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

Exodus 10:1 - 12:13 is today's Old Testament reading. During the next meeting of Moses and Aaron with Pharaoh, he nearly agrees to let them go, but then limits the group to the men only, obviously wanting to hold the women and children hostage so that his slaves would return. But this is unacceptable, and God brings the plague of locusts. Again Pharaoh begs for mercy, and Moses prays for the plague to be removed. It is, and again, Pharaoh changes his mind. So, we get the plague of darkness. Again we go through the same dance, only this time Pharaoh tells Moses that if he ever sees him again, he will have him killed. This leads us to God's instructions to Moses regarding the final plague, the death of the first-born.

This is a tough one. Keep in mind that God is working on a bigger time-table than the lives of these individuals. Keep in mind also that God is preparing a living parable. The story of the passover will become the archetypal story of deliverance and a foreshadowing of the salvation to come through the Messiah. Also keep in mind that each plague was a specific attack by Yahweh God on a particular god of Egypt. One of the highest Egyptian deities at this time was Osiris, popularly known as the god of the dead, but also considered to have the power over life and death. But even considering all of that, this is a hard story for the soft-hearted among us.

After God instructs Moses on this upcoming plague, Moses goes to instruct the people. The plague, after all, is going to be universal. The angel of death will visit every home in Egypt - save those that follow the specific instructions given. An interesting thing to note about this plague: Most of the others distinguished between Egyptians and Hebrews in a blanket way. Darkness in Egypt, but none in Goshen, for instance. This final plague didn't distinguish between people based on their ethnicity, their blood. It distinguished them based on the blood of the slain lamb. A Hebrew who chose to ignore the instructions to paint their door posts with the blood of the lamb would fall under the plague as well. This is an important change foreshadowing the deliverance to be brought by Jesus, the lamb of God.

The New Testament reading, Matthew 20:1-28, starts out with another parable, the parable of the vineyard workers. This is an interesting parable to read in contrast with the questions that arise for some of us about the plagues in Egypt, and the hardness of Pharaoh's heart. In this parable, the vineyard owner hires day laborers to work in his fields. He hires some in the morning, and all day long continues to add workers. When it came time to pay the workers, he called over the ones who had started working late in the day and paid them a generous sum. The other workers were excited because this meant that they would be getting even more. But when they all got the same amount, even the ones who had started early in the morning, they complained. The land owner answered their complaint saying, "Didn't I pay you what we agreed? And don't I have the right to do with my own money what I want?" Jesus ended this teaching with the enigmatic statement, '"So the last will be first, and the first will be last."''

Lessons? Well, for starters, what we consider to be "fair" doesn't even enter into the picture with God. It's all His. All of it -- including us -- is His. He can do what He wants. Second, God's choice is to be generous. The first workers, who had worked the longest, received a more than fair wage. So their complaint wasn't that they were being ripped off, but that other people were getting a gift. Third, it's important for us to stop worrying about what others get in life, and worry about whether we are doing the work God has asked of us. Our "pay" is between us and God, just as theirs is between them and God. Comparison only feeds our jealousy, and that certainly gets in the way of being available for whatever God has in mind for us.

After this story, Jesus tells his disciples again about his upcoming death. They can't say He didn't warn them. But along with that comes a prediction about His resurrection.

Knowing that something big was up, James and John's mother came to Jesus, asking for a special favor. This was completely out of line and it irritated the other disciples. But all of them had missed the point. They were thinking that association with Jesus was going to bring them power and position, but that was not the case. Jesus came to serve, not to be served - and this was something they still hadn't quite gotten their minds around.

Today we get to read the first part of the 25th Psalm in our Psalms reading. Psalms 25:1-15. An interesting side note about this one that you can't really see in the English. This particular Psalm is a unique form of Hebrew poetry where the first word of each line begins with the successive letter of the alphabet. Something like this:

A very nice day, I said to the

Big man with the green hat.

Come over here, let's talk.

Don't know about that, he said.

Every time I see you

Firetrucks go by, and I'm

Getting suspicions that you're starting fires!

OK, it's not a very good poem, but you get the point. Each line starts with the next letter of the alphabet. Psalms 25 is like that, only in Hebrew.

The Psalm is a great collection of powerful truths about God, and requests by David for God to teach Him, grow him, and forgive him for his sins.

The reading in Proverbs today, Proverbs 6:6-11, continues in the theme of work and money. (And yes, if I was unclear, yesterday's verses are in fact the Bible saying that co-signing a loan is not in God's will.) Today we get wisdom addressing motivation and initiative in work. Make plans, be wise and save for the hard times. This is the Bible basically saying, "Don't be a slacker. That's the quickest way to end up broke."

2007 Cohort Comments