Daily Word, Pentecost 14A
Daily Bible Readings for the Week of the Fourteenth Sunday of Pentecost, Year A
Click HERE for an online Jigsaw puzzle of the above Scripture graphic.
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 Fourteenth 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.
Sunday: Judges 16:15–31; 2 Corinthians 13:1–11; Mark 5:25–34
[God's power] remains invincible, and that thing which seemeth to be of weakness, hath nothing harmed it, nay this very thing itself shows His Power most of all, in that He endured even such a thing, and yet His Power was not mutilated.’ Let not then the expression “weakness” disturb thee; for elsewhere also he says, “The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (1 Corinthians 1:25)
John Chrysostom, “Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, on the Second Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians,” in Saint Chrysostom: Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. J. Ashworth and Talbot B. Chambers, vol. 12, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1889), 413.
Monday: Judges 17:1–13; Acts 7:44–8:1a; John 5:19–29
Faith in Christ strips you of all confidence in your own wisdom, your own righteousness, your own strength. It tells you that if Christ had not died for you, and so saved you, neither yourself nor any creature could have done it. Then you learn to despise all those things which remained useless to you.
“There now remains to you only Jesus; Jesus alone; Jesus fully sufficient for your soul. No longer having any hopes in the creatures, you have now Christ only, in whom you hope all, and whom you love above all. Now Jesus is the sole, the only, the true God. When you have him for God you have no longer other gods."
J. H. Merle D’Aubigné, History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, trans. Henry Beveridge and H. White, vol. 1, Collin’s Select Library (Glasgow; London: William Collins; R. Groombridge & Sons, 1862), 157.
Tuesday: Judges 18:1–15; Acts 8:1–13; John 5:30–47
Behold the example of Christ, and follow that; He frequently declares of Himself that He seeks not His own glory (John 8:50), that He receives not honor of men (John 5:41), that He is lowly in heart (Matthew 11:29). Thou receivest all from God, render in return all to Him....
If thou hadst anything of thyself then thou mightest seek thine own honor, and bestow thy gifts upon thyself; but since all thou hast cometh from God, thou shouldst seek not thine own honor, but His.
Johann Gerhard, Gerhard’s Sacred Meditations, trans. C. W. Heisler (Philadelphia, PA: Lutheran Publication Society, 1896), 177–178.
Wednesday: Judges 18:16–31; Acts 8:14–25; John 6:1–15
“If,” said Luther, “the great pains and labour which I take, were not done by me for the sake of Him who died for me, the world could not give me money enough to write only one book, or to translate the Bible. I desire not to be paid or rewarded by the world for my work; the world is far too poor and simple to give me satisfaction. I have not desired the value of one penny of my master, the Prince Elector, so long as I have been in this place.”
“Philip Melancthon and myself,” said Luther, “have justly deserved so much riches in this world, at God’s hands, as any cardinal possesseth; for we have done more in His business than one hundred cardinals. But God saith unto us, ‘Be ye contented that ye have Me;’—‘Sufficit tibi gratia mea.’ When we have Him, then have we also the purse (Matthew 6:33.); and if we had the purse, and had not God, what, then, would our gain be? Therefore God saith, ‘When thou hast me, so hast thou enough.’
Martin Luther, Luther’s Table Talk: Or, Some Choice Fragments from the Familiar Discourse of the Godly, Learned Man, and Famous Champion of God’s Truth (London; Dublin; Edinburgh; Newcastle upon Tyne: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green; Hatchard; Seeley; Rivingtons; W. Whyte and Co.; Finlay and Charlton, 1832), 18–19.
Thursday: Job 1:1–22; Acts 8:26–40; John 6:16–27
So long as we can bear our troubles we are tempted to trust to our own strength; but the miserable collapse, the utter break-down, the humiliating thraldom, prove our helplessness and our need of One who is mightier than we are.
H. D. M. Spence-Jones, ed., Job, The Pulpit Commentary (London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909), 496.
Friday: Job 2:1–13; Acts 9:1–9; John 6:27–40
Luther’s caeterum censeo [his core, unchanging conviction], that we are neither to deny nor to search the hidden God (who cannot be apprehended in His bare majesty—qui in nuda sua maiestate non potest apprehendi, E., Op. Lat. 2, 171), but to adhere to the revelation He has given us in the Gospel, is repeated again and again also in his Commentary on Genesis, which was begun in 1536 and completed in 1545.
Concerning God, in so far as He has not been revealed to us, there is no faith, no knowledge, no cognition whatever. Here one must apply the saying: What is above us does not concern us (Quae supra nos, nihil ad nos). For such thoughts as search for something higher, beyond or without the revelation of God, are altogether diabolical; and by them nothing else is achieved than that we plunge ourselves into perdition, because they are occupied with an unsearchable object, i.e., the unrevealed God.
F. Bente, Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, electronic ed. (Concordia Publishing House, 1921), 223-224.
Saturday: Job 3:1–26; Acts 9:10–19a; John 6:41–51
In all such cases, the “abandoned” or “forsaken” one is far from salvation and from God, in the sense of no longer experiencing anything of the grace and power of God, but realizing, on the contrary, in his conscience, the divine wrath; yet, at the same time, the salvation of God and divine assistance are really very near to him, and the God who is felt to be hostile and angry is, and remains, in fact, pure goodness and mercy. The former condition is, in the case of Christ, revealed in His cry: “Thou hast forsaken me”; the latter, in the form of address: “My God.” He could not have said, “My God,” if He had been totally abandoned; and the words constitute an acknowledgment that He was, after all, not forsaken.
Julius Köstlin, The Theology of Luther in Its Historical Development and Inner Harmony, trans. Charles E. Hay, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1897), 402.
*We do not meet on Saturdays. However, we meet on Sundays at 6pm in the parsonage (directly across the street) at 6pm to discuss the readings. Join us!
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Rev. Dr. Mark E. Ryman has served as Pastor for St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Salisbury, NC, since 2021. Previously, Pastor Ryman served congregations in North Carolina and Ohio, as well as a call to specialized ministry with Sola Publishing.
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