, and the man washed himself. The result was the man “came back seeing.”

Medical professionals in our time know how the human vision system works physically. They can examine a blind person and state how to restore the person’s sight. “All we have to do is connect this to that and you can see.” In the vast majority of cases, even though we know what to connect to what, we cannot make those connections. We don’t have the technology.

One thing we don’t know how to do is to correct the psychology of a person who was born blind and can now see. There are documented cases of doctors restoring the sight of a person who could see as a toddler, but went decades in blindness. Those people with restored sight need years of therapy to be able to function as a seeing person. This is similar to those people who are injured and need months and years of therapy to relearn how to walk.

This man born blind was given sight by Jesus. “Aha,” some people of today say, “we could do that. The person probably had thus-and-such condition that we can cure today.”

Note, however, that the healed blind man seemed to function just fine the instant he was given sight. No one walked him around and helped him adjust to a world of sight. The power of Jesus fast forwarded all that therapy.

That fast forwarding is something we do not understand and probably never will understand. Note that this happens in all the other cases where Jesus healed people. They immediately functioned normally without any time for therapy.

God has command over time. We, certainly I, don’t understand how that one works.

Psalm 10:4-6 (New Living Translation)

The wicked are too proud to seek God.
They seem to think that God is dead.
⁵ Yet they succeed in everything they do.
They do not see your punishment awaiting them.
They sneer at all their enemies.
⁶ They think, “Nothing bad will ever happen to us!
We will be free of trouble forever!”

In this description of “the wicked,” we are told that they live as if God is dead. This is a fundamental outlook on life. Every decision, every statement, every literal and figurative step in life is made with the concept that there is no God – all religion is the folly of the ignorant.

I am not sure what a life like this is like. I am happy and thankful to make that statement.

1 Samuel 29:9 (New Living Translation)

But Achish insisted, “As far as I’m concerned, you’re as perfect as an angel of God. But the Philistine commanders are afraid to have you with them in the battle.

Achish is speaking to David about David. Achish considers David to be “as perfect as an angel of God.”

Are angels of God perfect? One man seems to think so. Was he correct? Is only God perfect? Was this one many exaggerating or merely using a figure of speech or being translated into English poorly?

2 Samuel 6:14 (New Living Translation)

And David danced before the Lord with all his might, wearing a priestly garment.

David danced before the LORD. What joy. We should all dance all the time for the LORD. Right? But dancing is…well just watch a little TV and you’re likely to see some not-so-praise-the-LORD dancing.

See this verse:

1 Chronicles 15:29 (New Living Translation)

But as the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant entered the City of David, Michal, the daughter of Saul, looked down from her window. When she saw King David skipping about and laughing with joy, she was filled with contempt for him.

This verse describes David as “skipping and laughing with joy.” Hmmm, that doesn’t sound like not-so-praise-the-LORD dancing. That sounds like someone who is so overjoyed with the blessings of the LORD hopping happily while walking.

What happened?

Somewhere along the line dancing went from joy to sex. Perhaps the English translations of the Bible added to this mess. I don’t know, but take great care when reading the word “dance” in the Bible.

Matthew 12:17-21 (New Living Translation)

This fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah concerning him: