TODAY’S BIBLE READING CHALLENGE:
Lamentations 1:1-2:22
Philemon 1:1-25
Psalm 101:1-8
Proverbs 26:20
Lamentations 1:1 — From Through the Bible (TTB):
Dr. Alexander Whyte, one of the great expositors of the Word of God of days gone by, has said: “There is nothing like the Lamentations of Jeremiah in the whole world. There has been plenty of sorrow in every age, and in every land, but such another preacher and author, with such a heart for sorrow, has never again been born. Dante comes next to Jeremiah, and we know that Jeremiah was the great exile’s favorite prophet.
Lamentations 1:12 — From Spurgeon:
I, too, share the sympathetic avarice of Jeremiah’s pity. Do you ask what grief I have and for whose woes I am a mourner? I point you to the cross and to the Man of Sorrows there.
Lamentations 2:7 — The LORD, who so detailed the instructions for the altar in Exodus 30, now has cast it off. “He hath fulfilled his word” (Lamentations 2:17).
Philemon 8-9 — Paul begs for love’s sake rather than declaring by his authority as an apostle.
Philemon 12 — Paul continues to put relationships above rights: requesting not ordering (Philemon 8-9), relinquishing his friend (Philemon 13), and demonstrating by presumably begging Onesimus to give up his freedom to build a relationship with a brother. This is what Paul had taught previously in 1 Timothy 6:2, specifically about believing masters.
Philemon 21 — According to tradition, Onesimus later became bishop of Ephesus and was martyred by stoning.
Psalm 101:3 — God wants purity in behavior (Psalm 101:2), in heart (Psalm 101:2), in sight (Psalm 101:3), in friends (Psalm 101:4), in speech (Psalm 101:5), and in attitude (Psalm 101:5).
Proverbs 26:20 — Let’s cut the fire out!
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