Devotion for July 5 and 6 (LCMS Daily Lectionary)

Above:  King Herod Agrippa I

Image in the Public Domain

Joshua and Acts, Part VII:  Giving Glory to God

JULY 5 AND 6, 2023

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Blessed Lord, who caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

–The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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The Assigned Readings:

Joshua 23:1-16 (July 5)

Joshua 24:1-31 (July 6)

Psalm 86 (Morning–July 5)

Psalm 122 (Morning–July 6)

Psalms 6 and 19 (Evening–July 5)

Psalms 141 and 90 (Evening–July 6)

Acts 12:1-25 (July 5)

Acts 13:1-12 (July 6)

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Joshua’s farewell, with its emphasis on keeping the covenant with God (or else…), sets up the Book of Judges and summarizes the theology of much of the Old Testament.  I admit to continuing to struggle with this God concept, which depicts God as one of whom to be terrified and not with whom to have a positive relationship.  “Fear of God,” a healthy attitude, is one of awestruck respect, not terror.  Despite my struggles with a certain God concept, I grasp the point that, by keeping the covenant, people were glorifying God.  So, by doing the opposite, they were not glorifying God.

Herod Agrippa I (lived 110 BCE-44 CE, reigned 37-44 CE) was a mean person.  He, a grandson of the infamous Herod the Great, was also a client ruler for the Roman Empire.  Agrippa I was also a close friend of Emperor Caligula and an energetic persecutor of Christianity.  (My source = The Oxford Companion to the Bible, 1993, page 283)

Acts 12 confirms a negative portrait of Herod Agrippa I.  He ordered the execution of the prison guards whom God had thwarted.  And he ordered the beheading of James Bar-Zebedee, brother of St. John the Apostle and first cousin of Jesus.  And who knows what Agrippa I might have done to Peter?

The Romans and their allies, for all the persecution they unleashed on the church, could not kill it?  Successive waves of persecution elsewhere have also failed.  In fact, persecution has usually backfired, leading to more conversions.  Herod Agrippa I and his ilk failed.  For that I give glory to God.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JULY 21, 2012 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF ALBERT JOHN LUTHULI, WITNESS FOR CIVIL RIGHTS IN SOUTH AFRICA

THE FEAST OF J. B. PHILLIPS, BIBLE TRANSLATOR AND ANGLICAN PRIEST

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/joshua-and-acts-part-vii-giving-glory-to-god/

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