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March 4, 2010
Job 39:1 – 40:24 “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn? 2 Do you count the months till they bear? Do you know the time they give birth? 3 They crouch down and bring forth their young; their labor pains are ended. 4 Their young thrive and grow strong in the wilds; they leave and do not return. 5 “Who let the wild donkey go free? Who untied his ropes? 6 I gave him the wasteland as his home, the salt flats as his habitat. 7 He laughs at the commotion in the town; he does not hear a driver’s shout. 8 He ranges the hills for his pasture and searches for any green thing. 9 “Will the wild ox consent to serve you? Will he stay by your manger at night? 10 Can you hold him to the furrow with a harness? Will he till the valleys behind you? 11 Will you rely on him for his great strength? Will you leave your heavy work to him? 12 Can you trust him to bring in your grain and gather it to your threshing floor? 13 “The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, but they cannot compare with the pinions and feathers of the stork. 14 She lays her eggs on the ground and lets them warm in the sand, 15 unmindful that a foot may crush them, that some wild animal may trample them. 16 She treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers; she cares not that her labor was in vain, 17 for God did not endow her with wisdom or give her a share of good sense. 18 Yet when she spreads her feathers to run, she laughs at horse and rider. 19 “Do you give the horse his strength or clothe his neck with a flowing mane? 20 Do you make him leap like a locust, striking terror with his proud snorting? 21 He paws fiercely, rejoicing in his strength, and charges into the fray. 22 He laughs at fear, afraid of nothing; he does not shy away from the sword. 23 The quiver rattles against his side, along with the flashing spear and lance. 24 In frenzied excitement he eats up the ground; he cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds. 25 At the blast of the trumpet he snorts, ‘Aha!’ He catches the scent of battle from afar, the shout of commanders and the battle cry. 26 “Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom and spread his wings toward the south? 27 Does the eagle soar at your command and build his nest on high? 28 He dwells on a cliff and stays there at night; a rocky crag is his stronghold. 29 From there he seeks out his food; his eyes detect it from afar. 30 His young ones feast on blood, and where the slain are, there is he.” NIV Job 40:1 The LORD said to Job: 2 “Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!” 3 Then Job answered the LORD: 4 “I am unworthy– how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. 5 I spoke once, but I have no answer– twice, but I will say no more.” 6 Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm: 7 “Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. 8 “Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself? 9 Do you have an arm like God’s, and can your voice thunder like his? 10 Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor, and clothe yourself in honor and majesty. 11 Unleash the fury of your wrath, look at every proud man and bring him low, 12 look at every proud man and humble him, crush the wicked where they stand. 13 Bury them all in the dust together; shroud their faces in the grave. 14 Then I myself will admit to you that your own right hand can save you. 15 “Look at the behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox. 16 What strength he has in his loins, what power in the muscles of his belly! 17 His tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are close-knit. 18 His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like rods of iron. 19 He ranks first among the works of God, yet his Maker can approach him with his sword. 20 The hills bring him their produce, and all the wild animals play nearby. 21 Under the lotus plants he lies, hidden among the reeds in the marsh. 22 The lotuses conceal him in their shadow; the poplars by the stream surround him. 23 When the river rages, he is not alarmed; he is secure, though the Jordan should surge against his mouth. 24 Can anyone capture him by the eyes, or trap him and pierce his nose?
Matthew 21:33-46 “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. 34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. 35 “The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said. 38 “But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ 39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40 “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.” 42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? 43 “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 44 He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.” 45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. 46 They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.
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Books: Job, Matthew 3 Comments »
3 Responses to “March 4, 2010”
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March 4th, 2008 at 6:20 am
There’s a place in 2 Samuel 12, after King David has committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband Uriah killed, that Nathan the prophet comes to him to confront him about what he has done. But Nathan doesn’t just come out and tell David he has sinned; he tells him a story, a parable about a rich man and poor man and how the rich man took the poor man’s only lamb in order to feed a guest, instead of choosing from his own bountiful flock. And as David’s anger burns against the rich man, Nathan says, “You are the man!”, and proceeds to reveal to him how horrendous his crimes were in the sight of God. And David recognizes his sin and repents.
That’s the power of the parable. And here, instead of Jesus just coming out and telling the Pharisees and chief priests that they are missing out on the kingdom of heaven by their inability to recognize God’s prophets and Messiah, he tells them a story about a man and tenants and servants and a son. I am continually humbled and almost frightened by these passages, because once again, here are the leaders of God’s chosen people, supposedly their most spiritual members, missing out on the kingdom of God because of their inability to recgonize God when He actually does show up. Instead of welcoming Him and listening to Him, they want to kill Him and eventually succeed.
We pray for God to show up, to reveal Himself, to bring revival. But truly, if He actually did show up, we might hate Him for how He would challenge us and wish Him dead. If He showed up and told us to sell our home, to leave our job, to give all we had to the poor, to trust Him step by step; if we asked Him to give us the words to speak and He gave us words that caused people to despise and shun us; is we asked Him to make us more like Him and we were led into difficult trials and even death, like Him, would we still want Him around? Or would we wish Him dead, as the Pharisees did? Those are sobering thoughts to me, and a reminder that at the core of who I am, I still prefer my comfort and my will over His glory. Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.
March 4th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Job has a good word for us all today, “I put my hand over my mouth”. Would that Job’s fiends had done the same.
March 4th, 2008 at 9:57 am
The Message translates Matt 41:43 “God’s kingdom will be taken back from you and handed over to a people who will live out a kingdom life.” “Live out a Kingdom life”, for me seems to put it more starkly than “produce its fruit”; although the meaning is the same. As you mention Eric, it is living that kingdom life that is the challenge, and I do not see Jesus anywhere promising that it will be comfortable. Why do I then long to be comfortable?