You will be tended by His Wealth (Psalm 36:3 LXX)

This morning I felt led to open my Septuagint text alongside my English Bibles for devotions. I read from Psalms 35-37 and my eyes rested on the famous passage about dwelling in the land and you shall feed on His faithfulness. The Hebrew text could mean faithfulness or truth but when I looked up the LXX, the word, “riches” appears, so the translation could read, “you shall be tended by its riches”. The word, “tended” comes from the word, “to be shepherded”, the same word that Jesus used when He asked Peter to tend His sheep. But here it is God who is shepherding the believer or the Psalmist. As much as Jacob had confessed that it was God who shepherded him or fed him all his life. Quite often, human employers or institutions think when they engaged me that they were my bosses or employers, very rarely realizing that in Christian service, it is to God we are all subject to, and human (Christian) bosses must lead in a way to understand what the ultimate Boss in heaven wants for His servants under their charge.

The hay that broke the camel’s back that led to my resignation was the discussion about my salary during my last meeting with the leaders. They have asked me to go on an extended leave in order to get myself “jabbed” or at least one jab to qualify me so to speak for church entry. I revolted against that because theologically it is implausible that I could bring myself to do something unbiblical just to gain entry into the church building. If anyone was qualified to be part of the church or its services it must be the leaders and with great irony, I had just preached about the Prince in Ezekiel 44 in my last sermon in church about who is allowed in the new Temple and clearly the Prince is the main leader through whom God manifests His glory in His Temple. How slow Christ’s disciples to grasp what God wants to do in their midst. Even Christ could not do anything in Nazareth as he was not welcomed for the lack of faith among its inhabitants. Speaking of my salary, I give thanks to God for to You I seek refuge and it is out of the riches of God’s glory in Christ Jesus that our needs are met (Phil 4). Paul could have cited Psalm 36:3 in the LXX in his exposition of truth to the church in Philippi. So at the end of the month when I look at my finances, it has remained the same as the end of December when I was still employed. I suffer no lack for I am shepherded by His riches.