Daily Reading Passages

Click below for access to the passages. Biblegateway.com is an excellent site with many versions of the Bible. The link below opens in NIV.  Youversion.com is a new site that allows you to annotate your own Bible, make notes, and comments once you create an account. That link opens in the TNIV version. Other versions are available at both sites.

Coaching Comments

The Old Testament reading today is Leviticus 22:17 - 23:44. It comes in two sections. We wrap up the instructions for the priests, with a final word on unacceptable sacrifices. The quick summary is this: if you're going to make a sacrifice, you'd better give God your best. This is sort of implicit in the word sacrifice, which means giving up something valuable to you. But the sacrifice was an easy place for people to start thinking along the "kill two birds with one stone" lines. After all, if they had a deformed animal that was born in their herds, why not make a sacrifice with it? But God was explicit. It's only really a sacrifice if it's our very best. This is a reminder to us, as well as a statement about the sacrifice that God would eventually give in Jesus Christ.

The next section lists seven recurring holidays that God wanted his people to observe. Each of these would serve to reconnect the people with their identity and with God's purposes for them. The first holiday was the weekly Sabbath. This was to be a day of rest from work and a time for gathering as a community. It was to remind the people that God created everything and was the provider of every good gift (Exodus 20:10). It was also to remind the people that God had rescued them from slavery. (Deuteronomy 5:13-15). Finally, it was a reminder to the people that they were holy, not because of what they did, but because God made them holy (Ezekiel 20:12). This was the foundational spiritual holiday. All the others were built on this same foundation.

There was the passover, or Pesach, was to commemorate God's protection of the first-born when during the final plague of the deliverance from Egypt. Firstfruits was a harvest feast and opportunity to sacrifice to God, thanking Him for His provision. The feast of trumpets, also called Rosh Hashanah, was the start of the the Jewish new year. The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, - a day of fasting and repentance when the sins of the people were atoned for. Feast of Tabernacles, called Sukkot, today, was a holiday to commemorate the Exodus and the time that Israel lived in tents, while God was taking them to the promised land.

These holidays and the weekly Sabbath were given to keep the people aligned with God's sense of direction for them. They were moments to connect back to the formative events where God shaped their culture, and in doing so, to remember what God was calling them to. Being human is to be distracted, and special events like these serve to refocus us.

The New Testament reading today touches on a wide variety of things. (Mark 9:30 - 10:12)

First, Jesus teaches about his upcoming death, but the disciples don't understand. This is painfully clear because the next thing they ask about is who among them will be the greatest in the kingdom of God. This gives Jesus the opportunity to teach them about the preeminence of service. To serve, and to regard the ones of little note - like children - is to really understand the priority of the Kingdom of God.

In another conversation, the disciples ask Jesus about some other teacher they came across who was casting out demons in the name of Jesus. They were upset that this guy was horning in on their territory. But Jesus said to let him be. In the best case, this person was truly serving God and doing good. In the worst case, God himself would hold that person accountable if any were led astray. The disciples were not to concern themselves with this other guy, but instead to focus on their own mission. This leads into a graphic conversation about the consequences of leading others astray, and how seriously Jesus takes our sin. He counsels us to get it out of our lives, even if it costs us something significant.

The reading ends with an interaction over divorce. This was a bit of a trap for Jesus since there was an ongoing controversy between two different rabbinical views of divorce. So these people were asking Jesus to take a position on the issue. Jesus challenges them to go back to the source, scripture, and then reminds them of God's intentions for marriage: It is a life-giving covenant before God, where two people enter into oneness, setting aside their personal agendas. It is the highest commitment one human can make to another. To break this promise is not a light thing. It is an overwhelmingly serious thing, that inevitably will be the root of more sin and destruction.

The Psalms reading for today is the first portion of the 44th Psalm, Psalms 44:1-8. It's a song of remembrance, recalling the events we are reading in the early books of the Old Testament. It's a great model for us of why remembering our spiritual milestones is important. In this case it reminds the worshipers of this: what was done in the past, and what we now have, came from God. We are not responsible for all of this. We have received it as a gift. Whenever we are tempted to trust our own competence or skill or wealth or power, this is a reminder to us that all those things are passing. God is the only thing that we should trust in.

The Proverbs reading, Proverbs 10:19, is another reminder to be thoughtful and intentional when listening and speaking. Too much talking and we are liable to wind up in trouble. Waiting to speak, listening, thinking things through is the path of wisdom.

2007 Cohort Comments