Grains of Sand

Pixabay Yesterday, during our worship service, we lit the first candle in the Advent Wealth. It represents the prophets who announced the coming of the Messiah long before the event actually happened. As I was finishing up my reading of the Book of Romans this morning, I came across this verse written by Paul: " The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles; in him will the Gentiles hope " (Romans 15:12). It's Paul's paraphrase of Isaiah 11:1 which says: " A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord—and he will delight in the fear of the Lord " (11:1-3a). In his letter to the Romans, Paul wanted to remind the Gentiles of the privilege that was theirs to be part of God's family because of Jesus Christ. Before he quote...

Google Images On one of the many spin-offs of the original Star Trek series, there appears a race, the Ferengi, that gets extreme pleasure out of having its ears rubbed. I wonder if they ever read Paul's letter to Timothy? Paul warns his son in the faith, " …the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hea r" (I Timothy 4:3, NIV). Back in the days of King Ahab, human nature wasn't any different. I Kings 22 records for us the last major incident in Ahab's life. He had made a pact with Judah's King Jehosaphat, to fight against Aram. Before going to battle, Jehosaphat insisted that they consult a man of God to find out what the Lord had to say about all this. Ahab had plenty of "prophets" around him who told him exactly what he wanted to hear—they rubbed his ears—but the King of Judah was not decei...

My church is busily preparing for Christmas. Snatches of the cantata we are rehearsing run through my mind—sometimes the same line with maddening frequency. Today's line happens to be the name of the cantata and I can't get it out of my head. The brain is filled with " I hear the prophet callin', 'Prepare the way of the Lord .'" (Pepper Choplin, Lorenz Publishing Company, 2009). As I sat down to do my devotional reading this morning, I was pleased to discover that my journey through the Old Testament has officially ended for this year and I am now reading through the New Testament. Guess what was on the agenda for today? The Book of Matthew begins with Joseph's genealogy. It's always been a curiosity to me why his family tree is emphasized here since he was not the biological father of the Messiah. I suspect (though I confess I haven't researched this) that the key to that question is found in Matthew 1:17: " Thus there were fourteen g...