If you use Facebook, we are posting these each day on our page there, and we will also post these here each day. We welcome your thoughts here or on Facebook.
Day 58 – Thru the Bible
Today we continue through Deuteronomy and Psalms.
Deuteronomy 15 – The sabbatical year illustrates the principle of generosity based on grace. There would have been times in ancient Israel when someone would have run into financial difficulties and needed a loan or even more radically would have been sold into slavery because of financial destitution. Lending freely not grudgingly and providing liberally was to characterize God’s people.
Why was such generosity to be the norm? Because Israel knew what it was to be slaves in Egypt and to experience the generosity of God.
How did Jesus teach that this same spirit of generosity is operative in the “kingdom of heaven”? Hint: Matthew 18:23–35.
Out of His extravagant generosity, the divine King released us from a debt we could never have paid back on our own. How does this motivate us to be generous to others? Hint: 2 Corinthians 8:9.
As we consider the depths of God’s own love for us and the riches that He has lavished upon us in Christ (Ephesians 1:7–20), our hearts cannot help but be moved to give to others as a reflection of what God has given to us.
Deuteronomy 16 – Passover, which celebrated Israel’s exodus from Egypt, was closely associated with the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Leviticus 23:5–6), because during this combined feast the Israelites removed all leaven from their diets and from their land, as a reminder of their affliction in Egypt and the haste of their departure.
How does the apostle Paul reveal how the Passover points us to Jesus? 1 Corinthians 5:7.
Just as the blood of the Passover lamb protected the Israelites from death (Exodus 12:13), what does the blood of Christ, “our Passover lamb,” protects us from? Hint: Romans 6:23.
As the ancient Israelites were to remove all leaven literally, so the church is to remove all leaven metaphorically. Our striving to live with sincerity and truth is our response to God’s grace granted through “our Passover lamb” (1 Corinthians 5:7-8).
Psalm 58 – The problem with these civil authorities is what they are not doing. They are not pursuing justice. By refusing to promote justice, one becomes complicit with violence. Even if nothing else can be done, the righteous must pray for their leaders to do right (1 Timothy 2:1–3).
To pray against injustice is to express solidarity with what burdens the heart of God, because God loves justice (Isaiah 61:8). Conversely, these judges tolerate evil because their hearts—like the hearts of all the the lost—are estranged from God from birth.
David’s spoken curse in verses 6–9 are NOT bloodthirsty; they are pleas for the failure of wickedness. Broken teeth, vanishing water, and a stillborn child are cries for evil to be undone. David’s personal example proves that the goal of his prayer was for unjust rulers to repent (1 Samuel 18:1; 19:10; 24:16–22; 26:21–25).
To “bathe” in “blood” (Ps. 58:10) was a common manner of speech describing a warrior’s share in an enemy’s defeat. Indeed, the righteous will share the Lamb’s victory in the end (Isaiah 63:3; Revelation 14:19, 20; 19:14, 15).
There is certainly strong language used in this Psalm, but isn’t it true that we all long to see evil vanquished, ideally through conversion by trusting in Jesus? Where do you see evil in your own heart, and how does this point you to Jesus?
What other thoughts or questions does today’s reading bring up?
Some of these notes are from the ESV Gospel Transformation Bible study notes. We highly recommend this study Bible.
Videos produced by www.TheGospelProject.com.
All links you need to be a part of this are here – Thru the Bible in 2018.