Year 7, Day 160: Deuteronomy 9

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Reading through Deuteronomy presents us with a reminder of the unrighteousness of the Hebrew people.  We hear again about the Golden Calf.  We hear again about the rebellion when the people did not believe that they could take the land.  We see the Hebrew people for what they are.  They are a people who are quick to fall away and slow to believe.

Don’t get me wrong.  I have my days like that, too.  There are days when I am absolutely quick to lose faith.  There are days when I am blind to what God is doing in the world around me.  The massage that this chapter has for me is that even in those days, God does not abandon me.  He may not particularly be happy with me, but He does not abandon me.  That’s great news.

The other aspect of this chapter that I think is important to remember is why the Hebrew people are being given the Promised Land.  Moses is very blunt here.  They were not chosen by God because they were a righteous people or even a special people.  They were chosen because God needed someone to replace the Canaanites.  The Hebrew people are taking the Promised Land because the Canaanites were so evil!

So often we hear phrases like “The Chosen People” and get it in our head that the Hebrew people were a special and a unique people.  They are special because God makes them special.  But they are not inherently special in who they are.  They were normal, rebellious people just like the rest of humanity.  God took these normal, rebellious people and made them special.

The good news is that God can do the same with us.  We are all normal, rebellious people, too.  God can make us special.  God can come, He can dwell with us as He dwelled with the Hebrew people, and make us special through His presence.  That’s what he offers to us.

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Year 7, Day 159: Deuteronomy 8

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Deuteronomy 8 has a very good warning that we absolutely need to hear in the modern world.  I would guess that humanity always needs to hear it; but I can guarantee that we need to hear it today.  The message is simple.  Don’t mistake what God does with His hands for what I do with mine.

In the time of Moses, he was worried that after a generation or two – or maybe even just a few years of peace – the people would begin to think of their work in the land as, well, their work.  I can see it now.  Some guy out mining copper says to his coworker, “Man, that was a hot day.  But look at all the copper we mined today!”  Or some shepherd looks to his coworker and says, “That sure was some mighty lion that we chased off!”  Perhaps there is some person doing laundry who gets to the end of the day and says, “That was a mighty pile of laundry I got done today!”

Do you hear the emphasis?  In each of those circumstances, the comments from the people are ignoring the support that comes from God and only seeing what they were able to accomplish within the framework of God’s support.  Those comments aren’t acknowledging the seasons that allow the grass and wheat to grow so we can have bread to eat and meat from animals that graze on the grass.  Those comments aren’t acknowledging the peace that God allows us to dwell in by protecting us from harm.  Those comments aren’t acknowledging the wisdom that God has given to us to be able to do the job in the first place.  Those comments aren’t acknowledging the walk that God had for centuries with people who laid the foundation for the life we now enjoy.  Those comments are focused on the work of the people without looking at the greater context and support.

This really is a lesson that I do well to remember.  Everything I do now is so much more than my effort.  Everything I do now is the culmination of God’s work in my life, God’s work in the lives of the people who have helped me become the person that I am, God’s work in the lives of the people who have made this country what it is, God’s work in watching over my travel and the travel of others, God’s work in bringing the seasons to allow food to be grown, harvested, and consumed on a daily basis, etc.  I could keep going if I wanted to.  Moses’ point is really quite clear.  Every day we can see our daily work simply as our own personal effort or we can choose to see our daily results as a chain of events in a long line of God’s hand at work.  The choice is ours.  We need to make the right choice.

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Year 7, Day 158: Deuteronomy 7

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Deuteronomy is a warning from Moses to make sure that the Hebrew people remember to devote the Canaanites to their destruction.  They are to give no quarter to them.  They are not to be gracious.  They are not to be merciful.  They are in no way, shape, or form, to do anything except utterly destroy the Canaanite people.

Naturally, this message sits funny with me.  After all, is not my experience with God that He is a loving God?  Does He not forgive my sin and grant me chance after chance after chance?  Do I deserve even one ounce of His love?  Yet He lavishes His love upon me anyways.  What is so different about me than the Canaanites?

I think it is that question that helps soothe my inner turmoil regarding this chapter.  Let’s not forget why it is that the Hebrew people are being brought to Canaan.  As this chapter says, it isn’t because the Hebrew people were more numerous or better people.  The Canaanites are being displaced because they haven’t responded to God.  They have lusted after foreign gods.  They aren’t interested in righteousness; they are interested in their own desires.  They are just going to teach the Hebrew people to do the same if they are allowed to live.

For the record, the Canaanites that are allowed to live in the land do corrupt the Hebrew people.  They do lead them astray.  They do teach them to obey ungodly principles in their lives.

Why does God say to give them no quarter?  God knows what will happen in the future.  He knows that they will play an important part in His judgment over His own people by bringing Babylon and Assyria down upon the Hebrews.  He knows how the native Canaanites will torment the Hebrew people.  He knows the future.

