Sunday 3rd August
Read Psalm 120
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
This Psalm – and the next 15 – are headed with the phrase “A Song of Ascents” of which there are many explanations but the best of which are to do with travel to the place of worship, the Temple. The first here is a call to God from a place of distress where the Psalmist feels he has been living amongst deceitful people and too far from God. We understand because it is always like this living in the world we live in which is not the peaceful place of God and it distresses us, not least because of its influence on us. This is why we need the Psalmist’s call to God to save us from the influences surround us.
As you read the Bible Stop; Read; Ponder; and Pray.
Monday Ephesians 5:25-33
Too often these verses in Ephesians 5 have been used as bricks thrown from either side – husbands or wives – to land on the other’s head. This is not what scripture is for. The words addressed to wives are for them to consider and those to men for husbands to consider. It is not up to us to ‘mark each other’s homework’.
In v25 the apostle turns to husbands and gives their pattern of life to be based on the pattern of Christ’s love for the Church. He leaves the husbands for a moment as he goes off considering the love of Christ for the Church, saving her through his self-giving on the cross and sanctifying her through His Word to bring her at the last as his radiant bride at the end time. Our baptism is the start but our changing and sanctifying is done through his word.
He returns to husbands who he tells should love their wives as their own bodies pointing out that such natural care as are given to our bodies is that way they need to care for their wives. This he follows with the nature of the binding together of a man and woman in marriage being described as becoming ‘one flesh’, however he realises that actually the root meaning of this belongs to Christ and the Church but nevertheless husbands must love their wives this way and wives must respect their husbands in the role they are given.
Tuesday Ephesians 6:1-9
Paul moves on to family life now and starts with the fifth commandment about children; “children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right”. Not what one little boy replied when asked what the fifth commandment was and said; “children obey your parents in the Lord when they are right!”. No, it is not up to children to judge their parents (that will be God’s when the time comes). The commandment also has to do with children when they are grown up too because honouring parents is a continuing duty.
The word to fathers (and it would apply to mothers too) is important, “do not exasperate or provoke or frustrate your children”. There are ways of disciplining children that are good and ways that are bad, what Paul wants them to do is to is to bring them up in the “training and instruction or admonition of the Lord” (v4). The second Greek word which Strongs describes this way, nouthesía (“warning through teaching”) improves a person’s reasoning so they can reach God’s solution – i.e. by going through His thought-process.”. Isn’t that interesting, the teaching of one’s children is to get them to think well so that they will learn to think the way God does, and of course that is the way we want to grow ourselves in anyway.
Because households in the Roman season may have included slaves Paul gives guidance to them. The way they are to treat their masters is to be as though they were serving the Lord and to masters the way they were to treat their slaves was in similar fashion bearing in mind that both were slaves of Christ. The guidance here would apply to workers and bosses of whatever category today.
The apostle comes to conclude his letter with an encouragement for them to be guarded and strong by using the analogy of a soldiers uniform which he will be well acquainted with having been under the custody of various Roman soldiers. The enemies he warns about are not ‘flesh and blood’, in other words although they may be conversing and arguing with people yet the enemy is not them but lies elsewhere. He speaks of “rulers, authorities and powers of this dark world and against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”. (v12). In other words spiritual powers not just people that we see. Although we easily forget it, this is important for Christian believers to recognise.
We must be attired in the spiritual armour of God so that we can stand against the assaults of the Evil One. It is interesting that he begins with the belt of Truth because in combatting the enemy it is truth that we must have, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth! The breastplate which protects all the important organs within the body is seen here in the Christians life as righteousness – and we know through Paul’s writings elsewhere (notably Romans) that that righteousness is not ours but Christ’s. It is his righteousness which is given to us through faith. The feet with which we move is the gospel of peace; we don’t march around the world in battle or aggression but everywhere in peace. The shield is the thing which the soldier has to protect against the assaults of spear or arrow, here Paul pictures faith as being that moveable protection held up against the arrows of temptation the enemy fires at us. The helmet which protects the very life is, of course, salvation which is ours through Christ. The weapon of attack is the Word of God, because, like Jesus, it is the Word of God which is thrown at the enemy of our souls which is the reason we need to be efficient in out knowledge and use of the Bible.
