Friends! I haven't sent a DailyQT email in a long while, because I have been busy preparing lessons for my church Sunday School class and also leading a daily devotional Bible study with some people via Zoom.

I hope you are still in the Scriptures daily. Since I've been using Zoom over the last five months, I've been able to connect with people even as far away as Connecticut. I only now realize that some of you may also be looking for some support for your daily Bible reading. So, I want to invite you to join us in these two Zoom ministries:

• Daily Bible Study (based on these readings here), Monday through Friday mornings.

AI-Expanded Reflection

This invitation was written in the summer of 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many churches around the world suspended in-person gatherings and moved worship, prayer, and Bible study online. Many Christians discovered, as this comment describes, that the same tools that kept them apart physically could connect them with people far away. Believers who had never met could study the same passage together each morning.

The New Testament itself shows the early church using the communication available to it. Paul’s letters were written to strengthen churches he could not visit in person. He told the Thessalonians that he had been “torn away” from them “in person not in heart” and sent Timothy and a letter in his place (1 Thessalonians 2:17–3:2). At the same time, the apostles always hoped for face-to-face fellowship. John ended two of his letters by saying he would rather not write with paper and ink but hoped to come and talk face to face (2 John 12; 3 John 13–14). Remote connection was a real gift and also a reminder of what it could not fully replace.

Hebrews 10:24–25 urges believers to consider how to stir one another up to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together but encouraging one another. Acts 2:46 describes the first believers gathering “day by day.” A daily study group, whether in a room or on a screen, continues that pattern of regular, mutual encouragement around God’s Word. The comment’s concern that some readers might need support in their daily reading reflects a pastoral instinct: Bible reading is often sustained best in community.

The reading in which this announcement was posted includes one of the most significant passages in Isaiah. Isaiah 61:1–2 speaks of one anointed by the Spirit of the Lord to bring good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, and to proclaim liberty to the captives. Jesus read this passage in the synagogue at Nazareth and then declared, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:16–21). He stopped reading in the middle of 61:2, before the words about “the day of vengeance,” and many interpreters see in this a signal that His first coming was focused on the proclamation of grace.

The announcement and the passage fit together. In a season of isolation and uncertainty, gathering people to read Scripture together is one way that good news continues to reach the brokenhearted. Whether believers meet in person or across great distances, the same Word is read and the same Lord is present among those who gather in His name (Matthew 18:20).

Then He remembered the days of old, of Moses and his people: "Where is he who brought them up out of the sea"? Where is He who put His Holy Spirit in their midst? (a paraphrase of Isaiah 63:11).

Isaiah recounts how God redeemed Israel in the days of old (Isaiah 63:9), how they rebelled against Him (63:10a), and how He turned against them (63:10b). Then Israel remembered the days of old (63:11).

Israel remembered the joy and wonder of the time of God's favor, before they turned away from Him and experienced His wrath. Israel recalled God's salvation — how He delivered them with great and mighty works, saved them from bondage in Egypt, and destroyed Pharaoh and his army before their eyes. God provided for them in the wilderness and protected them from their enemies. He gave them good laws, not to burden them but to preserve them.

Friends, I write to those who know the Lord and are known by Him. Let us remember the One who has saved us. Let us recall His thorns, the nails, and the cross. Let us consider the glory He left and the shame He endured. Let us consider that "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

Remembering is the beginning of repentance for believers. When we forget whose we are, we forget who we are. When we remember whose we are, we understand our reason for being: He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves "but for him who for their sake died and was raised" (2 Corinthians 5:15). Paul says he has been crucified with Christ; it is no longer he who lives, but Christ who lives in him, and the life he now lives in the flesh he lives by faith in the Son of God, who loved him and gave Himself for him (cf. Galatians 2:20). "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21).

May the Lord help us remember our reason for being — our purpose, our cause, our ambition, our longing. It is Christ through and through. When we remember this, there is no anxiety and no fear, only peace — the peace of God. I pray, dear friends, that we will all experience this peace daily until He comes.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Isaiah 63:7–64:12 is one of the great communal laments of the Old Testament, and verse 9 contains one of Scripture's most tender descriptions of God: "In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them." The God who later turned against His rebellious people is the same God who had shared their affliction. Verse 10 also contains one of the Old Testament's few references to the Holy Spirit: "they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit" — the language Paul echoes in "do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God" (Ephesians 4:30).

The comment's point that remembering is the beginning of repentance is well founded. Israel's memory of God's past deeds became the ground of its prayer: "Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down" (64:1). Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper with the words "Do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19), making remembrance of His death central to the church's life. Remembering whose we are, as the comment says, restores both our identity and our peace.

"As for me, this is my covenant with them," says the Lord: "My Spirit that is upon you," and His words put in their mouth, shall not depart from their mouth, nor out of the mouth of your offspring or your children's offspring, from this time forth and forevermore (a paraphrase of Isaiah 59:21).

This is the same promise we read in Jeremiah: the new covenant God will make with Israel, when He will put His law within them and write it on their hearts; He will be their God and they His people; no longer will each teach his neighbor, "Know the Lord," for they will all know Him, from the least to the greatest; and He will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more (a paraphrase of Jeremiah 31:33–34).

