Category: Year B

Psalm 18:20-30

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            I confess that I am tired a lot.  Maybe it is the rigors of pastoral ministry.  It could be because my mind is always a beehive of activity and doesn’t shut down easily at night.  Perhaps it is due to not enough exercise or self-care.  More than likely, it is a bit of all.  But I perked up when I read today’s psalm and heard David say that “by my God I can leap over a wall.”
 
            It has been a while since I’ve leapt over a wall.  I’m not that old, but old enough to know better than try something like leaping over walls and pulling hamstrings.  David was really no spring chicken himself when he wrote this.  Psalm 18 is a psalm of praise to God for rescuing David from Saul and all his enemies.  This deliverance did not happen overnight; it came over years of David running from the king and being pursued by others.  But the day finally did come, and David was not shy in proclaiming his praise to God.
 
            If God’s deliverance from earthly enemies can energize him so much, how much more can I be invigorated by the reality that I am delivered from sin, death, and hell through the blood of Jesus Christ?  Maybe you, like me sometimes, think way too much about adverse circumstances and ornery people.  I am continually an advocate of using the ancient psalms to help give voice to our contemporary situations.  So, today, I am taking my own advice by reading and meditating on this psalm and getting a head start on Thanksgiving Day.  I probably won’t go out a leap over a wall, but I suspect my soul will be renewed and energized by contemplating the redemptive events of Jesus.
 

 

            Saving God, you have settled the sin issue once for all through your Son, the Lord Jesus.  Thank you for your gracious deliverance.  May my mind and heart be fortified through living into such a great salvation.  Amen.

Romans 12:17-21; 13:8-10

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            Not everybody is likable.  We all have others that drive us crazy on the inside with their annoying habits or ungodly ways of life.  But sometimes we might experience much more than being irritated.  Raging vitriol that results in verbal persecution; becoming the targets of evil intent; and, in some cases, finding ourselves victims of violence done to us or a loved one can stretch our Christian sensibilities to their maximum.  It is understandable that in such cases we would be upset, angry, in grief, and desire justice.
 
As we reflect back on Reformation Day and the great truth that we are justified apart from any work of our own but by grace alone through faith, this helps to give understanding as to why we do not take vengeance into our own hands.  We are clearly exhorted in this passage of Holy Scripture to “repay no one evil for evil” because “vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”  If justification is a work of God to rescue and redeem sinners from their plight, then wrath is also a work of God.  Just as to be justified is initiated and made possible through Christ by faith, so vengeance belongs to God, as well.  Our part in the whole affair is to trust God that he will take care of judging the world.  Judgment is way above our pay grade.
 
What is within our purview is showing love, even to those whom we consider enemies.  If we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, then we will leave plenty of room for God to do what God does best:  either show mercy to sinners; or, execute judgment upon them.  It is really all his business what he does with his creatures.  Our business is coming under the lordship of Christ and allowing God’s new creation to work itself out through us.  We are to work for the kind of justice that provides others with what they need, not what they deserve.  The world cannot become a better place if we keep insisting on playing judge, jury, and executioner.  Sometimes the best way to show love is to sincerely pray for the person for whom we have such difficulty loving.  Who do you need to love today?
 

 

Just and merciful God, you are the rightful Judge of all the earth.  Help me to trust in you to the degree that I can give room for you to do whatever you want to do in others’ lives.  I pray you will grace many people with the repentance that leads to new life in Jesus.  Amen.

Luke 10:25-37

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment


            In Christianity there is no justifying self.  The kingdom of God turns on grace, not more or harder work.  On this day, Reformation Day, Christians remember the famous posting of the 95 Theses by Martin Luther on the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany.  Justification by grace through faith, apart from human effort, is the great theological emphasis and legacy of the Reformers.  I suppose one would expect to look at the books of Romans and Galatians on such a day.  But to the gospels we go….
             The parable of the Good Samaritan is just as famous, but perhaps not so much when one is thinking of the Reformation.  Yet, Luke gives us insight into the thought process of the person for whom Jesus told the parable.  The man sought to “justify himself.”  When we look at the parable from the view of justification, we see the perspective of the wounded and hapless man, the victim of robbers.  He was left for dead, and, indeed, in the story we know that he would die apart from help – the kind of help the man could not do for himself.  He was completely dependent on someone to rescue him from his plight.
             The Samaritan, the Christ figure in the story, comes and shows the man mercy.  This grace was free, lacked any sort of favoritism, and full of sheer kindness.  Without the Samaritan’s actions of binding up the man’s wounds and getting him to a safe place, the victim would have died.  
             Today is a special day to celebrate the wonderful and glorious reality that Jesus Christ saves people from their terrible plight.  His mercy is not dependent on what kind of people we are, but simply based on need.  God graciously gives us the gift of faith and the mercy of deliverance.  By Christ’s wounds we are healed.  Take some time this day to reflect on this most gracious of truths that we do not need to justify ourselves, but as Christians already possess justification by grace alone apart from human effort.  Read the parable of the Good Samaritan carefully and slowly, absorbing it from this angle of the inability to justify ourselves and the incredible mercy of Christ.  Let this sink deep in your soul to bring wholeness and healing.
             Merciful God, you sent your Son to rescue me from my sinful condition.  Thank you for the great grace you have shown through Jesus to save me and justify me so that I need no longer try and justify myself before others.  Amen.

Romans 3:21-31

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment


            Every letter which Paul wrote had its purpose to address some particular problem(s) in the church.  A common situation that Paul continually went after was the disunity between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile believers.  The Roman church had within it both groups of people.  Paul’s great concern was to not establish and maintain two distinct churches based in ethnicity, but one church completely centered in the person and work of Jesus.
             The problem was that many of the Jewish Christians thought they had a leg-up by simply being Jews.  They tended toward a certain arrogance in which they took for granted that new Gentile believers must also adopt Jewish ways.  But the Gentiles fared no better.  They believed the Jews to be hopelessly stuck in their traditions and tended to look down on their brothers and sisters.
             Into this situation Paul makes it clear that no group of people is better than the other because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift.”  This kind of teaching was like a sonic boom to the church.  Although both Jew and Gentile were to appreciate one another’s differences, those differences were secondary to the grand design of the church to show no favoritism.  All are sinners.  All come to Christ by grace through faith.  There is no ground for human boasting of pedigree or practice.
             The Western church today finds itself increasingly within a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural milieu not too unlike the early Roman church.  Taking a good close look at the book of Romans would be a wise approach to fostering corporate unity and personal spiritual formation.  For then we will see ourselves through biblical lenses.
             Just God, you are the one who justifies based upon your own good pleasure.  Thank you for delivering me from my wayward beliefs.  Help me to appreciate your gracious justifying work more and more, to the glory of Jesus.  Amen.