learning wisdom

Good evening friends,
Happy March to you all. This week's theme is parenting, and many of the Bible's Book of Proverbs (in fact many cultural proverbs in general) were written to instruct young people in the right way to live. This section from Proverbs talks specifically to a son about the dangers of getting in with the wrong crowd. In this case, wrong doesn't mean people who dress the wrong way or listen to the wrong music, but rather those who prey on the weak for profit. Blessings on your wise choices today,
Sam


Proverbs 1:7-19
⁷The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.
 ⁸Hear, my child, your father’s instruction,
and do not reject your mother’s teaching;
⁹for they are a fair garland for your head,
and pendants for your neck.
¹⁰My child, if sinners entice you, do not consent.
¹¹If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood;
let us wantonly ambush the innocent;
¹²like Sheol let us swallow them alive and whole,
like those who go down to the Pit.
¹³We shall find all kinds of costly things;
we shall fill our houses with booty.
¹⁴Throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse”—
¹⁵my child, do not walk in their way, keep your foot from their paths;
¹⁶for their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed blood.
¹⁷For in vain is the net baited while the bird is looking on;
¹⁸yet they lie in wait—to kill themselves!
and set an ambush—for their own lives!
¹⁹Such is the end of all who are greedy for gain;
it takes away the life of its possessors.

feeding and being fed

Good evening friends,
Today's reading tells the story of the Prophet Elijah in a time of drought. God sent Elijah to being the drought on Israel to expose King Ahab's sins of injustice and idolatry. For the first year of the drought, Elijah lived by a stream and God sent ravens to bring him food. But then the stream went dry and God sent Elijah to a gentile town, Zarapheth, to find a new way to live there. The story is a portrait of God's strange provision and the deep love of a mother for her son in impossible circumstances. Jesus points to this story in his first sermon in his hometown to show that God's special care isn't just for the people of Israel.

May God bless you in surprising ways this week,
Sam

1 Kings 17:8-16

⁸Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ⁹“Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” ¹⁰So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” ¹¹As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” ¹²But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” 

¹³Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. ¹⁴For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.” ¹⁵She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. ¹⁶The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.