Contemplative Bible Reading

Zechariah 8:16 (New Living Translation)

16 But this is what you must do: Tell the truth to each other. Render verdicts in your courts that are just and that lead to peace.

God is talking to the people through the prophet Zechariah. The preceding sections tell how God is going to restore the people. The good times are returning. Everyone be happy about this.

And then comes direction of what you must do when the good times return. Save the money? Sing songs? Build up the army? Invest in the arts? What? What is it the people must do when the good times return?

• Tell the truth to each other.
• Render just verdicts in court that lead to peace.

Well, uh, seems sort of ordinary. Surely there must be something magnificent to do? Nope. Just these plain old things. Truth. Justice. Peace. Hmm. Plain old stuff. Perhaps there is something magnificent hidden in this plain old stuff. Perhaps we think too much and strategize too much and lean on our own brain power too much.

Truth. Justice. Peace. Something we must do.

Romans 9:11b-12a (New Living Translation)

11 (This message shows that God chooses people according to his own purposes; 12 he calls people, but not according to their good or bad works.)

I am quoting an odd scripture or an odd translation of scripture. This is a phrase in parentheses that spans two verses. Odd way to put something, but I didn’t do the translation. Anyways…

Paul is writing to the Christians in Rome and mentions how God used Rebekah, the wife of the patriarch Isaac. It gives me one insight into the workings of God. I don’t always like the way God works, but that is a problem I have with God being God and me not being God (a common failing).

God chooses people to do the things God wants accomplished here on earth. There is something to be done, and God knows who is the right person to do it. God doesn’t worry too much about the person’s prior actions. God chooses.

Well, surely God would choose those whom I would choose? Right? Wrong. God chose David, the runt of the family of Jesse. God chose Samuel, a little boy not in the tribe of Levi. God chose Peter, a conniving fellow who often spoke before thinking. God chose Zacchaeus, a small fellow who couldn’t work like a man so he chose tax theft to make a living. The list of examples goes on.

God chooses people to His own purposes. I don’t know where God is going with something. I don’t understand how God chooses or why or when or where. Serve God in whatever way.

Malachi 1:14 (New Living Translation)

14 “Cursed is the cheat who promises to give a fine ram from his flock but then sacrifices a defective one to the Lord. For I am a great king,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “and my name is feared among the nations!

Cursed is the cheater. The cheater promises a fine animal for a sacrifice. Then on sacrifice day, the cheater brings in a ram that is defective and would die in a day or too from its defects.

There are several things about the cheater. One, the cheater says one thing, but does something else. Just say something nice and expected in front of people, but turn around and do whatever whenever when no one is there.

Another, the cheater is less than devoted to God. Yes, the cheater brings in a ram and gives it away. Okay, giving up livestock is giving up money. The cheater, however, gives up a ram that is almost worthless. The cheater’s flock is better without that defective ram. The cheater benefits from his less-than-devoted choices.

Cursed is the cheat. Not a good place to be.

Romans 8:12 (New Living Translation)

12 Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do.

Hear ye! Hear ye! You (we) are not obligated to your sinful nature.

The word obligated (oblige) means to bind morally or legally, as by a promise or contract. If I am obligated to something, I have a binding contract with that something. I must do what the contract says.

Paul writes to the Christians in Rome. Hey, we have a sinful nature. Here, however, is the good news: we are not obligated to the sinful nature. We don’t have a binding contract with the sinful nature. We are not forced by some sense of law or morality to do the things the sinful nature urges us to do.

We are free from the sinful nature and we can do the righteous things God encourages!

Wait a minute. We live in a dog-eat-dog world. Look out for number one. Don’t take any gruff from anyone. Don’t get even, get ahead. All that stuff. Nope. No obligation to any of that worldly wisdom from the sinful nature.

Great news. We are free. Let’s live like it. Please God, help me to live like it.

Luke 11:53-54 (New Living Translation)

53 As Jesus was leaving, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees became hostile and tried to provoke him with many questions. 54 They wanted to trap him into saying something they could use against him.

As Jesus continues the earthly ministry, teachers of the religious law and Pharisees didn’t like Jesus. Jesus spoke too candidly and pointed to their failings as religious leaders.

Here’s an idea: ask questions. Ask leading questions. Ask trick questions. We can trick Jesus into saying one thing, then double back on his words to show that Jesus wasn’t so smart and so right all the time. That will do it!

This is pretty easy to do. Use carefully chosen words. Toss in a few specific dates and events. Catch the person when they are not concentrating. Then…BANG! Got ’em. Tricked ’em. Trapped ’em. This is pretty easy to do.

And as a result? Well, I’ve showed that I can be more clever than another person. I have won an intellectual argument. And as a result? I have a new enemy. Another person despises me.

And as a result? That isn’t what I am supposed to be doing here and now. That isn’t showing love, compassion, concern, good will, or anything good. It is just bad intentions followed by bad actions that somehow prove that I am superior in some twisted way. Nope. All wrong.

