Psalm 18:1-20; Jer. 38:1-13; 1 Cor. 14:26-40; Matt. 10:34-42
Zedekiah is a weak king, going with the prevailing wind of opinion in all things. It seems he does regard Jeremiah as a legitimate prophet but he has no courage to support him when popular opinion swings against him. He sought Jeremiah secretly for the Lord’s word to him and yet now accepts a charge of treason and a sentence that is tantamount to a death penalty by throwing him into the cistern. Jeremiah has only encouraged the people to accept the inevitable, that God is not going to deliver them and their best option is to surrender to their enemy. They are starving and dying of thirst and the siege will not end in victory, the Lord will not deliver them this time. An Ethiopian eunuch in the king’s employ intercedes for Jeremiah and the king agrees to rescue the prophet. Ethiopian eunuchs apparently have a special place in God’s plans (see Acts 8).
Does Jesus speak plainly? Anyone who loves anything or anyone more than Him is not worthy of Him. Whoever loves his/her own life more than Him, who is not willing to lay down their life for Him is not worthy of Him. If I said such things to my congregation about myself what would their reaction be? At the time He says these things who could possibly have heard and accepted them? His death on the cross and the resurrection change everything. His call and claim on our life is absolute, are we giving in return all He gave for us? Can we say with Paul that I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me?
The lectionary actually leaves out the passage on women in worship. It seems that Paul is making an absolute statement here, not for the Corinthians only. Verse 34 says that women should keep silent in the churches, plural. There seems no wiggle room for diversity of practice. This would be consistent with the Old Testament, the Law. We see in Mary, the sister of Lazarus, a woman listening and learning but we also see a Syro-Phoenician woman, a woman outside the covenant, questioning Jesus and also the Samaritan woman but she is what was known as a “fallen” woman in another era and also she does not have the same respect for Jesus as a Jew as a Jewish woman would have. It is a difficult thing to say that we can deviate from this practice yet, in my church, I do allow women to teach. I fall back on the Spirit being poured out on all flesh but Paul certainly knew that passage as well. What does it mean for us to submit and to what must we submit in such instances?
His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spreads o’er His body on the tree;
Then I am dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.
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