Archive for the ‘Lot’ Tag
Above: Tear Ducts
Image in the Public Domain
The Tears of the Christ
SEPTEMBER 11, 2022
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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 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
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Genesis 13:1-16 or Ezra 1:1-7; 3:8-13
Psalm 136:1-9, 23-26
Revelation 7:9-17
John 11:1-3. 16-44
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jesus wept.
–John 11:35, The New Jerusalem Bible (1985)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
They will never hunger or thirst again; neither the sun nor scorching wind will ever plague them because the Lamb who is at the throne will be their shepherd and will lead them to springs of living water; and God will wipe away all tears like their eyes.
–Revelation 7:16-17, The Jerusalem Bible (1966)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I could take so many paths through the assigned readings for this week. These readings are rich texts. I will take just one path, however.
Before I do, here are a few notes:
- Abraham waited for God to tell him which land to claim. Abraham chose well.
- Lot chose land on his own. He chose poorly. However, at the time he seemed to have chosen wisely; he selected fertile land.
- I agree with Psalm 136. Divine mercy does endure forever.
- The chronology of the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah weaves in and out of those books. I know, for I blogged my way through them in chronological order at BLOGA THEOLOGICA last year.
For the record, the chronological reading order of Ezra-Nehemiah follows:
- Ezra 1:1-2:70; Nehemiah 7:6-73a;
- Ezra 3:1-4:5;
- Ezra 5:1-6:22;
- Ezra 4:6-24;
- Nehemiah 1:1-2:20;
- Nehemiah 3:1-4:17;
- Nehemiah 5:1-19;
- Nehemiah 6:1-7:5;
- Nehemiah 11:1-12:47;
- Nehemiah 13:1-31;
- Nehemiah 9:38-10:39;
- Ezra 7:1-10:44; and
- Nehemiah 7:73b-9:38.
I take my lead in this post from the New Testament readings. Tears are prominent in both of them. Tears are on my mind during the COVID-19 pandemic. They are also on my mind as I continue to mourn the violent death of my beloved. Her departure from this side of the veil of tears has left me shaken and as forever changed me.
The full divinity and full humanity of Jesus are on display in John 11. We read that Jesus wept over the death of his friend, St. Lazarus of Bethany. We also read of other people mourning and weeping in the immediate area. We may not pay much attention to that. We may tell ourselves, “Of course, they grieved and wept.” But two words–“Jesus wept”–remain prominent.
There is a scene in The Gospel According to Saint Matthew (1964) that fits this theme. At the time, Hollywood studios had recently released technicolor movies about a Jesus who had no tear ducts yet had an impressive command of Elizabethan English while resembling a Northern European. Yet Pier Paolo Pasolini, who committed about half of the Gospel of Matthew to film, presented a Jesus who had tear ducts. Immediately after the off-camera decapitation of St. John the Baptist, the next shot was a focus on Christ’s face. He was crying. So were the men standing in front of him.
Jesus wept.
We weep. Jesus weeps with us until the day God will wipe away all tears of those who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JANUARY 23, 2021 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT JOHN THE ALMSGIVER, PATRIARCH OF ALEXANDRIA
THE FEAST OF CHARLES KINGSLEY, ANGLICAN PRIEST, NOVELIST, AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF EDWARD GRUBB, ENGLISH QUAKER AUTHOR, SOCIAL REFORMER, AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF JAMES D. SMART, CANADIAN PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER AND BIBLICAL SCHOLAR
THE FEAST OF PHILLIPS BROOKS, EPISCOPAL BISHOP OF MASSACHUSETTS, AND HYMN WRITER
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2021/01/23/the-tears-of-the-christ/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Above: Lot and His Daughters, by Lucas van Leyden
Image in the Public Domain
The Good Society
OCTOBER 31, 2022
NOVEMBER 1, 2022
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Collect:
Merciful God, gracious and benevolent,
through your Son you invite all the world to a meal of mercy.
Grant that we may eagerly follow this call,
and bring us with all your saints into your life of justice and joy,
through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
—Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 52
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Assigned Readings:
Nehemiah 13:1-3, 23-31 (Monday)
Zechariah 7:1-14 (Tuesday)
Psalm 50 (Both Days)
1 Corinthians 5:9-13 (Monday)
Jude 5-21 (Tuesday)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
“When you see a thief, you make him your friend,
and you cast your lot in with adulterers.
You have loosed your lips for evil,
and harnessed your tongue to a lie.
You are always speaking evil of your brother
and slandering your own mother’s son.
