Walking the Way: A daily devotional

Ezekiel 47:8 Then the man said to me, “This water flows through the land to the east, down into the Jordan Valley, and into the Dead Sea. When the water flows into the Dead Sea, it will replace the salt water there with fresh water.   Thought for the day – Healing waters Remember how I said when we started Ezekiel, that one of the best commentaries on the book of Revelation is the Old Testament and specifically Ezekiel. Today’s chapter is another example of John using Ezekiel as a source to describe his visions. You see the readers of the Revelation would have known about Ezekiel’s visions and they would have understood the meaning in the light of the OT readings. And while the readings are similar there are significant differences and they are as loaded as the similarities and there are 3:   Firstly, the source: Ezekiel's river comes from under the temple threshold — water seeping out from the presence of God still housed in a building. In Revelation there's no temple at all...

  Ezekiel 46:2 The prince must enter from the outside through the entrance hall of the gateway. He must stand by the doorposts of the gateway.   Thought for the day – Raspberry beret One of the musicians I enjoy listening to is Symbol, or the artist formally known as Prince. It’s a tenuous link to today’s reading but hey I’ve had more tenuous links. And the reason I mentioned Symbol because for the last few days I’ve been wondering who the prince of the New Temple is or represents. And it seems that many Biblical scholars think that the prince in Ezekiel is a symbol of how the role of leader is even more distinct from the role of priest than it was before.   The prince mediates worship but never leads it. The prince functions less as a prediction of one particular ruler and more as a foil: an authority who mediates worship but is still barred from the inner sanctuary, pointing beyond himself to a greater priest-king who would not need to offer for his own sin ...

Ezekiel 45:20 You must do the same on the seventh day of the month for everyone who unintentionally does something wrong and is unaware of it. So you must make peace with the Lord for the temple.    Thought for the day – Unknown sin There’s an idea forming in my head. What are the things we do that may or may not unintentionally be sinful? Intentional sin is easy. It’s the conscious things we do that bring us into rebellion against God. Having said that, even that’s not clear cut because so much of what we deem to be right is driven by the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age. So, what about the unintentional sins we commit? Unintentional sin is defined as acts that are objectively wrong or harmful in effect, but where the actor lacked the guilty knowledge or deliberate will. Things we do because we don’t know they’re wrong or we didn’t consciously choose to commit them. And before someone says it’s unfair for God to hold us accountable for things we do not know what we’re doing,...

Ezekiel 44:23 They must teach my people the difference between what is holy and what is unholy. They must show the people how to tell the difference between what is clean and what is unclean.    Thought for the day – We are a royal priesthood Today’s chapter in Ezekiel is striking in that it is very specific to the priests that would lead worship in the new Temple. There are strict conditions for what they wear, how they look, and what they do. and one the ones that stand out to me is how they were to demonstrate the holiness of God. Something I believe we as the people of God, who are now his royal priesthood, should be doing as well.   You may well think ‘Wait Ray, I’m not a priest!’ Well, we are. Peter reminds us that we are a "chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession," called to proclaim God’s excellencies. (1 Peter 2:9); we all serve as representatives of God. Priesthood in its widest sense is a representative ministry. We represent ...

  Ezekiel 43:5 The Lord's Spirit lifted me to my feet and carried me to the inner courtyard, where I saw that the Lord's glory had filled the temple. Thought for the day – Glory to God In Chapter 10 we see the God leave the Temple because of the sin of the people of Israel, and in today’s chapter in Ezekiel sees the glory of God return to his new Temple. How things have been turned around. Israel has been judged and punished and will now be redeemed and bought home. And so God is going back to the place where he will be worshipped again. Ichabod, the Spirit has departed, has become YHWH Shammah. The Lord is here. There is a nice arc to this, and I think this arc of God leaving and returning has profound implications for us as the people of God. So much of what we’ve been reading about in Ezekiel has felt hard. It’s been brutal and disheartening. And as I’ve read Ezekiel I couldn’t help but think the Church and if Ezekiel is speaking to us as the Body of Christ. In...

Ezekiel 42:13 Then the man said to me, ‘The northern and southern chambers that face the courtyard are the holy chambers where the priests who approach the Lord will eat the most holy offerings. There they will deposit the most holy offerings – the grain offerings, sin offerings, and guilt offerings – for the place is holy.  Thought for the day – Holy food: One Table, Many Understandings Amongst the myriad of things Christians have found to argue over, possibly one of the most divisive is the Eucharist, Holy Communion or the Lord’s Supper. And the fact that we have different names for what is in essence a remembrance of what Jesus did for us is a reminder that even on this we can’t agree, and so I asked my Claude AI to summarise the primary positions in the Church. Here’s what it came up with: Ever sat at a table where everyone's eating the same meal but tasting something different? That's Holy Communion across the Christian family. Walk into a Roman Catholic Mass a...

Ezekiel 41:19 Each winged creature had two faces: A human face looking at the palm tree on one side, and a lion's face looking at the palm tree on the other side.   Thought for the day – Patterns As I was reading the chapter today, I found myself wondering about the idea that patterns play an important part of Scripture. Ezekiel’s descriptions of the winged creatures on the walls and doors of the Temple are an echo of his vision of the winged creatures before the throne of God, the Cherubim. The same Cherubim appear before the throne of God in John’s Revelation, In Solomon’s Temple and also there a Cherubim the guards the gates to the Garden of Eden. A reminder that there is more to life than is explained in our theories. The Cherubim in Judaism play a very specific role. They are guardians of sacred spaces, hence the Cherubim at the Garden of Eden. But they also appear on the curtain dividing the Holy of Holies and they overshadow the Mercy Seat on the Ark of the Covenant. All of ...

