Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 245 · September 2
Redeeming the Time
“Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”
A market at the end of trading. One stall still open, one thing on it you want, coins in your hand, the light going.
That is the picture inside the word. Redeeming the time is a buying word, built on the term for a marketplace, and it means to buy a thing out of it and take it away. Paul uses the same verb to Colossae: walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Something is paid, and something is carried off.
The clause attached tells you what kind of market this is. Because the days are evil. The urgency in the verse comes from what hour it is. The line has been enlisted into a long tradition of sermons on wasted mornings, which it was not built to carry. Paul uses the verb of Christ as well: hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. The buying-out he knows best cost everything, and it was done for people managing their time badly.
Read what he buys with the hour, because the list follows immediately. Understanding what the will of the Lord is. Be filled with the Spirit. Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Giving thanks always for all things. Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. None of it is a schedule. It is what he carries home from the stall.
The market is closing and the days are evil, which is why anything is still on the table in front of you. Nobody here is telling you to move faster. You are being told what hour it is, and shown what one man bought with the last of the light.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 245 is The Giver of All (Acts 17:25).