Read To Me Daily Semester 3ናሙና

1 CHRONICLES 1:
Following our excursion into prophetic writings, today we return to the historical book of 1st Chronicles. Jewish and Christian traditions hold that Jeremiah was the author of 1&2 Kings, which were originally one book. And that Ezra, the priest, wrote 1&2 Chronicles, which are also one book in the Hebrew. It may be that Ezra wrote these books after his return to Jerusalem. The Greek Septuagint names this book Paraleipomena, which means ‘things left over’. This book does supplement things not found in other books. Compared to the books of Samuel and Kings, Chronicles focuses more on the spiritual misdeeds of the kings and the importance of worshiping the Lord properly at the temple and through the ministry of the priests. This fits well with Ezra being the author. 

PROVERBS 13b:
Here is a favorite verse from today’s reading:

Pro. 13:16 NLT Wise people think before they act;
fools don’t—and even brag about their foolishness.

EPHESIANS 3:
At the first of chapter 1 of Ephesians, Paul mentioned God’s “secret plan he had already decided to complete by means of Christ. This plan … was to bring everything together with Christ as head.” At the end of chapter 2, we learned that specifically, through our union with Christ, all believers are made one— no matter if they are Jews or non-Jews. Paul restates God’s secret plan in a more concise and clear way in today’s chapter as he moves to this letter’s second major prayer.

There are two instances of ‘joined/in union with Christ’ in this chapter.

Let’s pray.
Dear heavenly Father, we thank You for the super abundant mercy You have had on us, such that You have taken us— spiritually dead and hopelessly disobedient people, and have brought us to life with Christ. We had to be taught first. Throughout the ages, You were teaching us how wrong we are when we proudly suppose we can live holy lives. The Jewish race You chose for that demonstration failed miserably. And no group of people anywhere else would have fared any better. So You sent Christ. He fulfilled the Law by being the chosen seed of Abraham, the Lamb provided by God, and your prophesied Righteous Servant. He was the stone the builders rejected, but the one You put in place as our cornerstone. Christ fulfilled the Law for us, in order that You might establish a new covenant that would make a bridge that people of all races could cross. By being joined in union with Christ, we actually die with him and are therefore no longer subject to the Law. As Paul says in verse 15, for us that Law is abolished. And we are raised by the Holy Spirit’s power living in us to live a new life, one where we are happy to do the good works You have prepared for us to do. O Lord our God, we praise You for this amazing grace!