Category: Daily Bible Reading Blog

A blog following the daily readings from the Revised Common Lectionary.

Don’t Lose Heart (2 Corinthians 4:1-12)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 

For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 

For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. (New International Version)

We all face times of adversity and seasons of life which stretch our faith and press the limits of what we can handle. 

You will find no promise within Holy Scripture that believers will avoid trouble. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Jesus promised that those who follow him will experience trouble. (John 15:18-20; 1 John 3:13; 2 Timothy 2:12) 

The pressures of life can sometimes be so overwhelming that we may lose heart. We might blame ourselves for the adversity we’re experiencing and wish things were different. Or we may blame others for our troubles and believe that if they would just get their act together, all would be well with my soul. 

Yet, no matter the source or nature of the problem, believers need a point of focus to direct their troubled hearts. We all need to be reminded of the grace we possess in Jesus Christ.

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is both a spiritual and a physical reality. If we believe this truth in our hearts we will be raised both spiritually and physically (Romans 10:9-10). This faith in Christ gives shape to the hope that, although we might be experiencing the effects of mortality and the fall of humanity, we are, at the same time, being spiritually renewed day by day. 

The same afflictions that cause our bodies to degenerate and dispirit us are the means to achieving a glorious, resurrected existence (2 Corinthians 4:13-18). There cannot be the glory of spiritual and bodily resurrection without a shameful death. The way of Jesus was to absorb the shame of the world’s violent ways on the cross so that we might be raised with him in his resurrection. 

However, this victory through Christ’s cross and resurrection does not mean that the church will never experience difficulty in this present life. In fact, daily spiritual renewal can and does happen through adverse circumstances. 

There must be suffering before glory, both for Jesus and for us. Just because we have spiritual deliverance, does not mean we are inoculated from daily stress and pressure. That’s because it’s the troubles of this life that teach us to trust God; it is the adversity which weans us from all that we have previously trusted upon to cope with those troubles. All of this begs several questions for each believer and every church: 

  • Do we give inordinate attention to either the tangibly physical or the intangible spiritual? 
  • How does the gospel impact us today? 
  • How do we interpret our earthly troubles? 
  • What place does faith in God have in our daily decisions? 
  • As we become older, are we being renewed in Christ? 
  • Does the Lord’s Table, as a tangible sign and seal of our intangible faith, shape our hope?

We must learn to embrace our troubles as the means of growing our faith. And the first step to this is by acknowledging those troubles. There is no accepting, coping, and transcending difficult circumstances apart from this awareness. Troubles only have power over us for ill if we ignore them or put up a false front to hide them. 

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:8-9, NIV)

The Apostle Paul wasn’t asking anything of the believers that he himself hadn’t already faced. Paul’s Christian experience sometimes resulted in beatings, stoning and shipwreck, hunger and poverty, danger and trouble, not to mention all the pressures of his concern for all the churches he established. Yet, through it all, Paul was transparent and named his troubles so he could apply the poultice of God’s grace to his afflictions. 

It is our brokenness, and not the pretension of having it all together, that shows the grace of God to others.

Over and over again, Paul described his life and ministry in apparent paradoxes: strength in weakness; glory through shame; life through death; riches through poverty. Although we experience the fallen nature of the world, God bends each situation for divine purposes so that what seems to be our downfall becomes the means to our spiritual renewal. 

Every church is inherently paradoxical, a strange amalgam of victory and defeat, faith and doubt, full of sorrow and joy. So, let us then embrace this reality and allow God to use whatever means to shape believers in Jesus for good and benevolent purposes. 

May it be so, to the glory of God.

How To Get Through Difficulty (Psalm 119:105-112)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

Your word is a lamp
that gives light
    wherever I walk.
Your laws are fair,
and I have given my word
    to respect them all.
I am in terrible pain!
Save me, Lord,
    as you have promised.
Accept my offerings of praise
    and teach me your laws.
I never forget your teachings,
although my life is always
    in danger.
Some merciless people
    are trying to trap me,
but I never turn my back
    on your teachings.
They will always be
my most prized possession
    and my source of joy.
I have made up my mind
to obey your laws forever,
    no matter what. (Contemporary English Version)

Attitude. Affection. These are the two qualities that stand out to me in today’s Psalm lesson. The psalmist is a person who is determined to hold onto God’s Law because it is his heart’s delight.

