Is. 29:11–24
29:11 To you this entire prophetic revelation is like words in a sealed scroll. When they hand it to one who can read and say, “Read this,” he responds, “I can’t, because it is sealed.” 12Or when they hand the scroll to one who can’t read and say, “Read this,” he says, “I can’t read.”
13The Lord says,
“These people say they are loyal to me;
they say wonderful things about me,
but they are not really loyal to me.
Their worship consists of
nothing but man-made ritual.
14Therefore I will again do an amazing thing for these people—
an absolutely extraordinary deed.
Wise men will have nothing to say,
the sages will have no explanations.”
15Those who try to hide their plans from the Lord are as good as dead,
who do their work in secret and boast,
“Who sees us? Who knows what we’re doing?”
16Your thinking is perverse!
Should the potter be regarded as clay?
Should the thing made say about its maker, “He didn’t make me”?
Or should the pottery say about the potter, “He doesn’t understand”?
17In just a very short time
Lebanon will turn into an orchard,
and the orchard will be considered a forest.
18At that time the deaf will be able to hear words read from a scroll,
and the eyes of the blind will be able to see through deep darkness.
19The downtrodden will again rejoice in the Lord;
the poor among humankind will take delight in the Holy One of Israel.
20For tyrants will disappear,
those who taunt will vanish,
and all those who love to do wrong will be eliminated—
21those who bear false testimony against a person,
who entrap the one who arbitrates at the city gate
and deprive the innocent of justice by making false charges.
22So this is what the Lord, the one who delivered Abraham, has said to the family of Jacob:
“Jacob will no longer be ashamed;
their faces will no longer show their embarrassment.
23For when they see their children,
whom I will produce among them,
they will honor my name.
They will honor the Holy One of Jacob;
they will respect the God of Israel.
24Those who stray morally will gain understanding;
those who complain will acquire insight.
(NET Bible)Ps. 6
6:1 For the music director, to be accompanied by stringed instruments, according to the sheminith style; a psalm of David.
Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger.
Do not discipline me in your raging fury.
2Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am frail.
Heal me, Lord, for my bones are shaking.
3I am absolutely terrified,
and you, Lord—how long will this continue?
4Relent, Lord, rescue me!
Deliver me because of your faithfulness.
5For no one remembers you in the realm of death.
In Sheol who gives you thanks?
6I am exhausted as I groan.
All night long I drench my bed in tears;
my tears saturate the cushion beneath me.
7My eyes grow dim from suffering;
they grow weak because of all my enemies.
8Turn back from me, all you who behave wickedly,
for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.
9The Lord has heard my appeal for mercy;
the Lord has accepted my prayer.
10They will be humiliated and absolutely terrified.
All my enemies will turn back and be suddenly humiliated.
(NET Bible)John 4:1–15
4:1 Now when Jesus knew that the Pharisees had heard that he was winning and baptizing more disciples than John 2(although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were), 3he left Judea and set out once more for Galilee.
4But he had to pass through Samaria. 5Now he came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, so Jesus, since he was tired from the journey, sat right down beside the well. It was about noon.
7A Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.” 8(For his disciples had gone off into the town to buy supplies.) 9So the Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you—a Jew—ask me, a Samaritan woman, for water to drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.)
10Jesus answered her, “If you had known the gift of God and who it is who said to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11“Sir,” the woman said to him, “you have no bucket and the well is deep; where then do you get this living water? 12Surely you’re not greater than our ancestor Jacob, are you? For he gave us this well and drank from it himself, along with his sons and his livestock.”
13Jesus replied, “Everyone who drinks some of this water will be thirsty again. 14But whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.” 15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” (NET Bible)
We know that in 1513, when [Luther] began his lectures on the Psalms, he still operated with the fourfold sense of Scripture, the sensus literalis, allegoricus, tropologicus, and anagogicus, but that already in the course of his lectures he combined three of them into one and occasionally designated the sensus literalis as the sensus primarius scripturae behind which the sensus tropologicus must retreat. In his lectures on Romans, 1515-1516, and on Galatians, 1516-1517, this view becomes increasingly evident, and after 1519 his exposition is entirely controlled by the principle: Scripture has but one meaning, even though in his practical explanations of the Scriptures he still oftentimes pays tribute to the allegorical sense. He now declares in his writing against Emser, “Scripture shall not have a double meaning but shall retain the one that accords with the meaning by the words,” and again, “The Holy Ghost is the most simple author and speaker in heaven and earth, therefore His words cannot have more than one, the most simple meaning.” In his Christmas Postil of 1522 he even writes, “If we concede that Scripture has more than one sense, it loses its fighting force.” (10)
–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.