Daily Word, Pentecost 13A

Daily Word, Pentecost 13A

Daily Bible Readings for the Week of the Thirteenth 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.

Sunday: Judges 11:1–11, 29–40; 2 Corinthians 11:21–31; Mark 4:35–41

“I,” said Luther, “out of my own experience, am able to bear witness, that Jesus Christ is true God; I will be no Epicure; I know full well, and have found, what the name of Jesus hath done for me....

I,” said he, “have oftentimes been so near death, that I thought, verily now I must die, because I teach His word to the wicked world, and acknowledge Him; but He always put life into me, refreshed and comforted me....

But truly it is a very difficult art, whereunto appertain much and manifold trials and experiences, when one from his heart can name Christ, a Lord and a God that delivereth from death.”

“Let us,” said Luther, “fix and impose all our trust and confidence in Christ Jesus.

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.

Monday: Judges 12:1–7; Acts 5:12–26; John 3:1–21

But while holding that we must not deny the majesty and the mysteries of God, Luther did not regard these, but Christ crucified and justification by faith in the promises of the Gospel, as the true objects of our concern. Nor does he, as did Calvin, employ predestination as a corrective and regulative norm for interpreting, limiting, invalidating, annulling, or casting doubt upon, any of the blessed truths of the Gospel. Luther does not modify the revealed will of God in order to harmonize it with God’s sovereignty. He does not place the hidden God in opposition to the revealed God, nor does he reject the one in order to maintain the other. He denies neither the revealed universality of God’s grace, of Christ’s redemption, and of the efficaciousness of the Holy Spirit in the means of grace, nor the unsearchable judgments and ways of God’s majesty....

Moreover, Luther most earnestly warns against all speculations concerning the hidden God as futile, foolish, presumptuous, and wicked. The secret counsels, judgments, and ways of God cannot and must not be investigated. God’s majesty is unfathomable, His judgments are unsearchable, His ways past finding out. Hence, there is not, and there cannot be, any human knowledge, understanding, or faith whatever concerning God in so far as He has not revealed Himself. For while the fact that there are indeed such things as mysteries, unsearchable judgments, and incomprehensible ways in God is plainly taught in the Bible, their nature, their how, why, and wherefore, has not been revealed to us and no amount of human ingenuity is able to supply the deficiency. Hence, in as far as God is still hidden and veiled, He cannot serve as a norm by which we are able to regulate our faith and life. Particularly when considering the question how God is disposed toward us individually, we must not take refuge in the secret counsels of God, which reason cannot spy and pry into. According to Luther, all human speculations concerning the hidden God are mere diabolical inspirations, bound to lead away from the saving truth of the Gospel into despair and destruction.

F. Bente, Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, electronic ed. (Concordia Publishing House, 1921), 210.

Tuesday: Judges 13:1–15; Acts 5:27–42; John 3:22–36

In view of this, Luther flatly declares that faith is entirely the work and gift of God, who makes His Word effectual in the souls of men....

The Father must draw us, as externally through the Word of Christ, so also internally through the Spirit, by whom He “impresses upon the heart” His Word. Man is in this process but mere material, which God lays hold of by His Word and transforms—mere clay in the hand of the potter.

Julius Köstlin, The Theology of Luther in Its Historical Development and Inner Harmony, trans. Charles E. Hay, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1897), 433.

Wednesday: Judges 13:15–24; Acts 6:1–15; John 4:1–2

Luther held it to be necessary for every new revelation or new truth, though brought by an angel from heaven, to prove its legitimacy by its harmony with the divine Word already given in the Scriptures, whereas in the theories of the Fanatics and the Papacy the case is just the reverse. But although miraculous announcements of this character are yet possible, they now no longer lie in the line of the divine purpose and order, since saving truth has now been abundantly revealed in Christ and in the Scriptures which testify of Him. Nor is there longer any need of special external manifestations and signs to confirm the truth thus revealed (see Chap. III.). Particularly in the Reformation then in progress, the Word of Scripture, he maintained, and the Spirit working through that Word, must be allowed of themselves to do the whole work. Luther not only never besought any special revelations, or signs, in support of his apprehension of Gospel truth; but he had, on the contrary, dreading the perils of “enthusiasm” and the deceptions of the devil, entered into a covenant with his God, that the latter should not send to him any visions, dreams nor angels. 

Julius Köstlin, The Theology of Luther in Its Historical Development and Inner Harmony, trans. Charles E. Hay, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1897), 221.

Thursday: Judges 14:1–19; Acts 6:15–7:16; John 4:27–42

God takes pleasure to overcome and triumph, not through power, but through weakness. Flies and gnats shall beat and overcome great kings, and drive away powerful armies of chariots and of horsemen. Also a weak human creature shall bid defiance to the devil, and overcome that prince and god of the world, only through faith.

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), 155.

Friday: Judges 14:20–15:20; Acts 17:17–29; John 4:43–54

“All the works of God,” said Luther, “are unsearchable and unspeakable; no human sense can rightly find them out; faith alone takes hold thereof, without any human power or addition....

Philip Melancthon asked Luther, one day, if this word, “hardened” (in Romans 9), were to be understood directly as it sounded, or in a figurative and coloured sense? To which question Luther answered and said, “We must understand it properly, and not operatively, for God worketh and doth no evil; but through His almighty power he worketh all in all, and as He findeth a man, so he worketh in him. So in the case of Pharaoh, God found him evil, he continually proceeded to be wicked, and to do evil, which was his nature. But he was hardened, because that God, with His spirit and grace, did nothing hinder his ungodly proceedings, but suffered him to go on and have his mind. Now the reason why God did not hinder nor restrain, is a point which we have no business to enquire into; for this word ‘quare,’ why? hath misled and destroyed many souls; it is too, too high for us to enquire into. Therefore God saith to us, ‘Why I do this, thou shalt not know. Look thou upon the word, believe thou in Christ, and pray: be sure that I do things well enough without thy understanding why. If God shall be asked at the last day,” said Luther, “why He suffered Adam to fall, then will He answer and say, ‘Because my goodness might be known and seen towards the generation of mankind, in that I gave to the world my Son to be a Saviour.”

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), 153–155.

Saturday: Judges 16:1–14; Acts 7:30–43; John 5:1–18

In the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, at which reason stumbles, he sees confirmation and consolation for believers. It was meant that the Israelites should know that God wrought even the insolence of Pharaoh in order to perform so much the more glorious miracles in their behalf. Luther regards it as essential to our faith that we should realize especially that God does not bind Himself to the conception which human reason forms concerning righteousness; for woe be to us if God should, as that conception demands, deal with us according to our desert.

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), 494.

*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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