10 October

5 a day
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Originally published at: 10 October – St Peters Bentley

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Ooo so many thoughts…
Isaac and Rebekah - doesn’t sound super romantic does it?!
Micah - God’s requirements are not too burdensome, act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God.
Daniel - we’re into the bit of Daniel that sounds more like Revelation than the cool children’s stories we associate with his book.
Luke - Peter disowns Jesus. I am always challenged by this. After the coming of the HS at Pentecost, Peter never disowned Him again. I’m supposed to be full of the Spirit but I feel like I often disown Jesus still. Not by saying ‘I don’t know him’, more by keeping quiet strategically. Lord make me bold!
Romans - The evil I do not want to to, that I keep on doing. Yep, that’s me. Lord have mercy!

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Romans 7 is most confusing yet! Think my understanding is:

  • sin is powerful in us
  • the law given through Moses was good - it was supposed to show us how to live for God
  • but sin uses the law to make us aware of the temptations and “fun” of sinful behaviour (ie if we weren’t told not to steal we wouldn’t think to)
  • so in our human nature we are stuck in a cycle of knowing what we should do but not being able to do it, and vice versa
  • We need a saviour! (cue ch.8)

:exploding_head::hot_face::star_struck:

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Wow just read Micah 5 whilst watching news!! :exploding_head:

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I also found this chapter confusing, it felt like I was reading Shakespeare :joy: why do we want to be released from the law?

My grasp of it was that we can still be faithful to God even if we feel like sinning? It’s normal? I resonate with that. But then I was doing some reading online last time I read this chapter and I read an article which asked the questions ‘should we interpret the bible based on our own experiences?’ They basically said If we do this we might get drawn away from the actual message. What are everyone else’s thoughts.

Also online it says this chapter is describing the life of law under Moses, where as we live life under the law of the Holy Spirit? It says Paul is trying to demonstrate a non believer or a pre converted Jew and that 8 is describing a believer. What do you think?

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Interesting thoughts about reading the Bible. I think I disagree with the opinion that you can’t let your own experiences help you interpret. Sometimes that can be helpful. Though I think the best approach is to try to figure out what the original author meant.

For example today, Paul clearly feels torn in two directions — sin is working within him to do evil, and GodMs Holy Spirit is at work to do good. I think this describes my experience too — I know that I am so sinful, but want to obey God too.

I find it a beautiful picture of the reality of following Jesus: “what a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body which is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”