Readings:
Ezekiel 33-34
Ephesians 3

Ezekiel 33-34

This portion of Ezekiel’s prophecies gives us a glimpse of the Old Testament foundations of what’s now called sins of omission. If the prophet is told to speak to someone and he doesn’t, then that man’s blood would be on the prophet’s hands. This is very similar concept to when we say “in things I have done, and things I have failed to do” when we confess our sins as a group at the beginning of Mass.

At the end of the chapter Ezekiel is met by a man who has come with news that Jerusalem has fallen, and his time of being mute is lifted and he can speak once again.

When Ezekiel is condemning the evil shepherds of Israel, he lays out several things that they’ve failed to do. One of these is seeking the lost Sheep. Then in the second half of the chapter, God says he himself will be a good shepherd to the people. The people in Jesus’ day would’ve been very familiar with the writings of the prophets, and would’ve understood Jesus claiming divinity when he said he was seeking the lost sheep of Israel, when he told the people he’d leave the 99 sheep to find the one that was lost, and especially when he gave the discourse on the Good Shepherd in John 10.

If God had promised to find the lost sheep, and then this man comes along saying he’d been sent to find the lost sheep, it would be easy to put the pieces together and see that he was claiming to be the embodiment of Ezekiel 34:11-31

Ephesians 3

Paul reveals to his gentile readers that he’d been given the specific task of sharing the gospel with them and that they would be save through it and made coequal heirs to the promises made to Abraham all those years ago. God had promised Abraham that all the nations of the world would be blessed through him, and now we’ve come to the realization of that promise, where all the nations (which is gentiles in Hebrew) are being grafted onto the tree and becoming a unified part of the kingdom of God without the divisions that once separated them off and made them the “others.”

Verses 1 and 13 hints at what scholars say is the conditions that Paul was writing under. The evidence seems to point to this letter being written when Paul first arrived in Rome after he had appealed to Caesar (as recounted in Acts). It’s amazing to think that he’s sitting in jail with a capital case hanging over his head, and yet he still writes multiple letters yo encourage others. It’s amazing to consider it.

Tomorrow’s Readings:
Ezekiel 35-36
Ephesians 4