Daily Word, Pentecost 11A

Daily Word, Pentecost 11A

Daily Bible Readings for the Week of the Eleventh Sunday of Pentecost, Year A

Join us for Morning Prayer in the chapel, Monday through Friday* at 8:30am, where we read and discuss these Scriptures and pray together. We do the same during Vespers in the parsonage Sunday evenings at 6pm. Join us! The parsonage is across the street from the church. 

Our readings for the week of the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost are listed below. Each verse is linked and will open to Biblia so you may read online. Click the link to read online or read in your Bible. The additional reading each day speaks to the common conversation between the three readings.

A Call to Action through Action

The passages you’ve listed follow a pattern of divine action followed by human response and covenant commitment. This thematic arc appears across three distinct biblical narratives:

Divine Initiative and Deliverance: Each set opens with God’s saving acts—Joshua recounting the patriarchal promises and the conquest, Acts narrating the resurrection and Pentecost, and Matthew depicting Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection. God’s people’s identity hinges on God’s prior action in history, occurring before any service the people render to Yahweh.1

Call to Covenant Faithfulness: The narratives function as more than historical recitation—they demand discipleship and call hearers to obey and serve God faithfully.1 Joshua emphasizes that God has remained faithful to His promises, and warns that good will turn to evil through sin and apostasy.2 Similarly, Acts' and Matthew’s resurrection accounts call disciples to witness and proclaim, while the Judges passages illustrate the consequences when covenant faithfulness lapses.

Human Choice and Commitment: God acts in freedom, hoping that the delivered people will respond in the same freedom and choose to serve Him.1 The people are admonished to serve God alone, agree, swear fealty oaths, and the covenant is transcribed as a binding document.2 The Acts passages show believers choosing to commit to witness; Matthew’s resurrection accounts call for faith and obedience.

Cyclical Pattern of Leadership and Renewal: Charismatic leadership gains authority through divine gifting, with leaders raised up by God and recognized through their actions and popular acclaim.3 This pattern repeats through Judges, while Joshua and Acts present pivotal moments where leadership transitions and the covenant community renews its commitment to God’s mission.

1. Trent C. Butler, Joshua 13–24, ed. Nancy L. deClaissé-Walford, Word Biblical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 331–332.
2. Michael A. Fishbane, Haftarot, The JPS Bible Commentary (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2002), 507–508.
3. C. E. Armerding, “Judges,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed. T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 174.

Sunday: Joshua 24:1–15; Acts 28:23–31; Mark 2:23–28

The obligation of the Christian to observe the day by cessation from other employments in order to give attention to the Word of God, and prayer, are clearly taught. The sanctity of the day, it is maintained, lies not in resting; but in the hearing and consideration of the Word, for which the rest is required.

Henry E. Jacobs, “Sunday, Luth. View Of,” in The Lutheran Cyclopedia, ed. Henry Eyster Jacobs and John A. W. Haas (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1899), 466.

Monday:

Monday: Joshua 24:16–33; Romans 16:1–16; Matthew 27:24–31

“And this is the true Christian liberty, not a liberty from works (ab operibus), but from those false, presumptuous opinions concerning works (ab opinionibus operum), which seek justification through works.”
The principles laid down in this treatise have always been maintained by the Luth. Church, over against a spirit of legalism, be it Romish, Puritanic, or Pietistic, which makes Christ a new Lawgiver, and the gospel itself a new law; against the spirit of bondage which submits to the dictates of human and worldly authorities in matters of faith and conscience over which the Word of God alone must have the rule; as well as against the spirit of antinomianism and moral indifference that would use liberty as a cloak of maliciousness.

Adolph Spaeth, “Freedom,” in The Lutheran Cyclopedia, ed. Henry Eyster Jacobs and John A. W. Haas (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1899), 186.

Tuesday: Judges 2:1–5, 11–23; Romans 16:17–27; Matthew 27:32–44

How much truer is this of God and his people! The most appalling apostasy has not daunted our Heavenly Father, or driven him utterly away from his world. “Where sin abounded, there did grace much more abound.” Some of the best of men and most comforting of doctrines were born in ages of spiritual darkness. He has never left himself without a witness. 

H. D. M. Spence-Jones, ed., Judges, The Pulpit Commentary (London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909), 26.

