Readings:
Isaiah 61-62
Proverbs 27
Romans 15:14-33

Isaiah 61-62

We see this passage read by Jesus in the synagogue in Luke (see Day 76) as his ‘inaugural address’ at the beginning of his ministry. He point blank tells the people listening to him that the scripture they just heard was being fulfilled before their eyes.

This is a message of future salvation, that by the time of Jesus was read as just political freedom, but God had so much more in mind for them than they even realized. More than just civic rights and privileges in this life, he was giving them freedom to live with him forever in the next life.

God promises to vindicate Jerusalem and make it the jewel in his crown, and it did become that as the place of the passion and resurrection of Our Lord.

Romans 15:14-33

Paul speaks of his longing to both visit the people of Rome and then carry on to bring the gospel to the western most province of the empire, Spain. We know that he makes it to Rome eventually, but the trip to the Iberian peninsula is less certain.

The book of Acts ends without telling us the outcome of Paul’s imprisonment there. Some think he was released and made it to Spain and was then rearrested at a later date and martyred in Rome. But some people think that his time in the Roman prison in Acts was his final moments and he was martyred soon after. We don’t know for certain, but we do know that his other desire to preach in Rome was certainly fulfilled.

How he got to Rome was nothing short of divine providence too. The dangers he mentions in Judea at the end of todays reading were all too real, and ended in his arrest by the Roman government in Jerusalem to forestall a riot. The temple authorities then tried to assassinate him on at least two separate occasions, but he was moved to a coastal city and stayed there for at least two years. When he appeals to Caesar, and is granted that appeal, he makes it to Rome on the empire’s dime, after a few hiccups because why not.

Everything happens in God’s timing, and Paul eventually speaks to the Roman Christians that he wrote to at least a few years earlier. Paul learned this a long time ago and learned to just let God take the wheel. A lesson we’d all be good to follow too.

Tomorrow’s Readings:
Isaiah 63-64
Proverbs 28
Romans 16