BCP Daily Office Lectionary for Oct. 3, 2004

    Source: http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/index.htm

Morning Psalm(s): AM Psalm 118

Evening Psalm(s) PM Psalm 145

Old Testament: Hosea 13:4-14

Epistle: 1 Cor. 2:6-16

Gospel Matt. 14:1-12

Hosea's message is of judgment and punishment. The LORD says, "I have been your God/ever since the land of Egypt . . . It was I who fed you in the wilderness,/in the land of drout" (Hos. 13:4-5). But the accumulation of iniquity, which "is bound up;/his sin is kept in store" (v. 12). The questions addressed to Death and Sheol (v. 14) are echoed by Paul (1 Cor. 15:55), who looks through death, to resurrection and "victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 15:17).

Paul speaks to the Corinthians of spiritual matters, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,/nor the human heart conceived,/what God has prepared for thos who love him" (1 Cor. 2:9), "things God has revealed to us through the Spirit" (v. 10). He urges us to be spiritual and have "the mind of Christ" (vv. 14-16).

Matthew tells of the death of John the Baptist. Herod Antipas' birthday banquet, the dance of Herodias' daughter and her request, prompted by her mother, come to a gruesome end--John's head brought in on a platter, "a portent of Jesus' death" (Dennis C. Duling, Harper-Collins Study Bible).

Ronald D. Worden, Ph.D