Wednesday: Judges 3:12–30; Acts 1:1–14; Matthew 27:45–54

Let me notice last of all on this point, that all history shows that the great strength of God has always been displayed and perpetuated in human weakness. Brothers, what made Christ so strong? Was it not that he condescended to be so weak? And how did he win his victory? By his patience, by his suffering: that is to say, by those things wherein his human weakness appeared. Now, look at Christ mystical, namely, the church. How has the church ever been strong? Of course you reply, “By the strength of God!” I know it: but what has brought forth the strength of God so that it has been undeniably manifest, and consequently operative upon mankind? Has it been the strength of the church? No, but the weakness of the church, for when men have seen believers suffer and die it is then that they have beheld the strength of God in his people. The sufferings of the saints have been the victories of the truth. The martyrs led the van; they suffered most, and consequently are the champions of the elect army: the weakness which allowed of their being destitute, afflicted, tormented, has been the battle-axe and the weapons of war with which the Lord has procured conquest for the gospel.

C. H. Spurgeon, “Strengthening Words from the Saviour’s Lips,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 22 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1876), 201.

Thursday: Judges 4:4–23; Acts 1:15–26; Matthew 27:55–66

The work [the printing of Luther's German New Testament] was greedily and thankfully pounced upon by many thousands in all parts of Germany, who had learnt from Luther to distinguish the “pure Word of God” from the dogmas of the Church, and to honour it accordingly. Nor could any means more powerful than this be found of spreading the doctrine thus founded on the Word of God, and making it the real property of hearers and readers. All the greater was the danger recognized herein by those who adhered to ecclesiastical authority and traditions. Of great significance for both sides are the words of one of the most violent of Luther’s contemporary opponents, the theologian Cochlæus: “Luther’s New Testament was multiplied by the printers in a most wonderful degree, so that even shoemakers and women, and every and any lay person acquainted with the German type, read it greedily as the fountain of all truth, and by repeatedly reading it, impressed it on their memory. By this means they acquired in a few months so much knowledge, that they ventured to dispute, not only with Catholic laymen, but even with masters and doctors of theology, about faith and the gospel. Luther himself, indeed, had long before taught that even Christian women, and every one who had been baptised, were in truth priests, as much as Pope, bishop, and priests. 

Julius Köstlin, Life of Luther, Second Edition (London; New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1895), 236.

Friday: Judges 5:1–18; Acts 2:1–21; Matthew 28:1–10

Immediately after the resurrection (John 20), he breatheth upon his disciples, and giveth them the Holy Ghost; to declare that he is the same, who at the beginning created our nature, and sealed it with his Spirit; and that it is even he, who now, in the beginning of a new life, must by his Spirit renew and restore our decayed nature again; that thus Christ, who is the living and “express image of the invisible God (Hebrews 1),” may be fashioned and formed of the new in us  (Colossians 1)...

Out of the high and real throne (Colossians 3), where he sitteth at the right hand of God his Father (Ephesians 4), Christ the eternal King sent down his holy Spirit upon all flesh, that we by him might obtain the old innocency and salvation again; and that the image of God, stained and defiled by sin, might be restored unto us, and that we thus might become partakers of eternal life. What they be, unto whom God giveth his Spirit, that see we well here; namely, even unto those, that in unity of faith and fervent love are gathered together with one accord; for of all unity he is the fountain and original. In contentious and proud hearts dwelleth not the Holy Ghost: therefore is it meet that we pray: Come, O Holy Spirit, replenish the hearts of thy faithful believers, and kindle in them the fire of thy love, thou that through manifold tongues hast gathered together all the nations of the heathen in unity of faith.

Myles Coverdale, Writings and Translations of Myles Coverdale, ed. George Pearson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1844), 392–393.

Saturday: Judges 5:19–31; Acts 2:22–36; Matthew 28:11–20

What, then, is, for Luther, involved in this conquest [of death and the devil]? We must reply: In general, the entire abolition of the opposing forces in their fundamental character, in such a way that there is thereby revealed the real, eternal, exhaustless Power and Source of our deliverance from all evil and of the new life, in the most comprehensive sense of the word. Upon the side of Christ, however, we must combine with the victory achieved in the resurrection also the entire state and activity into which He enters through the resurrection. Thus, it is taught that, having by His resurrection vanquished sin, death and hell, He now sits in eternal life at the right hand of God, reigns over all things, gathers His Church by the preaching of the Gospel, represents believers in His intercessions, and gives to them the power of His Holy Spirit that they may overcome sin, death and the devil. In His ascent from death to the skies, He led captive the captivity of sin in such a way that it can no longer accuse and condemn us, and, at the same time, in such a way that the power of its enticements and allurements over us is at an end.

Julius Köstlin, The Theology of Luther in Its Historical Development and Inner Harmony, trans. Charles E. Hay, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1897), 410–411.

*We do not meet in the chapel on Saturdays. On Sundays, we meet in the parsonage at 6pm to discuss the readings.

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