| |
|
June 2 - Morning
"We have heard it with our ears, O God;
our ancestors have told us
what you did in their days,
in days long ago.
With your hand you drove out the nations
and planted our ancestors;
you crushed the peoples
and made our ancestors flourish.
It was not by their sword that they won the land,
nor did their arm bring them victory;
it was your right hand, your arm,
and the light of your face, for you loved them....
...But now you have rejected and humbled us;
you no longer go out with our armies.
You made us retreat before the enemy,
and our adversaries have plundered us.
You gave us up to be devoured like sheep
and have scattered us among the nations....
...All this came upon us,
though we had not forgotten you;
we had not been false to your covenant.
Our hearts had not turned back;
our feet had not strayed from your path.
But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals;
you covered us over with deep darkness.
If we had forgotten the name of our God
or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
would not God have discovered it,
since he knows the secrets of the heart?
Yet for your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
Awake, Lord! Why do you sleep?
Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever."
- Psalms 44:1-3, 9-11,17-23 |
 |
|
| A Song of Lamentation on the Field of a Lost Battle |
|
|
Psalm 44 is a song of national lamentation after the loss of a military battle. Judges 5 is an example of a victory song that would have been sung by the victorious Hebrew soldiers on the battle field after their success and continued on their march home. But, Psalm 44 is the song they would have sung after a military defeat (Psalm 44:10-11) when the POW’s had been taken (Psalm 44:13) and warriors had been slaughtered on the field of battle (Psalm 44:22-23, 25)
We do not know when this Psalm was written, nor can we assign it to a historical time or to a specific battle. It could certainly have been applied and used after any of several battles lost by the Davidic kings of Judah, or battles lost to local forces in the days of the Persians, and certainly to battles lost to the Greeks during the days of the Maccabean period, and many times since then. But, we do not know the specific historical event that caused the origin of this psalm.
Psalm 44 is written in a style that alternates between the speaker being a single individual and the speaker being referred to in the first person plural (“we,” “us”). This seems to indicate that there were two speaking parts that alternated as a responsive reading, or more likely, a responsive song sung back and forth between the king (singular “I”, “my”, “me”) and the surviving soldiers (and, the people of the community.) In this case the breakdown of the speaking parts in Psalm 44 would be:
History of God’s Previous Faithfulness
Soldiers: Psalm 44:1-3
King: Psalm 44:4 – “You are my King and my God, who decrees victories for Jacob.”
Soldiers: Psalm 44:5
King: Psalm 44:6 – “I put no trust in my bow, my sword does not bring me victory.”
Soldiers: Psalm 44:7-8
Lamentation
Soldiers: Psalm 44:9-14
King: Psalm 44:15-16 – “I live in disgrace all day long, and my face is covered with shame at the taunts of those who reproach and revile me, because of the enemy, who is bent on revenge.
Soldiers: Psalm 44:17-22
Prayer
Both Soldiers and King: Psalm 44:23-26
|
|
 |
"Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper."
- G. K. Chesterton |
 |
Jacques-Benigne Bossuet (1627-1704), a French theologian and bishop wrote in the First Article of the Gallican "Declaration des Quatre Articles" (or, ("Declaration of Four Articles) in 1682 this revolutionary concept:
"Kings and Princes are by the law of God not subject to any ecclesiastical power nor to the Keys of the Church in respect to their temporal government."
Included in this Declaration of the Clergy of France against the Catholic Church from Italy were these four statements that became known as Gallicanism:
1. The popes and the church have dominion from God only over spiritual things, and not over temporal and civil things.
2. The authority of spiritual things belongs to the Church according to the Council of Constance. This meant the pope was regulated by previous church councils.
3. Apostolic authority must be regulated by the rules established by the Holy Spirit throughout church history, including the churches in France.
4. The pope has authority in matters of faith and his decrees apply to all the churches, yet, his decisions are reversible with the consent of the churches. |
|
| |
 |
|
 |
Tm (Hb) – to be unclean (Eng) - The Hebrew verb tm occurs 160x in the OT. 85% of the OT occurrences of tm are in Leviticus, Numbers and Ezekiel. In Judges 13:4, 7, 14 Samson’s
mother was not to eat anything tm. In Amos 7:17 Amaziah is told that he will die in a tm land.
Isaiah calls himself a man of tm lips (Isaiah 6:5) |
|
The book of Matthew was referred to or quoted thirteen times before 200 AD in the writings of the early church teachers, leaders and bishops. Below are the documents and the year they were written that reference
the book of Matthew
before 200 AD:
- 70-130 AD, Pseudo-Barnabas
- 95, Clement of Rome
- 110, Ignatius
- 110-150, Polycarp
- 115-140, Hermas
- 120-150, Didache
- 130-202, Ireanaeus
- 150-155, Justin Martyr
- 170, Muratorian Canon
- 150-215, Clement of Alexandria
- 150-220, Tertullian
- 185-254, Origin
- 200, Old Latin Text
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
 |
I will not give up on God because of my suffering.
I will not forsake the Lord when he seems distant from me. |
|
"Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men,
from men whose words are perverse, who leave the straight paths
to walk in dark ways."
- Proverbs 2:12-13 |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
Neighbors |
Joy |
Local School System |
Ghana |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
| |
| |
| Reps & Sets is a daily Bible devotional for Christians from Generation Word Bible Teaching used each morning and evening. |
| |
|