Thursday Ephesians 6:18-20
Finally in his list of protection he adds prayer. What does he mean by praying in the Spirit? If we were to just speak of praying what would we mean? Just speaking normally, but ‘in the Spirit’ indicates an internal listening which can only happen unrushed. Perhaps the best illustration is Elijah who seeks to hear the voice of God but it isn’t in the earthquake, wind or fire but in the still, small voice (1 Kings 19). Paul also speaks in Romans 8 of sometimes not knowing what to pray but the Spirit interceding with wordless groans (Roms 8:26,27) which may mean the wordless utterances we may have in our hearts or the vocal tongue speaking mentioned in New Testament writings.
Prayer may be made ‘on all occasions’ and with ‘all kinds of prayers and requests’. There is no particular time for praying just as there is no particular time for breathing – listen to the still, small voice – and the prayers may be all kinds of prayers and requests; don’t just pray when you have something to ask for.
The apostle does ask for prayers for himself and particularly when he is speaking and preaching the gospel that he will do so fearlessly (those who preach God’s Word can be fearful of what they are saying in opening out the Word for the listening ears). No-one is above prayer, we all need the support of our brothers and sisters in Christ in what we do.
As he says farewell he mentions another of his faithful supporters, Tychicus, who will bear the letter to the Ephesians and he calls him a dear brother and faithful servant – w ought always to aim to be that to our fellows in the faith.
Judges.
We’ll return to the Old Testament again and to pick up the story of the people of Israel after the time of Joshua. We remember the mighty acts of Moses and then followed by Joshua who took over the mantle of the leadership from Moses and led the people across the Jordan into the promised land. The book of Judges starts after Joshua’s death and will take us through a time of disobedience and delivery with certain characters called Judges being the temporary leaders.
It becomes obvious that after the death of Joshua that not all the tribal inhabitants of the country have been driven out or conquered and the people ask God (probably through the priestly means of discovering the will of God via the Urim and Thumim stones on the Hight Priest’s garment (Exodus 39 & Leviticus 8).
God’s message was that the tribe of Judah which was later to become the Royal tribe was to begin the process of clearing out the foreign tribes and Judah asked Simeon to join with them. The result was a victorious defeat of of Canaanites and Perizzites and the capturing of Adoni-Bezek the major King who was disabled by a common feature in ancient times of disabling the King to use weapons against them (v6). Following this Othniel, Caleb’s young Nephew gained victories in other areas and was granted land after the capture of Kiriath-Sepher. The first half of the chapter shows a positive message but we shall see in the second half a change.
We must spiritualize the meaning of this in New Testament terms about victory in the life of the individual believer and of the Church. Although in Christ we have the ultimate victory over sin, death, and the Devil, there is an ongoing challenge of driving out of our lives the remnants of a worldly life and way of existing. When the Allies crossed over the Channel on D-Day the outcome of the second world war was written on the wall but a lot of further fighting and clearing up of the enemy remained to be done in the drive for Berlin and the final victory, similarly in the believers’ life, when Christ comes in, the victory is there but the subduing of the fallen nature, bringing it into submission under Christ is an ongoing task. What we see here has to be worked out in our lives.
As the chapter moves on we find some of the inhabitants not being defeated and continuing to live in the land, a thing which was going to cause ongoing trouble for the Israelites. A peaceful and settled existence was not going to be had but a situation of ongoing struggle.
We can see the spiritual lesson in this; the things in our worldly lives that are not defeated and brought under the control of the Holy Spirit end up becoming thorns in our flesh making endless trouble for us. But somethings just have no place in the lives of believers and need to be purged. Jesus told some of his erstwhile followers that they couldn’t follow him whilst still holding onto things in the world (Luke 9:57-62).
