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Mark 7:1-13 - Lectionary for Pentecost 14B

8/23/2018

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8/23/18
Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the three-year lectionary.

Our Gospel passage for this week brings up a challenge which has existed throughout the history of Christianity. Here Jesus and the Pharisees clash over tradition. This is not an unusual clash. To this day, many Christians with good motives complain that all traditions should beremoved from the life of the Christian, arguing from this passage of Scripture.

There’s a deep flaw in the discussion. Here it is. Jesus didn’t say to get rid of all traditions. He said that Scripture is not bound by our man-made traditions. Jesus asserted many things which could be rightly considered traditions. Think of the way he assembled with others for Scripture and set prayers on the Sabbath. Consider the fact that he would stand for reading and sit for teaching, a tradition in the synagogue but certainly not prescribed by God. Jesus has nothing against tradition. He even taught his disciples some new traditions which they were to perpetuate!

What is the point, then? It is that God’s Word is what should establish our tradition. Our practice is to be based on God’s revealed will, not on our own ideas. And if we are going to say that God’s Word is foundational to all our traditions, we need to be willing to change the tradition if and when we find that they conflict with Scripture.

For many years I was involved in a Christian tradition which rejected traditional practices. We objected to historic Christian liturgy. We always wanted to find something new. This point of view rejects the idea that God’s people have had faithful witnesses in every age. It seeks to recreate everything from the ground up. This is also not right. Jesus uses tradition. And when something is right, it is right, even if you have done it before.

May we have grace to find the traditions which spring from Scripture and to use them to nurture faith in Christians.

If this brief meditation was helpful to you, I hope you will check out the other materials on our website at www.WittenbergCoMo.com and consider supporting us.

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Ephesians 5:22-33 - Lectionary for Pentecost 14B

8/22/2018

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8/22/18
Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the three-year lectionary.

Our Epistle for this week is so frequently used badly I almost fear to mention it. This, however, is the great power of a lectionary, which forces us to deal with it anyway.

Here the husband and wife are an illustration of Christ and the Church. Note the main point in verse 32 is Christ and the Church. A marriage is just a picture of a greater reality.

Sadly, some of our pictures are really distorted. That’s the problem. People look here and take away two partial truths. First, wives are to submit. Second, that’s what Christianity looks like. I want to know how anyone could read the passage in context and get that idea. Then again, I really don’t want to know.

Let’s roll it back and see what Paul says. The husband is the head of the wife and is to be to her like Christ to the Church. What does that look like?

Jesus humbles himself for the good of the church. He gives up his privilege to care for her needs.

Jesus suffers abuse at the hands of his people as he steps between them and eternal harm. It results in his death.

Jesus speaks words of love and forgiveness even when that care is not deserved.

Jesus voluntarily helps his people in their need even though he was under no obligation.

Jesus helps the church so as to make her perfect, holy, and blameless.

A marriage is a picture of Christ and the church. All of our pictures are flawed. But as husbands seek to be more like Jesus, as wives find it easier to follow their husbands’ lead, the picture does clarify.

Make us reflect You well, Lord.

If this brief meditation was helpful to you, I hope you will check out the other materials on our website at www.WittenbergCoMo.com and consider supporting us.

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Isaiah 29:11-19 - Lectionary for Pentecost 14B

8/21/2018

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8/21/18
Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the three-year lectionary.

Isaiah 29:11-19 is a hard passage. In verse 14 God says he will “confound” the people. He will work wonders they cannot understand. This doesn’t seem like the normal action of the God who wants all to hear and believe. Yet we ask ourselves what leads up to this action on God’s part. In verse 11 the people have rejected God’s Word because it is not theirs. In verse 12 the people have rejected it because they don’t think they understand. In verse 13 they engage in God talk but without a heart for God. They replace God and His Word with their own reasoning.

These people have deliberately rejected God! They have turned away from Him. They are determined only to trust themselves. Finally God confounds them by acting like himself, the God of all, but allowing them to trust themselves. They have been told the way of life but they chose their own way instead.

