Contemplative Bible Reading

Luke 24:9-12 (New International Version)

9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.

I like things to make sense. I take great care with my words, because I want them to make sense. That doesn’t seem too outlandish, does it?

Yet here in verse 11 we some of the most wonderful words ever spoken. And those words seemed like nonsense. These women were declaring that Jesus had risen from death.

The Gospel, the good news about Jesus Christ, is all nonsense to man. God comes to earth in physical form. He lives among us. He dies and rises from death. We are to love one another – even our enemies. All nonsense.

Then there is the most nonsense of all – His death make us clean in His sight. We are free from the just punishment of sin.

All nonsense; all true.
God, help me to have a little more nonsense in my life.

1 John 4:7-8 (New International Version)

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

I see a promise and a challenge here. First the promise, love comes from God. If I know God, I have love in me; I have an unlimited capacity to love God and love my fellow man. God has given me the capacity to obey the two greatest commands (love God and love man).

What a wonderful promise. What a wonderful gift. I no longer have to ask myself, “Do I have enough love in me to love that person over there whom the world sees as unlovable?” I know I have enough in me.

Now the challenge in verse 8. If I do not love; if I do not love that unlovable person over there, I do not know God. If I do not know God, what am I doing reading the New Testament? What am I doing believing that I am a Christian? Why am I wasting all my time and effort.

I need to love the unlovable. I need to love when others treat me unfairly. I need to love or else I cannot claim to know God.

If I do not know God, will He then know me? Will he claim me?

The promise: God has given me enough love for whatever situation and whatever person.

The challenge: love or I really don’t know God.

Proverbs 24:1 (New International Version)

Do not envy wicked men, do not desire their company

Sometimes I want to “get somebody back.” They have done something to me that I don’t like. I want to do something back to them that they won’t like.

In such cases, I am envying the wicked. I envy their ability to hurt others. I want to do what they do and escape retribution the way they (seem to) escape it.

Such is the alure of evil. It is folly.

John 12:27 (New International Version)“Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.

This is the Christian’s story. People come our way. Situations occur. These are our hours. Do we ask God to save us from these hours?

I hope not. Instead, I hope that I realize that God made me for this hour, that I come to the hour from God to do His work.

So, let me be like Christ. Let me accept this hour as the reason God made me. Let me be Christ-like here and now.

…

Psalms 19:1

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Years ago I was watching TV late at night. The program had a speaker whose name I cannot recall. His theory was that by studying the motion and alignment of the stars and planets, we could predict the second coming of Christ.

His theory was based on these verses. He felt that God had proclaimed to us His plans in the heavens.

I am not sure about his theory. I am sure that I have heard theories that are much worse than his.

I read this verse in Psalms and I think about the heavens – the stars, the planets, our moon.

One of the reasons that I love to visit my mother in rural Louisiana is that she lives far from any city. There is little man-made light pollution at her home. I can stand outside in the dark of the night and see the handiwork of God much better. I love that.

God is glorious. Staring at the heavens gives me a glimpse of His glory.

Exodus 28:2 (New International Version)

Make sacred garments for your brother Aaron, to give him dignity and honor.

Clothes can provide dignity and honor. That makes sense. There is much in culture about dressing for success. How a person looks does have an affect – both positive and negative – on the people around the person.

Does this mean that if you are to stand and do something in church that you should wear a coat and tie? Must women wear dresses not pants to church services?

Some people will respond absolutely yes to this questions. Some people will cringe when they hear these old-fashioned questions. Some people will just shrug, laugh, and go on.

For some people, these questions are heart breakers. They suffered through shame and scorn because of these things.

But, here it is in black and white. Clothing supplies dignity and honor. Shouldn’t we come to church in a manner of dignity and honor? Shouldn’t we do the best we can for God?

I think the key words here are to give him diginity and honor. The clothing gave the diginity and honor to Aaron and the other priests. The clothing didn’t give these to God.

How do we honor and dignify God? I think my fulfilling the two greatest commandments:

1. Love God
2. Love our fellow man

Luke 22:35 (New International Version)

Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?”
“Nothing,” they answered.

Sometimes we have to experience something to believe it. Jesus had sent out his disciples. When they returned, he asked them the simple question:

Did you lack anything?

Their answer,

Nothing.

How about that? Jesus provided everything they needed. He does the same for me today. Sometimes I get busy and am distracted. I think of all sorts of things that I need. I lack nothing as God has provided.

God, help me to see what you have provided and help me to see that I lack nothing.

Jonathon’s father was the King. Jonathon was close to his father. They went into life-and-death combat side by side fighting for their nation.

Jonathon’s father was wrong (when it came to David). Jonathon did what was right (when it came to David). Was Jonathon’s actions easy? No, they were terribly difficult.

How easy is it to go against your parents when they are wrong? How easy is it to go against someone you love when they are wrong?

Sometimes we have to do these difficult things. Sometimes we have to disagree with a parent, a child, someone we love. They are human; they sin and fall short sometimes. At those times we have to disagree. This is not easy; this is not enjoyable, and this may not all work out wonderfully in the end like in the movies.

The phrase “daily bread” is one of the best known in the Bible. The best know use of it is in what we call the Lord’s prayer (here from Matthew 6:11).

Matthew 6:9-13 (New International Version) 9 “This, then, is how you should pray: ” ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Below is another use of daily bread. This one is from Proverbs 30.

Proverbs 30:7-9 (New International Version) 7 “Two things I ask of you, O LORD; do not refuse me before I die: 8 Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. 9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD ?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.

What is daily bread? A literal interpretation is that amount of food I need to survive a day. I think this comes to about 2,000 calories for an adult male.

Using this interpretation, I don’t know if I want to pray Proverbs 30:8. Do I want God to only give me the food that I need for today? I would really like to have more than that. I guess that most of us would like to have more than that. A little spending money on the side seems reasonable to me.

Let’s try another interpretation of daily bread. One thought I have heard is that daily bread is the ability to live through whatever happens today. This fits the passage from Matthew a little better than that from the Proverbs.

Consider this idea: instead of praying, “God, give me a raise tomorrow when I meet with my boss,” pray “God, whatever the outcome of my meeting with my boss, give me the love, strength, patience, knowledge, the whatever I need to make it through the day and remain a faithful Christian.”

Instead of praying, “God, give me a clean bill of health when I talk to my doctor tomorrow,” pray “God, whatever the doctor tells me tomorrow, give me what I need to remember my blessings and treat the news as a way to love and serve You and my fellow man.”

Joshua 7:20-21 (New International Version)20 Achan replied, “It is true! I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel. This is what I have done: 21 When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

“Covet” is one of those words we don’t use much today. Since childhood I have heard the Ten Commandments with one of them being Thou shalt not covet. I suppose as an adult I understood what it meant, but didn’t think about it much. Coveting just wasn’t a big deal.

Then I read these two verses from the book of Joshua. They stung me. They come after one of those battles where God told the people to bring everything they had captured from the enemy to God. Achan didn’t do as instructed. He kept some silver, gold, and clothing for himself.

Achan wanted some things that God did not want him to have. Achan coveted those things. Something pulled at him from the inside until he took what God didn’t want him to have. That feeling is coveting, and coveting led Achan to sin.

God blesses us all and He has certainly blessed me. There are things that God doesn’t want me to have – things that I cannot handle, things that will lead me astray. Do I long for those things? Do I covet them?

God, grant me contentment with the life I have. Keep me from that awful, nagging feeling, that awful longing for things that are not to be mine. Keep me from coveting.