Tuesday, July 25 | St. Andrew's Anglican Church

Psalm 45

¹ My heart overflows with a pleasing theme; I address my verses to the king; my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe. ² You are the most handsome of the sons of men; grace is poured upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever. ³ Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one, in your splendor and majesty! ⁴ In your majesty ride out victoriously for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness; let your right hand teach you awesome deeds! ⁵ Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies; the peoples fall under you. ⁶ Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness; ⁷ you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions; ⁸ your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia. From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad; ⁹ daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor; at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir. ¹⁰ Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear: forget your people and your father's house, ¹¹ and the king will desire your beauty. Since he is your lord, bow to him. ¹² The people of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts, the richest of the people. ¹³ All glorious is the princess in her chamber, with robes interwoven with gold. ¹⁴ In many-colored robes she is led to the king, with her virgin companions following behind her. ¹⁵ With joy and gladness they are led along as they enter the palace of the king. ¹⁶ In place of your fathers shall be your sons; you will make them princes in all the earth. ¹⁷ I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations; therefore nations will praise you forever and ever.

Psalm 47

¹ Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy! ² For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth. ³ He subdued peoples under us, and nations under our feet. ⁴ He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob whom he loves. Selah ⁵ God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. ⁶ Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises! ⁷ For God is the King of all the earth; sing praises with a psalm! ⁸ God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne. ⁹ The princes of the peoples gather as the people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God; he is highly exalted!

Psalm 48

¹ Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God! His holy mountain, ² beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth, Mount Zion, in the far north, the city of the great King. ³ Within her citadels God has made himself known as a fortress. ⁴ For behold, the kings assembled; they came on together. ⁵ As soon as they saw it, they were astounded; they were in panic; they took to flight. ⁶ Trembling took hold of them there, anguish as of a woman in labor. ⁷ By the east wind you shattered the ships of Tarshish. ⁸ As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God, which God will establish forever. Selah ⁹ We have thought on your steadfast love, O God, in the midst of your temple. ¹⁰ As your name, O God, so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is filled with righteousness. ¹¹ Let Mount Zion be glad! Let the daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgments! ¹² Walk about Zion, go around her, number her towers, ¹³ consider well her ramparts, go through her citadels, that you may tell the next generation ¹⁴ that this is God, our God forever and ever. He will guide us forever.

1 Samuel 25:1-22

¹ Now Samuel died. And all Israel assembled and mourned for him, and they buried him in his house at Ramah. Then David rose and went down to the wilderness of Paran. ² And there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. The man was very rich; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel. ³ Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved; he was a Calebite. ⁴ David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. ⁵ So David sent ten young men. And David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal and greet him in my name. ⁶ And thus you shall greet him: ‘Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have. ⁷ I hear that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel. ⁸ Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we come on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.’” ⁹ When David's young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David, and then they waited. ¹⁰ And Nabal answered David's servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters. ¹¹ Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers and give it to men who come from I do not know where?” ¹² So David's young men turned away and came back and told him all this. ¹³ And David said to his men, “Every man strap on his sword!” And every man of them strapped on his sword. David also strapped on his sword. And about four hundred men went up after David, while two hundred remained with the baggage. ¹⁴ But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, “Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master, and he railed at them. ¹⁵ Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, and we did not miss anything when we were in the fields, as long as we went with them. ¹⁶ They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. ¹⁷ Now therefore know this and consider what you should do, for harm is determined against our master and against all his house, and he is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him.” ¹⁸ Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves and two skins of wine and five sheep already prepared and five seahs of parched grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys. ¹⁹ And she said to her young men, “Go on before me; behold, I come after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. ²⁰ And as she rode on the donkey and came down under cover of the mountain, behold, David and his men came down toward her, and she met them. ²¹ Now David had said, “Surely in vain have I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him, and he has returned me evil for good. ²² God do so to the enemies of David and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him.”

Acts 14:1-18

¹ Now at Iconium they entered together into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed. ² But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. ³ So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. ⁴ But the people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews and some with the apostles. ⁵ When an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to mistreat them and to stone them, ⁶ they learned of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and to the surrounding country, ⁷ and there they continued to preach the gospel. ⁸ Now at Lystra there was a man sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth and had never walked. ⁹ He listened to Paul speaking. And Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, ¹⁰ said in a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet.” And he sprang up and began walking. ¹¹ And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!” ¹² Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. ¹³ And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds. ¹⁴ But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd, crying out, ¹⁵ “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. ¹⁶ In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. ¹⁷ Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” ¹⁸ Even with these words they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them.

Mark 4:21-34

²¹ And he said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand? 22 For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light. ²³ If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” ²⁴ And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you. ²⁵ For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” ²⁶ And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. ²⁷ He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. ²⁸ The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. ²⁹ But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.” ³⁰ And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? ³¹ It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, ³² yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.” ³³ With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. ³⁴ He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.