These things you have done, and I kept still,
and you thought that I am like you.”
–Psalm 50:18-21, The Book of Common Prayer (1979)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Law of Moses teaches that, among other things:
- We humans depend on God for everything,
- We depend on each other also,
- We have no right to exploit each other,
- We are responsible to each other, and
- We are responsible for each other.
Thus hospitality is a great virtue, for it can make the difference between someone coming to harm or avoiding harm, as well as the difference between someone dying or living.
My summary of the forbidden behaviors in these days’ readings is that they are generally activities that harm others. I note that, in post-exilic zeal to obey the Law of Moses, many people went too far with regard to the treatment of foreigners. The Book of Jonah pushes back against such excesses. The Book of Ruth, in which a Moabite woman marries a Hebrew man and becomes an ancestor of King David, is probably another protest against such zealousness-turned-xenophobia, such as that praised in Nehemiah 13:1.
As for homosexual behavior (as opposed to homosexuality as a sexual preference, an understanding which did not exist until recent centuries), Jude 7 is the only verse in the Bible to make explicit the link between homosexual conduct and the story of Sodom in Genesis 19. In that chapter Lot, who has lived in the city since Genesis 13, presumably knows his neighbors well enough to understand what they like. Lot has taken in two angels. A mob gathers outside his door and demands that he send them outside to that they can gang rape the angels. Lot refuses the demands and offers to send his two virgin daughters out instead. (Bad father!) Fortunately for Lot’s daughters, the mob is not interested and the angels have a plan to save Lot and his family from the imminent destruction of the city. In the context of Genesis 19 the planned sexual activity is rape, not anything consensual; may nobody miss that point. The standard Biblical condemnations of the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah are like those in Ezekiel 16:48-50 and 3 Maccabees 2:5-6, where one reads that the cities’ sins were notorious and the people were arrogant and brazen in their iniquity. Ezekiel 16 adds to that description the neglect of the poor and the hungry–a lack of hospitality.
Zechariah 7:8-14 states that the pre-exilic Kingdoms of Israel and Judah violated the basic requirements of the Law of Moses, and paid the price. The societies, generally speaking, did not administer true justice and act kindly and compassionately. No, it oppressed widows, orphans, the poor, and resident aliens. The societies were unrepentant, and divine patience ran out.
Society is people. It shapes its members, who also influence it. May we–you, O reader, and I–influence society for the better–to care for the vulnerable, to resist bullying and corruption, to favor kindness and compassion, and to seek and find the proper balance between individual and collective responsibility. May we eschew bigotry in all forms, for we have a divine mandate to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. May we seek to love God and each other fully, manifesting respect for the image of God in each other, seeking to build each other up, for that is not only the path to the common good but is also godly.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
MAY 31, 2016 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF THE VISITATION OF MARY TO ELIZABETH
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2016/05/31/the-good-society/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Above: The Parable of the Sower
Image in the Public Domain
Grace and Character Flaws
JULY 14-16, 2022
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Collect:
Eternal God, you draw near to us in Christ, and you make yourself our guest.
Amid the cares of our lives, make us attentive to your presence,
that we may treasure your word above all else,
through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
—Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 43
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Assigned Readings:
Genesis 12:10-20 (Thursday)
Genesis 13:1-18 (Friday)
Genesis 14:1-16 (Saturday)
Psalm 15 (All Days)
Hebrews 5:1-6 (Thursday)
Ephesians 3:14-21 (Friday)
Luke 8:4-10 (Saturday)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Yahweh, who can find a home in your tent,
who can dwell on your holy mountain?
Whoever lives blamelessly,
who acts uprightly,
who speaks the truth from the heart,
who keeps the tongue under control,
who does not wrong a comrade,
who casts no discredit on a neighbour,
who looks with scorn on the vile,
but honours those who fear Yahweh,
who stands by an oath at any cost,
who asks no interest on loans,
who takes no bribe to harm the innocent.
No one who so acts can ever be shaken.
–Psalm 15, The New Jerusalem Bible (1985)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Abram (later Abraham) was a fascinating, contradictory, and frequently puzzling figure, for he was a human being. In Genesis 12-14 alone he pretended that Sarai (his wife) was his sister, lied to the Pharaoh (who, unlike Abram, suffered because of the lie), prospered (in large part due to that lie), remained in Canaan and engaged in warfare while Lot, his nephew, moved to Sodom. At the end of Chapter 14 Abram encountered Melchizedek, hence one reason for the reading from Hebrews 5, I suppose.