What a sad situation this is. The very people the Lord created and called to himself so they could have life and joy have abandoned God, preferring death and despair. Yet they have determined that God’s revealed will is not for them. God and His prophet are moved to sorrow. We should be as well.

Rather than be a cause for sorrow, may we be those who trust and receive the Lord’s care with joy. May the Lord bless His people.

If this brief meditation was helpful to you, I hope you will check out the other materials on our website at www.WittenbergCoMo.com and consider supporting us.

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Psalm 14 - Lectionary for Pentecost 14B

8/20/2018

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8/20/18
Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the three-year lectionary.

Wisdom and foolishness - these ideas are pretty important in life. Want your world to fall apart? Be a fool. Granted, some foolishness is harder to see. It can take us by surprise. But some is really obvious. Go ahead and work on a light on the ceiling by standing on a swivel chair . . . or not.

Psalm 14 speaks of a foolishness that is subtle. What about rejecting God out of hand, saying He doesn’t matter or even doesn’t exist? Despite evidence of intelligence in design, order, complexity, and intricate interplay of very sophisticated systems, some will go to great lengths to discount it. In Psalm 14:3, this is seen as turning away from God, which leads to corruption and evil. Those who have made themselves the judge of all try to work in a system they can’t understand. In the end, this form of foolishness brings sorrow and destruction.

Thankfully, Psalm 14 doesn’t leave us in this hopeless state. God is the one who is with his righteous people. He is the protector of those who trust him. He is the fix for foolishness. This frustrates all who would deny God. After all, God’s people don’t play by the rules of those who invent reality. They trust the Lord’s goodness.

Here is true wisdom. The Lord who created and sustains all the world can certainly guide his people. All we do is trust him. There is rejoicing. There is wisdom. There is confidence.

If this brief meditation was helpful to you, I hope you will check out the other materials on our website at www.WittenbergCoMo.com and consider supporting us.

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Ephesians 5:6-21 - Lectionary for Pentecost 14B

8/15/2018

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8/15/18
Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the three-year lectionary.

Our Epistle for this week, from Ephesians 5:6-21, continues the theme of putting off and putting on which Paul introduced earlier. Here it’s a little more oblique, but we can still find it. We are to put off listening to empty arguments which lead us astray into darkness. Instead, we live as children of light, with the light of the Lord. Putting on faith in Christ makes us bear fruit of Christ’s light - goodness, righteousness, truth. How do we do this? We do it by taking in God’s Word to know what is pleasing to him. Another put off and put on shows up in verse eleven. It’s more straightforward We avoid the “works of darkness.” They are fruitless. Or, rather, they bear fruit we don’t want to be bearing. Instead, we expose those works. How do we expose those works of darkness? It’s by the light of the Lord. In Christ, everything is exposed. The apostle says it in a different way in verse 15 and 16. We put off foolishness and put on wisdom in the Lord. In verse 18, we put off drunkenness, preferring to be filled (put on) with the Spirit of God. This fills us with positive speech, joy, and even songs which bring glory to God.

How are we going to do all this? It seems good, sure. But what do we bring to the equation? I’ve heard bad teaching and preaching many times which simply urges me and the other listeners to try harder. Sometimes it will spell out the specific things we should do. Maybe we are supposed to keep a journal and make sure we are doing enough good things, putting on enough of Christ. But how do we know?

It isn’t something which can be quantified that well. Let’s just say, for now, that by putting on Christ, we are regularly asking him to rule our lives, to change us by his grace, to make us instruments of mercy, to help us bring peace into our situations, and to turn our hearts and minds to him. How will we know if that is happening?

The fact is, in all likelihood, we won’t know if the Lord is changing us into his image. We’ll just feel like ourselves. But our friends and family will notice, bit by bit. Maybe they will start identifying us as people who carry the image of Christ into our different circumstances. Chances are, if we are aware of it happening, we will just be proud and arrogant anyway. But those aren’t characteristics of Jesus the Lord. He’s the one who is humble, who came to serve and give himself as a ransom for us. Until that final day, then, when the Lord raises the dead, we simply ask the Lord to put His Spirit into us. We live our lives, doing what good we can, and asking the Lord’s forgiveness when we see we have failed. And we trust that he will complete this good work in us.

