Contemplative Bible Reading

1 Corinthians 2:9 (New Living Translation)

That is what the Scriptures mean when they say,
“No eye has seen, no ear has heard,
and no mind has imagined
what God has prepared
for those who love him.”

The writer here quotes from the prophet Isaiah. God and His blessings are beyond our imagination. I remember some line from the first Star Wars movie where Han Solo says something like, “I can imagine a lot.” I, too, can imagine a lot. Still, I’m neither that smart or that imaginative.

Oh, the wonder of what God has in store for me. Oh, the blessings of what God gives me this and every day. God, help me to open my heart and notice the blessings of each day.

Romans 1:28-32 (New Living Translation)

28 Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. 29 Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. 30 They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. 31 They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. 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.

Oh mankind, what is wrong with us? Why did we walk away from God? These verses paint a horrible picture. It is not so much that we rejected God and went our own way. It is that, in so doing, we have turned on one another and done cruel things to on another.

What strikes me in reading these verses this time is at the end of verse 31: We are heartless; we show no mercy to one another.

This is enlightened? This is modern? Educated? Free from the shackles of religion? Again, what is wrong with us?

God, please help me to stay near to you, love my fellow man, and show mercy as You show mercy to me.

1 Corinthians 15:58 (New Living Translation)

So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.

But all I did in the name for the Lord was…

• sit in a pew
• pray before eating
• put a quarter in the collection plate
• let someone else go first in traffic
• tip the server more than 10%
• think about a scripture I read
• post a Bible verse on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

hmmm, I guess I could go on with the list. Per the verse above, none of these are useless, i.e., they are of good use for someone, somewhere, sometime.

1 Corinthians 14:22 (New Living Translation)

So you see that speaking in tongues is a sign, not for believers, but for unbelievers. Prophecy, however, is for the benefit of believers, not unbelievers.

There are some things that are good for believers and unbelievers. There are some things that are bad for both groups.It appears that there are some things that are good for one group and not bad for the other group, but not good for them.

Have I confused everything yet?

I read this verse to mean that believers and unbelievers are two different groups of people. Not everything is a good use of time for persons in the different groups. Sometimes we forget this. God, help me to remember this and grant me the knowledge to know the difference.

1 Corinthians 8:5-7 (New Living Translation)

5 There may be so-called gods both in heaven and on earth, and some people actually worship many gods and many lords. 6 But for us,

There is one God, the Father,
by whom all things were created,
and for whom we live.
And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ,
through whom all things were created,
and through whom we live.

7 However, not all believers know this. Some are accustomed to thinking of idols as being real, so when they eat food that has been offered to idols, they think of it as the worship of real gods, and their weak consciences are violated.

This is part of a longer discussion doing what is Godly and not hurting someone by crossing their culture or family history. In these verses, the topic is eating food in or near a temple where another god is worshiped. To some persons, eating that food is an act of worship to another god.

The writer is trying to explain that there is only one God. These temples and their food practices don’t matter—they are meaningless.

To me, the key phrase is at the start of verse 7:

However, not all believers know this.

Oh, okay. So, let’s patiently explain this. And let’s be sensitive to the influence of culture and family history and tradition and all other sorts of things that will make the explanation far more difficult than I think it should be.

Not easy. Lord, help me.

Acts 7:57-59 (New Living Translation)

57 Then they put their hands over their ears and began shouting. They rushed at him 58 and dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. His accusers took off their coats and laid them at the feet of a young man named Saul.

59 As they stoned him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 He fell to his knees, shouting, “Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!” And with that, he died.

At various times in the New Testament era, the Jewish officials were hesitant of killing a follower of Christ. They hesitated about killing Jesus himself, but went through the proper political channels to have the Romans perform the killing. There were times when they hesitated to kill the Apostle Paul, and so on.

Note here, there is no hesitation. They had Stephen testify of his faith—then they killed him. They used a form of execution given in the Old Testament law—stoning by the community. Still, they did not go to the Roman authorities or anyone else.

In a legal sense, they murdered Stephen in front of the community, and “got away with it.”

