Contemplative Bible Reading

Revelation 2:2 (New Living Translation)

I know you don’t tolerate evil people. You have examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but are not. You have discovered they are liars.

John is writing to the (angel or messenger of) church of Ephesus. John commends them for not tolerating evil people.

Good. There it is! Don’t tolerate those evil people! Away with them! And there are so many evil people, where do we start? And, by the way, if we do away with those evil people, how will we tell them about Jesus?

Oh wait, there is more. (It pays to keep reading.) The intolerable “evil people” mentioned here are those who say they are apostles or teachers of Jesus, but they are not. They are liars when it comes to their relationship with Jesus.

Hmmm. Once again we see indication that there is a difference between the evil outside the Christians and the evil inside the Christians. One is tolerable reality and one is intolerable and should not exist.

We live in an age of tolerance. If someone excludes someone else, they are excluded because of their exclusion-ing. I didn’t make that up folks. If it sounds odd, well, we live in odd times.

God shows us that tolerance is intolerable in some places at some times with some people. Please God, grant me the wisdom to know where, when, and with whom.

Revelation 1:9 (New Living Translation)

9 I, John, am your brother and your partner in suffering and in God’s Kingdom and in the patient endurance to which Jesus calls us. I was exiled to the island of Patmos for preaching the word of God and for my testimony about Jesus.

This sentence is early in the Revelation written by John and kept at the end of our current New Testament. John preached the word of God and preached that the carpenter’s son from Nazareth was the Son of God sent to take away our sins. Because of this preaching, John was exiled to a little rock out in the Mediterranean Sea.

Patmos is still a little rock out there in no where. There are 3,000 persons living there today to host tourists who want to see the place of John’s exile. Still nothing happening there.

One of the lessons we can learn is that for a Christian, there is no exile. John probably lived in one of the many caves in the rock of the island. While there, John prayed and listened to what God told him. He recorded God’s words of the doom of Satan.

Paul was exiled to prison several times. While in prison, he prayed and listened to what God told him. He recorded God’s words for mankind.

Seems this “exile” business did the opposite of what some folks wanted to happen. They wanted to shut up some of these folks who talked about Jesus as the Son of God. The result was these folks wrote things that have been read by countless others over the last 20 centuries.

Is it possible to “exile” a Christian? Is it possible to send a Christian so far away that they cannot listen to God? It appears that exiling a Christian is impossible.

Stuck somewhere? Listen to God. Please God, help me to listen and do what it is you wish.

Ephesians 2:9 (New Living Translation)

9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.

Here we have a sentence I hate and love. I mean, I’m a good guy—always have been. I have always done good things. Look at me. (Seriously.) Being saved by God from evil is not a reward. It is a gift. God is graceful in salvation as a gift.

I get it. I understand all this. Still, look at me. I am a good guy doing things that good guys do. Surely there is some benefit in all this. I mean, sometimes I give up things I like so I can do good for others. That must bring me something, huh?

Sure, doing good brings lots of good to me. Satisfaction. Smiles. Hugs. Thanks. Salvation from God? Not in the list.

Why do all those good things? Some of the reasons were listed above. Another reason is that God gave me the resources to do good things. Not everyone in every place on earth in every year of the last 2,000 of them has had the resources to do good things. Wow! What a blessing!

Thank you God. Thank you for salvation that comes free. Thank you for all that allows me to do good things.

Galatians 1:11 (New Living Translation)

11 Dear brothers and sisters, I want you to understand that the gospel message I preach is not based on mere human reasoning.

This is taken from a letter that Paul wrote to Christians living in Galatia. Paul was a reasonable and reasoning person. The text of the Acts of the Apostles states that Paul had a custom of going to Synagogues and reasoning with people from the scriptures.

The gospel message, however, is not based on mere human reasoning. No one taught the gospel message to Paul. Instead, it is based on revelation from God.

This all makes sense. None of this makes sense. The reasonable Paul is not reasonable. The reasonable Paul lives by faith, by something unseen and un-see-able. He teaches good news from God.

We live in a scientific or post-scientific age (I lost track of these things). We live by electricity, central heat, central air conditioning, refrigeration, smartphones, smart TVs, reasonable everything. We revolt against all this on days when it is convenient, but the other 90% of the time we bathe in it.

Good news from God? Well, we enjoy the good news from the electric company, Apple, and Samsung. Those folks are reasonable. No wonder I need so much forgiveness for my unbelief.

Numbers 11:1 (New Living Translation)

1 Soon the people began to complain about their hardship,

Life was tough. Times were hard. I guess so, right, otherwise the people would not be complaining about the hardships.

Let’s see, in the words preceding this verse God had given the people instructions for living. These instructions were put in a a special container called the Ark of the Covenant. When it was time to break camp and walk, trumpets sounded and a million people packed up and moved on.

God showed them where to go to find food and water and safety and peace.

Well, I don’t like walking around with a million friends and sleeping in tents either. That is a hardship, right? Then we consider being beaten daily while trying to make bricks without straw and having any worthy boy or girl taken from my family to be abused by those who “owned” me and all that slavery in Egypt stuff.

