Today's Daily Lesson comes from Jude 8-10:
8 Yet in the same way these dreamers also defile the flesh, reject authority, and slander the glorious ones. 9But when the archangel Michael contended with the devil and disputed about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a condemnation of slander against him, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’ 10But these people slander whatever they do not understand, and they are destroyed by those things that, like irrational animals, they know by instinct.
We're contending with the devil today.
We're in those final days of the liturgical year and the Daily Office gives us Scriptures about the devil, and angels, and spirits of another realm. Next week we will begin Revelation.
There are various translations to this selection I have chosen this morning, some of which change the meaning entirely. The King James Version is close to the one above saying that in his fight with the devil Moses "durst not bring against him a railing accusation."
Moses didn't rail. He didn't blaspheme. He didn't resort to lies and slander and maliciousness. He let the truth speak for itself.
We are in an age where what is said this morning is true. People "slander whatever they do not understand". Think about the science of masks and vaccinations. They are slandered; and as the Scripture goes on to say, the people who slander them end up being destroyed, "like irrational animals" who act only according to instinct.
We have animal instincts. But we also have rational minds. Let's use them.
And, let's continue to use rationality and not slander, malicious lies, rumors, and innuendo to speak our truth.
We are indeed contending with the devil. So let us be wise as serpents, gentle as doves, and as true to the honest truth as our Lord, on whose side we contend and whose name, we must remember, we represent -- even in the dirtiest of fights.
Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
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