10/3/17
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.
This week’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah 5:1-7 is an allegory the prophet writes about the people of God. Verse 7 identifies Israel as a vineyard. God has planted it and expects it to flourish under His care. He has every reason to expect that his people will thrive and produce good fruit, the kind of fruit He made them to produce.
God’s care for His people is perfect. He knows exactly what they need. He has never neglected his people. Yet they have brought him grief. Their disobedience has resulted in the protective wall being removed. God will bring a drought and predators, things which will certainly destroy the fruitfulness which remains.
Is God unjust for dealing with his people in this way? Not at all. His people, who depend on him for everything, have rejected all he did for them. They have said they know best for their situations. They have essentially decided that God is not God, but that they are.
In many parts of the world this day we find people who have redefined God. They are serving a god of their own creation rather than the God who created them. What good can we expect from this attitude? We can expect no good, only ill. We try to run our lives by ourselves and we blunder into any number of problems.
At the heart of those troubles we face is a rejection of God. In other passages in Isaiah and elsewhere God calls his people to trust in him and return to him for forgiveness and grace. That call goes out to us to this day. May the Lord bless us with repentance and trust that, in fact, the God of the Bible is the one who can and does rescue his people from themselves.
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.
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.
This week’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah 5:1-7 is an allegory the prophet writes about the people of God. Verse 7 identifies Israel as a vineyard. God has planted it and expects it to flourish under His care. He has every reason to expect that his people will thrive and produce good fruit, the kind of fruit He made them to produce.
God’s care for His people is perfect. He knows exactly what they need. He has never neglected his people. Yet they have brought him grief. Their disobedience has resulted in the protective wall being removed. God will bring a drought and predators, things which will certainly destroy the fruitfulness which remains.
Is God unjust for dealing with his people in this way? Not at all. His people, who depend on him for everything, have rejected all he did for them. They have said they know best for their situations. They have essentially decided that God is not God, but that they are.
In many parts of the world this day we find people who have redefined God. They are serving a god of their own creation rather than the God who created them. What good can we expect from this attitude? We can expect no good, only ill. We try to run our lives by ourselves and we blunder into any number of problems.
At the heart of those troubles we face is a rejection of God. In other passages in Isaiah and elsewhere God calls his people to trust in him and return to him for forgiveness and grace. That call goes out to us to this day. May the Lord bless us with repentance and trust that, in fact, the God of the Bible is the one who can and does rescue his people from themselves.
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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