Ezekiel 40:41 So there was a total of eight tables, four inside and four outside, where the animals were killed Thought for the day – Grace witha floor plan I don’t if anyone listening, has ever walked through a brand new building. There’s a smell of cement, wood and dust. There’s a freshness about it that is exciting but at the same time a real sense of anticipation of the things that will happen that building. And at times it may feel almost like a mausoleum.  A memorial to the things to come. In today’s chapter, Ezekiel is taken in a vision to Jerusalem and shown the new Temple that would be built. And it’s  all very pristine, very new, right down to the tables that would be used for the sacrificing of animals. There’s a sense of efficiency and order that belies that bloodshed that will follow. There's something quite unnerving about that precision. Ezekiel doesn't just shown a Temple — he shown precision and efficiency. Tables of a specific length, specific width...

  Ezekiel 36:9 For I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown.   Thought for the day – The gardening God One of my abiding memories as a child is going to visit my great aunt Nellie on their smallholding in Zimbabwe. Nellie was an amazing gardener. There wasn’t much she couldn’t grow and her garden was always full of snapdragons, foxgloves, flame lilies and roses. And she would spend hours cultivating the flowers and preparing the ground for the next season’s planting. And that love of gardening stayed with her all the way till her final few years. And today’s verse from Ezekiel took me to her garden and the time I spent there as a kid and watching my aunt intentionally do things in her garden to make it the paradise I remember. And that’s the things about God. God is intentional about everything. Even when he is preparing Israel for coming home. He is preparing them for their return, and he is being very intentional about it. Hear the wor...

Ezekiel 39:21 I will set My glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see My judgment that I have executed, and My hand that I have laid upon them. Thought for the day – Who is Watching Every empire wants to be watched. Rome built roads so the world could see its reach. Egypt built pyramids so history couldn't look away. We are, all of us, curating and  creating something — a highlight reel, a testimony, a legacy — hoping someone notices and draws the right conclusion. God does something similar in Ezekiel 39, and it should unsettle us a little. After Gog's catastrophic defeat, God doesn't just want the nations to hear about his glory. He says the nations will see it. This isn't a lesson delivered in a speech. It's a lesson delivered physically, in person — a battlefield, a defeated army, a watching world drawing its own conclusions from what's right in front of them. Here's the uncomfortable bit: God's glory gets displayed through ju...

  Ezekiel 38:3 Son of man, set your face against Gog of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshek and Tubal, and prophesy against him   Thought for the day – The text in context I love how Scripture keeps surprising me. Yesterday it was whether God can revive his church. Today it's a lesson in context. My mind, anyway, boggles at where the Spirit takes me.   Reading today's chapter, Gog, Magog, Meshech and Tubal floated to the surface — and Gog and Magog in particular. Genesis 10:2 lists Magog, Meshech and Tubal as sons of Japheth, grandsons of Noah. Revelation 20:8 has an army from Gog and Magog invading Israel. Read across Genesis, Ezekiel and Revelation, the picture is consistent: peoples from the north, set against the people of God. This is where context earns its keep. Meshech is usually linked to the Mushki, an Anatolian people the Assyrians recorded fighting from the 12th–8th centuries BCE. Tubal appears in the same sources as Tabal, a neighbouri...

  Ezekiel 37:3 He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”   Thought for the day – Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones Recently I heard some really sad and distressing news about the Methodist Church in the UK. It is reckoned that at the current rate of decline there will be no more than 20000 members of the MC in 10 years’ time. And as I look across traditional mainline congregations, I see the same thing happening.   A mathematician by the name of Dr John Hayward applied the principle of contagion to church. How contagious are our churches? He applied the ‘R’ rate, or the rate of reproduction to the life of the church. The Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England have ‘R’ rates of 0.9.   Anything below 1 indicates that there is no contagion or reproduction, meaning numbers of church-goers will only reduce as no new people are encouraged to become part of the church. The Methodist Church has an ‘R’ rate of .85 and here in Wales, the Church ...

  Ezekiel 35:13 Thus with your mouth you have boasted against Me and have multiplied your words against Me. I have heard them.   Thought for the day – God is still God I wonder sometimes how much people must hate God. I’m treading on some very thin ice here, but I wonder if one of the reasons, atheists spend so much time railing against faith and religion is because inwardly and probably subconsciously they have a deep hatred for God. People such as Stephen Fry, Ricky Gervais, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. They will no doubt claim that rationality and science drive their convictions, but so often their attacks on faith and God are so vitriolic that it borders on hatred.   I get really cross when people slag God off. And I get really cross when people build their careers on slagging God off. But then I’m reminded that God is still God even if those who hate him denounce him. And God is well aware of the things that are said about him. But here’s the thing. Wh...

Ezekiel 34:31 “You are My flock, the human flock of My pasture, and I am your God.” This is the declaration of the Lord God.   Thought for the day – Baa-aa-aa Ministry takes you to some strange places. On Wednesday I went to a cemetery in the hills to do a risk assessment. The cemetery had closed and the decision had been made to allow it to return to the wild. We still need to check it every so often, which was why we were there. And in the middle of the cemetery lay a dead sheep (Insert comments about appropriate places to die etc…). As if that wasn’t enough, there was another sheep nearby, possibly it’s lamb, bleating constantly. It turns out that whenever sheep are separated from the flock, however small the flock is, they bleat. And this is how shepherds find the lost sheep. In our case, eventually the other sheep wandered off. It hadn’t come back when we left. And it was all a bit sad really.   We as people are very much like sheep. That’s why the Bible uses ...