Contemplative Bible Reading

Luke 8:46-48 (New Living Translation)

46 But Jesus said, “Someone deliberately touched me, for I felt healing power go out from me.” 47 When the woman realized that she could not stay hidden, she began to tremble and fell to her knees in front of him. The whole crowd heard her explain why she had touched him and that she had been immediately healed. 48 “Daughter,” he said to her, “your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”

This is the conclusion of the (hi)story of the women who had a disease for 12 years and came to touch the robe of Jesus and be healed.

In the words of Jesus, her faith made her well. Her faith in Jesus led her to touch His robe. There is the faith, and there is the touch or the gerund, i.e., a verb used as a noun.

Try this exercise: replace touch with any other word.

• The walk of faith
• The talk of faith
• The taste of faith
• The love of faith
• The thought of faith

What does each mean to each of us? What word came to mind? Why that word instead of another one? What does each mean to each of us?

Isaiah 64:11-12 (English Standard Version)

11 Our holy and beautiful house,
where our fathers praised you,
has been burned by fire,
and all our pleasant places have become ruins.
12 Will you restrain yourself at these things, O Lord?
Will you keep silent, and afflict us so terribly?

The prophet is lamenting the horrible state of God’s people and asking God for a return to better times. What catches my attention is the phrase, “all our pleasant places have become ruins.”

Oh, if I could just return to the good old days and the good old places. Oh, if I were in some place in some other time that wasn’t here and now.

What is it about the sinful human condition that causes us to disdain the here and now for the otherwise? Why is it that I struggle to appreciate the goodness and grace of God that I undeservedly enjoy right here right now? Yes, I have been in wonderful places at wonderful times in wonderful circumstances with wonderful people and wonderful…I could go on, but I think that makes the point. God has blessed me in the past. God blesses me now. Why do I think God blessed me more then than now?

Please God, help me in my unbelief.

Isaiah 59:3

Your hands are the hands of murderers,
and your fingers are filthy with sin. (New Living Translation)

your lips have spoken lies;
your tongue mutters wickedness. (English Standard Version)

Permit me to mix English translation of this verse from the prophet Isaiah. The prophet is relaying from God how life will be when the people abandon God and the teachings of God.

The first part describes murderers. The second part describes mutterers.

They are equal in their evil. Equal? Muttering is as bad as murdering? Surely there is a mistake here? No, there isn’t.

Mutter wickedness. Murder a person. Same in the eyes of God. And that makes me…? I don’t like to read this stuff.

Thank you God for your saving grace. Help me in my unbelief.

Isaiah 32:1-2 (English Standard Version)

1 Behold, a king will reign in righteousness,
and princes will rule in justice.
2 Each will be like a hiding place from the wind,
a shelter from the storm,
like streams of water in a dry place,
like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.

The prophet relays from God how life will be when the people are righteous. Life in the land will be right and just.

I love the final line; I love the description of the shade of a great rock.

I was fortunate to have spent a week inside the Grand Canyon. I was fortunate and unfortunate that I was there in early July. The temperature was about 110 F—all day.

Now and then, here and there, I was able to stand in the shade of a great rock. Wonderful. Marvelous. Magnificent relief from the heat of the direct sun.

That is life with people who live according to the precepts of God. Righteousness. Let us be the shade to one another in a weary land.

1 Timothy 6:4-5 (English Standard Version)

…he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, 5 and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.

There are many, many “modern” translations of the Bible available today. I like the variety. I like to study the different English words chosen by the different translators. These two verses provide on example.

Paul is writing to Timothy about false teachers and how their own teaching leads them to ruin or brings them from ruin to teaching.

“depraved in mind and deprived of the truth” What poetry. What a turn of phrase. I love it. I love how it clearly states the ruin of the false teacher. What a curse. What a wretched state.

I think a lot (at least I think I think a lot). Clarity of mind is important to me, maybe more than it should be. What is “true,” the things that can be measured and proven, is important to me. I wince when I consider the poor souls that have lost those things. Bless me, O Lord. Continue to bless me.