Hardship? Yes, parts of life were hard. Complaining was easy. Memories of the past were nicer than the reality of the present.

And every morning God guided them in the way they should go.

Whoa, wait a minute. Every morning? God guided? I wish I could… Oh wait, I can claim that. Hardship? Who am I kidding? Thank you God.

Leviticus 17:7 (New Living Translation)

7 The people must no longer be unfaithful to the Lord by offering sacrifices to the goat idols. This is a permanent law for them, to be observed from generation to generation.

People used to worship goats. Goats? Yes, goats. Goats were common livestock that provided milk and meat and didn’t require as many resources as cows. If you sacrificed to the goat idol, your goats and sheep and other livestock would breed and produce more and more.

Goats? Yes, goats. Odd at what different people in different places would worship. Delve into it further and you sort of get the picture. But goats?

Of all the things to attribute supernatural power to, we have the goat. Hindsight shows those folks as pretty stupid. Not smart and scientific and logical and reasonable and … oh, like us? Oh, well, maybe on some days we are. Then we scream at a pothole for jolting our car. Let’s see, we attribute supernatural power to a hole in the ground because it “hurt” our car (a machine without feelings).

Goats are goats. Holes in the ground are holes in the ground. God is God. We ought to be able to keep that straight, but… Please God help me in my unbelief.

Job 28:28 (New Living Translation)

“And this is what he (God) says to all humanity:
‘The fear of the Lord is true wisdom;
to forsake evil is real understanding.’”

Job is talking. Job is relaying what he learned from a conversation with God.

Real understanding means to forsake evil. “Forsake” is one of those Bible words that we don’t use much anymore. Internet dictionaries define it as, “to turn away from entirely.”

Notice what Job does not say about evil. He does not say “eliminate” or “wipe out” evil. He says to, “Just say NO. Turn the other direction and walk away.”

Evil is here. That is the way it is; that is the way it has been. Live with it. Rather, live away from it. See it? Turn the other way and walk.

Note: See other people in evil? Don’t walk away from them. Love them. Show them a different path. Show them a life away from evil. Pray with them.

Exodus 31:15 (New Living Translation)

15 You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day must be a Sabbath day of complete rest, a holy day dedicated to the Lord. Anyone who works on the Sabbath must be put to death.

Moses is passing along words from God to the people. The seventh day was for rest. It was “holy” meaning that it was a day set apart from the others by Jehovah, the Creator God.

Observing the Sabbath was not just a county ordinance. It was a gift from God. Resting on the seventh day was something that said, “We are following after Jehovah God.” Working on the seventh day was something that said, “We follow our own ways. Jehovah God? Meh.”

It wasn’t the work; it wasn’t the rest. It was about the relationship to God. It was about accepting a gift from God.

Salvation is a gift from God. Rejecting that gift brings death. No one is going to “round up the unbelievers” and shoot them. Inevitable death comes. Salvation is now. Thank you God.

Numbers 13 (New Living Translation)

30 But Caleb tried to quiet the people as they stood before Moses. “Let’s go at once to take the land,” he said. “We can certainly conquer it!”

This speech by Caleb comes after 12 men had explored the land the people were about to enter. Caleb was one of the two wise persons in the exploration party. Still, notice what Caleb says, “We can certainly conquer it!”

The subject of that sentence is “We.”

Roll back up the page to the first couple of verses of the chapter,

1 The Lord now said to Moses, 2 “Send out men to explore the land of Canaan, the land I am giving to the Israelites. Send one leader from each of the twelve ancestral tribes.”

God describes Canaan as, “the land I am giving to the Israelites.” The subject of the sentence is “I” or God. God gave them the land. Caleb said that the people could conquer the land.

Let me think on this one. I can choose to allow God to give me something or I can choose to do all the work myself and conquer something. (1) God gives it to me. (2) I work hard and conquer it.

It seems that I always choose (2), the path where I work hard. What is wrong with choice (1), the path were God gives something to me and I humbly accept it? Why is it that I want to work so hard and do it myself?

Exodus 20:1-2 (New Living Translation)

1 Then God gave the people all these instructions:

2 “I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery.

These verses are the preamble or introduction to the Ten Commandments. God has the attention of the people. Let’s get one thing straight before we begin.

“I am Jehovah (YHWH) the God that you worship. I rescued you from slavery in Egypt. Therefore…”

Oh, well, uh, I guess we should pay attention to what comes next. I mean, uh, that slavery thing was a big deal and not being in slavery sure feels good and, well, okay, what comes next? What came next were page after page of how to live in their time and place. The peoples around them read those instructions as well and proclaimed how wonderful the instructions were.

And now for the part where we write about today. “I am God. I sent my Son to you to take away all your sins and make you clean enough to be with me. Therefore…”

Then came a few thoughts of about living with an attitude that made life much easier, pleasant, enjoyable. We could be here and enjoy life with God and God’s creation. Think about God. Love and serve one another. Be faithful to God and one another. Such an attitude respects others and their property. Breathe more. Bless more. Why would anyone not follow this “Therefore…”

Please God, help me in my unbelief.