Our attitudes and our affections are meant to fit together like a hand in a glove. Our attitudes help us push through suffering to realize better days. And our affections drive us forward, allowing us to experience joy in the present moment as we await our hope of ultimate deliverance.

Commitments are fluid, always moving – so they need to be continually rehearsed and refreshed. We are constantly either fulfilling our promises or reneging on them. There is really no such thing as a one-time vow.

Vows need reinforcement from our attitudes and our affections. Otherwise, they languish on the trash heap of good intentions. This is one reason why the Psalms are designed for constant use.

Spiritually healthy habits must be embedded in our lives, well before any suffering and hard times roll in.

If our normal daily routines involve regular sustenance of God’s Word, then we have a breadth and a depth of robust theology to draw upon when the going gets rough. Furthermore, the sheer force of habit brings us back again and again to the treasure chest of divine instruction, informing our decisions and illuminating the treacherous road ahead.

The psalter is designed to reframe our difficult situations. Especially when a person’s life hangs in the balance, we can view hard and awkward circumstances through the window of the Psalms. Although circumstances change, and we never quite know what to expect, God’s Law remains our ballast and our rock.

Circumstances may change but divine love and morality are unchanging. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The Spirit is always with us, through each wave of hardship.

Life is a journey, an exploration into the unknown of the future. The path is shadowy and unclear. We are unsure of what is around the bend. God’s instructions and promises are like a forever energized flashlight, helping us navigate forward. Maybe Jesus had today’s Psalm in mind when he said:

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12, NRSV)

In Christianity, the Word is embodied in Jesus Christ; he is both the example and fulfillment of all God’s good promises.

A sequence of four metaphors runs through our verses for today:

  1. My feet. With Jesus as Word and Light, we have a constant companion walking alongside us for the journey.
  2. My mouth. There is an intercessor who takes our wordy or malformed prayers and presents them before our heavenly Father
  3. My hands. We do God’s will, despite adverse circumstances, by observing the Master who washed the feet of others.
  4. My heart. In desiring God’s decrees and commands, our hearts find their rest in the One who loved us and gave himself for us.

Our attitudes and affections are transformed into sustainable faith for the long journey.

Our hope is made sure through the promises of God.

Our love finds a resting place in the person of Jesus.

Faith, hope, and love are the shoes enabling us to walk the long uphill road, as well as absorbing the shock as we run with abandon downhill – into the loving arms of God.

I encourage you to find what works best for you in developing helpful spiritual habits. In reading the Bible, I often take the following approach using the acronym S.O.A.P:

Scripture

• Open your Bible and slowly, meditatively, read the portion of Scripture in your reading plan for today.

• Write the reference of what you read in a journal along with the date.

• As you read, ask God’s Spirit to highlight the verse(s) that speak to your life and write it in your journal.

Observation

• Make observations about what you just read and write them in your journal.

• Think about: What is going on? What is the context?  Who are the people being spoken to? What is the background or setting for this verse?

• Paraphrase and write this scripture down in your journal, in your own words.

• What do you think God is saying to you in this scripture?

Application

• Personalize what you have read by asking yourself how it relates to your life right now.

• Ask yourself how you can apply what you just read to your own life and write it in your journal.

• Ask yourself how your life will be different or changed as a result of God speaking to you in this Scripture.

Prayer

• Write out a prayer to God in your journal.

• Your prayer should relate to the verse that you highlighted. It could be asking for help, thanking God, etc. Write down what your heart desires to say to God in response to his Word.

May the words of your mouth, the meditations of your heart, the work of your hands, and the movement of your feet be to the glory of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Let Go and Give (Isaiah 58:1-12)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

“Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
    Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
    and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
For day after day they seek me out;
    they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
    and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
    and seem eager for God to come near them.
‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
    ‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
    and you have not noticed?’

“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
    and exploit all your workers.
Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
    and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
    and expect your voice to be heard on high.
Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
    only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
    and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
    a day acceptable to the Lord?

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
    and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
    you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
    with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
    and your night will become like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you always;
    he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
    and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
    like a spring whose waters never fail.
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
    Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. (New International Version)

Let Go of the Hypocrisy and Get Real

Isaiah’s prophecy came to a community in conflict. The root of the issue was a hypocritical gap between the people’s conduct and their worship. They wondered why God had not noticed their pious fasting – why their actions before the Lord had gone unseen. Isaiah made it clear that their practice of fasting and their rituals of worship were ineffective because it was all self-serving instead of serving others.

