Psalm 119:137-140, 142; antiphon, Psalm 119:144—In the Introit for Sunday, we pray, Your
testimonies are righteous forever; give me understanding that I may live.
The Lord and His law are righteous. As we cling to God’s Word and follow it, we
then shall live before God in righteousness, innocence and blessedness.
The
righteousness of Your testimonies is everlasting; give me understanding, and I shall live: We might
think that what the psalmist needed to live was deliverance from his trouble
and anguish. David found understanding the word of God more important.
One reason David found this to be so was because he
understood that the righteousness of God’s word is everlasting. He knew the
eternal character of the word of God, and it made that word all the more
important and relevant to him.
“When all other
laws and sentences, though engraved in brass or marble, shall decay and
determine, Thy law lasts forever, and so shall they that observe it.”[2]
We now turn to the money chapter from Luke’s Gospel.
In dealing with the theme, The Right Use
of Money; we must consider next Sunday’s lessons. Both deal with our
material possessions. For this coming week’s Gospel (Luke 16:1-15) the
parable of the unjust steward is put in the framework of the following verses,
1-13.
Alone the parable does not deal with the above
over-all theme, but interpreted in the light of the following verses, the
Gospel deals with the proper use of money. The Old Testament lesson, (Amos
8:4-7) deals more with how we get our money rather than how we use it. On
the surface, the Epistle (1 Timothy 2:1-5) does not seem to deal with
money at all, but a closer study shows that the implication is, if we pray for
secular authorities, we shall have a society in which there can be economic
justice and thus the conditions described by Amos in the Old Testament would be
prohibited.
Collect for Psalm 119: Lord, you are
just and your commandments are eternal. Teach us to love you with all our
hearts and to love our neighbor as ourselves, for the sake of Jesus our Lord. [3]
[1] Luther’s Seal, copyright © Ed Riojas, Higher Things
[3] Collect for Psalm 119, For All the Saints, A Prayer Book For and By the Church, Vol. II © 1995 The American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, Delhi, NY
[4] ibid Collect for Monday of the week of Pentecost 14
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