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Every Day Bible

The Progression of Sin

People are always people, no matter where they are or when they lived. Anyone else notice the amazing lack of differences in this ancient story and ours?

From last week (Tuesday, to be exact) in Numbers 25, Israel falls into idolatry again with their Moabite neighbors (page 191). Look at the order of events:

  1. Proximity to sin. The passage begins byindicating that Israel was “staying in Shittim.” It seems logical enough to infer that this run-in with idolatry might have been avoided had Israel been camping somewhere else. Kind of like Judah running away to his friend Hirah the Adullamite or Judas hanging out with the priests and Sanhedrin who happened to have a money bag with the name of Christ’s betrayer on it. Maybe Aaron wouldn’t have been so surprised by the calf that “came out” of the fire if he hadn’t put the people’s gold into a mold of a giant calf! Sometimes it’s best to heed Paul’s advice to Timothy: “Flee youthful lusts.” (2 Tim 2:22). He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day! :)
  2. The promise of pleasure. John Piper, a self-described “Christian hedonist” writes quite a bit about this, and quotes some interesting people to support his position (C. S. Lewis, Jonathan Edwards, et al). His point of preaching is that we don’t learn to find the pleasure in being servants of God that God intends there to be! He takes the ancient creed and modifies it to say that the chief end of man is to glorify God in all things by enjoying him forever…and there’s some merit to what he says.

    We’re often fools for the trades we make. People trade family for work, friends for things, and eternity for a moment. The children of Israel, just like us today, made one of those bad deals. They were enticed by the promised pleasure of the Moabite women who offered them sexual favors, and their pleasures were cheapened and standards were lowered. Were it not for God’s mercy, they could have lost everything! After proximity provides opportunity, pleasure (1 John 2:15-17) provides the bait concealing the hook.

  3. The Practical Paradox comes next. The children of Israel have bitten the bait, and now they’re in relationships with two masters: God and Baals. In their own families, they’re serving two wives (an explicit example is provided in Numbers 25:6-8 when Phineas kills a man named Zimri who brought his illegitimate wife TO his family in their time of mourning for sin!) Now the people face a dilemma: which is more painful? To cut off relationships with their real families or their new flames? To repent and serve God only–facing immediate consequences, or to try to keep on making it with the Moabite women? Temptation likes to keep us trapped in a lose-lose thanks to our own mistakes, like Jepthah. Does he break the vow he never should have made to God (a no-no) or sacrifice his daughter in keeping with that bad vow (also a no-no)?

The final step is the tough one: do we repent, or do we continue? This time, the Israel repented, but each time this cycle repeats, the chances of repentance and real change get smaller and smaller. Lewis once said that the human heart is a lot like concrete: on that rare occasion that it is broken and moistened by tears and is finally pliable, if a real change isn’t made, the only likely outcome is a hardening that will become more and more permanent. Softening the heart becomes more difficult with each passing attempt, and before long, we’ve become nothing more than another Pharaoh, an instrument by which God will display his power, instead of an instrument for whom God will bring blessings.

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Every Day Bible Files

Week 7 Files: Sacrifice, A Lunar Eclipse and More

We had great discussion this week–thank you! Here’s the PowerPoint presentation and the handout.

Anyone who is interested, feel free to tackle some of our questions for next week:

  • What do we know about Urim and Thummim?
  • Find maps comparing modern day Israeli sites with their ancient counterparts.
  • Find prophecy regarding changing of calendar systems
  • Find general background on the Sanhedrin.

Don’t make this too easy for me, now… :-)

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Every Day Bible

Leadership, Fear, and Jealousy

It’s funny how nobody wanted Moses’ job when he went into Pharaoh’s house saying “Let my people go!” Once they sort of had things rolling though, Korah and his folks had another idea.

It’s also funny (but not funny ha-ha!) how the spies surveyed the land of Canaan. They took a pretty long trip, if you check out a Bible map, to see the most amazing land ever — grapes so big they’re carried across a pole between two men, and the like. After having mysterious food appear from heaven, having a sea part in front of them, and water come from rocks…they still say it can’t be done.

I’m noticing a theme in the Pentateuch: God’s not impressed when you say it can’t be done.

When Caleb and Joshua said that the land was as good as theirs, the rest of the camp was voting on a new leader to return the children of Israel to Egypt with their tails between their legs. (They seem to always think the grass was greener back there. Have they forgotten about the slavery?) Caleb and Joshua see the greater truth: “Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them.” (Numbers 14:10).

In response to this great spiritual pep talk, the camp (the whole assembly (!)) talked about stoning them.

If I ever open a Bible theme park….I’m naming the scariest roller coaster “The Faith of the Children of Israel.”

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Every Day Bible

WHO is in the details?

I don’t want to be legalistic here, but one thing I noticed from yesterday and the day before’s readings: God has a lot of specifics listed in his instructions for Jewish worship. He has listed who is supposed to clean up the sacrifices, organize the people, blow the trumpets….down to every last detail.

