Devotions-Week of July 29

Sunday July 29-Ps. 14 is a replica of Psalm 53. It is a psalm of not recognizing the moral culture in which the psalmist lives. It reminds me of those who always say that the world is going to hell and seem incapable of seeing anything good. Like so many laments, it ends with a surge of hope for restoration and imagines how glad people will be when that happens. Monday-I’ve been reading Alyce McKenzie on proverbs and wisdom lately. She’s made a career out of an area that started in her desperation to get a paper project started in graduate school, where the book of Proverbs had little scholarly interest at the time. she loves to line up popular slogans with biblical material and see what happens in the hybrid. I just hear Allison Krause sing “I don;t know the answers, but I know who to blame.” What material in Proverbs would fit or respond to that? Tuesday-Assumptions can get us into trouble. We assume someone is fine with what we are doing, and then we get surprised. We assume we can read into the intentions of others and find out we are wrong. We assume the best about ourselves and the worst in others. At the same time, our intuition can be spot on occasion. Wednesday-We speak often of the church as family, and that is good and bad. Whom do we treat as in-laws in the church? How do we treat newcomers? Do we put up with unhealthy behaviors and attitudes because we put up with them in our families? Along with loyalty, what are some other virutes of viewing the church as family? What difference does and should it make ot speak of the church as not only a household, but the household of God? Thursday-I worked through most of a church history book A.D. 381. We read the Nicene Creed, started in 325 but it was brought to conclusion in 381 in the capital of the Eastern Empire, Constantinople. I am troubled by it in that the book argues tha the completion of this creed served a political agenda: to stifle dissent and differing opinions for both the state and the church. In other words, the church was being seduced by power. Friday-We read the additions to Daniel in the Apocrypha in Bible study recently, the prayers of Azariah and the glorious praise song of the three men in the fiery furnace and their rescue. It’s a remarkable set of prayers as it accepts sin fully and even sees it as a proper pretext for punishments from heaven. Do we ever feel that way anymore? Second, it has a litany-like movement through aspects fo creation from the inanimate all the way through the human. Saturday-Perseverance is a powerful virtue for good. I think of a dentist who fell in love with the old Negro league baseball teams. So many great players lie buried in unmarked graves. He has worked to bring a bit of recognition and dignity to them in their final resting place. It takes a lot of digging and effort for him to be able to continue this project, but he does continue. Where is the source of this virtue? When have you failed to persevere? Do you regret it or accept it? Where have you persevered and been proud of it?