Daily Word, Pentecost 9A
Daily Bible Readings for the Week of the Ninth 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 Ninth 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.
Determined Faith
Other themes may be found in this week’s readings but one theme extending through our passages is that salvation is not a national or ethnic or geographical matter but instead, one of faith. Nor is it a question of social status.
It would be hard to come up with a better example of the latter than we find in Joshua this week. The story of Rahab the prostitute colorfully presents how faith — rather than status or origin — determines salvation (Hebrews 11:31). Shrewd Rahab recognizes God’s power at work in Israel and devises a contract with the spies to save herself and her family. The faith of this social outsider and foreigner becomes a model for God’s grace bringing salvation to the nations as well as to Israel (Romans 11:1–12).
Paul, like Joshua, embodies the same determined faith Rahab demonstrated. The sense of this is that God’s grace makes no distinction between Jew and Greek. He is the same Lord of both for he is Lord of all (Romans 10:12–13). The pattern of salvation, because it is based on his grace, extends beyond Israel’s borders.
Matthew reinforces the sub-theme of judgment seen in Joshua. We see in all our readings that God’s judgment is based on faith. His grace extends to all who call on him in faith (Romans 10:13). Those prepared to meet the bridegroom enter the feast while the faithless are shut out (Matthew 25:1–13). Furthermore, faithful stewards receive blessing while the unfaithful lose everything (Matthew 25:14–30). Jesus’ parables echo the principle established by Rahab: access to God’s gracious promises depends on faith; it is not an inherited privilege.
This week’s thematic arc moves from a foreigner saved through faith, into the apostolic witness that Gentiles are included in the hope of the gospel, to final judgment where readiness and faithfulness determine inheritance. Israel’s land inheritance in Joshua is broadened in New Testament theology to encompass the universal church (Galatians 6:16), where all who believe and trust in Christ are “heirs of the promise” (Hebrews 6:17).
Sunday: Joshua 1:1–18; Acts 21:3–15; Mark 1:21–27
Whether in the defiance of danger, or the endurance of suffering, it is the sense of God—a Divine inspiration, Divine support—that has ever been the spring of the noblest form of courage. “Greater is he that is in you,” etc. “If God be for us,” etc. “Be not afraid of their terror, but sanctify the Lord God in your heart,” etc. This is the principle—the solemn fear of God taking possession of a man casts out all other fear; in the sense of the sovereignty of a Divine claim, he fears nothing but the dread of being unfaithful to it.
H. D. M. Spence-Jones, ed., 1 Kings, The Pulpit Commentary (London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909), 411.
Monday: Joshua 2:1–14; Romans 11:1–12; Matthew 25:1–13
At all events, says Luther, the heart which has experienced the love of God must itself also necessarily cherish love to God. The believer must, as a new creature, perform works by a consequent and immutable necessity (necessitate consequentiae seu immutabilitatis), just as a living fruit-tree necessarily produces fruit, and as the sun shines by an inner necessity. Faith prepares the heart for the fulfilling of the Law, which is accomplished through love. In fact, faith is itself the doer, and love the deed. Since Christ lives in us through faith, good works can just as little be neglected, and are just as necessary, as faith itself.
Julius Köstlin, The Theology of Luther in Its Historical Development and Inner Harmony, trans. Charles E. Hay, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1897), 450.
Tuesday: Joshua 2:15–24; Romans 11:13–24; Matthew 25:14–3
So little can the works of the regenerate man justify, that, on the contrary, as he is himself continuously righteous before God only through his faith and by virtue of the divine imputation, so also his virtues and works, defective in themselves and polluted with sin, are pleasing to God only on account of his faith.
Yet the works of the believer, or his own right conduct, labor and endurance, do nevertheless, according to Luther, receive some acknowledgment from God. There are, that is to say, special rewards which God promises to the righteous for their comfort and strengthening, in addition to the fact they are already, simply through their faith, in enjoyment of His grace, forgiveness and the kingdom of heaven.
Julius Köstlin, The Theology of Luther in Its Historical Development and Inner Harmony, trans. Charles E. Hay, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1897), 452–453.
Wednesday: Joshua 3:1–13; Romans 11:25–36; Matthew 25:31–46
All the works of the Christian should be done for the good of his neighbor, just because he has enough for himself in his faith, and hence all other energy and life is at his disposal, to be employed in free love in the service of his neighbor. He has a pattern of this in Christ, his Head, whom he should be like in disposition, and who, though He was full of divine majesty (Form), and had enough for Himself, and had no need of His life, works, or sufferings to make Him good and secure for Him eternal happiness, yet emptied Himself of all this, did and suffered all manner of things, looking only to our highest advantage, and thus, although He was free, became a servant for our sakes.
Charles E. Hay, “Translator’s Preface,” in The Theology of Luther in Its Historical Development and Inner Harmony, trans. Charles E. Hay, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1897), 416.
Thursday: Joshua 3:14–4:7; Romans 12:1–8; Matthew 26:1–16
It accords, too, with the recognized order of salvation, in which justification through faith is the precondition for the possible upspringing of love to God and the life of loving obedience marking the work of regeneration.
Milton Valentine, Christian Theology, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1906), 358.
Friday: Joshua 4:19–5:1, 5:10–15; Romans 12:9–21; Matthew 26:17–25
Judas is a type of many a Christian that permits the devil to take hold of his heart to fill it with covetousness. It is a sad and miserable price for which many confessors of Jesus have betrayed their Lord, a better-paying position, greater honor before men, the evanescent and ephemeral favor of the world. Woe unto those that follow Judas!
Paul E. Kretzmann, The Popular Commentary of the Bible: The New Testament, vol. 1, The Popular Commentary of the Bible (St. Louis, MO: Concordia, 1921), 383.
Saturday: Joshua 6:1–14; Romans 13:1–7; Matthew 26:26–35
We must understand that we have two kinds of authority: the secular that punishes with the sword, and the spiritual that exercises its office with the Word and by means of preaching. The secular power is ordained of God, as Paul clearly and beautifully declares to the Romans. Since there are few who heed the gospel, and most people remain rogues and knaves, they use the gospel for their own licentious liberty and wantonness; hence it is necessary to have a civil government, which we would not need if all men were Christian and evangelical. God has ordained and designed it, in order that the godly may live in peace; he has established the secular sword to the end that the public peace may be preserved, the wicked punished, and the just protected. On this account we must pay to the government rent and taxes and revenue by which it may be supported and administer its office.
In the gospel we find an entirely different, a spiritual government, one that exists alone in the Word, by which sinners are convicted and the gospel proclaimed to the terrified and alarmed consciences.
Martin Luther and John Sander, Devotional Readings from Luther’s Works for Every Day of the Year (Rock Island, IL: Augustana Book Concern, 1915), 169–170.
*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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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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