If this brief meditation was helpful to you, I hope you will check out the other materials on our website at www.WittenbergCoMo.com and consider supporting us.

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Proverbs 9:1-10 - Lectionary for Pentecost 14B

8/14/2018

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8/14/18
Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the three-year lectionary.

Our Old Testament reading for this week is from Proverbs chapter nine. Here “Wisdom” is the main character. Let’s take a look at the nature of this “Wisdom” and see how she is described.

In verse two she provides for others. In verse three she calls out invitations. She does this from the high place, the part of an ancient city where the defenses were greatest and where the temple to a god would be. In verse four she calls out to those who are foolish or inexperienced, offering them welcome and provision. Verse six calls those very people to some sort of conversion, as they are to follow her rather than themselves. In verses seven through nine she brings correction.

Who is “Wisdom”? She’s got all the characteristics of God, as shown in the Bible. He is the one who calls people to himself. He is the one who created and sustained everything and provides for human needs. He is the one who changes people’s lives, who corrects them, and who shows them the way of life. He is the high and exalted God, the strong tower, the defense of all who believe him Him.

When we are called to true wisdom, we are called to the true God of the Bible.  There’s no substitute. He is the only one who has ever made concrete promises and then kept every last one. Knowing God by His grace through faith is the only way to wisdom and understanding. May the Lord open our eyes.

If this brief meditation was helpful to you, I hope you will check out the other materials on our website at www.WittenbergCoMo.com and consider supporting us.

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Psalm 34:12-22 - Lectionary for Pentecost 14B

8/13/2018

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8/13/18
Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the three-year lectionary.

Psalm 34:15 tells us something valuable about the way God watches his people. He watches the righteous. He wants to be sure he hears when they call out for help. There’s something very important to be learned from this simple verse. It flies in the face of some of the terrible and destructive misuse of God’s Law that we can find in popular culture.

A number of years ago, I forget where, I saw a series of billboards put up, allegedly to help tell people about God. Maybe they were intended to call people to repentance? It really wasn’t clear. One of them featured white letters on a stark black background. “Don’t make me come down there.” - God -

The fact is, I really don’t know which god would have said that, but it certainly wasn’t the God of the Bible. His attitude, rather, is this. “I have been watching you and listening to you. You are in trouble. Some of you realize it and some don’t. Some of you are calling out for help. Some are cursing me. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to come down there. I’m going to live a righteous life and then die an unjust death which will have the effect of working forgiveness for you who have been crying out for help. Your role in this is to believe that I am able to take your sin and evil upon myself and give you my righteouness instead. You’ll see.”

That’s exactly what the Lord did in Christ.

What’s going on in verse 16 then? The Lord works to remove even the memory of evil from the earth. There’s just one problem. We are awfully good at making new memories of evil. We are awfully good at reminding people of evil by re-enacting it ourselves. We are good at dwelling on what is bad rather than on what is good. We don’t want to be instruments of evil. We don’t want to bring up the memory of the wicked. In verse 21 we see that it is just this evil that brings death and punishment.

On the contrary, we call out to God, we trust that He is the one who has come down here to rescue us, and we tell others they can be rescued as well. After all, the Lord has already done everything that is necessary. Let’s dwell on his good.

If this brief meditation was helpful to you, I hope you will check out the other materials on our website at www.WittenbergCoMo.com and consider supporting us.

​
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    About Throwing Inkwells

    When Martin Luther was dealing with struggles in his life he once saw what appeared to be an angelic being. Not trusting that he was going to be informed by someone other than the God revealed in Scripture, he took the appearance to be untrustworthy and hurled his inkwell at it. The chipped place in the plaster wall is still visible at the Wartburg Castle, though apparently the ink stain on the wall has been refreshed periodically by the caretaker.

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