Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“But I have this against you: you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet and is teaching and beguiling my servants to practice fornication and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her fornication.”
NL Daily Devotion for Thursday, July 31, 2025
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
What do we tolerate that maybe we shouldn’t? Who is teaching us by their example to turn away from God’s call? What about corporations who bombard us with messages about things we “need” in order to be acceptable by society? Who is showing off wealth and proclaiming we deserve it—that, in fact, Jesus wants us to have it? Where do we hear encouragement to treat anyone who doesn’t look or act or think exactly as we do as less than human? Frankly it’s all around us every single day, and I don’t care how persuasive this “Jezebel” was back in the first century, she had nothing on the firehose of these harmful enticements drowning us every single day.
Instead of hyper-focusing on fornication or whatever other “sin” we think is being espoused by people we don’t agree with, maybe we should be asking ourselves how our lives can be lived in repentance for all the evils our society has visited on the marginalized. Just a thought.
What am I not even aware I’m tolerating, in terms of harmful actions in the world around me?
