Preparing for Worship - October 16, 2022

The Scriptures for this Sunday have to do with the importance of prayer for our lives and the need for persistence in those prayers, as well as in study of the Word of God.

The Old Testament lesson is from Genesis 32:22-30. Jacob had done much lying and deceiving in his life to get what he wanted. His brother, Esau, had been so angry with him that he wanted to kill him. Only one half-hearted talk with God of Jacob’s is recorded in Genesis until now. Jacob is returning home and is fearful of what Esau will do. He carries out his own plans, but finally, before our text, prays to God and asks for His help and deliverance. Then, in our text, he wrestles almost all night with a man who is actually the Lord. The Lord could clearly win, as He injures Jacob, but He allows Jacob to seem to prevail and Jacob ask for and receives a blessing and a new name from the Lord - Israel - which means “He strives with God.” (This reminds us that we, too, can strive with God  in prayer and by studying His Word and seeking His wisdom to understand and apply it to our lives.)

The Psalm is Psalm 121. The Psalmist looks to the hills and prays to the Lord for His help. The hills may remind him of the majesty and power of His Creator God. They may also refer to the hills of Jerusalem and the temple to which he can go and toward which he can pray to God. (For us, too, our churches remind us of God’s presence with us and the need to come and talk with Him in prayer and receive His good gifts that only He can give us.) Again and again the psalmist reminds us that the Lord is our “Keeper” and that He is the source and protector of our life, now and forever, and keeps us safe in times of evil in this world, until we come into eternal life.

The Gospel lesson is from Luke 18:1-8, a parable of Jesus calling us “always to pray and not to lose heart” in our praying. Jesus tells of a widow who appeals to a judge to give her justice where she has been wronged. The judge did not fear God and did not care about the needs of other people and just kept refusing her requests. She bothered him so much and so often that he finally gave her justice, just to get rid of her. Jesus asks: Will not God, who is just and does care about people, not respond in the right way to our prayers, as He knows best?  Therefore, keep praying and talking with the Lord and trust His plans. But, Jesus also asks: “Will there be faith on earth when He, the Son of Man, returns?”

The Epistle lesson answers that question. A time is coming, Paul says, in 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5, when people will reject God’s sound teaching and not listen to the truth and will look, with “itching ears,” for people who will say what they want to hear, “to suit their own passions.” Does that sound like many in our own generation? At the same time, Paul says, God has provided His sacred writings, the Holy Scriptures. “All Scripture is breathed out by God .”It is the truth and is profitable for all the teaching that is needed, so that people can be “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Therefore, “Preach the Word,” Paul tells Timothy. And that Word of God, the Bible, the truth centered in Christ, is still available today, and some will still come to faith through the Holy Spirit, at work through that Word. Paul would still say today, “Study that Word and preach it, that more may know the truth in Christ and come to faith in Jesus.