Daily Bread Pastor Mike Anderson

Reflections: Jesus responds to the Sadduccees who were more of the elitist of the Jewish parties. They were intellectuals who needed to rationalize everything, as opposed to the Pharisees who were more of the fundamentalist/legalists. They come to Jesus with a question about the resurrection hoping to trap him in their pretzel logic. They try to play out a scenario where according to Jewish law a man's brother had to marry his widow according to the Law to carry on the legal family line. As they look to trap Jesus he turns their mental games on their head and explains that in heaven our existence won't be the same as on earth. In the new heaven and earth people will neither marry or be given in marriage, but be like angels, who serve as messengers and worshippers of God. So while they are trying to test/trap Jesus, it gives him a chance to further explain what God's kingdom will be like not only on earth but also in heaven. Sometimes we don't spend enough t...

Note: I will be on vacation through Labor Day and not able to access a computer so this will be the last Daily Bread for a while. You can continue to access the Moravian Daily Texts to keep up with the reading through their website: http://www.moravian.org/faith-a-congregations/moravian-daily-texts.html The daily texts are on the right side of the website! Reflections: One of the beautiful things about the bible is the realness of the stories and the characters. It adds to the authenticity, when you see the variety of people God uses in the Story. Today in the Psalms we read of a lament song by an unknown author. We hear about a person who was afflicted and grown weak, yet still had the strength to cry out to God in His distress. There were no quick fixes here, only a man hoping God would restore His health and wondering if it was because of God’s wrath that He was suffering. I think all of us can relate to those times when we wonder if God is punishing us for something w...

Reflections: As we read Psalm 101, we see the connection between worshipping God and the lifestyle that accompanies a life of worship. There is an inexorable tie between worship and way of life. God expects the Israelites to be different than their neighbors and cites a few examples of ways, in which their behavior should reflect their God. A few of them are: conducting affairs with integrity, not feasting their eyes on things that are immoral or vile, slandering or gossiping about their neighbors, or have a haughty or proud heart and looking down on others. I guess not much has changed in 27 centuries. Then, as we move to the Judges, we see some of what happened in the life of Israel after Joshua who led with integrity was gone. The Israelites did what God asked them not to do. They worshipped other gods and participated in their pagan rituals. The bible says God allowed these nations to exist to test the Israelites and see what was in their heart. Apparently their hearts ...

Reflections: Yesterday Joshua warned the people that they would not serve the Lord. Intuitively he had a feeling that they might run after other gods, despite the elders who served alongside of him who eventually went on to be with the Lord. In the first couple of chapters of Judges, we see a change in outcomes when the Israelites went up against the Canaanites and other foreign nations in the Promised Land. Instead of driving them out with the Lord’s help, they could not do it! In chapter 2, we see the reason for their impotency. It says they worshipped “Baals”, and the other gods in the area. Instead of being set apart for the Lord, they practiced what would become known as “syncretism”, mixing the pure faith with other religions. God was angry with the Israelites and sent “judges” to correct them. Much like prophets they brought in God’s word to correct them, but they also were given God’s power and authority to save them from their enemies. Yet, eventually even this gif...

Reflections: As we see the end of the leadership of Joshua, he gives the Israelites a clear challenge. Choose this day who you will serve! The choice is fairly simple: either you are going to serve the gods that their ancestors worshipped in Egypt and in the land of the Amorites, or the Lord. Joshua makes his stand, “As for me and my house (which included many people including servants) I will serve the Lord!” It was “make it or break it” time for the people of Israel, as they came into the land God had promised! As they came into this land, God knew there would be many temptations for them to succumb to worshipping the gods that dominated this region in stronghold for many generations. As Joshua challenges the people with this charge they all in unison say, “Yes we will serve the Lord!” But Joshua, as the instinctive and discerning leader, knows their hearts and further admonishes them by saying, “You are not able to serve the Lord for He is jealous and will hold you account...

Reflection: Once we are saved what’s next? What are we left to do? Should we just sit idly back until Jesus returns? Author N.T. Wright has written a great book “After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters. ” In it, he argues we have two things left to do before Jesus returns. As Luke teaches in the Gospel today, His return will come suddenly. Wright argues the two most important things we can do, as Jesus is forming His character in us through the power of the Holy Spirit, are worship and mission. Psalm 98 is a fabulous psalm outlining what authentic worship looks like. We see in this psalm/song that worship is a response of joy and thanksgiving for what God has done for us. God has worked salvation for us. God has saved us through His powerful hand. He has revealed righteousness to us. Literally God has revealed how to be in a right relationship with Him through Christ. God is faithful and remembers His love for us even when we forget Him. 2 Timothy 2:13 says it ...

