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This Month’s Reading

• Isaiah
• Jeremiah
• Lamentations

Man’s Thoughts vs. God’s Thoughts

We’ve all heard the riddle: “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Most of us have concluded that there is no right or wrong answer to this riddle. Perhaps all of us have concluded that the answer doesn’t really matter – after all, we now enjoy both chickens and eggs – who cares which came first.

Which came first, man’s thoughts or God’s thoughts? We should not be so cavalier with this question. Nor, should we dismiss the importance of the answer to this question. Unlike the answer to the chicken and the egg riddle, the answer to this question has profound and eternal consequences.

Holy Scriptures contain God’s thoughts, divinely revealed to human writers. God describes His thoughts in this month’s Scripture reading this way:

“My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways . . . for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

Once again, the New Testament agrees with the Old: “oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His Ways past finding out!” (Romans 11:33).

Yet, man rejects God’s Word because His Thoughts do not make sense to man. In effect, man says that his thoughts should precede God’s.

The truth of God’s Word refutes this lie of humanistic reasoning: “In the beginning was the Word (His thoughts), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). In short, God’s thoughts preceded man’s!

Only when we receive the gift of faith from our Savior, will the eyes of our understanding become enlightened (Ephesians 1:18). Only then will “we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16).

P.S. By the way, for an answer to the chicken and the egg riddle, consider God’s account of creation in Genesis. If you use the mind of Christ described in 1 Corinthians 2, the answer to the chicken and the egg riddle will become apparent.

The Coming Messiah

Throughout the Old Testament, the birth and life of Jesus Christ is foretold. Isaiah contains one of the more precise and best known Old Testament prophecies of Jesus Christ:

“Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: behold, the virgin will conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).

The so-called Immanuel prophecy is fulfilled in the New Testament: “So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: `Behold, the virgin shall
be with child, and bear a Son,
and they shall call His name Immanuel,’ which is translated, `God with us’” (Matthew 1:22-23).

In Isaiah 53, we see a prophecy of Jesus Christ as the Suffering Servant, describing in vivid detail the work that Christ accomplished on the cross. “He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows . . . He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4-5).

New Testament Gospels and Epistles document the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies of Isaiah. “He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: `He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses’” (Matthew 8:17). Christ “Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness – by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24).

We are the Clay, God is the Potter

At about the half-way point in our reading through the Bible, we have this wonderful verse on which to meditate:

“But now, O Lord, You are our Father; We are the clay, You are the Potter; And all we are the work of Your hand!” (Isaiah 64:8)

When you meditate on this Scripture, ask yourself two questions. Why are you reading Scripture daily? What have you learned thus far?

From this verse we can reflect back to Genesis and be reminded that God formed man from the earth; truly, His work done by His hand. As we continue through the Bible, we will see similar references made by Jeremiah.

When we come to Romans, Paul clearly addresses the issue with the Jews that the clay does not ask the Potter, why did you form me in this manner? It is the potter who has power over the clay; from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor (Romans 9:21).
Let us continue our Scripture reading, trusting the Lord to wash us with the water of His Word that we might be vessels for His use (Ephesians 4:26).

A New and Better Covenant

To understand why the Gospels and apostolic epistles describe a covenant which is both new and better than the Old Covenant, we should first consider what Scripture says about covenant.

From a Biblical perspective, a covenant is an agreement, instituted solely by God, between God and man. It denotes a gracious undertaking on God’s part for the benefit and blessing of those who by faith receive the promises of God and commit themselves to the obligations which this covenant entails.

The book of Jeremiah contains the promise of a new and better covenant. Hebrews 8:8-9 confirms the fulfillment of this promise.

“this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” (Jeremiah 31:33)

That the Church of Jesus Christ is what Jeremiah was referring to when he prophesied the new and better covenant, we need to look at Galatians 6:16. Here, the Apostle Paul refers to the Church of Jesus Christ as the “Israel of God.”

While the law given as part of the Old Covenant was “holy and just and good” (Romans 7:12), it did not in itself empower obedience.

As the coming of the Messiah is foretold, God says that He will put His law in our minds and write it on our hearts.

In the Old Testament, the finger of God wrote the Law on the tablets of stone, to be placed in the Tabernacle of the Israelites. In the New Testament, God writes the Law on the hearts of His new covenant people—the Church of Jesus Christ—the new tabernacle of God.

The coming of Christ and the subsequent gift of the Holy Spirit has brought rich gifts unknown in an earlier age.

August

Some use Sunday to catch up on Bible reading missed during the week. Others prefer to double up on their reading on Saturday in order to set aside the Sabbath for church and fellowship. Either way, if you consistently read Scripture in the 15 or 20 minute increments shown above for an entire year, you will read all of Scripture in just one year.

2 Timothy 3:16-17

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.