The traditional name of the reading from Luke 8 is the Parable of the Sower. Nevertheless, the emphasis in the story is the soils, so, as some commentators I have read have argued, we should refer to the Parable of the Four Soils. Each of us is, under the best circumstances, good soil, albeit not entirely so. That is a fact of human nature. Abram/Abraham and Sarai/Sarah had serious defects of character, as did St. Paul the Apostle. Likewise, you, O reader, and I have character flaws. Nevertheless, may the lovely prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21 be others’ prayer for us and our prayer for others.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
MARCH 16, 2016 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINTS ADALBALD OF OSTEVANT, RICTRUDIS OF MARCHIENNES, AND THEIR RELATIONS
THE FEAST OF SAINTS ABRAHAM KIDUNAIA, ROMAN CATHOLIC HERMIT, AND MARY OF EDESSA, ROMAN CATHOLIC ANCHORESS
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2016/03/16/grace-and-character-flaws/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Above: God Speaking to Job; from a Byzantine Manuscript
Image in the Public Domain
Arguing Faithfully With God
AUGUST 14-16, 2023
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Collect:
O God our defender, storms rage around and within us and cause us to be afraid.
Rescue your people from despair, deliver your sons daughters from fear,
and preserve us in the faith of your Son,
Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 44
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Assigned Readings:
Genesis 7:11-8:5 (Monday)
Genesis 19:1-29 (Tuesday)
Job 36:24-33; 37:14-24 (Wednesday)
Psalm 18:1-19 (All Days)
2 Peter 2:4-10 (Monday)
Romans 9:14-29 (Tuesday)
Matthew 8:23-27 (Wednesday)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Faithful and pure, blameless and perfect–
yet to the crooked you show yourself shrewd.
Your holy light shines on my darkness;
my steps are guided, my vigor renewed.
Your law will shape my heart and my mind,
letting me find richest blessing.
–Martin Leckebusch, Verse 3, “Refuge and Rock,” a paraphrase of Psalm 18 in Psalms for All Seasons: A Complete Psalter for Worship (2012)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Elihu, in the Book of Job, was a pious idiot. He condemned Job for challenging God and was sure that the titular character of the text must have done something wrong, for surely a just deity would not permit the innocent to suffer.
The Almighty–we cannot find him;
he is great in power and justice,
and abundant righteousness he will not violate.
Therefore mortals fear him;
he does not regard any who are wise in their conceit.
–Job 37:23-24, The New Revised Standard Version (1989)
The Book of Job 1 and 2, had established, however, that God had permitted this suffering as a test of loyalty. And, starting in Chapter 38, when God spoke to Job, one of the most impatient people in the Bible (despite the inaccurate cliché about the “patience of Job”), the divine reply contained no apology.
(Yes, I know of the layers of composition in the Book of Job, that Elihu’s section was not part of the original text and that the prose wraparounds came later, but I am, in this post, treating the book as a whole, as we have received the final version.)
The readings from Genesis contain parts of accounts of divine destruction of the wicked and sparing of some people in the process. The men of Sodom were as anxious to rape women as they were to violate angels, so their issue was not homosexual orientation or practice but violence against almost anyone on two legs. Their sin involved the opposite of hospitality in a place and at a time when the lack of hospitality could prove fatal for guests or world-be guests. Lot was morally troublesome, for he offered his virgin daughters to the rape gang. Those same daughters got him drunk and committed incest with him later in the chapter. Abraham had at least negotiated with God in an attempt to save lives in Genesis 18:20-33, but Noah did nothing of the sort in his time, according to the stories we have received.
Sometimes the faithful response to God is to argue, or at least to ask, “Did I hear you right?” The Bible contains references to God changing the divine mind and to God holding off judgment for a time. I am keenly aware of the unavoidable anthropomorphism of the deity in the Bible, so I attempt to see through it, all the way to the reality behind it. That divine reality is mysterious and ultimately unfathomable. The titular character of the Book of Job was correct to assert his innocence, which the text had established already, but, in the process of doing so he committed the same error as did Elihu and the three main alleged friends; he presumed to think to know how God does or should work.
