Contemplative Bible Reading

Matthew 5:21-22 (New Living Translation)

21 “You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’ 22 But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell.

Once again, America is on fire. Marches and rioting and fires. This is about racism in our lives. Well, no it isn’t. Race discussions draw attention away from the root of the matter.

This is about police brutality. Agents of the state are out of control. We should reconsider the role of Christians in the kingdom of God and how we relate to local kingdoms. No, it isn’t about police brutality, that only draws attention away from the root of the matter.

Jesus spoke of the root of the matter. Murder brought judgement—death by stoning. Jesus updates the teaching: anger at another person created in the image of God brings judgement. Hmmm, we have to … well, maybe there is a problem in translation here, because it is okay to be angry at the cop who killed that man or that woman who called the police or that person who…

No, its not okay. And we know its not okay. No one discovered these verses this week. The verses have been right in front of us all our lives, and we know what they mean.

It is not okay to scowl at the person who is or is not wearing a mask at the grocery store. It is not okay to scowl at the person who sped through a yellow light at the corner. It is not okay to scowl at the person who killed another person. It is not okay to scowl at the guy who just parked his car next to me blocking the street while he picks up a carry out order at Chick-Fil-A—and that is happening to me as I type these words.

This is a difficult teaching. (Hmmm, that phrase is somewhere in the Bible.)

This shows how far we are from God. This shows how much help I need from God in my unbelief.

Let’s focus on the root of the problem. Let us all examine the one person who we can affect.

Leviticus 26:13 (English Standard Version)

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

God is talking to His people. God reminds them of their recent past as slaves in Egypt. Their yoke is gone.

A yoke sits literally on the neck of an animal. The people had a figurative yoke weighing on their neck. God removed that.

God’s work made the people walk erect. Other translations use the phrase “walk with their heads held high.” Just as animals with a yoke cannot walk with their heads held high, slaves cannot walk with their heads high—erect.

At this point in this little post, we jump to today. Maybe I can walk physically erect with my head held high. Maybe not. That isn’t important.

What is important is that spiritually, I walk erect. I am not ducking the swings of someone who wants to swat me every time I make a mistake, every time I sin. All my mistakes (sins) are washed away. (Of course I can abuse this cleansing, but that is another post for another day.)

Whew. What a relief. All that ducking all those attempted swats is exhausting. I would eventually stay in the ducked position like an ox with a yoke on his … Oh wait, this is where God stepped in and took all that away.

Thank you God for taking away the yoke that kept me bent in a perpetual ducking position. Help me in my unbelief.

1 Samuel 7:10 (New Living Translation)

Just as Samuel was sacrificing the burnt offering, the Philistines arrived to attack Israel. But the Lord spoke with a mighty voice of thunder from heaven that day, and the Philistines were thrown into such confusion that the Israelites defeated them.

This verse was written during the time of the prophet Samuel. The Philistines were about to attack God’s people. They were in a good position when viewed from military science.

The Israelites defeated the Philistines. Thunder confused the Philistines. The thunder came from the mighty voice of God.

Well, that doesn’t make any sense. Well, that makes perfectly good sense. Loud noise is disorienting. That is why fans scream loudest when the other team is trying to do something in a sport. There is a physical pressure put on the brain by loud noise. God thundered in the ears of the Philistines; they stumbled in confusion.

Simple. Effective. And something that makes me wonder. If it rains today, is that just another rainy day or is God using rain to tell me something? Am I listening for God?

Exodus 9:16 (New Living Translation)

But I have spared you for a purpose—to show you my power and to spread my fame throughout the earth.

God is talking to Moses. God is talking about Pharoah.

God was going to bring His people out of Egypt. There were many ways to do this. One simple way was to snap a finger and boom, it was done. That wasn’t God’s choice.

Instead, God was going to use Pharoah—a person famous throughout the world—to declare the glory of God to the world. Pharoah was to be a preacher. History shows that Pharoah was a great preacher of God’s glory. Thousands of years later, a few billion people know of Pharoah, Egypt, the plagues, the Exodus, the Red Sea, and Pharoah’s glorious death.

All praise to Pharoah for his sacrificial service to God. Huh?

Yes, Pharoah gave his life to the glory of God. Huh?

Yes, through Pharoah’s death and the death of his army, people then and 30 centuries later know about the power of God.

Strange that God would use Pharoah to declare His glory. Is it any stranger that God would use me? Not really. No stranger than God using anyone else rich or poor, famous or unknown, and any other extremes we could consider.

God uses each of us in different ways on different days in different situations. Sometimes it makes sense to us, usually it doesn’t. Still, God help me in my unbelief as You use me in unbelievable ways.

John 1:31-34 (New Living Translation)

31 I did not recognize him as the Messiah, but I have been baptizing with water so that he might be revealed to Israel.”

32 Then John testified, “I saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove from heaven and resting upon him. 33 I didn’t know he was the one, but when God sent me to baptize with water, he told me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descend and rest is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I saw this happen to Jesus, so I testify that he is the Chosen One of God.”

John the Baptist is talking. John met many people. Large crowds came out to see him. John was from a big family, lots of distant relatives.

Jesus of Nazareth was one of John’s cousins. John saw cousin Jesus in the crowd one day. Note verse 31, John saw his cousin and didn’t recognize cousin Jesus as the Messiah. Just good old cousin Jesus.

