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The Week That Changed The World Devotional February 23

by David Joynt on February 23, 2024


MARK 11:17b | 17b  But you have made it a den of brigands.

I have changed the italicized word in the verse above from robbers to brigands. English scholar N.T. Wright suggests the first century meaning is not thief, but ultra nationalist revolutionary. Jesus was upset, he says, that Israel’s leaders ignored the charge to be a light and blessing to the entire world. They had adopted a hard and narrow nationalism, which rejected other nations. The Temple was meant to be a symbol of God’s presence in Israel for the sake of humanity, not a symbol of the exclusion of non-Jews. First century zealots focused on the Temple and on violent overthrow of Israel’s enemies. Jesus insisted this was the wrong way to initiate the kingdom.

 

The vocation of nations includes blessing the greater world. Do you agree?

 

 

Gracious God,

Give me the heart of a servant. Take away selfish ambition and conceit. Help me see strangers as gifts and not threats.

Amen.

 

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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