This occupies my mind as I read elsewhere (than in the mouth of Elihu or one of the three main alleged friends of Job) about the justice, judgment, and mercy of God. I recall that the prophet Jeremiah argued with God bitterly and faithfully–often for vengeance on enemies. I think also of the repeated cries for revenge and questions of “how long?” in the Book of Psalms and the placement of the same lament in the mouths of martyrs in Heaven in the Book of Revelation. And I recall how often God has extended mercy to me in my ignorance, faithlessness, and panic-driven errors. I conclude that I must continue to seek to embrace the mystery of God, rejecting temptations to accept false and deceptively easy answers as I choose the perhaps difficult alternative of a lack of an answer or a satisfactory reply instead. God is God; I am not. That much I know. Nevertheless, some more answers from God might be good to have. May the faithful argument continue.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JULY 14, 2014 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF MATTHEW BRIDGES, HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF SAINT CAMILLUS DE LELLIS, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST
THE FEAST OF SAMSON OCCUM, PRESBYTERIAN PASTOR
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2014/07/20/arguing-faithfully-with-god/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Above: The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, by John Martin (1854)
Image in the Public Domain
The Faithfulness of God
JULY 4, 2023
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints (2010), of The Episcopal Church, contains an adapted two-years weekday lectionary for the Epiphany and Ordinary Time seasons from the Anglican Church of Canada. I invite you to follow it with me.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Genesis 19:15-29 (An American Translation):
When dawn appeared, the angels urged Lot on saying,
Bestir yourself; take away your wife, and the two daughters that are at hand, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.
When he hesitated, the men, because of the LORD’s pity on him, seized his hand and those of his wife and his two daughters, and bringing them out, they left him outside the city. After they had brought them outside, they said,
Fly for your life; do not look behind you, nor stop anywhere in the valley; fly to the hills, lest you be swept away.
Lot said to them,
O no sirs! Your servant has indeed found favor with you, and great is the kindness that you have done me in saving my life, but I cannot possibly fly to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me and I perish. Here is the town near enough to fly to, and quite small; pray, let me fly there (is it not small?) to save my life.
The LORD said to him,
See, I grant you this request as well, in that I will not overthrow the town of which you speak. Hurry and fly there; for I can do nothing until you reach there.
Thus the name of the town came to be called Zoar [small].
Just as the sun rose over the earth and Lot entered Zoar, the LORD rained sulphur and fire from the sky on Sodom and Gomorrah, devastating those cities and all the valley, with all the inhabitants of the cities and the vegetation on the land. And Lot’s wife looked back, and had become a pillar of salt.
Above: Lot’s Wife Pillar, Mount Sodom, Israel
Image in the Public Domain
Next morning when Abraham went early to the place where he had stood before the LORD, he gazed toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and all the region of the valley, and he saw smoke from the land rising like smoke from a kiln.
Thus it was that God remembered Abraham when he destroyed the cities of the valley, by sending Lot away from the catastrophe when he devastated the cities where Lot lived.
Psalm 26 (1979 Book of Common Prayer):
1 Give judgment for me, O LORD,
for I have lived with integrity;
I have trusted in the LORD and have not faltered.
2 Test me, O LORD, and try me;
examine my heart and my mind.
3 For your love is before my eyes;
I have walked faithfully before you.
4 I have not sat with the worthless,
nor do I consort with the deceitful.
5 I have hated the company of evildoers;
I will not sit down with the wicked.
6 I will wash my hands in innocence, O LORD,
that I may go in procession round your altar,
7 Singing aloud a song of thanksgiving
and recounting all your wonderful deeds.
8 LORD, I love the house in which you dwell
and the place where your glory abides.
9 Do not sweep me away with sinners,
nor my life with those who thirst for blood,
10 Whose hands are full of evil plots,
and their right hand full of bribes.
11 As for me, I will live with integrity;
redeem me, O LORD, and have pity on me.
12 My foot stands on level ground;
in the full assembly I will bless the LORD.
Matthew 8:23-27 (An American Translation):
And he [Jesus] got into the boat, and his disciples with him. And suddenly a terrific storm came up on the sea, so that the waves broke over the boat, but he remained asleep. And they woke him, saying,
Save us, sir! We are lost!
And he said to them,
Why are you afraid? You have so little faith!
Then he got up and reproved the wind and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men were amazed and said,
What kind of man is this? For the very winds and sea obey him!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Collect:
Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant to us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
One of the challenges of following a lectionary can be identifying the common theme present in two or more readings from different parts of the Bible. After consulting commentaries and pondering all that I have read in the readings and the commentaries, I have found the common thread: Faithfulness to God is the path to life. This faithfulness needs only to be present. However, as Paul wrote in Romans 6:23, the wages of sin is spiritual death. The wages of sin can also be physical death, and the punishment flows from the sin itself. In other words, we reap what we sow. God is faithful to those who are faithful to him.
