For a description of the (Y2) reading plan, see the “About” page.
Acts 27
How did God encourage Paul? How did Paul encourage his shipmates? In what ways are you using God’s encouragement to help others? I can’t say that I blame the centurion for not listening to Paul at the beginning of this chapter. He clearly didn’t have anything against Paul, but the owners and operators of the ship were the experts, right? And nobody could argue against the fact that they weren’t in a suitable wintering spot.
But God did everybody on that boat a favor by having Paul warn them of the danger before they set off. Most of them, especially the centurion, it seems, were more than ready to listen to whatever Paul had to say when their lives were later on the line. The Centurion even sacrificed the lifeboat, which he may well have considered their best chance at survival. By that point, he willingly placed his trust in what Paul had to say.
As hard as it is sometimes, I think it takes the ‘I told you so’ disaster to make us listen to and trust the right people and God. That’s a good motivation to speak truth into others’ lives even when you know they don’t want to hear it and aren’t going to listen. If it brings them to that ‘I told you so’ moment down the road, it might just save their lives. And, though it seems a shame, what does it really matter what they might lose along the way if their life is saved in the end?
This also makes me want to consider whose advice I listen to. Human reasoning can sound mighty good sometimes, especially when it comes from a place of expertise. But there is nothing that trumps the wisdom of God. So if I have the sense that somebody is truly speaking from God’s Spirit, I want to follow that, even if it goes against what seems like sound reasoning.
Lev. 11-12
Summarize the Jewish kosher food laws and compare them with Mark 7:14-19. How does this make you feel? I feel like God gave His people all these clean versus unclean laws as a tangible means of understanding His holiness. As Jesus said in Mark, being clean – holiness – was never about what you touch or what goes into your mouth. It’s about what’s in your heart. The clean / unclean laws not only gave the people a conscious awareness of God’s holiness, but they also presented them with opportunity for obedience, which tests what’s in the heart.
Still, there must have been some purpose, some other message, in what God declared to be clean or unclean. For example, things that represented humanity – like death or bodily fluids – would render one unclean. But I’ve gotta say, I’m at a loss for the reasoning behind the food laws. Since these laws dealt with living things, perhaps it was just a matter of God allowing those that made the best food sources to be eaten in spite of death being associated with the unclean.
Whatever the purpose and reasoning behind it all, I am glad that I don’t have to concern myself with it. What a burden it must have been to have to be constantly aware of what you touched or ate, or what kind of critter got into what. It kinda gives a whole new dimension to, “Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup”! I guess that’s part of why Jesus said that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. On the other hand, that light burden does make it easier to grow numb to the fact that we, an unholy people, serve a holy God. I don’t ever want to forget how undeserving I am of God’s great mercy or stop being grateful for His indescribable grace.
Ps. 22
Reread this psalm and imagine Jesus singing it from the cross. (See Matthew 27:46). Psalm 22 is one of the best known prophecies of Jesus’ death on the cross. It is very easy to imagine Him ‘singing’ this prayer as He hung there. As I did so, I noticed an interesting thing. Jesus was hanging there, praying that God would deliver and rescue Him. But, contrary to what those taunting Him were thinking, He was not asking for deliverance from His human enemies. Jesus knew that the battle was not against flesh and blood.
And the really cool thing, which is revealed as Jesus’ prayer turns into praise, is that He knew the victory to come was not His alone. God’s deliverance is for all those who seek the LORD for all time. “Future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim His righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!” (Ps. 22:30b-31).