Jude 1:24-25a (English Standard Version)

24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord…

I don’t stumble often. I mean in a physical sense. I don’t trip over a blade of grass and almost fall. I have been blessed with pretty good balance and I spent (probably too much) time in my youth learning to play ball and sports that developed balance.

I hate stumbling. There is something about it that marks me as clumsy or uncoordinated—and those were things to be shunned in my life.

Stumbling spiritually. Sigh, that is another matter in my life. I do that and I do that too often.

Stumbling prevention: that is a gift from God. God keeps me from stumbling spiritually. God removes the spiritual grass stains from the knees of my blue jeans and makes me spotless. How wonderful is that? What a miracle is that?

Thank you God. Let me never forget the wonder and power of your grace.

1 Peter 3:8-9 (English Standard Version)

8 Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. 9 Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.

Peter is writing to Christians. This is one of those verses that I should burn into the wood of the front door or the sheet metal on my garage door so that I see it everyday.

Christians are called to B L E S S.

That seems simple enough, so much so that Peter contrasts it with what other folks do: evil for evil and reviling for reviling. (When was the last time you heard someone say, “They reviled us! Let’s revile them back!”) Those things sure seem like fun at times, but they are for others, not for us.

Regardless of ego and pride and all those things that tug at me to do the e4e and r4r (I think I just invented some hashtags) let’s concentrate on called2bless (hey, invented another hashtag? No, just checked, that one exists already).

Enough levity. Getting even should be foreign to me. Please God, help me rid it from my life.

Isaiah 29:13 (New Living Translation)

And so the Lord says,
“These people say they are mine.
They honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
And their worship of me
is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote.

rote: noun – mechanical or habitual repetition of something to be learned.

God’s people worshiped Him. At least they thought they were worshiping. Through the prophet, God declared their worship noting more than a mechanical or habitual repetition.

The people had lost:

• We are the highest creation of the great creator (Wow! What a position of glory!)
• Glorifying God with our voices
• Cherishing God in the Hearts that God gave to us alone

The people had traded those for, and I am mechanically repeating myself here, a mechanical or habitual repetition.

This is not yet another woeful rendition of, “I don’t like church because it is the same old people, doing the same old things, the same old way, again and again.” I have experienced church where the same old people did the same old thing the same old way each week and fell to their knees in tears while doing it. There was a repetition, but it was heartfelt glorifying of God.

God is cautioning us. God knows our hearts and can see past the surface of “Wow, this is exciting. We have never done it this way before,” to what motivates and drives us.

Please God. Help me to worship in spirit and truth from a heart that is close to you.

Isaiah 29:10 (New Living Translation)

For the Lord has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep.
He has closed the eyes of your prophets and visionaries.

God the Creator is punishing the chosen people for their disobedience. The punishment? Deep sleep. Those who are supposed to see, hear, and envision are…well, their minds are asleep. They lose the ability to think beyond the moment. They lose the ability to think at all.

God has blessed us all with amazing minds. It is a shame that we don’t use our minds to the power God has given.

God has the power to take away the wonderment of our minds. What a curse on the chosen people. Please God, don’t curse me with such. Don’t pour on me a spirit of deep sleep.

Acts 17:16-17 (New Living Translation)

16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply troubled by all the idols he saw everywhere in the city. 17 He went to the synagogue to reason with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and he spoke daily in the public square to all who happened to be there.

Paul saw things that troubled him in the city of Athens. He went to the Jewish schools (synagogues) to discuss these things. He went to the public square to discuss these things. He spoke to everyone he met about the one true God and the grace of God.

Notice how the existence of the city state of Athens enabled Paul to speak of God and the grace of God.

Yes, the city state of Athens enabled all sorts of evil to exist and all sorts of people filled with evil to run amok. Still, the city state enabled the spread of the gospel. I believe that God helped mankind establish civil order that enabled the spread of the gospel. Civil order enabled us to live peacefully.

There is much that I do not like about America today. There is much that I do not like about the nations of earth today. Nevertheless, I give thanks for God helping mankind a sense of civil order.