Let us examine the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah carefully. In Genesis 19:1-14, two angels arrive at Sodom, where Lot rescues them from would-be gang rapists. The angels tell Lot that God will destroy Sodom and Gomorrah very shortly because, as Professor Richard Elliott Friedman translates verse 13, they have “grown big before YHWH’s face.”
I pause at this point to ponder the importance of growing “big before YHWH’s face.” Later in Chapter 19, YHWH permits Lot and his family to flee to Zoar, which is small, for safety. (Two angels appear early in Chapter 19, and by chapter’s end, YHWH is there, too. When did God show up, after disappearing between the end of Chapter 18 and the beginning of Chapter 19? Following the bouncing ball can be challenging.) Anyhow, I posit that growing “big before YHWH’s face” indicates spiritual arrogance, a lack of faithfulness.
There is an interesting feature in the Hebrew text of verse 15. The word for punishment, as in “…or else you will be consumed in the punishment of the city,” means sin as well. Sin and punishment are the same thing; consequences flow from actions, so we reap what we sow.
Lot is sufficiently hospitable to rescue the angels, strangers in Sodom, and, as Genesis 19:29 indicates, God saves Lot and family out of faithfulness to Abraham. Indeed, Lot is a disturbing character, one who offers his two virgin daughters to the would-be gang rapists gathered outside his house (verse 8). Fortunately for the daughters, the men are not interested.
But Lot is kind to the strangers, if not his own daughters, and the angelic guests offer him and his family a safe way out–if only they follow instructions. Nobody must look back. I suppose that curiosity about what is happening would inspire one to look back; we are a species of people who stare at the aftermath of car wrecks.
Biblical writers over many generations used Sodom and Gomorrah to demonstrate various points. These include:
- Repent, or be destroyed.
- Sexual immorality (in all its forms) is wrong. The first explicit link between homosexual acts and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah comes in Jude 7, however.
- Any town that refuses to heed visitors bearing the word of God will face condemnation.
- The failure to extend hospitality to strangers will lead to condemnation.
- The neglect of the poor will lead to condemnation and destruction.
The word “Sodom” appears in the New Revised Standard Version 51 times. For those of you who wish to follow up, here they are:
- Genesis 10:19
- Genesis 13:10, 12, and 13
- Genesis 14:2, 8, 10-12, 17, 21, 22, and 26
- Genesis 18:16, 20, and 26
- Genesis 19:1, 4, 24, and 28
- Deuteronomy 29:23
- Deuteronomy 32:32
- Isaiah 1:9 and 10
- Isaiah 3:9
- Isaiah 13:19
- Jeremiah 23:14
- Jeremiah 49:18
- Jeremiah 50:40
- Lamentations 4:6
- Ezekiel 16:46, 48, 49, 53, 55, and 56
- Amos 4:11
- Zephaniah 2:9
- 3 Maccabees 2:5
- 2 Esdras 2:8
- 2 Esdras 7:106
- Matthew 10:15
- Matthew 11:23 and 24
- Luke 10:12
- Luke 17:29
- Romans 9:29
- 2 Peter 2:6
- Jude 7
- Revelation 11:8
The reading from Matthew tells the familiar story of Jesus calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee. In all fairness to the Apostles, I would have been afraid, too. I note also that Jesus said they had little faith, not no faith. This is a difficult text, one with more possible interpretations than I dreamed possible before reading commentaries. However, remaining consistent with my methodology of following a common thread between or among lectionary readings, I latch onto the “little faith” comment. At least the Apostles had some faith. Are we not like this much, if not most, of the time? We have some faith and we know that we need more. We believe, yet we need God to forgive us for our unbelief. But a little faith is better than none, and from little faith much more can spring. As the Book of Psalms says, God knows that we are “but dust.”
Reciprocity matters in a healthy relationship with God. We will get much wrong, for we are fallible. But, by grace, we can walk in the paths of righteousness more often than not. We might save not only ourselves, but friends and family members, too. But are we trying? That is the first question. Fortunately, God is faithful to those who are faithful to him. And let us remember what Mother Teresa of Calcutta said about faithfulness: God calls us to be faithful, not successful.
Certainly, how we treat others can be an outward sign of faithfulness. If we love God with our essence and respect ourselves, following the Golden Rule will result in frequent acts of kindness. To follow up on a previous devotion in this series, Jesus said that “you shall know them by their fruits.” I add to this thought the entire Letter of James.
May we be faithful to God for the glory of God and out of awe of God and gratitude for all the wonderful deeds God has done. And why not? God is faithful.
KRT
http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/the-faithfulness-of-god/
ORDINARY TIME DEVOTIONS 
You must be logged in to post a comment.