Today's Reading June 22
We start the day in the book of Esther, (Hadassah), chapters 4, 5, and 6.
This is, once again, the story of those who are faithful to the Lord despite being in lousy circumstances. Mordecai looks out for the interests of the king who has him in bondage. So does Esther. In addition, we have here one of those wonderful and memorable quotes from the Bible. When Esther expresses fear that carrying an unwelcome message to the king may result in her death, Mordecai replies,
13 Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews.
14 For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?
I love that phrase. The Lord puts us in places and in circumstances for His purposes, and simply asks that we be faithful and obedient. She was, and we remember her for it. And, in ways we perhaps can not understand, the world is a different place as a result.
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The New Testament reading comes from the Acts, chapter 5, verses 17 through 42.
Just wonderful stuff here, hard to pick out the best parts.
Persecution comes from the religious leaders of the day, and the response is
7 Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation,
18 And laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison.
19 But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said,
20 Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life.
21 And when they heard that, they entered into the temple early in the morning, and taught. But the high priest came, and they that were with him, and called the council together, and all the senate of the children of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought
And later on,
40 And to him they agreed: and when they had called the apostles, and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.
41 And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.
42 And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.
What does this OT passage say about breaking the law? Doesn't it really teach us to break the law when it suits our purpose? I am also struck by what pride and hatred can do to a person like Haman. Doesn't the Bible address that?
ReplyDeleteI don't think it teaches us to break the law lightly. It does teach us to do the Lord's bidding, no matter what. And it teaches us that, given a conflict between the two, His will wins. But Scripture also tells us to honor the king, and such. So the key is that something must be to GOD's will, not our own. Big difference. And a step not to be taken lightly. It gets us into a difficult area if we're not careful. We can agree to not worship Baal or throw our kids into a bonfire as the devotees of Moloch would do. How about failing to preach against certain sins if the State regards it as ''hate speech''? This is already happening. Again, we must obey God rather than men, but we must be clear on motive and purpose and who it is we are glorifying.
ReplyDeleteWith respect to Haman, there's a bit of him in all of us. I don't agree with the Roman Catholic practice of classifying sins. But the reality is that the biggies: Pride, Greed, Lust, and Envy are responsible for a very large part of human misery and violation of the Lord's will. Ultimately they distort the soul, just as the Devil intends. My understanding of his fall has a whole lot to do with the sin of Pride. We do well to avoid it, but it's an ever-present part of our fallen nature. The Bible is full of warnings against it. It's just not preached on very much these days, I gues it would spoil the ''self-esteem'' movement or something.