27 June 2010
Psalm 118; Num. 21:4-9, 21-35; Acts 17:12-34; Luke 13:10-17

The people continue to fuss and complain against Moses and the Lord for lack of provision. Did they forget that they would have been in the land long before if they had trusted the Lord? Their failure to take the land when it was theirs was the reason for the continuing difficulties of the people, and they continued to exhibit the same lack of gratitude and failure to take responsibility for their own situation. As always, Moses is required to make intercession for them in order to stop the judgment and punishment for the same sins against the Lord. Like the Edomites, the Amorites and the people of Bashan refuse to allow the people safe passage. Unlike the Edomites, these people are destroyed by the Israelites. The rag tag army is getting some experience and some confidence.

The woman had been in bondage to this spirit for eighteen years in their midst and the leader of the synagogue’s response was, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” If he was able to heal her, why had she suffered for so long? As Jesus points out they have set the value of their work animals higher than this woman. The law allowed someone to get an animal out of a potentially dangerous or harmful situation on the Sabbath and no one doubted that, how could they now prohibit Him from healing a fellow human being, particularly a daughter of the covenant, on the Sabbath. The opponents were silenced by Jesus’ response. Why would they oppose Him in such a situation? Simply because their powerlessness was exposed?

The people of Athens are much like the people where I happen to live, and in the western world in general, bored with all the old things and spending all their time listening to something new. The new age philosophies of language, literature, ethics, philosophy and religion have dominated our culture for years now and we are just beginning to see their influence in our leaders as those who have lost their sense of Christian culture are now coming of age. In some ways that is not completely negative as we have enshrined many attitudes as Christian that have nothing to do with Christianity at all. Paul got a hearing because the people perceived this as a new teaching. His main focus is the sovereignty of God. He credits God with creation, with purposeful action, “he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live”, and that He has given us all we need to seek after Him and find Him. Paul says that there was a time when this was not truly possible but that time has passed and now there is no excuse for sin and this God will judge the world at a time fixed and known only to Himself. They seem to hang with him until he mentions the raising of one from the dead and then they scoff, they aren’t fools, no one is raised from the dead, they are simply materialists, disbelieving in a God who is capable of acting in space and time. Sound familiar?

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.*
We bless you from the house of the Lord.
The Lord is God,
and he has given us light.
O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures for ever.