And notice how Stephen correctly calls this murder “sin.”

Matthew 20:31b-34 (New Living Translation)

But they only shouted louder, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”

32 When Jesus heard them, he stopped and called, “What do you want me to do for you?”

33 “Lord,” they said, “we want to see!” 34 Jesus felt sorry for them and touched their eyes. Instantly they could see! Then they followed him.

Two blind me are by the side of the road. They know Jesus is passing, so they scream for Him to be merciful. The crowd told them to be quiet (see a previous post).

How did Jesus react?

First, Jesus recognized them as real persons. He stopped, looked at them, and spoke with them.

Second, Jesus asked what they wanted. He didn’t assume anything. He didn’t assume they wanted money, food, clothing, revenge against the local crowd that disdained them, etc. He asked.

Third, Jesus touched them with his hands. So many people who are hurting in this world in our time simply want someone to touch them. We often treat our dogs and cats much better than we treat the hurting stranger.

They just want to be treated as Jesus treated these men—as real persons.

Matthew 20:29-31 (New Living Translation)

29 As Jesus and the disciples left the town of Jericho, a large crowd followed behind. 30 Two blind men were sitting beside the road. When they heard that Jesus was coming that way, they began shouting, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”

31 “Be quiet!” the crowd yelled at them.

Two blind men wanted Jesus to heal them. As Jesus, and a large, noisy crowd, passed by, these blind men shouted to gain Jesus’ attention. The commentaries and commentators I have read claim this “shouting” was more like the “screeching of madmen.” They were hysterical. The image that comes to mind is the “Don’t taze me man! Don’t taze me!” I saw on TV a few years ago.

The crowd reacted with, “Hey, quiet down. You’re embarrassing us.”

I can see them turn to Jesus and the disciples and say, “Sorry about this. Yes, these fellows live here with us, but, you know, they’re just sort of not with it. You know, the town nuts. Please don’t think the rest of us are like them.”

I guess things aren’t much different today. The cry to see Jesus is sort of embarrassing to most of us.

Acts 6:15 (New Living Translation)

At this point everyone in the high council stared at Stephen, because his face became as bright as an angel’s.

How did Stephen appear in this verse? Whatever it was, everyone was staring at him. I guess is appearance was remarkable in some way. The rest of the verse states that his face was a bright as an angel’s.

How bright is an angel’s face? I have never knowingly seen an angel, so I am at a loss here. Why does everyone assume an angel’s face is bright? How was Stephen’s face suddenly so bright?

Okay, lots of questions without answers. Sorry, I don’t have any answers to my own questions. Something changed in Stephen’s appearance; something caused the stares of everyone. God performed a miracle here that left an indelible impression on those present. Did they do anything from the experience? Again, I don’t know, but I am guessing that they did.

Leviticus 10:1-2 (New Living Translation)

1 Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu put coals of fire in their incense burners and sprinkled incense over them. In this way, they disobeyed the Lord by burning before him the wrong kind of fire, different than he had commanded. 2 So fire blazed forth from the Lord’s presence and burned them up, and they died there before the Lord.

These two short verses tell of what seems to be an obscure event resulting in the death of two priests in the desert tabernacle. In studying these verses, I have been surprised at the amount of strong conviction of commentaries and commentators.

I find much to be missing in the (hi)story. The first verse seems to be a summary that lacks details. The key word there for me is “disobeyed.” Whatever the details may have been, Nadab and Abihu disobeyed God and were struck dead immediately.

The Bible contains the stories of thousands who disobeyed God, but were not struck dead immediately. I am eternally thankful that I have never been struck dead for my many instances of disobedience. Why were these two struck dead in a manner that everyone knew came from God? Again, I don’t know as I can’t find all the details.

It seems to me from the summary, that they knew what to do and what not to do and what the result would be. They did it anyway. I emphasize the word “knew.” There was no matter of opinion or disagreement involved. They K N E W. Please, don’t extrapolate this case to current cases of opinion. And please forgive any offense I have caused in this post.