Is. 33:1–24
33:1 The destroyer is as good as dead,
you who have not been destroyed!
The deceitful one is as good as dead,
the one whom others have not deceived!
When you are through destroying, you will be destroyed;
when you finish deceiving, others will deceive you!
2Lord, be merciful to us! We wait for you.
Give us strength each morning.
Deliver us when distress comes.
3The nations run away when they hear a loud noise;
the nations scatter when you spring into action!
4Your plunder disappears as if locusts were eating it;
they swarm over it like locusts.
5The Lord is exalted,
indeed, he lives in heaven;
he fills Zion with justice and fairness.
6He is your constant source of stability;
he abundantly provides safety and great wisdom;
he gives all this to those who fear him.
7Look, ambassadors cry out in the streets;
messengers sent to make peace weep bitterly.
8Highways are empty;
there are no travelers.
Treaties are broken;
witnesses are despised;
human life is treated with disrespect.
9The land dries up and withers away;
the forest of Lebanon shrivels up and decays.
Sharon is like the arid rift valley;
Bashan and Carmel are parched.
10“Now I will rise up,” says the Lord.
“Now I will exalt myself;
now I will magnify myself.
11You conceive straw,
you give birth to chaff;
your breath is a fire that destroys you.
12The nations will be burned to ashes;
like thornbushes that have been cut down, they will be set on fire.
13You who are far away, listen to what I have done!
You who are close by, recognize my strength.”
14Sinners are afraid in Zion;
panic grips the godless.
They say, “Who among us can coexist with destructive fire?
Who among us can coexist with unquenchable fire?”
15The one who lives uprightly
and speaks honestly,
the one who refuses to profit from oppressive measures
and rejects a bribe,
the one who does not plot violent crimes
and does not seek to harm others—
16this is the person who will live in a secure place;
he will find safety in the rocky, mountain strongholds;
he will have food
and a constant supply of water.
17You will see a king in his splendor;
you will see a wide land.
18Your mind will recall the terror you experienced,
and you will ask yourselves, “Where is the scribe?
Where is the one who weighs the money?
Where is the one who counts the towers?”
19You will no longer see a defiant people
whose language you do not comprehend,
whose derisive speech you do not understand.
20Look at Zion, the city where we hold religious festivals!
You will see Jerusalem,
a peaceful settlement,
a tent that stays put;
its stakes will never be pulled up;
none of its ropes will snap in two.
21Instead the Lord will rule there as our mighty king.
Rivers and wide streams will flow through it;
no war galley will enter;
no large ships will sail through.
22For the Lord, our ruler,
the Lord, our commander,
the Lord, our king—
he will deliver us.
23Though at this time your ropes are slack,
the mast is not secured,
and the sail is not unfurled,
at that time you will divide up a great quantity of loot;
even the lame will drag off plunder.
24No resident of Zion will say, “I am ill”;
the people who live there will have their sin forgiven.
(NET Bible)Ps. 12
12:1 For the music director, according to the sheminith style; a psalm of David.
Deliver, Lord!
For the godly have disappeared;
people of integrity have vanished.
2People lie to one another;
they flatter and deceive.
3May the Lord cut off all flattering lips,
and the tongue that boasts!
4They say, “We speak persuasively;
we know how to flatter and boast.
Who is our master?”
5“Because of the violence done to the oppressed,
because of the painful cries of the needy,
I will spring into action,” says the Lord.
“I will provide the safety they so desperately desire.”
6The Lord’s words are absolutely reliable.
They are as untainted as silver purified in a furnace on the ground,
where it is thoroughly refined.
7You, Lord, will protect the oppressed;
you will continually shelter each one from these evil people,
8for the wicked seem to be everywhere,
when people promote evil.
(NET Bible)John 6:41–59
6:41 Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus began complaining about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” 42and they said, “Isn’t this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 43Jesus replied, “Do not complain about me to one another. 44No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. 45It is written in the prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who hears and learns from the Father comes to me. 46(Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God—he has seen the Father.) 47I tell you the solemn truth, the one who believes has eternal life. 48I am the bread of life. 49Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50This is the bread that has come down from heaven, so that a person may eat from it and not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
52Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus began to argue with one another, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53Jesus said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. 54The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood resides in me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so the one who consumes me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread your ancestors ate, but then later died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.”
59Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. (NET Bible)
Luther’s first statements concerning this matter we find in the marginal notes written by him in his personal copy of the Sentences of Lombardus, which, in 1510, as a Sententiarius he was called upon to teach. Here we find statements such as the following: “But you, dear reader, whoever you may be, take this as the word of a simple man: no one has ever yet had the experience that the vapors of the earth have illuminated the heavens, but rather that they hold back the light from the earth. By that I want to say that theology is heaven, or, to put it still better, the kingdom of heaven. Man is the earth, and his speculations are the vapors; now understand the rest and see for what reason there are such great di erences of opinion among the doctors. Note, too, that a swine has never been able to teach Minerva even though it o en imagines that it can.” “All light must come from revelation, the human understanding is unable to understand supernatural matters.” “For since no one has seen them, whatever is added to revelation is certainly nothing but human invention.” “Arguments based on reason determine nothing, but because the Holy Ghost says it is true, it is true.” In connection with a disputed question Luther affirms, “though many famous doctors hold this opinion, yet they do not have Scripture on their side but only arguments of reason. But I have the words of Scripture on my side in this opinion that the soul is the image of God, and so I say with the Apostle, ‘Though an angel from heaven, that is, a doctor of the Church, teaches otherwise let him be anathema!’” (13)
–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.