Let Go of the Food and Get Generous

True fasting does not abstain from food just to get noticed (by God and/or others) but has the aim of a generous spirit and a giving heart. Both abstinence and generosity are necessary in the practice of fasting. 

Fasting is a much neglected spiritual practice today, so we need to make sense of the reason to do without food for a set amount of time. Fasting ought to put us in touch with our vulnerability; it should remind us of our mortality and our frailties. That’s why fasting is so often associated with the upcoming season of Lent.

Through fasting we remember that if we are not fed, we will die. Standing before God hungry, we realize that we are dependent creatures in desperate need of the Lord. By fasting, we discern that we are poor, and called to be rich in a way the world does not understand.

We are empty, called to be filled with the fullness of God. We are physically hungry, called to taste the goodness that can be ours in Christ, as we get in touch with a hunger for God.

Fasting, however, does not end with abstinence from food; and it is not merely a private individual thing. The spiritual discipline of fasting is meant to open our eyes and our hearts to the truly needy among us and in the world.  We are to be open to both the spiritual needs of people, and their very real material needs.

“When you see people freezing outside in the frigidity of unbelief, without the warmth of faith, impoverished and homeless, lead them home to the church and clothe them with the work of incorruption, so that, wrapped in the mantle of Christ, they will not remain in the grave.”

St. Jerome (347-430, C.E.)

Isaiah also addresses the very real daily tangible needs of people for the basic necessities of life. The message is this: Fasting is to personally abstain from food in order to provide food for another. 

Let Go of the Ego and Get to Praying & Repenting

Just as abstinence from and provision for food are two sides of the same coin, so fasting and prayer are, as well. We are to stop eating in order to take that time to pray and to give. Letting go of a meal puts the food that would have been eaten into the pantry for the needy. Fasting from lunch at our jobs can be done, not just to get more work accomplished, but so that we might share both our food and our friendship with those in need.

The prophecy of Isaiah has intimate connections between worship, fasting, justice, and reconciliation. They are meant to be a seamless whole, indivisible, enjoying a close bond that makes for powerful and effective ministry. All of this enables us to get back in touch with the real meaning of repentance:

  • To repair a broken relationship with God or with another person
  • To grieve over the reality of a certain situation
  • To devote oneself to service
  • To experience new life and spiritual growth

Isaiah wanted people to repent of both their individual sins and their social sins. Truth be told, we must all deal openly and honestly with our own complicity in the sins of our world, our nation, our church, and our families. The worship that God desires is inescapably corporate as well as compellingly personal. To ensure that all people around us flourish as human beings is both an obligation and a necessity to our collective fulfillment as God’s people.

The result of true fasting is a repentance that produces the fruit of renewal and restoration. Fasting connects us to God, and then leads us to repair and rebuild what has been broken and torn down. 

Let Go of Your “Precious” and Get Committed to God and Others

We fast to practice repentance, attach ourselves to God, and become more generous toward others. In the Lord of the Rings movies, Smeagol was much too attached to the power of the ring; it was his “precious,” and he was willing to do anything not to lose it or let it go.

Yet, we must all decide that we are going to let that precious thing go, at least for a time, whatever it may be. Each year at this time, before Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent, I decide in what ways I will practice fasting. In past years, I have abstained from buying certain things or watching TV. This year, however, I am going to do what fasting really is: abstaining from food for a set time. 

For most of the history of the church, Christians were expected to observe regular fasts on Wednesdays and Fridays, every week, year round.  When the season of Lent came, the church was united in their commitment to use the forty days as a time of introspection, confession, and fasting in order to prepare for the miracle of forgiveness on Good Friday and its life-giving power on Easter. It was understood to be a time of confronting sin, purging bad desires, yearning for forgiveness, and developing godly habits of living.   

For me, I think the least I can do is fast two meals a week – one on Wednesday and one on Friday (if not the whole days) to not only be in solidarity with the faithful that have gone before us, but in order to let the season of Lent do what it is intended to do.

I encourage you to consider implementing some sort of regular fast through Lent, if for no other reason, to fulfill the spirit and intent of Isaiah’s message to us so that we all connect deeply with Christ in purposeful Christian living.

Merciful God and Father, we have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against Your holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done – leaving us bereft of good. O Lord, have mercy upon us and restore us according to your grace, through Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord. Amen.

