Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Wednesday, June 13th

Today's passage from the Chronological Bible In a Year Reading Plan is 1 Kings 8, 2 Chronicles 5
Today's scripture focus is Ecclesiastes 7:15-22


15 In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these:
a righteous man perishing in his righteousness,
    and a wicked man living long in his wickedness. 
16 Do not be overrighteous,
    neither be overwise—
    why destroy yourself?
17 Do not be overwicked,
    and do not be a fool—
    why die before your time? 
18 It is good to grasp the one
    and not let go of the other.
    The man who fears God will avoid all extremes.
19 Wisdom makes one wise man more powerful 
    than ten rulers in a city.
20 There is not a righteous man on earth
    who does what is right and never sins.
21 Do not pay attention to every word people say,
    or you may hear your servant cursing you—
22 for you know in your heart
    that many times you yourself have cursed others.

These verses tell you how to avoid being a legalistic religious person concerned with rules and not grace. Again, we can take them one or two at a time....


15 In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these: a righteous man perishing in his righteousness, and a wicked man living long in his wickedness. 

The prosperity gospel is false.  There are righteous men who suffer and die, and there are wicked men who prosper and live long.  Anyone that teaches otherwise is, as Mark Driscoll puts it, a freaky, religious, nut job.

16 Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise—why destroy yourself?We should not think too much of ourselves - either that we are always right or that we always know everything about every topic.  Being hyper arrogant, hyper legalistic and hyper judgmental is another good way to come off as a religious jerk.

17 Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool—why die before your time? 
18 It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. The man who fears God will avoid all extremes.
We shouldn't go to extremes.  Obviously it's wrong to engage in wicked behaviour, but it's also wrong to make up all kinds of rules for everybody in an attempt to be perfect.  No amount of rules will make anybody perfect.  Our lack of ability to be perfect is the problem in the first place!
Wisdom makes one wise man more powerful than ten rulers in a city.Wisdom is true power because wise people are influential.  Self-righteous, religious people love to be in positions of power, but what they don't realize is that wise people don't need to seek power, people seek their counsel, giving them power and authority because of their wisdom.

There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.We need to remember that none of us are perfect.  We've never "arrived" in our Christian walk.  We are all sinners saved by grace, and we do seek righteousness, knowing that it is only God's grace and power that enables us to live righteously at all.  In fact, when our heart is right, the more righteous we become, the more aware we will be of our failings.

Do not pay attention to every word people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you—
22 for you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed others.

We shouldn't gossip and we shouldn't concern ourselves with the gossip of others.  We need to remember that we've all been guilty of saying something we shouldn't have about someone, hoping that they don't hear what we said and regretting saying it at all.  We need to give grace just as much as we hope to receive it.

Tomorrow's scripture focus: Ecclesiastes 7:23-8:1
Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: 2 Chronicles 6-7, Psalm 136

1 comment:

Miriam said...

I am so happy to be studying Ecclesiastes. So much good stuff here! I particularly like the verse about avoiding extremes and the one about not paying attention to every word people say.

I also have a prayer request. My sister Rebekah, who read through the Bible in a Year with us last year, has been accepted to medical school. She is thrilled, because she really believes that this is what God wants her to do (as well as something she herself has been wanting to do), but she is terrified because school in general has always been stressful for her, not to mention the added logistics of going to medical school when you have a husband and three small children. Please pray that she would have peace about the decision, faith that because this is God's will for her He will make sure the child care etc. details will work out, and that she will be able to go through this process one step at a time rather than being overwhelmed by the enormity of the whole undertaking.