Reflections: As the Israelites allow the Reubenites, Gadites and half tribe of Manasseh (Joseph’s son) to return to the land East of Jordan. But then quite a confusion happens when those returning built an altar near the Jordan. The text says it was quite an “imposing altar”, meaning it could not be missed. Well, the other tribes misunderstood the meaning of this temple and took it to mean that these tribes were setting up a separate temple to worship another god. In those days there was one temple, where the Israelites worshipped the Lord in Jerusalem. So thinking these folks had already started to run after other gods, they chased them down prepared to fight against them for such a transgression (read Israel’s passion to obey God and worship him in one temple!) Well as it turned out these 2 and ½ tribes were not building an alternative worship site, they were building a replica to remind them of the one true God where they came from. It was to be a witness of where they came...

Reflections: The psalmist reminds us of God’s strength and to reflect on His transcendence. His holiness is reflected in Creation, as the clouds and darkness surround him and fire goes before Him. The earth trembles before Him, and the mountains melt like wax before the Lord. And then He revealed Himself to people and they gave Him His due glory. The Israelites saw the greatness of the Lord, as they came into the Promised Land and God gave them everything just the way He had promised. As they were obedient to Him through His servant Joshua, everything God had predicted had come to pass. We see the detail in the allotment of the land to each tribe of Israel, and also the Levites who served in the temple. The detail with which each allotment was preserved in writing would be a testimony to the faithfulness of God for all the future generations to see (and us too!) As we move to the Gospel lesson, we are told of another healing of Jesus. This time he healed ten lepers. We kn...

Reflection: Today’s theme is one of preparation and judgment. Usually there are two equally opposite errors churches and leaders make regarding end times. One is that they become so transfixed on it that they forget to labor in the Vineyard, and use the time they have left to be productive to bring more people into God’s kingdom. Or two, they say, since we don’t really know when the time is we can relax and not really worry about when Jesus is returning! It is His work anyways so why worry about it! We know God is sovereign as it is says in the psalms, “The Lord reigns” And He will, “Judge the peoples with equity” This teaching reminds us that all of Creation should be glad and rejoice for He is coming to judge the earth. And His judgment will be in righteousness and in regard to our faithfulness. In Luke, Jesus is moving toward his time of departure and leaves the disciples with teaching regarding the Coming Kingdom, which He inaugurated with His coming, and will further bro...

Reflection: Today we see the juxtaposition (big word meaning placing two things beside each other to bring new clarity to a subject) of the blessings of the tribes of Israel and the allotment for each tribe in the Promised Land. This comes with a parable from Luke (only found in Luke) about a Rich Man (representing the Pharisees, the Covenant people of God) and the Poor Man Lazarus (representing the nations outside of Israel). We need to interpret this parable, which is unique to Luke, in the context of the other four parables that make up this set of teaching in this gospel. If you remember two were about lost things that were found and God’s heart for lost people. And then also Jesus was receiving quite a bit of heat from the Pharisees for healing people on the Sabbath. It is then that Jesus begins to reveal that God’s plan has always been that the Jews would be a people set apart to be a blessing to all nations through the promise given to Abraham in Genesis. This parable is y...

Reflections: The psalm today begins with a wonderful call to worship reflected in many of our modern praise songs. The reason being we serve a great God who has made everything we see. We are made to praise the One who created it all. His hand is in all we see including the jewel of His creation human beings. We are the only ones who can reflect on His Creation and then give Him praise. This is one of our inherent purposes for being here on earth to praise God and give Him thanks for all we have made. In the Joshua passage we see the marking out of the inheritance of God’s people, the twelve tribes of Israel. Notice especially that not everyone got the same amount. There were different amounts of land in different region and two and half tribes had already received their inheritance before they conquered the land. We see the tribe of Benjamin and their inheritance described in detail. Benjamin was the last son of Jacob born to Rachel in old age. He had a special inheritanc...

Reflections: Just as God was sure to count all of the tribes of Israel and give each family there chosen inheritance as He had promised, in Luke 15 we see concern for two brothers who each chose different paths toward the inheritance. In the famous story of the Prodigal Son, which many have suggested should be called the Prodigal Father, we see the nature and depth of the Father’s love. Anyone who has been a dad, or mom for that matter, can only imagine how hard it was to let the son go and waste the family inheritance. We also see the dynamics between the good and faithful son and the wild rebellious one. It seems as almost every family has this dynamic somewhere in their family system. But the key turnaround in the story is when the son who left home, “came to his senses”. He realized quite poignantly that he had it pretty good back home and longed to return to the Father. So he heads back home and has prepared a big apology for dad even confessing that he was not worthy to ...