Home > Reading > Daily Reading – November 7, 2018

Job 38:31–39:18 (ESV)

31  “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades
or loose the cords of Orion?
32  Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season,
or can you guide the Bear with its children?
33  Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
Can you establish their rule on the earth?

34  “Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
that a flood of waters may cover you?
35  Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go
and say to you, ‘Here we are’?
36  Who has put wisdom in the inward parts
or given understanding to the mind?
37  Who can number the clouds by wisdom?
Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens,
38  when the dust runs into a mass
and the clods stick fast together?

39  “Can you hunt the prey for the lion,
or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
40  when they crouch in their dens
or lie in wait in their thicket?
41  Who provides for the raven its prey,
when its young ones cry to God for help,
and wander about for lack of food?

39 “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?
Do you observe the calving of the does?
Can you number the months that they fulfill,
and do you know the time when they give birth,
when they crouch, bring forth their offspring,
and are delivered of their young?
Their young ones become strong; they grow up in the open;
they go out and do not return to them.

“Who has let the wild donkey go free?
Who has loosed the bonds of the swift donkey,
to whom I have given the arid plain for his home
and the salt land for his dwelling place?
He scorns the tumult of the city;
he hears not the shouts of the driver.
He ranges the mountains as his pasture,
and he searches after every green thing.

“Is the wild ox willing to serve you?
Will he spend the night at your manger?
10  Can you bind him in the furrow with ropes,
or will he harrow the valleys after you?
11  Will you depend on him because his strength is great,
and will you leave to him your labor?
12  Do you have faith in him that he will return your grain
and gather it to your threshing floor?

13  “The wings of the ostrich wave proudly,
but are they the pinions and plumage of love?
14  For she leaves her eggs to the earth
and lets them be warmed on the ground,
15  forgetting that a foot may crush them
and that the wild beast may trample them.
16  She deals cruelly with her young, as if they were not hers;
though her labor be in vain, yet she has no fear,
17  because God has made her forget wisdom
and given her no share in understanding.
18  When she rouses herself to flee,
she laughs at the horse and his rider.

Psalm 119:9–16 (ESV)

BETH

How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.

10  With my whole heart I seek you;
let me not wander from your commandments!

11  I have stored up your word in my heart,
that I might not sin against you.

12  Blessed are you, O Lord;
teach me your statutes!

13  With my lips I declare
all the rules of your mouth.

14  In the way of your testimonies I delight
as much as in all riches.

15  I will meditate on your precepts
and fix my eyes on your ways.

16  I will delight in your statutes;
I will not forget your word.

Luke 20:27–40 (ESV)

Sadducees Ask About the Resurrection

27 There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, 28 and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children. 30 And the second 31 and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. 32 Afterward the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.”

34 And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, 35 but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, 36 for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. 37 But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.” 39 Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” 40 For they no longer dared to ask him any question.

No matter how emphatically Luther emphasized the inerrancy and the consistency of the original text of Holy Scripture as the work of the Holy Ghost, he is also, on the other hand, convinced of the personal cooperation of the original authors. They are not, in his opinion, mechanical instruments and dead machines, mere amanuenses who set down on paper only what was dictated to them by the Spirit of God. He regarded them rather as independent instruments of the Spirit who spoke their faith, their heart, their thoughts; who put their entire will and feeling into the words to such an extent that from what Luther reads in each case he draws conclusions concerning the character and the temperament of the authors. So [according to Luther] the Prophet Joel reveals himself in his writing as a “gracious and gentle man, who does not scold and censure like the other prophets but implores and bewails.” Amos, on the other hand, is “violent, scolding almost all the way through his book, so that he is well called, Amos, that is a burden or what is burdensome and vexatious”; and he explains this as being due to his calling and from the fact that he was sent as a “stranger” from the Kingdom of Judah to the Kingdom of Israel, for, he continues, “because he is a shepherd and not one of the order of the prophets, as he says in the seventh chapter, moreover, he goes from the branch of Judah, from Tekoa, into the Kingdom of Israel and preaches there as a stranger.” Of Jeremiah, however, Luther says that he is always afraid that he censures too much, for which reason he compares him with Philip Melanchthon. In Paul he observes the deepest emotion because of his writings and can say of his words, “these words are violent above mea- sure, from which it is easy to see that he was much more violently moved than he was able to express in words.” Yes, he adds, “So it has come about that St. Paul under the influence of his intense thought could not control his own word so well, and his speech has become somewhat disordered and peculiar.” (60)

–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.

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