12 July 2019 - given words to speak

Today's Readings

(Audio)

When they hand you over,
do not worry about how you are to speak
or what you are to say.

We tend to worry about what we are going to say and how we are to speak long before our life is on the line. When we want to convince someone of something, get or point across, avoid hurting someone's feelings, and for many other reasons we rehearse again and again in our minds the words we will use, the possible paths a conversation may take, trying to ensure we have the perfect answer for every possible scenario. Nor indeed does it seem to the point to go into a job interview with no preparation, simply trusting in the Spirit. Unless, of course, God asks us to do so.

There are many situations God gives us just so that we can learn to trust him to guide our conversations. These aren't necessarily situations where we want to relinquish that control or where it comes easy for us to do so. We need to learn to be faithful in these smaller matters if we really want to be faithful in dire circumstances like Matthew describes.

But beware of men,
for they will hand you over to courts
and scourge you in their synagogues,
and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake
as a witness before them and the pagans.

God is training us to be his witnesses. He is giving us little lessons now so that we can endure to the end when the lessons get bigger. We need to learn to listen so that we can be aware when God is speaking to us. He may ask us to do things which don't make sense to us at first glance.

Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt,
for there I will make you a great nation.

Egypt? In both the literal and metaphorical sense it doesn't seem like this would lead to Jacob becoming a great nation. Yet Egypt has a definitive role in the life of the people of Israel. It is not something that one would have guessed at or figured out easily for oneself. But God was able to bring good even from Egypt, even after the new Pharaoh no longer knew of Joseph. God's plan was at work. He wanted to show the children of Israel that he was stronger than the Gods of Egypt or the plans of Egypt's Pharaoh to keep his people enslaved. He wanted to bring them to a new level of trust and total dependence on him. 

God may also call us into danger zones for the sake of his name. We must never recklessly seek them. But when we are called we know that we will have the right words to speak and that the whole journey will redound to God's glory.

And the LORD helps them and delivers them;
he delivers them from the wicked and saves them,
because they take refuge in him.