The promise is echoed again in Ezekiel: God will give a new heart and put a new spirit within them, remove the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh, and put His Spirit within them and cause them to walk in His statutes (a paraphrase of Ezekiel 36:26–27).

In these New Covenant promises we have our present and enduring hope, which we eagerly await to see consummated in glory. I believe we will not experience the complete fulfillment of these promises until Jesus, our Messiah, is on the throne and ruling, both in the millennial kingdom and in the eternal state, when there will be a new heaven and a new earth. We will enjoy them as Gentiles alongside national Israel, with whom we have become one in the Lord.

The New Covenant is a fascinating study. I recommend Larry D. Pettegrew's article "The New Covenant" on this very subject.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Isaiah 59:21 comes immediately after one of the great redeemer promises: "a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression" (59:20). Paul quotes these two verses together in Romans 11:26–27 as he describes the future salvation of Israel: "The Deliverer will come from Zion," and this will be God's covenant with them when He takes away their sins. The comment's linking of Isaiah 59 with Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36 follows exactly the path Paul took.

The three prophets together describe the heart of the New Covenant: God's Spirit within, God's word internalized, and sins forgiven. Hebrews 8:8–12 quotes Jeremiah 31 in full and declares it inaugurated in Christ, and Jesus at the Last Supper called the cup "the new covenant in my blood" (Luke 22:20).

On how and when these promises are fulfilled, Christians hold different views. The comment's premillennial reading, with a future role for national Israel in a millennial kingdom, is held by many; others, including amillennial and postmillennial interpreters, see the promises fulfilled in stages through Christ's first coming, the church, and the new creation, with various understandings of Israel's future. All agree with the comment's central hope — that what God has begun under the New Covenant He will bring to completion.

Consider Isaiah 59:2–4: our iniquities have separated us from God, our sins have hidden His face so He won't hear us — hands defiled with violence, lips speaking lies, no one calling for justice or pleading for truth, trusting empty words and conceiving evil (a paraphrase of Isaiah 59:2–4). Doesn't this recall Paul's words in Romans 3:10–13 — that no one is righteous, no one understands, no one seeks God, all have turned aside and become worthless, no one does good (a paraphrase of Romans 3:10–13, quoting Psalm 14:1–3) — and Paul's description in Ephesians 2:1–3 of believers once dead in their sins, following the world's course and the flesh's desires, by nature children of wrath just like everyone else (a paraphrase of Ephesians 2:1–3)? Isaiah goes on to confess this himself, including his own people in the indictment: justice is far from us, righteousness doesn't reach us, we look for light and find only darkness, we grope like the blind, we stumble at noon as if it were twilight, our transgressions are many and testify against us — truth has fallen in the streets, and whoever turns from evil becomes prey (a paraphrase of Isaiah 59:9–15). The conclusion is the universality of sin — even among God's own people, not one, not even the prophet himself, can keep God's righteous commands. Isaiah would agree with Paul's cry in Romans 7:24 — "what a wretched man I am, who will rescue me from this body of death?" — and with Paul's answer too: thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord (a paraphrase of Romans 7:24–25). Isaiah writes that the LORD saw there was no justice, was appalled that there was no one to intervene, so His own arm brought salvation, and His own righteousness sustained Him (a paraphrase of Isaiah 59:15–16). Since there was no one just enough to intercede, God Himself provided both salvation and righteousness. Paul explains what God did through Jesus: what the Law, weakened by human sinfulness, couldn't accomplish, God did by sending His own Son, condemning sin in the flesh, so the Law's righteous requirement could be fulfilled in those who live by the Spirit rather than the flesh (a paraphrase of Romans 8:3–4). Christ fulfilled God's righteous requirement both by living a perfect life and by becoming the perfect sacrifice for sin — and God has made a way for us to share vicariously in what Christ accomplished, through faith, so that whoever believes in Him won't perish but have eternal life (a paraphrase of John 3:16). So it's through faith that we pursue God's righteousness — acknowledging our own helplessness to do good on our own, and confessing our total dependence on Christ's Spirit both to save us and make us holy. Let's keep confessing our sins daily (1 John 1:9) and thanking God for Jesus daily (Romans 7:25), since we've been freed from the Law's condemnation (Romans 8:1) to live in the new way of the Spirit (Romans 7:6), putting to death the flesh's misdeeds by that same Spirit (Romans 8:13). Every time we choose what's right, following the principle of love, we're choosing to follow the Spirit of Christ — a choice we couldn't make before we were saved, since we were dead in our sins, but now, having been given freedom, let's choose Christ daily.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The specific detail Isaiah adds that Paul later develops further — that God's own arm brought salvation precisely because "there was no man" to intercede — is worth noting for what it implies about the timing of the incarnation: the absence of a qualified human intercessor isn't presented as a temporary gap eventually filled by finding a righteous enough person, but as the very condition that made divine intervention necessary in the first place. That reframes the entire logic of the gospel slightly: Christ isn't simply the best available intercessor among many candidates, but the only kind of intercessor the situation Isaiah describes could actually produce a solution — one who is Himself both fully qualified and personally invested, since no human candidate, however righteous, could have supplied both.