Contemplative Bible Reading

Luke 1:67-80 (New Living Translation)

⁶⁷ Then his father, Zechariah, was filled with the Holy Spirit and gave this prophecy:

⁶⁸ “Praise the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has visited and redeemed his people.
⁶⁹ He has sent us a mighty Savior
from the royal line of his servant David,
⁷⁰ just as he promised
through his holy prophets long ago.
⁷¹ Now we will be saved from our enemies
and from all who hate us.
⁷² He has been merciful to our ancestors
by remembering his sacred covenant—
⁷³ the covenant he swore with an oath
to our ancestor Abraham.
⁷⁴ We have been rescued from our enemies
so we can serve God without fear,
⁷⁵ in holiness and righteousness
for as long as we live.

⁷⁶ “And you, my little son,
will be called the prophet of the Most High,
because you will prepare the way for the Lord.
⁷⁷ You will tell his people how to find salvation
through forgiveness of their sins.
⁷⁸ Because of God’s tender mercy,
the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us,
⁷⁹ to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
and to guide us to the path of peace.”

⁸⁰ John grew up and became strong in spirit. And he lived in the wilderness until he began his public ministry to Israel.

I think I understand Old Testament prophecies. (I am happy to hear from those who can correct me on this understanding.) In the Old Testament, the LORD spoke directly to some people who were known as prophets. They told the people what the LORD was going to in the future. (They also said when the people were doing things that displeased the LORD.)

New Testament prophecy has been fuzzy in my mind. Listed above is a New Testament prophecy. That is what verse 67 tell us. So how  does a New Testament prophecy read?

1. Praise the Lord
2. A brief statement of what has happened recently
3. The future result of what has happened recently
4. Prediction of the future for John (the Baptizer)

Then a look back from years later at how the prediction (4) came true.

Malachi 2:10 (New Living Translation)

Are we not all children of the same Father? Are we not all created by the same God? Then why do we betray each other, violating the covenant of our ancestors?

The prophet Malachi brings to mind something that was oft forgotten by God’s people in the Old Testament era. It is also something oft forgotten by Christians today as we read the Old Testament.

The Israelites were one big, (not so) happy, blood-related family.

They were all descended from Jacob. There were a big bunch of cousins and distant cousins and aunts and uncles and so on.  The terrible things they did to one another – they were doing these things to their family. How could they be so cruel to their own blood relatives?

Fast forward a few thousand years…How can we today be so cruel to those people who are our brothers and sisters bound to us by the blood of Jesus? Hmmm.

Isaiah 56:1 (New Living Translation)

This is what the Lord says:

Isaiah 55:8-9 (New Living Translation)

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.
“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
⁹ For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

How much higher are the heavens than the earth? Where does the earth end and the sky begin? If I jump off the ground, am I in the sky? I suppose some philosophers will debate these questions endlessly. Maybe there is merit in those debates; maybe not.

For me, the earth and the heavens are two different places. Like a one-zero situation (I’m a computer person). You are in one of the places or in the other. You don’t move between them. They are simply different.

These are the LORD’s thoughts compared to mine. The LORD’s thoughts are not higher than mine, not better, not deeper. The LORD’s thoughts cannot be compared to mine. They are simply different. I can’t go there; I can’t imagine them.

Still, the LORD knows me, loves me, and has provided for me. Thank you LORD.

This post is a little different. Instead of noting a scripture, I will write about teaching and what may be happening in the class you are teaching or what may be happening with the people in the audience when you are preaching.

Speakers: Please note that your message may not be the most important thing in the life of the listeners. Their mind may be consumed by something else that is far more important to them.

A few obvious examples:

• Their grandmother is at home about to die of heart failure
• Their elderly parent is at home slipping quickly into senility
• Their son is dodging bullets in the Middle East
• Their best friend from high school is on life support after an auto accident

It is pretty easy to list other examples of things that would draw someone’s mind away from your speech.

Listeners  in a church setting are far more prone to be somewhere else in their heart and mind than in other settings. This is because in a church setting we discuss topics that are deeper than in other places.

For example:

We preach about loving that person at work who is hard to love. During such a sermon, I would hope that people listening would shut off their ears and concentrate their heart and mind on that person at work who they haven’t been loving.

We preach about ministering to the poor. During such a sermon, I would hope that people listening would shut off their ears and concentrate their heart and mind on that homeless person that they have walked past and ignored for weeks.

