Daily Office Readings for Wednesday of the 7th Week of Epiphany: Year 1
Morning, Psalm 119:145-176; Evening, Psalms 128, 129, 130;
Ruth 2:1-13; 2nd Corinthians 1:23-2:17; Matthew 5:21-26
“You have heard that it was said… But I say to you…” (Matthew Chapter 5)
In Chapter 5 of the Gospel according to Matthew, our Lord Jesus, God Incarnate, reinterprets the Hebrew Testament. He covers a multitude of Levitical pronouncements, and he does this by stating the scripture, and then making more loving sense of it. The Christian Testament God is the same God of the Hebrew Testament.
It is one thing to read the Bible and draw from it what we think the writer intended for us to learn. The writers of both Testaments were inspired by our One God and limited by the writers use of whatever language he had, and there have been many translations over the centuries. And, with all writings, there is always a personal bias based on that writers life experience.
I think we indeed should read the Bible, but with an open and loving mind. Perhaps reading the Bible with other open minded and loving people would be helpful also. I also believe we have a personal responsibility to reject any unloving actions we are told, even if a particular writer says that God decreed it. I would rather face God in the next life guilty of over using love than to face God having used scripture as a means of revenge, retribution or retaliation. God is love, loves us, and wants us to love one another.
As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and to serve, and to teach others to love and to serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John
Let us pray: (BCP p.288)
O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
onewhoponders 