Thursday, November 9, 2017

November 9

Ezekiel 20:1-24; Hebrews 9:11-28; Psalm 107:1-43; Proverbs 27:11

I’m doing a Bible study on the book of Judges with some ladies at my church. It’s been a while since I’ve been in an official Bible study, and it’s been really fun to read and discuss God’s word. It’s also reminded me of the things we read earlier this year in our One Year Bible. Sarah mentioned this yesterday, how we’ve seen Israel forget and remember, but it struck me again today, I think because of the Judges study.

Ezekiel recounts, yet again, Israel’s history to the men who come seeking of the LORD from him: “On that day I swore to them that I would bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land that I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the most glorious of all lands. And I said to them, Cast away the detestable things your eyes feast on,…but they rebelled against me and were not willing to listen to me” (Ez. 20:1:6-8). In the Judges study, we are just at the beginning of this history, where Israel first begins to forget, fall captive, cry out to the LORD, be rescued by a judge/prophet, then have peace, then forget and rebel again. It’s a cycle that will haunt Israel their whole history, until the point of total destruction, which we just read about last month in Jeremiah and Lamentations. And as I’ve been reading in recent weeks in our One Year Bible and also in the Judges study, I’ve been mulling around this idea: the cycle gets worse and worse for Israel. They fail to remember what God did for them, they rebel, they are conquered, they cry out, God saves them and then the cycle continues. And each cycle seems more severe. But then we read in our New Testament about the gospel exploding – we just finished Paul’s letters not that long ago and we get a sense of a similar cycle, i.e. the church forgetting some of Paul’s teachings about the Gospel, but then they receive the correction and the Gospel goes forth and even explodes. So they have a similar cyclical pattern, but in the opposite direction; their cycle propels them closer to Christ, each rotation bringing further clarity and more light. Don’t you just love the things you can see about Scripture when you read it in big chunks, consistently over time?

I love the psalm for today, too – such rejoicing and celebrating! Here are just a smattering of my favorites:

                “Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!” (Ps. 107:1)
                “Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of men!” (vs. 8)
                “For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things” (vs. 9)
                “Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress” (vs. 19)
                “Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let him consider the steadfast love of the LORD.” (vs. 43)

Thank you, Lord, for your word, for its complexity and beauty and seamless connection. And thank you for passages like this psalm, which bring to our lips our praise and adoration. We love you. Amen.


- Esther McCurry

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