Amos 5:1–15
5:1 Listen to this funeral song I am ready to sing about you, family of Israel:
2“The virgin Israel has fallen down and will not get up again.
She is abandoned on her own land
with no one to help her get up.”
3The Sovereign Lord says this:
“The city that marches out with a thousand soldiers will have only a hundred left;
the town that marches out with a hundred soldiers will have only ten left for the family of Israel.”
4The Lord says this to the family of Israel:
“Seek me so you can live!
5Do not seek Bethel.
Do not visit Gilgal.
Do not journey down to Beer Sheba.
For the people of Gilgal will certainly be carried into exile,
and Bethel will become a place where disaster abounds.”
6Seek the Lord so you can live!
Otherwise he will break out like fire against Joseph’s family;
the fire will consume,
and no one will be able to quench it and save Bethel.
7The Israelites turn justice into bitterness;
they throw what is fair and right to the ground.
8But there is one who made the constellations Pleiades and Orion;
he can turn the darkness into morning
and daylight into night.
He summons the water of the seas
and pours it out on the earth’s surface.
The Lord is his name!
9He flashes destruction down upon the strong
so that destruction overwhelms the fortified places.
10The Israelites hate anyone who arbitrates at the city gate;
they despise anyone who speaks honestly.
11Therefore, because you make the poor pay taxes on their crops
and exact a grain tax from them,
you will not live in the houses you built with chiseled stone,
nor will you drink the wine from the fine vineyards you planted.
12Certainly I am aware of your many rebellious acts
and your numerous sins.
You torment the innocent, you take bribes,
and you deny justice to the needy at the city gate.
13For this reason whoever is smart keeps quiet in such a time,
for it is an evil time.
14Seek good and not evil so you can live!
Then the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies just might be with you,
as you claim he is.
15Hate what is wrong, love what is right.
Promote justice at the city gate.
Maybe the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies will have mercy on those who are left from Joseph.
(NET Bible)Ps. 93
93:1 The Lord reigns.
He is robed in majesty.
The Lord is robed;
he wears strength around his waist.
Indeed, the world is established; it cannot be moved.
2Your throne has been secure from ancient times;
you have always been king.
3The waves roar, O Lord,
the waves roar,
the waves roar and crash.
4Above the sound of the surging water,
and the mighty waves of the sea,
the Lord sits enthroned in majesty.
5The rules you set down are completely reliable.
Holiness aptly adorns your house, O Lord, forever.
(NET Bible)Mark 2:13–28
2:13 Jesus went out again by the sea. The whole crowd came to him, and he taught them. 14As he went along, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax booth. “Follow me,” he said to him. And he got up and followed him. 15As Jesus was having a meal in Levi’s home, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16When the experts in the law and the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 17When Jesus heard this he said to them, “Those who are healthy don’t need a physician, but those who are sick do. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
18Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. So they came to Jesus and said, “Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples don’t fast?” 19Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they do not fast. 20But the days are coming when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and at that time they will fast. 21No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and the tear becomes worse. 22And no one pours new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins will be destroyed. Instead new wine is poured into new wineskins.”
23Jesus was going through the grain fields on a Sabbath, and his disciples began to pick some heads of wheat as they made their way. 24So the Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is against the law on the Sabbath?” 25He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry— 26how he entered the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the sacred bread, which is against the law for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to his companions?” 27Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath. 28For this reason the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
(NET Bible)
In the passage cited above, that is taken from the Exposition of the First and Second Chapter of John, 1537 and 1538, there is the statement: “But these are questions that remain questions which I will not solve and that do not give me much concern, only there are people so sly and keen that they raise all kinds of questions for which they want to have answers. If one, however, has a correct understanding of Scripture and possesses the true statement of our faith that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has su ered and died for us, it will not be a serious defect if we are not able to answer them.” And following this: “When discrepancies occur in Holy Scripture (namely concerning such chronological questions as these: how many years Jesus taught openly, how the account of the Temple cleansing in John agrees with Matthew, and similar questions) and we cannot harmonize them, let it pass, it does not endanger the article of the Christian faith.” In these statements Luther does not say that it is a matter of indi erence to him whether they contain errors or not but only that his faith would not be endangered, if, in spite of his best efforts, he would be unable to solve the apparent contradictions or to prove the inconsequence of all skeptical questions. He dismisses the matter if he cannot prove it conclusively, but his inability to do so neither commits him to the opinion that these passages really contain error, nor is his faith in salvation thereby imperiled. (49–50)
–Johann Michael Reu, Luther on the Scriptures
This daily Bible reading guide, Reading the Word of God, was conceived and prepared as a result of the ongoing discussions between representatives of three church bodies: Lutheran Church—Canada (LCC), The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) and the North American Lutheran Church (NALC). The following individuals have represented their church bodies and approved this introduction and the reading guide: LCC: President Robert Bugbee; NALC: Bishop John Bradosky, Revs. Mark Chavez, James Nestingen, and David Wendel; LCMS: Revs. Albert Collver, Joel Lehenbauer, John Pless, and Larry Vogel.