Week 15 Thursday
Clean and unclean food are dealt with in Leviticus, David longs for God's greatness to be proclaimed in Psalm 70, and the Spirit sets Barnabas and Saul apart for their first missionary journey.
Leviticus 11
📖 What are we reading?: Clean and unclean food is dealt with here. It might be that God was protecting His people's health, steering them away from foods that could make them sick in the days before refrigeration.
✞ What does this passage say about God? He cares even about the practical, physical details of His people's lives - though Jesus later declared all food clean, since, as one commentary puts it, all ceremonial pollutions came to an end at the death of Christ.
🛐 How does this passage teach us to live? We are no longer bound by these food laws, but we should still eat in a God-glorifying way, as far as we can.
Looking for some extra info?
🍽️Luke walks us through his epic 34-verse poem on holy eating in this video.
➡️ The bigger picture: Leviticus was given to Moses shortly after the tabernacle was completed, around 1400 BC, and no other book in the Bible contains as much direct speech from God. Its theme is holiness and separation, though a careful reader will find Jesus in the details of these ancient rituals.
Psalm 70
📖 What are we reading?: A short, urgent cry for God's help.
✞ What does this passage say about God? He alone is worthy to be called great, as verse 4 reminds us.
🛐 How does this passage teach us to live? Let us "always" say that God is great, as the psalmist does, whatever else is going on around us.
Looking for some extra info?
🎵 Spend some time in worship with Luke, considering how great God is.
➡️ The bigger picture: The Psalms is a collection of 150 poems and songs, written by David and others, expressing the full range of human emotion in response to God and to life.
Acts 12:25-13:12
📖 What are we reading?: Barnabas and Saul are set apart for ministry during a time of prayer, worship and fasting, and on Cyprus they pronounce judgement on a false prophet, bringing a local Roman leader to faith.
✞ What does this passage say about God? His Spirit actively directs the mission of the church, calling and sending out specific people for specific work, and His power is more than a match for those who oppose the gospel.
🛐 How does this passage teach us to live? Notice how the church's sending of Barnabas and Saul grew out of prayer, worship and fasting - are our own decisions and ministries rooted in the same soil?
Looking for some extra info?
📝 A devotional reflecting on how the Spirit sent the apostles out in this chapter.
➡️ The bigger picture: Luke's second book outlines the ministry of the early church - though it could just as well be called the Acts of the Holy Spirit, as He guides and grows Jesus' small movement into something that changes the world.
A Prayer for the Day
🙏 Lord, thank You that You care about even the practical details of our lives, that You alone are worthy of our praise, and that Your Spirit still sends out Your people for Your work today. Root our own decisions in prayer, worship and fasting, as the early church's were. Amen.
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