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 Numbers 32:1 - 33:39. In the first part, we see an interesting interaction. Israel is camped on the east side of the Jordan river, preparing to cross and go into Canaan to take the land. But three tribes (two-and-a-half, really. Manasseh was considered a 1/2 tribe, along with the 1/2 tribe of Ephraim. These two were the sons of Joseph, and they together received his inheritance as one of the twelve sons of Israel.) asked if they could stay. They liked the land on this side of the river. This brought up the specter of what had happened forty years before when the people rebelled against God. But Moses told them that if they sent all their fighting men along with Israel into the land, and they fought to secure the inheritance of all their brothers, then they could in fact return to this side of the river and live in this place.

It's interesting to think about this dynamic. Were they afraid to go into the land? Did they believe that this land was better than the land God wanted to give them? While they were able to hammer out a compromise with Moses, it seems to me that something strange happened here, and perhaps these tribes settled for something less than what God wanted to give them.

The New Testament reading really shows Jesus' ministry starting to take off. (Luke 4:31 - 5:11) The first scene is Jesus teaching and then casting out an evil spirit from a possessed man. The thing that surfaces in this passage is the amazement that the people have - not just that Jesus can cast out demons, but at the authority of His teaching. Jesus taught in the first person. He taught as if He was the one who could speak definitively on the scriptures. That was a new thing for these people. It was the rabbinic practice to cite references for everything, always establishing their authority. They would quote some famous Rabbi in their teaching as source of authority for their interpretation. The scribes and Pharisees that we hear about in the New Testament were always citing the law - not just the law written in the Torah (the Jewish scripture) but also the long collection of clarifying laws that had been built up around the Torah. But Jesus didn't cite these laws for support and He didn't quote us and learned teachers. He taught as if He was the one who had the authority. The people had never heard anything like it before.

The second scene shows Jesus healing more people and casting out more demons. There is a very interesting thing I want to point out as we pass. When Jesus healed Simon Peter's mother-in-law, he "rebuked the fever." This is very interesting to me. When I see Christian praying for healing, they usually do something like, "Father, we pray that you would heal Bill today from this sickness, if it be your will. In Jesus' name, Amen." We ask God to do the healing. Certainly that's a good thing to do. But what if Jesus' acts here are a model to us. Jesus didn't ask God to do the healing. He spoke to the sickness and told it to leave. Now, I'm no expert on this by any stretch, but I do know that when we study the concept of the authority of the believer in Jesus, it seems to indicate that Jesus delegated to His followers His mission, and even in some ways, His power. So, passages like this make me wonder if we should be more forward when it comes to these kind of prayers. Instead of coming to God begging for healing, maybe He is asking us to walk in the power He has promised to give us, and speak in Jesus' authority (the same way an ambassador speaks in the authority of the president). As I said, I'm no expert here, but passages like this make me wonder about this.

The third scene shows Jesus calling his first disciples. He gave them reason to trust Him, and then told them to follow Him. Which they did! They abandoned their entire way of life to follow Him. Father, give me the courage to follow You like this.

Psalm 64 (Psalms 64:1-10) is the Psalms reading today. It's a complaint psalm, it even says so in verse 1! The same pattern that has grown quite familiar. The focus for us is the reminder that whatever obstacles and difficulties we are facing, we can take refuge in God, and praise Him. That's is one of the best disciplines. Instead of getting grumpy or out of sorts, in faith we praise God for the good that He is bringing into our lives.

The Proverbs reading for today is Proverbs 11:22. I get a kick out of this one every time I read it. A gold ring in a pig's snout is wasted, pointless, and absurd. That is what God is saying about physical beauty that is not backed up by inner wisdom. Certainly our culture doesn't understand! This is something we've got to deeply build into our kids, and own ourselves. as we are confronted by a culture that values external appearance above everything else.

2007 Cohort Comments