Thursday 22 December

Ezra 8:15-9:15

I’ve been there.  At times I’ve felt like pulling hair from my beard (if I had a beard that is), so let down and upset and convicted have I been of my own evil deeds.  And I suspect I am not alone.  It is the tragedy of Eden played out in our lives times and time again.  And I think it is a more fundamental doctrine of christianity than I had ever grasped before.  As people we are unbelievably thick.  We see the woe of keeping God at arms length, we experience the woe of keeping God at arms length.  And so we cry out for his mercy and, quite shockingly, he gives it to us.  But only a brief moment after reveling in God’s graciousness do we once again go off and do our own thing.  It might be shacking up with the worshippers of a foreign God or it might be some other, equally potent, form of unfaithfulness.  These things are manifestations of our waywardness; they undeniably expose our divided heart.  And they should lead us swiftly to the foot of the cross.  They should walk us brusquely to the empty tomb.  They should usher us rudely to the flames of pentecost.  For these evil deeds show us our need of redemption.  These evil deeds should push us to repentance and faith in the One who died and was raised and is now in our hearts.  For we can know deliverance from this pitiful cycle in this life.  We can keep a bit more hair in our beard, if we remain in Him.  For He is faithful, and He will do it.

Revelation 14:1-13

The confusion just keeps on coming.  And yet there is still a good bit of meat to chew on.  One thing that particularly jumps out at me is the suggestion that the 144,000 had not defiled themselves with women but had kept themselves pure.  Although on first reading this seems like the 144,000 must all have been men who had never had sex, having considered it I just don’t that is what this is talking about.  Nowhere else in the whole bible has having it off with your spouse been regarded as a defiling act.  In fact the evidence has been massively to the contrary.  And in the whole of the New Testament there is no suggestion that men are entitled to a higher level of heavenly dwelling than the womenfolk.  What I think is going on here is that the referenced ‘women’ are the sort of women mentioned in the Ezra passage above.  These women who can defile the people of God are those people - men or women - who turn us to foreign gods.  They are those who win our affection and turn it away from Jesus.  Often in the bible narratives these are sexual relationships eg the Midianite women during the exodus, Solomon’s wives, the foreign women in Ezra, but I guess it isn’t just restricted to that.  We need to beware any influence (particularly from attractive people) that lure us away from the worship of Jesus.  If we patiently endure and remain faithful to Jesus then we will receive rest... and a whole lot more.

Proverbs 31:1-9

Should leaders use their power to get stuff done or to speak up for the rights of the destitute?  Lemuel’s mum had an opinion.