Today's Reading April 30
Today is the last day of April. I hope that things are good wherever you are.
It is also, as we continue our journey through the Bible, the final reading out of 2nd Samuel. We're looking today at 2nd Samuel, chapters 23 and 24.
Chapter 23 is largely a retrospective, and it give the names and a few details of a group of David's close companions in warfare, the three mighty men, and the thirty. I haven't studied these individuals, I don't know whether or not they left a good legacy of faith for their descendants. I know that they were there for David when he needed them, and that some 3000 years or so later we still can read their names. Sometimes the good we do dies with us and is soon forgotten. What we do for God is not forgotten, and He knows our names.
Chapter 24 starts with a plague against Israel as a result of David's sin. The effects on others that result from our personal sin is a very large subject. But the plague ends at a particular place, the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite (resident of Jerusalem). That floor, that VERY place, became the location of the Temple in Jerusalem. And that very place remains the holiest spot in the world for the Jews and the war over its control remains a very great part of the war between the Jews and the Islamo-heathens. But - and note this - David acquired that ground for a price. As he wisely said, ''Nay; but I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the LORD my God of that which doth cost me nothing.''
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The evening's reading from the New Testament continues in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 22, verses 31 through 53. For those who saw ''The Passion of the Christ'', the narrative follows the movie pretty well, and the movie brought the reality to home perhaps so clearly that it makes us uncomfortable (as it should). The account begins with Jesus warning Peter that he will deny Christ that very night. It goes on to the Garden, the betrayal by Judas, and the taking of Jesus by the Temple soldiers.
Tough reading.
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