Daily Word

Daily Word

Daily Bible Readings for the Week of the Nineteenth Sunday of Pentecost, Year Two

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 Nineteenth 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: Esther 3:1–4:3;  James 1:19–27; Matthew 6:1–6, 16–18

Therefore let every one know how to guard against this vice, and watch himself closely that he be not also found among these. For there are but few people that are aware of it, and it deceives also even those who suppose they are very pious and full of good works, and are yet in this way twice as bad as others; thus God is specially hostile to this vice, and can less endure it than that one should openly rob his neighbor and do him wrong, than to give in this way, and so shamefully spoil the good work, so that you make of yourself an idol, and you more securely bind and hold your neighbor than any one else. But that is the way it goes; where the true doctrine lies prostrate, and yet everybody professes great piety, there these good works follow, that have nothing but a vain show, and do twice as much harm as open evil works.

Martin Luther, Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, trans. Charles A. Hay (Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1892), 236–237.

Monday: Esther 4:4–17; Acts 18:1–11; Luke 1:1–4; 3:1–14

The lone, but courageous confessor of Worms saw himself surrounded with a stately host of true Christian heroes, who were not afraid to place their names under his Confession, although they knew that it might cost them goods and blood, life and limb. When the Emperor, after entering Augsburg, stubbornly demanded that the Lutherans cease preaching, Margrave George of Brandenburg finally declared: “Rather than deny my God and suffer the Word of God to be taken from me, I will kneel down and have my head struck off.” (C. R. 2, 115.) That characterizes the pious and heroic frame of mind of all who signed the Augustana in 1530

F. Bente, Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, electronic ed. (Concordia Publishing House, 1921), 22–23.

Tuesday: Esther 5:1–14; Acts 18:12–28; Luke 3:15–22

We were all the sons of wrath even as others,’ they being created such by God Himself out of the seed which was corrupted through the sin of the one Adam,—then the most merciful God is to be honored and revered in [His dealings with] those whom He justifies and saves, although they are most unworthy, and at least a little something ought to be credited to His divine wisdom by believing Him to be just where to us He seems unjust.

F. Bente, Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, electronic ed. (Concordia Publishing House, 1921), 218.

Wednesday: Esther 6:1–14; Acts 19:1–10; Luke 4:1–13

But was that Sonship never tested or tried? Was it easy for Jesus to be good? Did He never know trial or temptation? Did His ship sail over the ocean of life all in fair weather? Did never one black cloud skirt the horizon for Him? Did never one storm-wind raise the tossing waves? If we had to say that Jesus knew no testings, then almost all the glory of Christ would, for us, fade away. His nearness, His brotherhood, would be gone. But suffering, tried, and tempted as He was, He is infinitely attractive to suffering, tried, and tempted men. How is it that suffering, here on earth, becomes such a testing and proving of obedience? In this—suffering provides a scene in which a conflict can be carried on between self-will and God’s will. Every scene of suffering in our life is really this—God providing a battle-ground in which the son in us may win a victory over the self.

George Barlow and Robert Tuck, I & II Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, The Preacher’s Complete Homiletic Commentary (New York; London; Toronto: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1892), 218.

Thursday: Esther 7:1–10; Acts 19:11–20; Luke 4:14–30

Luther distinguished between the hidden and the revealed or “proclaimed” God, the secret and revealed will of God; the majestic God in whom we live and move and have our being, and God manifest in Christ; God’s unsearchable judgments and ways past finding out, and His merciful promises in the Gospel. Being truly God and not an idol, God, according to Luther, is both actually omnipotent and omniscient. Nothing can exist or occur without His power, and everything surely will occur as He has foreseen it.

F. Bente, Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, electronic ed. (Concordia Publishing House, 1921), 209.

Friday: Esther 8:1–8, 15–17; Acts 19:21–41; Luke 4:31–37

According to her faith the Word of God is more than a book of information. It not only tells about sin and salvation, but it delivers from sin and confers salvation. It not only points out the way of life, but it leads, nay more, we might say, it carries us into and along that way. It not only instructs concerning the need of the Holy Spirit, but it conveys that Spirit to the very mind and heart. It is indeed a precious truth, that this Word not only tells me what I must do to be saved, but it also enables me to do it. It is indeed the principal of the means of Grace. It is the vehicle and instrument of the Holy Spirit. Through it the Holy Spirit works repentance and faith. Through it He regenerates, converts, and sanctifies.

This is the doctrine of the Lutheran Church concerning the use and efficacy of the divine Word. Thus, Luther’s Small Catechism, Apostles’ Creed, Art. III. explanation: “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit hath called me through the Gospel, enlightened me by His gifts,” etc. Thus also Augsburg Confession, Art. V.: “For by the Word and Sacraments, as by instruments, the Holy Spirit is given; who worketh faith, where and when it pleaseth God, in those that hear the Gospel,” etc.

G. H. Gerberding, The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church (Philadelphia, PA: Lutheran Publication Society, 1887), 124–125.

Saturday: Esther 9:1–32; Acts 20:1–16; Luke 4:38–44

“Our redemption” (Erlösung). This is a deliverance from sin, death, hell and all misery—from the entire state into which we have been brought by the sin of Adam. And Luther’s foremost thought, when speaking of “deliverance from sin,” is always, as we long since observed, that the curse of sin, the guilt and consciousness of guilt, the sense of the divine wrath, are taken from us. That with this there was already really associated in his mind a conquest of the power of sin and its impulses

Julius Köstlin, The Theology of Luther in Its Historical Development and Inner Harmony, trans. Charles E. Hay, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1897), 388–389.

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