Isaiah By The Day: A New Devotional Translation by Alec Motyer.

I have been using this book alongside my personal reading of Isaiah. It is a uniquely helpful book. Motyer has studied Isaiah over many years and has written his own translation with additional translation notes and devotional comments. He clearly understands and loves not only the literary aspect, but the deeper spiritual meaning of this book of the Bible. In 71 daily portions, he seeks to give an overview of the themes of the book as well as more detailed comments on each passage and a Thought for the Day. This extract is his Thought for the Day drawn from Isaiah 29:1-14:

Isaiah paints a very vivid picture. Here is a closed book and the person who is able to read can’t be bothered; it’s too much trouble to open it. And the person who can’t read is content to leave it like that; it’s of no importance to try to find out what the book is about. But the book in question is God’s book, his Word of truth; it brings the knowledge of God; without it all is at best surmise, at worst idle fancy and error. How swiftly Isaiah’s picture leaps over the 2,700 years since he put it to paper! He might well be living today and describing how things are all round. Here is a life-long churchgoer, a devout, serious man (I could tell you his name), but he says ‘Never at any time in my life have I read the Bible for myself.’ He can read, but can’t be bothered, and – tragedy of tragedies – the church he attends encourages religion and ritual but not personal Bible-reading. And here is a man talking confidently of life after death, sure that ‘Gran’ is there, ‘watching over us like she always did’, himself unafraid in the face of death. He might as well not be able to read because the Bible does not matter. And here is a converted, committed Christian with a datable experience of accepting the Lord Jesus as Saviour, and for the sake of thirty extra minutes in bed, or because life’s busyness comes crowding in or because at the day’s end tiredness makes its claim, it’s suddenly too much trouble to open the closed book, not important enough to read, receive, welcome and expose mind, heart and soul to the precious Word of God. And here is a Christian worker – believe me: I’m not inventing but quoting – ‘Im occupied with the Bible all day so when I get to bed it’s a relief to read a novel’. Thus we join those who honour Jesus with our lips but we have distanced our hearts from him. No Bible, no spirituality; God at arm’s length.

A searching thought for the day indeed!

Lorna