A RESPONSIVE READING
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.
You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.
You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.
You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
My people go into exile for their lack of knowledge;
and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude is parched with thirst.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest.
Since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children.
For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge,
and men should seek instruction from his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of host.
And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers,
for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God
as a workman who does not need to be ashamed,accurately handling the word of truth.
All Scripture is inspired by God
and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom:
preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. Amen.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (Mt. 22:37); Isaiah 5:13; Hosea 4:6; Malachi 2:7; Ephesians 4:11-13; 2 Timothy 2:15; 3:16-4:2.
This responsive reading was prepared as a devotional reading for the Church of God Division of Education Board Meeting, March 21, 2013.