Side note: though these passages are very specific, they’re not really that complex. We often fall into a trap of thinking that the Old Law was so complicated and thus, difficult. The Old Law certainly was difficult — but that wasn’t due to its complexity. That was becasue attaining perfect righteousness through lawkeeping is inherently difficult in light of human nature! People throw around this stat a lot: there were 613 commandments in the Old Law! That’s so tough!

Have you read your drivers’ handbook? I started counting once, and as I could identify them in one chapter….just two or three pages in I’d already identified close to one hundred rules, yet I drive my car every day without worrying about whether or not I can remember each one. In fact, most days I knowingly break at least one! (Cough speed limit cough!) My point is — it’s not the complexity that made the law difficult; it was its nature.

Another example: God gave specifics about how his incense was to be made. If I counted right, there were four ingredients in two different quantities. If you’ve ever made chocolate chip cookies from scratch — you know that there are way more than 4 ingredients, and way more than two measuring spoons/cups dirty at the end of the process!

So let’s stop focusing on the complexity of the old law.

Why would God be so specific, though? Does he really just prefer a certain combination of spices? Does he think his fire and lightning look best against a certain gold backdrop?

Those are silly answers, of course. I think maybe he’s trying to teach a lesson about the value of worship. There’s something to be said for spontaneous outbursts of prayer and thanksgiving, but we shouldn’t neglect the beauty of spending time planning and thinking about how best to say ‘thank you.’ After all, don’t we say it’s the “thought that counts”?

It would behoove us to occasionally spend some time in preparation and planning for worship. Perhaps that could make an end of our age-old gripe, “I’m not getting enough out of it…”

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Every Day Bible

God’s Dwelling Place

As I keep going back to the stories of the past two weeks of scripture, I can’t help but notice how much attention God is drawing towards a special place. In class, we calculated the value of the gold and the silver in the tabernacle (1 ton = 2,000lbs = 32,000ozs * $905 ($gold/oz) = ~$29million. Silver = 3.75 tons = 120,000ozs * $16 ($silver/oz) = $1.9million). It’s a significant stash!

If just a bar or two of gold travel today, they’re guarded in armored vehicles by men with sub machine guns. Anything more valuable ends up with a helicopter escort, and if the Italian Job was accurate, a few heist attempts along the way! When God’s glory-cloud entered a new land though, the gold of the tabernacle followed it and led the people. His presence alone was enough to overshadow the greatest financial treasure man could imagine. God’s presence is awesome.

We’re his temple today (see 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 and surrounding). Have we thought of what an honor it is to be the home of his spirit? Have we thought of how terrible it would be away from his spirit? (Romans 8:9-11). Maybe we should quit looking at the gold around us and focus on his spirit within us!

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Every Day Bible Files

Week 6 Files: Tabernacle and Sacrifice

Sorry for the posting delay lately. I’ve been a bit under the weather and traveled to Freed Hardeman for lectureship and Huntingdon for a memorial for Madelyn Beamon. Check out the podcasts available of FHU’s lectures from John: The Gospel of Belief. You can hear some really good sessions.

As for files from this week — if you’ve read this site, you’ve already seen them. The tabernacle walk through in 3D was our primary resource Wednesday night, as well as catching up some from week 5. Sorry for nothing new!

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Every Day Bible

Bible at a Glance

Two gems for the big picture folks:

  1. At OpenBible.Info, there’s a Bible Book Browser Visualization that you might find pretty cool. It shows all the books of the Bible in a treemap and color coded and sub-divided by section (Law, Prophets, etc…). When you hover your mouse over the books, a popup appears showing you the chapter headings from the ESV Bible as you read. Pretty cool if you want to look at a glance…
  2. I got this email the other day from my mom and thought it was cute. Enjoy… “Kid’s Bible in a Nutshell.”

    Children’s Bible in a Nutshell In the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, darkness, and some gas. The Bible says, ‘The Lord thy God is one, but I think Anyway, God said, ‘Give me a light!’ and someone did. Then God made the world. He split the Adam and made Eve. Adam and Eve were naked, but they weren’t embarrassed because mirrors hadn’t been invented yet. Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Eden. Not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn’t have cars.

    Adam and Eve had a son, Cain, who hated his brother as long as he was Abel. Pretty soon all of the early people died off, except for Methuselah, who lived to be like a million or something. One of the next important people was Noah, who was a good guy, but one of his kids was kind of a Ham.

    Noah built a large boat and put his family and some animals on it. He asked some other people to join him, but they said they would have to take a rain check.

    After Noah came Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was more famous than his brother, Esau, because Esau sold Jacob his birthmark in exchange for some pot roast.

    Jacob had a son named Joseph who wore a really loud sports coat. Another important Bible guy is Moses, whose real name was Charlton Heston. Moses led the Israel Lights out of Egypt and away from the evil Pharaoh after God sent ten plagues on Pharaoh’s people. These plagues included frogs, mice, lice, bowels, and no cable. God fed the Israel Lights every day with manicotti. Then he gave them His Top Ten Commandments. These include don’t lie, cheat, smoke, dance, or covet your neighbor’s stuff. Oh, yeah, I just thought of one more: Humor thy father and thy mother.

