For a full description of the (Y4) reading plan, see the “About” page.
Lev. 24
Okay – semi-random thought here. I’m thinking about the light and how the people bore the responsibility to keep it shining unceasingly. The text flows from the command for the people’s provision of light and bread into the story of a man who cursed God, followed by God’s commands for repayment of death and injury to man and beast. It’s as if the eye for eye and life for life part is intended to remove the darkness from the required light. My thought, then, is that we are a pretty poor source of light. Rather than a continually burning light, humanity as a whole is a continual source of darkness. That’s why we need the bread of Jesus’ flesh instead of ours. We need His Spirit in us as our never-ending source of light.
Ps. 31
“Into Your hand I commit my spirit” (Ps. 31:5a). According to Luke, these were Jesus’ last words on the cross. If we are to live as Jesus lived, following in His footsteps and becoming more like Him, then shouldn’t we, too, commit our spirit into God’s hand? Our flesh needs to die, just as His did, and what’s left needs to belong to God. Then we can also say, “You have ransomed me, O LORD, God of truth.” (Ps. 31:5b).
Ecc. 7
This chapter sounds especially hopeless. I couldn’t help but wonder as I read it, “Why is this book in the Bible?” I know that the Bible is Jesus’ story; that everything in it in some way points to Him. How, then, does this chapter do that? Well, you know it doesn’t do any good to present the solution to a problem if nobody is aware of the problem. So I believe part of the Bible’s purpose is to show us exactly what I see in Ecclesiastes – the hopelessness of the human condition.
The Bible tells us that none of us are righteous. Many struggle with that. Part of why they struggle is because they use the wrong standard by which to measure their righteousness. Compared to a whole slew of other people, they may well come out shining like polished gold. But other people aren’t the standard. God is, and before Him, we all fall short. We fall short because we aren’t God, which means that we aren’t perfect. And that is exactly what the Preacher states in this chapter. “Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins.” (Ecc. 7:20). Put any one of us in Adam and Eve’s place, with just one wrong option in front of us day after day, and there isn’t a single one of us who would not have eventually taken that forbidden fruit. We all need Jesus.