Sunday in Week 7 of Pentecost
Lord of all power and might, author and giver of all good things, graft into our hearts the love of Your name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of Your great mercy keep us in the same; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. (Collect for the day from LSB)
Daily readings Numbers 21:4-9, 21-35 Acts 17:12-34 Luke 13:10-17In Numbers the Israelites complain against the LORD,
again! The consequence this time is the plague of fiery serpents biting people. Moses is commanded to make a bronze serpent and put it up on a pole, those who are bitten look at the bronze serpent and live. This was a type of Christ as Jesus himself said in John 3:14-15
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."
Then we move on to the conquest by Israel of the lands east of the Jordan river.
In Acts we read of Paul fleeing from Thessalonica to Athens because of persecution there. In Athens Paul did not have much success, though even in preaching to the philosophers there the Holy Spirit did bring a few people to faith.
Finally in Matthew we have yet another example of Jesus being the Lord of the Sabbath, he healed a woman who had been bent over for 18 years and she was able to stand up straight. When the Jewish leaders objected Jesus said to them,
"You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?"