Exposing Hypocrisy (Mark 7:1-8)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
Old Men and Christ by Ivan Filichev, 1992

The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)

So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”

He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:

“‘These people honor me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
    their teachings are merely human rules.’

You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” (New International Version)

Reading the Gospel text for today, I try to imagine what emotions Jesus might have experienced when confronted by some religious leaders about his lack of attention to traditional and ritual hand washings – maybe frustration, anger, sadness, exasperation, disappointment, irritation, aggravation, or discouragement.

Perhaps Christ felt all those emotions. Whatever Jesus was feeling at the time, I can easily see him taking a deep breath and exhaling a great big *sigh* over the hypocrisy displayed in front of him.

Hypocrisy is a disconnect between espoused values and actual behavior. Whenever there is an incongruence between what we say is important and how we really live, this is being two-faced and duplicitous.

The men who came to see Jesus were plain old insincere hacks who practiced religious quackery. And Jesus saw right through their fake pretention of righteousness.

First off, this narrative is neither a blanket condemnation of Pharisees nor a dig on rituals themselves. Instead, Christ’s words were directed to specific persons using their rituals to leverage an appearance of religious superiority over others.

That type of motivation for engaging traditional rituals completely ignores the ethical and moral intention of those practices.

Sometimes folks can get so doggone wrapped up in how faith is represented that they lose sight of the faith itself.

Jesus and Old Men by Ivan Filichev, 1993

Hypocrisy has to do with our motives – not so much what we do but why we do it. Rituals themselves are good. Why we do them, or not, or how we go about doing them, gets at the heart of our objectives for engaging religious practices.

We need to ask ourselves:

Are our spiritual practices truly a worship offering to God, or are they merely mechanisms for keeping up the appearance of holiness?

Hypocrisy is acting a part which is not our true self. It is, instead, to live from the false self through the attempt of providing an idealized person to the public. What we ought to be doing is embracing the true self and realizing our common humanity with one another in genuine devotion to God and service to others.

Religious hypocrisy is particularly insidious because it uses what is sacred for selfish purposes. It damages the credibility of the religion, creates idolatry, and papers over hate with a veneer of pretentious piety.

The hypocrite is one who is a bundle of disparate parts. They have a massive need of integration to a whole and real self. The cost to facing this is the vulnerability of exposing oneself as flawed, imperfect, even ugly. Many persons have no willingness to be viewed by others as such, and so they maintain their play-acting and continue to seek the attention and accolades as a model religious person.

We all must come to grips with the reality that God cares a whole lot about why we do what we do.

If and when the forms of faith become tools of oppression to place heavy burdens upon others backs, then those forms have supplanted the faith itself.

Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks, and from the heart the hands and feet move. Whenever we care more about being and appearing right than getting it right and becoming better, then we have a heart problem. The heart of the issue is the heart itself. Clean up the heart, and everything else follows – not the other way around.

The probity of today’s Gospel lesson is that we might misinterpret what is important to God. We may be playing the hypocrite yet have the belief we are genuine. The capacity for our hearts to enlarge with love is in direct relation to an awareness of the hidden motives buried within those hearts.

Evil intentions and motivations are what separate us from God – not our race, class, age, gender, religion, ethnicity, behavior, rituals, or anything else on the outside.

If we find ourselves being nit-picky of others, this is usually a clue that the unconscious self is trying to protect us from facing the pain of our own sins by projecting and focusing on another’s supposed missteps with tradition or ritual.

Fortunately, Jesus came to this earth full of grace and truth. There were times that Christ set aside niceness and decorum to go for the heart. In shining a light on the motives behind the deeds of people, some repented and received the good news of the kingdom of God; and others resisted to maintain their illusion of control and superiority.

Nobody could ride the fence with Jesus around. You either loved him or hated him.

The beauty of grace is that when we squarely and uncompromisingly face our sins and let go of the things we consider so important, and turn to God with authenticity, we are welcome at his Table.

Most holy and merciful Father, we acknowledge and confess before you our sinful nature, prone to evil and slow to do good, and all our shortcomings, offenses, and malevolent motives. You alone know how often we have sinned in wandering from Christ’s way of grace and truth, in wasting your gifts of compassion and justice, and in forgetting your love.

O Lord have mercy on us. We are ashamed and sorry for all the ways we have displeased you. Teach us to hate our errors; cleanse us from our secret faults; and forgive us our sins; for the sake of your dear Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.