Hence, if you are preaching or teaching, don’t worry if someone in the attendance doesn’t remember the last three quarters of your message. You have said something that turned off their ears and turned on their heart and mind. And those latter things are far more important.

3 John (New Living Translation)

⁹ I wrote to the church about this, but Diotrephes, who loves to be the leader, refuses to have anything to do with us. ¹⁰ When I come, I will report some of the things he is doing and the evil accusations he is making against us. Not only does he refuse to welcome the traveling teachers, he also tells others not to help them. And when they do help, he puts them out of the church.

Here we have Diotrephes. He:

1. Makes evil accusations
2. Refuses to welcome traveling missionaries
3. Tells others to refuse to welcome traveling missionaries
4. Puts people out of the church who do welcome traveling missionaries

Also note this – Diotrephes is a Christian brother. He is a member of the church (how else could he put people out of the church if he was not in it?).

In John’s three letters, he often writes about people who deny that Jesus is the Christ, i.e., the one anointed to take away the sins of the world. John writes to have nothing to do with those people. Note that Diotrephes does not teach that false teaching.

So, you are a Christian brother. What would you say to Diotrephes? What kind of conversation would you have with our Christian brother?

Ezekiel 43:12 (New Living Translation)

And this is the basic law of the Temple: absolute holiness! The entire top of the mountain where the Temple is built is holy. Yes, this is the basic law of the Temple.

My eyes focus on verses like this one. Verses that proclaim things like

this is the basic law of the Temple

and

this is the sum of the law and the prophets

and

the Lord’s will is this

For His Temple, the LORD wanted absolute Holiness. So what is Holiness? There are several answers. One is that something that was Holy was set apart for the LORD. The Temple was set apart for the LORD. No thing else and no one else was to be honored at the Temple. Only the LORD was to be honored and worshiped there.

Well, the people didn’t quite hold to that. They put statues of other gods in the Temple. They put images of other gods in the Temple. They performed worship ceremonies of other gods in the Temple. The Temple was not set apart just for the LORD. It was not Holy.

2 Chronicles 36:21 (New Living Translation)

So the message of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah was fulfilled. The land finally enjoyed its Sabbath rest, lying desolate until the seventy years were fulfilled, just as the prophet had said.

The people of Judah were taken captive to Babylon. No one was left to farm. What happened to the land? It rested.

The concept of the Sabbath (1/7th) rest was not just for the LORD’s people. It extended to the land that the LORD gave His people. Greed, however, caused the people to forget about letting the land rest. If the land was producing crops, why let it lay? Why give it a rest? It was just a bunch of dirt.

The LORD gave the land a rest, and the rest was not what the people wanted.

Guess what? The LORD will have His way. We can obey Him in His way or we can disobey Him. The result will be the same. We can be blessed in His way or we can suffer in His way. The choice is ours.

Drunkenness, cheating on my spouse, hating my neighbor. I can do this things if I want as God gives me that choice. I can be blessed in His way (avoiding these things listed) or I can suffer in His way. I can do these things all I want and suffer through them.

The LORD told His people to let the land rest because that is what was best. The LORD tells me how to live because that is what is best. I can listen or ignore.

Micah 6:8 (New Living Translation)

No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good,
and this is what he requires of you:
to do what is right, to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with your God

This is one of my favorite verses in the Bible. I ran across it again in the annual Bible reading. This time in the New Living Translation. It reads much the same, still fabulous.

Jeremiah 22:1-3 (New Living Translation)

This is what the Lord said to me: “Go over and speak directly to the king of Judah. Say to him,² ‘Listen to this message from the Lord, you king of Judah, sitting on David’s throne. Let your attendants and your people listen, too. ³ This is what the Lord says: Be fair-minded and just. Do what is right! Help those who have been robbed; rescue them from their oppressors. Quit your evil deeds! Do not mistreat foreigners, orphans, and widows. Stop murdering the innocent!

The LORD has a message for the king of Judah. What do you think it is?

Ensure the priests put the blood on the right thumb and the big toe of their right foot and their right ear lobe
Ensure the people bring exactly one tenth of their possessions
Post a lookout to see exactly when the sun sets to begin the Sabbath day

If you guessed any of the above, you were wrong. No, instead, the LORD wants the king of Judah to…(wait for this one)

Do what is right

Hmmm, think on that one a while. A person could do all sorts of things that would fall under that single task. I mean, I could spend all day doing what is right in many situations and not exhaust all those right-things-to-do. Maybe that is what the LORD wanted. Just do what is right.