Personal Study

Each week, we publish prompts with daily Bible readings from the Old and New Testaments. These questions are designed to open up a deeper level of thought or conversation about what we read in the Bible. Work through them on your own, with others, or make them a part of your devotional life.

Pentecost 22

October 25 - 31

Deuteronomy, Gospel of Matthew

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As Moses nears the end of his life, he warns God’s people about a particular type of idolatry. He describes it as a person who “blesses himself in his heart” when he hears the Word of the Lord. In the Gospel of Matthew, this idolatry reappears in multiple figures: the Pharisees, a wealthy young man who approaches Jesus, and even Jesus’ own disciples, all of whom have seem to have their hearts turned inward, in hopes that the Word will bring them personal gain or glory.

God reveals a clear consequence for this idoaltry. Those who spurn the true temple of God to worship in the temple of self will get their wish. Plucked them from among God’s people, cast out, and turned over to affliction, they sit on a throne of worldly glory, spiritually empty and miserable.

But Jesus pulls us down from that throne and forces us to look intently at an ordinary child, who does not believe conditionally, but with a whole heart. He leads us to the blind outcasts, who don’t merely go through the motions of prayer, but cry out boldly and persistently to the Lord for mercy, acknowledging exactly who the Savior is with full confidence in him.

We can do this because we know how Jesus made himself one of the lowly for our sake. His humiliating death and glorious resurrection have moved the mountain of sin and cast it into the sea. He restores us withered trees to make us alive to bear fruit.

And this is only the beginning. The full reward is in the kingdom to come, a place where the earthly treasures of wealth and prestige pale in comparison to what he has in store. And, unlike this world, not one in this kingdom will ever be cast out. Until then, we can be lowly, but spiritually full, healed and alive.

Reformation

November 1 - 7

Jeremiah, Gospel of Matthew

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The coals inside the clay furnace begin to glow. After looking carefully inside, the smelter uses his bellows to puff air into the low flames. As the colors brighten, the heat intensifies. The large rocks beside him will ultimately be molded into tools, weapons, or containers, but not without the sustained, consuming heat that burns away their impurities. This is the metaphor the LORD uses to illustrate Israel’s enslavement in Egypt – the “iron furnace” mentioned in Deuteronomy and repeated later through the prophet Jeremiah.

The metaphor is part of a dire warning. The Israelites in Jeremiah’s time, now a divided kingdom, have descended into a depravity so deep it rivals that of Sodom. So, the LORD sends Jeremiah on a mission to preach repentance, but it falls on deaf ears. The coals of the LORD’s anger begin to glow, and Jeremiah’s prophecy is fulfilled within his own lifetime. His people will be taken into exile, eventually scattered, and the throne in Israel will never be re-established.

Jesus issues a similar warning to the Israelites of his time, who, like their ancestors, make the temple serve them, rather than serving the LORD within it. Yet again, the furnace awaits. Not one of those impressive temple stones, Jesus says, will be left on top of another. It would take less than forty years for that prophecy to be fulfilled.

Jesus also warns us about the end of the age. As in Jeremiah and Jesus’ time, the days will be dark, and the wicked will ridicule those whom God sends. In fact, the days will be so evil that we would destroy ourselves if God would not put an end to them.

But the iron furnace is not our ultimate fate. The temple of Jesus body has been destroyed and raised again, and through water – not fire – he has put the calloused sinner to death and raised us into worthy servants. He does not scatter us, but gathers us together around him as his people. He graciously extends the call of his prophets across the centuries to us for the forgiveness of sins. The days are no less dark, but the light has already come into the world. Our salvation is at hand. Hear his Word and rejoice!