Instead, use the brains God gave me to find ways to love and build up others into the love of God. Much better that way. Please God, help me in my unbelief.

Romans 6:12 (New Living Translation)

12 Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires.

What controls the way I live? One simple thing is the fatigue that this body experiences. I sleep about a third of the day. Another simple thing is this body requires energy. I eat and drink. Basic controls.

Many other things and other persons control the way I live. How about rebelling against God? That is called “sin.” As a frail human, I have sin. As a follower of Jesus Christ, my sins are washed away. Still, sin is all around me. Do I allow that to control me? In some good ways, yes. I see abundant sin and I take a sharp turn to go around it and avoid it. In other ways…well, not so good. Still, God has provided a cleansing from sin via grace and forgiveness.

Thanks be to God for unwavering mercy. Please God, continue to help me in my unbelief.

Malachi 2:3 (New Living Translation)

3 I will punish your descendants and splatter your faces with the manure from your festival sacrifices, and I will throw you on the manure pile.

God is speaking to the people through the prophet Malachi. In particular, God is addressing the priests who have not been conducting the Temple worship in any way, shape, or form according to instructions. In one of the more forgotten or most not-quoted verses of the Bible—yikes—God promises to splatter the faces of the priests with the manure of the sacrificed animals.

Something lost in translation? Nope. I looked in several other translations, even the good old King James Version, and they all contain pretty much the same thing. The King James says “dung” instead of “manure,” but the same thing.

This is not a pretty picture. This is not a pretty odor. Toss in the rest of the physical senses as well and it doesn’t come up pretty in any of them. Why?

Sometimes God uses plain language to describe what is happening and what God will do as a response. Sometimes it is gross and ugly. Sometimes that is necessary to make a point. There are ways God wants us to live. There are reactions when we just don’t follow God’s guidance. Please God, help me in my unbelief.

Acts 8:1 (New Living Translation)

1 Saul was one of the witnesses, and he agreed completely with the killing of Stephen. A great wave of persecution began that day, sweeping over the church in Jerusalem; and all the believers except the apostles were scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria.

This is one of those transition verses in the New Testament. Stephen had just been stoned to death for teaching that Jesus was the Messiah sent by God to take away the sins of the world. The religious leaders of the Jews had Jesus crucified by the Romans for what Jesus said and did. The religious leaders had Stephen executed in the Jewish manner of stoning.

The next event was a great wave of persecution that caused Christians in Jerusalem to scatter or head for the hills. Just leave behind everything and run with what you could carry. That was a major and horrible upheaval in the lives of these Christians.

I would think someone would have told Stephen to tone it down a bit. Preach the good news of Jesus, but don’t slam the religious leaders so hard. I mean, surely someone asked Stephen to … well, not enrage the religious leaders. It could lead to bad things.

Stephen didn’t tone it down. A great wave of persecution did happen. That was terrible, right? Well, in the short term of course it was terrible. The scattering, however, had the result of all these Christians going all over the place and explaining their changed lives to everyone they met.

Stephen’s hard line and loud teaching created missionaries. God works in mysterious ways. Sometimes the ways hurt many Christians for a time. Please God, help me to accept your ways and help me in my unbelief.

Daniel 5:23 (New Living Translation)

23 For you have proudly defied the Lord of heaven and have had these cups from his Temple brought before you. You and your nobles and your wives and concubines have been drinking wine from them while praising gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone—gods that neither see nor hear nor know anything at all. But you have not honored the God who gives you the breath of life and controls your destiny!

Daniel is talking to King Belshazzar of Babylon. This is part of the (hi)story of the writing on the wall in which a mysterious hand writes a message on the wall that no one can read. Daniel is called and he reads the message. Before reading the message of doom for King Belshazzar, Daniel says the above.

King Belshazzar was having a feast. That is a nice way of saying that the King and guests were becoming falling down drunk and engaging in all sorts of accompanying debauchery. As part of the lewd acts, King Belshazzar brings in the sacred cups stolen from the Temple in Jerusalem. The King used these cups to worship “gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone”—a bunch of junk.

Daniel chastises the King (a death-inducing practice). You King, you worship junk. You King, you do not honor the true God who gives you the breath of life. Do golden statues give the breath of life? Do rocks give the breath of life? Of course not. How could anyone so powerful have so little brain power? What is wrong with the King and those with him?

Idolatry leads to stupidity. I guess.

The fate of King Belshazzar was written on the wall. He was assassinated that night.

Romans 1:32 (New Living Translation)

32 They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.

There is a system of justice from God. Certain acts require the punishment of death. Some are listed prior to the above verse and include: wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, gossip, backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. We still use some of this justice system today (murder merits capital punishment). Some of the justice system we have abandoned (capital punishment for gossiping?).

Paul writes to the Christians in Rome that breaking this system is bad. Worse yet is encouraging others to break the system as well. That was happening. It wasn’t enough to be lawless, the law breakers wanted others to join them.

They do we do these things? We do we invite others to mess up with us? Surely we would know better. How does God tolerate us. Thank you God for your grace. Help me in my unbelief.