Week 2 August 2025, Devotion Part 2

Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and maimed and blind and lame… Go out…and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.  Luke 14:21-23

Why do I feel compelled to regularly read one full chapter, whether engaged in private Bible study or research for public writing? The German Johannes Gutenberg invented the press that printed the first Bible in 1455. In 1560 a French printer named Robert Estienne was the force behind the creation of the first English Bible to include both chapter and verse divisions. It became known as the Geneva Bible and was published by English Protestants who lived as exiles in that French-speaking Swiss city. One of them was John Knox, the Scottish reformer we know as the “Father of Presbyterianism.” This took place during the vindictive reign of “Bloody Mary,” the hated daughter of the staunchly catholic Catherine of Aragon, the Spanish first wife ruthlessly discarded by Henry III. Elizabeth I was born to Anne Boleyn, her hotly pursued lady-in-waiting and soon to be new queen, but sadly the first to lose her head on the chopping block at the Tower. Her child survived a perilous childhood and ruled England as the last Tudor monarch for over 44 years. It was the nation’s golden age during which the Church of England became firmly established and the Reformation swept across Europe.

Luke 14 opens with the Pharisees’ grousing because Jesus had just healed a man with “dropsy” on the Sabbath. This made me look up the word and found it meant “edema.” That very Saturday I had just told a friend that the increased “swelling” in my formerly ulcerous leg prevented me from wearing the crucial compression stocking. I was alarmed enough to check in with my doctor on Monday. The Holy Spirit connected the dots differently and two days later I was able to resume the key therapeutic routine on my visibly slimming leg. Jesus answered my plea to heal my case of “dropsy,” and I followed the lead to also take two diuretic capsules after breakfast.  Part 2 of 2

Comment: Today’s leading swelled heads make many lose faith in the “American Dream.”  Ancient Israel pined for relief from Roman oppression. Mamy pinned their hopes on the King of their fleshly perceptions. but Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, then trudged up the rough road to Golgotha as the badly bloodied, loneliest man on the planet.  Meaty O.T. accounts that strongly fuel my faith depict the reign of King Hezekiah as a golden age of significant religious reform, economic prosperity, and military success. The key text in 2 Chronicles 29:27 recently led me to read the whole chapter and I almost got sick to my stomach. Many of the 36 verses are centered on the gory slaughter of 3600 sacrificial animals.  The Lamb of God was slain “once and for all” on Calvary. The life that is in that blood insures the health of His Church  The only real, resilient faith comes from abiding in Jesus, and His Word abiding in us!  Luke 14