Sunday 1st June
Read Psalm 111
If you don’t have a bible at home you can find the readings on a website such as www.biblegateway.com or an app such as YouVersion
Psalm 111 is an acrostic Psalm which means that each line begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet (in English it would be like A,B,C D…etc). This poetic convention gives the idea of order and completeness just like our A to Z and it also gives a help in memorisation of the scripture which was important to the Jews. When was the last time you memorised a section of scripture? If you haven’t done so why not make today a start. Find a time and begin to memorise some part of scripture; perhaps the last verse could be a place to start – “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom….”
READINGS FOR THE WEEK AHEAD
As you read the Bible Stop; Read; Ponder; and Pray.
Monday 2 Corinthians 2:12-16
We don’t know everything about Paul’s movements in connection with the Church at Corinth, but it appears that another letter (a “painful letter”) had been sent from him in between 1 and 2 Corinthians, probably taken by Titus, and Paul had anxiously waited for his return while he was in Troas on the coast of Asia Minor (Turkey). Not finding him there he decided to cross over into Greece and obviously met him while in Macedonia which give rise to his words of thanks and praise to God.
He uses the metaphor of God’s people being an aroma of the knowledge of God. If you have never thought of the idea of being a smell then listen up. Paul says that God’s people bring with them something of God that people can sense. When we grow up in Christ and his Word sinks into us as people something about who we are invades the atmosphere around us. It may be the way we live, the way we treat others, the way we behave, the way our spiritual life ‘hangs around’. Whether people are drawn to God or not, it is there (v15)
Tuesday 2 Corinthians 2:17-3:6
Some of his detractors have obviously hinted at bad motives on Paul’s part but he refuses those implications saying that he isn’t a pedlar of God’s word for profit but speaks with sincerity and he points to the Corinthian Church as evidence because of their response to the gospel. If he needed a letter or recommendation, he points to them and says you are our letter from Christ written by the Spirit on your hearts. There have been people in all our lives who in some way or other have been used by God to write some things of Him on our hearts. Give thanks for them as you think back on those who have been used by God to influence you.
Paul doesn’t want to take credit for his work as though it was his competence that brought them to Christ rather it was God who used him as his pen to write on their hearts. Think about how your life might be a pen that writes on other people’s hearts.
Wednesday 2 Corinthians 3:7-18
The picture of writing on people’s hearts sticks with Paul and, as sometimes happens with him, he gets carried away with a subject and finds it developed elsewhere. Here he thinks of God’s finger graving the letters of the 10 commandments on tablets of stone which he gave to Moses and he remembers that Moses face shone as he came down to deliver the commandments to the people. He calls his ministry one that brought condemnation because that is what the commandments did. When the people heard an saw the commandments they realised that they were sinners breaking the law of God but he says the giving of the law was a glorious thing because it brought the will of God to the people and that was why Moses face shone with that glory. He covered his face until the glory faded as it did in the normal life of day to day contact with the people but whenever he went into the Tent of Meeting with God his face shone and he covered it with a veil when he came out until it passed away. Paul says the glory was transitory but now that the Spirit of God has come into us and his law has been written on our hearts then there is not transitoriness about it. God writes on our hearts now no longer on external tablets of stone. The law doesn’t come to us from without but from within.
He says that while the Jews look into the law of God, written in the Torah, there is still a veil covering their hearts but when they turn to the Lord – the Living Word – the veil is removed and they become transformed into his image, growing from day to day with increasing glory.
It is a little like a person who has an affliction which requires them to take medicine every day but a marvellous discovery and ability has come about whereby he/she can have their DNA changed such that the crippling illness which came about because of their old natural DNA which committed them to endless illness held at bay only by the regular medicine.
The ministry of the gospel which Paul raved about was the means whereby the Spirit of God, the very DNA of the Almighty, came into the believer and transformed them gradually day by day. Peter speaks of it in his letter, “divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. (2 Pet 1:3-4)
Thursday 2 Corinthians 4:1-12
In Chapter 4 Paul tells the Corinthians he is not ashamed of the message he preaches because it is the truth (v2) and even if it is not grasped by some it is only to those who are perishing through their lack of faith (v3) about whom he says the god of this world or age – who is the Devil – has blinded their minds. He characterises himself and his fellow apostles as only servants for Jesus’ sake, not proclaiming themselves but Christ in whom the light of the glory of God the Father is seen (v6).
Although the treasure of forgiveness of sins and union with Christ is wonderful Paul says that the treasure is in jars of clay, not open like jewellery hanging around our necks for all to see. Actually we are hard pressed on every side in our lives. I like J. B. Phillips translation of “struck down but not destroyed” (v9) which he renders as from the boxing ring, “knocked down but not knocked out”. Our lives as God’s people leads us through many troubles but our eternal life is safe and sure. He says the believer’s life is to carry around the death of Jesus so that his life will be known in others. We lay ourselves down so that others may gain the benefit.
It is a little obscure but in v13 Paul is making an allusion to Psalm 116:10 which says “I believed – trusted in, relied on and clung to my God – and therefore have I spoken (even when I said), I am greatly afflicted. (Amplified Bible)
In verse 13, Paul alludes to Psalm 116:10, which says, “I believed (trusted in, relied on and clung to my God) and therefore have I spoken (even when I said), I am greatly afflicted.” (Amplified Bible). He is not sad or ashamed that he has spoken of being cast down and crushed because he knows that God who raised Jesus from the dead will also raise them. This gives strength to press forward knowing that the victory will always be theirs through Christ.
Verses 16-18 are well worth memorising so that we don’t fix our attention on the temporary things but on the eternal.
He has spoken of “outwardly wasting away” (4:16) and here he picks up the mortality of our lives and their ending but tells that the future lies in an eternal house – the way our earthly body will be changed or metamorphosed into a categorically new eternal life in heaven. He speaks not of losing in the sense of being stripped naked but of gaining in the sense of being marvellously clothed. The word groan, stenazo, comes from a sense of narrow or constricted and Paul says that while in this life we groan to be set free from the constriction of life we look forward to gain the open, wide, expansive life that will be ours in the resurrection. Our bodies here are like flimsy little tents compared to the magnificent palaces that they will be in glory.
I have often used the picture of our bodies being the operating systems with which we engage with God’s creation around us; we walk, touch, smell, hear, etc, but what might our ‘operating systems’ be like in the resurrected and new creation the Bible tells us of? It is beyond our understanding. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul likens the new body as being like a tree compared to the seed with which it started.
He tells of the two positions of the Christian believer with regard to our relationship with Christ. In the present time we are away from the Lord only with him in in the Spirit by faith. Yes, we would desire to be away from this earthly bodily life and be at home with him but that time awaits and until then we must aim to please him.
