Daily Word
Daily Bible Readings for the Week of the Twenty-second Sunday of Pentecost, Year Two
Scripture Text: Revelation 14:6–7
CLICK for online jigsaw of this week's Scripture graphic.
Join us for Morning Prayer in the chapel (well, in the counting room until the construction is finished), 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 Twenty-second 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: Hosea 11:1–11; 1 Corinthians 4:9–16; Matthew 15:21–28
[Luther reflects on Hosea 11:8] That heart aroused to wrath on account of the sins of men is not the true heart of God (non verum Dei cor); but this is the true heart of God, which is affected by our miseries, which burns with pity.
Julius Köstlin, The Theology of Luther in Its Historical Development and Inner Harmony, trans. Charles E. Hay, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1897), 290.
Monday: Hosea 11:12–12:1; Acts 26:1–23; Luke 8:26–3
Israel the true [new] man, does not take refuge in himself, nor in his strength, nor in his righteousness and wisdom… For help and grace is not with themselves. They are sinners and damned in themselves, as He also says through Hosea: O Israel, with thee there is nothing but damnation, but with Me is thine help. He, He, God Himself, not they themselves, will deliver the true Israel… Mark well, Israel has sin and cannot help itself.
F. Bente, Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, electronic ed. (Concordia Publishing House, 1921), 126.
Tuesday: Hosea 12:2–14; Acts 26:24–27:8; Luke 8:40–56
Luther on one occasion had wrestled hard with God, and came leaping out of his closet, shouting, “Vicimus, vicimus. We have conquered, we have conquered!”
James Wolfendale, Minor Prophets, The Preacher’s Complete Homiletic Commentary (New York; London; Toronto: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1892), 164.
Wednesday: Hosea 13:1–3; Acts 27:9–26; Luke 9:1–17
“Oh!” said Luther, “His grace and goodness towards us is so unmeasurably great, that without great assaults and trials it cannot rightly be understood. If the tyrants and false brethren had not set themselves so fiercely against me, against my writings and proceedings, then should I,” said Luther, “have vaunted myself too much of my poor gifts and qualities; nor should I, with such fervency of heart, have directed my prayers to God for His divine assistance; I should not then have adscribed all to God’s grace, but to my own dexterity and power; and so I should have flown to the devil, with all my art and doings, &c. &c.
“But,” said Luther, “to prevent this, my gracious Lord and Saviour Christ caused me to be chastised and whipped. He ordained that the devil should plague and torment me, inwardly, with his fiery darts; outwardly, through tyrants, as through the Pope and other heretics; and all this Christ suffered to be done for my best good, as in Psalm 119 is written—‘It is good for me that I have been in trouble, that I may learn thy statutes.’”
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), 61–62.
Thursday: Hosea 13:4–8; Acts 27:27–44; Luke 9:18–27
Luther struck the tap-root of the monkish asceticism when he wrote in his “Freedom of the Christian Man,” that “a Christian Man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.” He develops the thought that works cannot justify, cannot reconcile with God, cannot give peace. The Christian can use all God’s creatures, but he must serve his neighbor unto edification. Justification by faith alone excludes all work-righteousness, but is fruitful in good works. It lifts man above the law as an instrument of righteousness before God, but it subjects him to law as a means of promoting a pious life. Hence Luther wrote: “No work, no suffering, not even death, can help us before God.” And again: “So long as the article of justification, which shows how a person becomes pious before God, is justified, and saved—so long as this article stands uncorrupted, no one can easily become a monk.”
James W. Richard, “Asceticism,” in The Lutheran Cyclopedia, ed. Henry Eyster Jacobs and John A. W. Haas (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1899), 25–26.
Friday: Hosea 13:9–16; Acts 28:1–16; Luke 9:28–36
The great lesson for the disciples was that the dreadful shame of His cross was really glory, and that all suffering is ultimately radiant with heavenly beauty, being perfected in Christ.
James Hastings et al., Dictionary of the Bible (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909), 947.
Reformation Day: Isaiah 55:1–11; Revelation 14:6–7; Matthew 11:12–15 (page 1369 in For All the Saints, volume IV)
Salvation does not come to men through the eye, but through the ear. Not what you see in the finery of the priest or the altar. That can do you no good. But listen to the gospel. It is by ear-gate that God’s, mercy comes triumphant into the soul of man. “Incline your ear and come unto me. Hear and your soul shall live”
C. H. Spurgeon, “A Call to the Depressed,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 60 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1914), 431.
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Rev. Dr. Mark E. Ryman has served as a pastor for St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Salisbury, NC, since January 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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