October 3

OT -- Jeremiah 1:1-2:30
Well, I had 3 different people today comment about Isaiah and how much they disliked, feared, or refused to read it again. To all, I said, rather blithely I am afraid, well, it is a good thing that we are finished and now we can weep with Jeremiah. Except that Jeremiah just starts just like Isaiah ended. Full of awful word pictures -- barefooted sluts just hanging around waiting for the male to come around is a rather ooky picture in my world -- and condemnation for how far the Children of Israel have strayed.
And so, I am going to take my own medicine.
I have re-downloaded the Walter Brueggemann podcast that discusses the prophets.
Click here to download it or listen to it.
We need to know WHY these books were written and who they were aimed at.

And yes, I am rather dispirited that what we get at Christmas time is all lovely and light from Isaiah and my favorite passage in the Bible is from Isaiah -- 43:1-2 "Fear not, for I have called you by name and you are MINE." but the book as a whole is scary, threatening and gruesome.

so, let's all take a step backward, reassess why these books are in the Bible -- after all, we will be spending the remainder of our year with them -- and then jump back in.

NT -- Philippians 4:1-23
The letter ends with such grace and gratitude for all the gifts the Philippians have given him over the years. But it also has a stern rebuke for Euodia and Syntyche and whatever their fight is about. I would hate to have been these two formidable ladies whose sole remembrance down through the centuries is that they were going at it with each other.

And I also stumbled across Father Tim of Mitford fame's favorite Bible verse: 4:13 -- "I can do everything through him who gives me strength". Jan Karon has a new novel about Father Tim out. I am saving it to read when I am done with this study.

Proverbs 24:17-20
Do not gloat when your enemy stumbles... or the Lord will see and turn his wrath away from him.

Maybe we should send the political combatants this proverb.

Grace and peace to you.