Scripture Reading Sunday, June 19, 2016 Frank
Collette
Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah
had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel
sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also,
if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.”
Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba,
which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there.
But he himself went a day’s journey
into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He
asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord,
take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down
under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to
him, “Get up and eat.” He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot
stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of
the Lord came a second time,
touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much
for you.” He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that
food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. At that place he
came to a cave, and spent the night there.
Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you
doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the
Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed
your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to
take it away.”
He said, “Go out and stand on the
mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was
a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in
pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the
wind an earthquake, but the Lord
was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the
fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his
mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a
voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have
been very zealous for the Lord,
the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down
your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they
are seeking my life, to take it away.” Then the Lord
said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you
arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram.
Our Epistle Lesson comes from Galatians 3:23-29
Now before
faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be
revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that
we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer
subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God
through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed
yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer
slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in
Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring,
heirs according to the promise.
THE WORD OF GOD FOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD!
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