Then John saw the Holy Spirit descend on cousin Jesus and rest on him. Hmmm. Odd. Then John remembered something God had told him. John would see the Holy Spirit rest on the Messiah.

Let’s pause a moment and try to be John. Cousin Jesus; nice fellow. Son of Uncle Joseph who had a little carpentry shop up in that poor village of Nazareth. Uncle Joseph made basic stuff from wood. Nothing fancy because no one in Nazareth could afford anything fancy. Poor country cousins, not like John who was from the big, rich city of Jerusalem.

But here was the Holy Spirit descending on poor country cousin Jesus. Hmmm. Perhaps I misheard what God told me. Perhaps my eyes played tricks on me. This cousin Jesus, why he couldn’t be…could he?

Despite all that made sense, John the Baptist proceeded with what he heard from God and what he saw with his own eyes. From that point on, he proclaimed that his cousin Jesus was the Chosen One of God.

God speaks to us with Spiritual means. Sometimes God speaks to us through our ears and eyes. God, help me to be aware of both the spiritual and physical.

John 20:13 (New Living Translation)

“Dear woman, why are you crying?” the angels asked her.

“Because they have taken away my Lord,” she replied, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”

This is on the morning of Jesus’ resurrection. Mary Magdalene finds an empty tomb. Jesus is gone. She doesn’t assume that Jesus has risen from the dead. She doesn’t assume anything.

Mary knows what she knows: she doesn’t know where Jesus is.

She weeps. What else could she do? This is a person who doesn’t know where to seek her Savior.

This is the state of many persons throughout history up to today. They know they need a Savior; they don’t know where to seek their Savior.

Through the grace of God and my family, I know where to seek the Savior. So, what am I doing with and for those who weep inside because they are like Mary, they don’t know where to seek their Savior.

1 Kings 6:35 (New Living Translation)

These doors were decorated with carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers—all overlaid evenly with gold.

People understand symbols. See the outline of an apple with a bite taken out of it? What does that symbolize? We all know.

The verse above is describing part of the interior of the Temple that was being built by King Solomon. These three symbols—cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers—were found throughout.

The cherubim was the angels, the highest form of spiritual being.

The palm tree was living and growing and supplied much of what people needed for life. Remember how people spread palm leaves on the ground for the entry of Jesus?

The open flower was nature at its best—open, blossomed, beautiful, but temporary.

People of the day understood the symbols. God was spiritual—far better than man. God understood the physical—where we lived day by day with things for sustenance and other things for inspiration.

All these things came together when Jesus the spiritual Son came to the physical earth to give us spiritual grace and bless our physical lives here. All foretold by a few carvings on a few doors.

Exodus 6:9 (English Standard Version)

Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.

Moses is speaking to his relatives, the Israelites who are slaves in Egypt. They have been in Egypt 400 years. For the most recent few generations, they have been under harsh and forced labor.

Their spirit was broken. Their discouragement was something few of us today understand.

With a broken spirit came the inability to hear a messenger from God.

I don’t have a broken spirit. I know some persons who do. Some of us know persons who have a broken spirit. Clogged ears often come with a broken spirit today as 3,000 years ago.

Pray for healed and healthy spirits. Open ears and hearts usually come with them. With open ears come great possibilities for hearing and accepting the Good News that changes lives.

2 Corinthians 5:21 (New Living Translation)

For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

There are a few places in the Bible where one sentence summarizes the entire thing. We should take note of these sentences. There are many ways to discuss this. Let’s try one.

The last phrase is a miracle (one of several in the sentence). The last phrase tells us that the sacrifice of Jesus makes us right with God.

How can I be right with God? Are you kidding? Me? My life is abhorrent to God. There is nothing in my life that appeals to God. Yet, here it is. I am right with God.

What did I do to deserve this? Nothing. What can I do to keep it up? Nothing. Nothing at all. Jesus did it. It is done. I am right with God.

Whoa. Now what am I suppose to do? Well, readers and followers of Jesus, that is what the vast majority of the rest of the New Testament discusses. Mankind’s search for what to do now that we are in this state of right-ness with God.

John 20:8-9 (New Living Translation)

Then the disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in, and he saw and believed— for until then they still hadn’t understood the Scriptures that said Jesus must rise from the dead.

Jesus has been crucified and buried in the tomb. On the first day of the week various persons discovered that Jesus was no longer dead.

These verses tells us that the Scriptures, i.e., what we call the Old Testament, had foretold that Jesus would die, be buried, and would rise from the dead. The followers, however, didn’t understand what had been written. They didn’t understand that Jesus would rise.

Today, we have all sorts of written words. We have the full Bible in front of us. We have published commentaries containing tens of thousands of words for every word in the Bible—ten thousand words explaining every single word. And then we have all these extra works on the Internet in commentaries and contemplations such as this one.

Do we understand? Do we understand what was written thousands of years ago? It is right in front of us, and we have so much leisure time to read and understand. Do we understand?

Sorry, but my answer is, “Probably not.” The followers of Jesus were pretty smart. Yet they didn’t understand. Am I any smarter, wiser, or more understanding? Probably not. God, please help me in my unbelief.