Sunday 22nd June
Read Psalm 114
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 114 reflects on what God did for his people Israel, leading them out of their captivity in Egypt, amongst a people of a foreign tongue (v1) and leading them over the Red Sea and across the Jordan into the land promised for them. The key thought being that it was not their strength or ability that did it but God who did it for them. It is a great reminder that our position under God is not our doing but His. This is what we remember in Church and throughout our daily life.
Fanny Crosby’s old hymn states it well, “To God be the glory, great things he hath done, so loved he the world that he gave us his Son”
As you read the Bible Stop; Read; Ponder; and Pray.
In v14 we hear of Paul ready to visit the Corinthian Church for the third time and we have already seen that 2 Corinthians is not one complete letter but a compilation of more than one this is why sometimes he seems to be scolding and at other times commending the Church. Here we are seeing him scolding the Church for not commending him but comparing him with other teachers who have been demeaning him and so he has to stand by his position as a true and faithful apostle of God.
He challenges them to say that he or Titus and the other brother who visited them had exploited them for gain which he refutes saying that he did everything out of love for them but he is afraid that on his third visit he may not find them in a good condition and that they mind find him in chastising mood, Sometimes of course hard words have to be spoken but no-one likes to have to do that. What he fears is a mess of “discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder” (v20). What a mess of a Church – any Church – if that is the state it is in. Any of these characteristics are bad and show nothing of the holiness of Christ that ought to characterise a faithful Church, He goes on to fear that many who have lived sexually disordered lives will not have repented of their “impurity, sexual sin and debauchery” (v21). When we look at this picture we gasp and say, “Is this a Church”? Well, yes, but not as we should know it! We might say, well, my Church isn’t like that but we need to stop and look at some of the characteristics and ask, is there a bit of this creeping in, do we see a little of that, are we really clear of all such sins and failings? Constant vigilance and true repentance are always needed in the Church whrever it is.
Tuesday 2 Corinthians 13:1-14
Paul tells them that he will be coming a third time to them and he obviously expects criticisms of fellow members of the Church and he says that whatever accusations are made the will only hear them if there are two or three witnesses. If things prove to be true he will act severely. What this might be we can only guess but from elsewhere in the New Testament we can see that the apostles could act with spiritual power that would be evident (remember Annanias and Saphira in the earlier history of the Jerusalem Church (Acts 5:1-11).
He tells them to examine themselves in self reflection and examination, looking at the condition of their hearts which they will be able to do if they truly are “in Christ”. Paul does not want to come in discipline for his role is that of building up not tearing down.
He closes by asking them to “strive for full restoration” and he encourages them to be of one mind and to live in peace with each other and closes with what has become the standard blessing or benediction in Churches ever since – “May the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all”.
Time for an Old Testament Prophet.
Wednesday Hosea 1:1-5
Having looked over some of the history of the Israelites in some of the historical books of the Bible (Joshua, Samuel, Kings) we ought to look at the prophets and what they were saying during those years and we are going to start with Hosea. Hosea prophesied during the latter half of the 8th Century BC, around 753 -722. It was a time when the Assyrian Empire was in the ascendancy and God was going to use them to discipline his people who were departing from their obedience to him. The Northern kingdom (called Israel or Ephraim) was in a state of decline torn with internal strife and external defeat under the Assyrians. They would eventually be crushed under the Assyrians and dispersed throughout the ancient world.
It was during this time that God began to speak to the people through Hosea who was told in Chapter 1 to take for a wife Gomer who he knew (because he was told by God) would become promiscuous and guilty of unfaithfulness to him. It was going to be God’s way of showing what Israel’s relationship to him was like. As Israel had turned away from God so Gomer would turn away from Hosea and he would feel the pain and sorrow of God who had found his chosen people turning away from him after other gods. He wasn’t just hearing a message from God, he was experiencing it and we shall watch the story of this Godly Holy Man whose life story would be acted out for the people (and us) to see.
Gomer became pregnant and bore a son whom God told Hosea to name Jezreel after the massacre that took place there where Jehu murdered all the house of Ahab (2 Kings 9 & 10). God was going to end Israel’s power (breaking her bow) because he would bring Assyria’s might down upon her.
Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter who the Lord told Hosea to name Lo-Ruhamah which means not loved. Hosea is being placed in God’s shoes and told to give his daughter this name because God is withdrawing his love for the people of the Northern Kingdom but he will continue to show love for the Southern Kingdom of Judah and will save them. In truth when the Northern Kingdom and its capital, Samaria, was over-run by the Assyrians, Judah and Jerusalem were saved. After Lo-Ruhamah Gomer had Lo-Ammi whose name meant not my people. This was a hard and fast rejection of the people of Israel who are said to be not God’s people and God not being their God.
Yet just after this proclamation of forthcoming judgement the message God gives through Hosea about the future time is that the Israelites will be a multitude and will be called ‘children of the living God’ again. Whatsmore, the split kingdoms of Israel will be reunited (v11) under one leader. This has never happened so the presumption is about the end times with the only leader we might consider being none other than Jesus.
Friday Hosea 2:1-7
The question that is raised about Gomer’s children mentioned in Chapter 1 is “were they Hosea’s or children of adultery?”. Jezreel is ambiguous but with the names of the others there is a question of whether they were the children of adultery. God tells Hosea in 1:2 to go and marry a promiscuous woman so we know what she was and it appears that, if she didn’t stop her promiscuous behaviour before, she certainly carried it on after the marriage. Hosea’s words to the people of Israel is a challenge about their spiritual adultery and the judgement of God which would come upon them as a result. The words show the hunger of the people to go after false gods and to turn away from her true husband, the Lord God.
We listen to the unfaithful wife saying she will go after those who will promise her a rich life (v5) and in that we see what temptations there are to us when we forget who is our God, the lover of our souls. God says he will frustrate her paths and give her failure and loss. How true it is that when a person turns away from God they do not find satisfaction but emptiness and loss. This is what Israel will find in her adulterous search after other gods and other ways.
Isn’t verses 7 very like the story of the prodigal son? Remember, having left his father and spent all his money such that he ended up on a pig farm looking after the pigs, desirous only of having some of the scraps to eat for himself, the scripture says that he came to himself and remembered that he was better off in his father’s house where he had more to eat (Luke 15:11-32). Here we find adulterous Israel chasing after her lovers but not finding them saying that she will go back to her husband (the Lord) for she was better off then as now.
However God’s word is that she hasn’t acknowledged that he was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, in other words that it was him who was her counsellor and supporter. So, he says, he will not allow her all the benefits she thinks she will have if she pretends to herself that she is turning back to him, in fact he will make nothing turn out well for her (v9-13). When she is really down and feeling nothing is going well for her and is feeling low, he will turn and do something else which we will see in the next passage.