    One of Moses’ best helpers was Joshua who was the first Bible guy to use spies. Joshua fought the battle of Geritol and the fence fell over on the town. After Joshua came David. He got to be king by killing a giant with a slingshot. He had a son named Solomon who had about 300 wives and 500 porcupines. My teacher says he was wise, but that doesn’t sound very wise to me. After Solomon there were a bunch of major league prophets. One of these was Jonah, who was swallowed by a big whale and then barfed upon the shore. There were also some minor league prophets, but I guess we don’t have to worry about them.

    After the Old Testament came the New Testament. Jesus is the star of the New Testament. He was born in Bethlehem in a barn. (I wish I had been born in a barn, too, because my mom is always saying to me, ‘Close the door! Were you born in a barn?’ It would be nice to say, ‘As a matter of fact, I was.’) During His life, Jesus had many arguments with sinners like the Pharisees and the Republicans. Jesus also had twelve opossums. The worst one was Judas Asparagus. Judas was so evil that they named a terrible vegetable after him. Jesus was a great man. He healed many leopards and even preached to some Germans on the Mount. But the Republicans and all those guys put Jesus on trial before Pontius the Pilot. Pilot didn’t stick up for Jesus. He just washed his hands instead. Any way’s, Jesus died for our sins, then came back to life again. He went up to Heaven but will be back at the end of the Aluminum. His return is foretold in the book of Revolution.

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Every Day Bible

The Tabernacle

We talked Wednesday night about how the Tabernacle passages are a little bit different than everything else we’ve read so far. These detailed instructions are an interruption in the stories and narratives we’ve been getting used to in the book of Genesis and first half of Exodus. For those of you like me, who are unable to visualize this stuff, I’ve compiled some links that might help you see the tabernacle and maybe see a bit more of its relevance and beauty.

All and all, what mattered about the tabernacle wasn’t the vast amount of gold or even the beauty of the artisans’ creation. Instead, it is the symbolism of God’s presence with man.

The Tabernacle with the Shekhina

The word tabernacle comes from the Latin tabernaculum, meaning tent. The Hebrew word used in scripture is Mishkan (משכן ) which meant residence or dwelling place. Pause for a moment and meditate on the idea of a literal house of God being built in your neighborhood. The mailbox would say God on it, I suppose. He has set up shop and moved in with his people — in the center of their community.

Now yes, we should have the same idea today…as we are his temple or his dwelling place…but they had the advantage of seeing it. Not only did they see the house, they saw the Shekhina, the glory-cloud of the presence of God. They saw his cloud and fiery pillar. They saw his wind as it parted the Red Sea. They saw the glowing of Moses’ face as he came down from Mt. Sinai the final time.

Then they saw God’s glory descend on the camp and dwell among them in the tabernacle. I’d call that a special place!

Here’s some links if you want to look at some models of this place:

  • Photos of a Model with Scripture.
  • Drawings of the furnishings. Attempts to explain symbolism. (You can buy your own “make-your-own-tabernacle” kit here, too…)
  • 3-D Walkthrough of the Tabernacle. This one is obscenely cool. You have to download an Internet Plugin, and you probably need broadband internet…but if you can manage that, you get to simulate actually walking through the tabernacle. You can examine the furnishings…and it gives you a really good sense of the scale of the place. (If I can figure out how, I’m going to show this in class next Wednesday night…)
  • The 3-d Bible Project. (Sponsor of the above. Also has temples, etc…)
  • The Jewish Encyclopedia Tabernacle Entry provides an interesting point of view. It’s missing the Christian fulfillment of symbolism, but it’s coming from people who certainly have the best scholarship about the tabernacle itself.
  • Ron Wyatt was the Nashville doctor-turned-amateur-archaeologist who thinks that he has found the Ark of the Covenant, Noah’s Ark, and the evidence for the true Red Sea Crossing Site. His work is very controversial — so investigate it on your own and feel free to draw your own conclusions…cause I’m not doing it for you! :)
  • Just for fun, since we’re talking about the Ark of the Covenant….

Enjoy! See you Sunday…

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Every Day Bible Files

Week 5 Files: “Let My People Go”

Here’s our work from Week 5. This week’s PowerPoint file is a little different than normal. There is a table of contents slide you can use to navigate to the part of the slideshow you’re interested in. The handout for this week focuses primarily on the names of God.

Hope it helps!

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Every Day Bible

Bible Connections

The stories this past week of the passover and the exodus are perhaps the most well-connected passages of the Bible. The New Testament depends on them as the background for our faith.

In case you’ve any doubt about the inter-connected and inter-related nature of scripture, I found these two sites to be particularly helpful and just plain cool: Bible Visualizations.

Chris Harrison’s Site with Bible Visualizations shows a really neat interconnected network of cross references in the Bible. His work is based on statistics gleaned from the KJV, and was the source for some of what we discuss tonight.

PastorBlog has two other visualizations, both based on word occurence. One is a word tree, showing you each usage of a word in a text, and another is a spatial diagram showing the occurence of a biblical word across the entire canon.

Enjoy!