Wednesday 8 June

2 Samuel 13:1-39

Sigh.  Here we go again.  It does feel very much like the sins of the father (David’s pretence of illness and his illicit taking of Bathsheba) are being visited upon the sons.  But, while that is the case, the sons are pretty good at visiting their own sins upon themselves as well.  The Lord’s declaration to David of yesterday “the sword shall never depart from your house because you despised me” (12:10) is beginning to come to pass.  God is the Lord of history.  What he says will happen indeed will happen.  

Acts 4:23-5:11

When they prayed that God would stretch out his hand and perform miraculous signs and wonders I don’t suppose they expected one of those wonders to be the slaying of two of their own.  I’ve always wished I could have seen Peter’s face when Ananias fell down and died before him.  My suspicion is that it would have been a picture of shock and terror as brain cells fizzed round inside of it screaming “what have I done? what have I done? what have I done?”.  But, over the next 3 hours Peter had time and space to appreciate that Ananias’ death was not something he had done but was a sign from the Sovereign Lord who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them.  It was a sign, or a signpost, to there being a greater power that lies above normal human interactions.  It was a sign that this power had been unleashed upon the earth through the mighty resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  And, as people who live on the same side of the resurrection as Peter, we should similarly expect to see signs of this power.  We should expect to see God tangibly among us.  Whether its meeting rooms shaking or people testifying with great power or having no needy people among us or, heaven forbid, people carrying out wrapped bodies.  I can see nothing in the bible to suggest that we shouldn’t be seeing this stuff.  Our God made the earth and everything in it and the expectation of seeing him working here is just the natural outworking of that belief.  So, let’s pray as the disciples prayed that the Lord would stretch out his hand and then, let’s look to see what he is doing among us.

Psalm 71:9-18

It’s interesting how seriously they took their responsibility to pass on to the following generation what God had given them.