Genesis 40:1-41:40
It’s astonishing that God would speak to Pharoah. He wasn’t part of the covenant people, he was clearly worshipping other gods, he doesn’t seem to have made any effort to seek God in either word or deed (although we can’t know that for sure) and yet God gave him a warning about the future famine. This is a common and crucial theme throughout the Old Testament - God wants to draw all types of people into the fold of his protection and provision. God’s covenant promise is made to Israel and he makes himself especially available to the Israelites who seek him (even if it seems to take Him rather a long time as when Joseph is in prison) but he also regularly goes a little bit maverick and speaks words of promise or caution to those completely outside of his chosen people. God cannot be contained and his desire to redeem people is never restricted to a the special few; his desire is to seek and save the lost.
Matthew 14:1-21
Jesus has just heard that his cousin and his first-ever-believer has suffered a gruesome death at the hands of the Israeli leadership that Jesus has come to challenge and usurp (Herod was head of the Sadducees who claimed that the promises of the Prophets were being fulfilled right then in and through their reign). He must have felt sick, tired and full of foreboding. And yet he decides to act on the prompting he has (through the compassion he feels) and to recklessly give of himself and of his disciples for the sake of the people around him. Is this a recipe for spiritual burn-out? I would have thought so. And yet it seems I am wrong. Not only would seeing the miracle have been extraordinarily faith-building but, through the provision of the 12 extra basketfuls, we see how the Lord provides resources for each of the disciples to take away with them. And yet constant service is not what Jesus is about - as soon as the 5000 are fed he sends the disciples on a boat trip and gets some time away (see tomorrow’s reading). When Jesus sees the Father doing something he joins in, no matter how he feels, and, when Jesus doesn’t feel the Father’s prompting - even when the needs is still there - he gets away for a bit of R&R.
Proverbs 2:12-22
Proverbs is pretty brutal when describing those who seduce other’s partners (it talks about wives but I think we can take that as short-hand for wives or husbands). It says it is foolish even to start down the path to their door. Just don’t even go near them. It sounds rigid and even legalistic but I think it is just trying to be realistic about the strength of sexual desire and the fact that very few of us are completely without any kind of weakness. And it has an unambiguous message; the consequences of dalliance are always dreadful.