How can the merciful God that I know be so merciless?  He can be so merciless because He already knows.  I am blinded by time.  I am blinded by the possibility that they might repent and they might turn around.  But God is not so blinded.  He knows.  He knows, and His advice is to give them no quarter.  It isn’t advice that I am in any kind of position to give.  But it absolutely is advice that God is in a position to give righteously.

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Year 7, Day 157: Deuteronomy 6

Theological Commentary: Click Here

I’ve heard it said that the whole of the Law boils down to the Shema, or Shema Yisrael.  “Hear, Israel.”  Fortunately, there are a plethora of directions that I can go with this idea.  For those of you who do not know what the shema is, it is a reference to Deuteronomy 6:4.  You’ll notice that shema Yisrael, or hear Israel, are the first two words in that verse.

The traditional track, and I believe a correct track, is to talk about what it is that the shema teaches.  The Lord is One.  What does it mean to say that the Lord is One?  Many people point to it as a foundation to the coming New Testament teaching of the Trinity.  Most people teach that it is absolutely a declaration of the power of God.  In other words, He is not just a god but the God.  It also teaches that God is a personal God because He is our God.  All of these are great teachings found within the shema.

However, let’s not miss out one the shema itself.  “Hear, Israel.”  In other words, we need to listen.  We need to pause and accept that we get our orders from another.  My life is not about my desire and my pursuit.  Rather, my life is about finding where God is at work around my and joining up with God.  My job in this word is not to ask God to help me pursue my dreams but to stop and listen so that I can join God in pursuing His work.  For me, that right there is the truest and deepest meaning to be found in the shema.

As I look at my life and where God has taught me in the past several years, it is here in this teaching.  As I hint above, when I was considerably younger I used to think that life was about getting God’s blessing upon my agenda.  When I finally gave that issue up, I believe that I swung too far to the other side.  Instead of asking God to bless my agenda, I started asking myself what God’s plan for my life was.  Unfortunately, that became a nearly equally fruitless pursuit because I spent most of my life frustrated that I was chasing some dream that I couldn’t even know for certain.  Finally, I began seeking middle ground.  Instead of looking for some grand plan, I just started listening.  I realized that the grand overarching plan wasn’t the goal.  Instead, what was really important was finding Go din the here and now.  What does God want me to do today?  What does God want me to do wherever I find myself planted?

This concept, a concept that I find highly present in the shema, is an incredibly freeing one.  I don’t have to worry about the grand plan.  I simply have to worry about being a part of God’s plan today.  If tomorrow my circumstances change, then I’ll have to find where God is in those circumstances and do His work there.

As we take this concept back to the chapter, that really is what the rest of the chapter is talking about.  When the Hebrew people enter the land, they need to keep listening to God.  They shouldn’t focus on the treasure that they will take without earning from the Canaanites in the land.  They shouldn’t focus on the false gods.  In the same way, they shouldn’t test God and question His overall plan.  They are simply to remember God and teach about Him to their children.  They are to live each day in a walk with God, wherever He leads them and with whatever He puts in their hands.

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Year 7, Day 156: Deuteronomy 5

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Today, I am going to opt out of talking about the Ten Commandments.  It’s not that I don’t think they are important.  They are the foundation to God’s Law!  However, much has been said throughout the ages on the Ten Commandments that I am drawn to something else in this chapter.  Today, I am drawn to the word fear.

Twice in this chapter we hear Moses talk about the fear of the people.  Interestingly enough, the two talks about fear bookend the talk about the Ten Commandments.  We hear about the fear of the people before Moses went up into the mountain.  We also hear about the fear of the people after Moses comes down from the mountain and the people have observed the mountain while Moses was up there.

Not only do the talks about fear bookend the Ten Commandments, the talks about fear speak to the actions of the people.  Because the people were afraid, they sent Moses up the mountain.  Because the people were afraid, the turned to Moses as their intercessory.  Mind you, it isn’t wrong for Moses to go up the mountain.  Neither is it wrong for people to have others that they look upon as spiritual mentors and guides.

But what we are talking about in this chapter when we get right down to it, is that the people didn’t have a relationship with God as much as they had a relationship with God through Moses.  They people weren’t in a direct relationship with God at all.  They were merely riding the coattails of Moses’ relationship with God.  Interestingly enough, this generation of people are also repeatedly called the “wicked generation” all throughout scripture.  I can’t help but think that these two things are inherently related to one another.

Again, God doesn’t mind if we have spiritual mentors and advisors.  After all, that’s how Jesus functioned in the life of His disciples!  But God wants His followers to each have a personal relationship with Him.  We don’t have to have a human intermediary between us and God.  We should not let our fear get in the way of knowing God personally as the wicked generation of Hebrew people did.

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Year 7, Day 155: Deuteronomy 4

Theological Commentary: Click Here

When I read Deuteronomy 4, the overarching theme that I hear is the importance of remembering.  God has done marvelous things for these Hebrew people.  He has brought them out from under oppression.  He has brought them through a desert and sustained a whole community of people and animals for forty years in a dry land that is ill-equipped to support life.  He has allowed them begin to conquer the people on the east side of the Jordan River.

These Hebrew people need not question what God will do for them in the future.  Of course God will be with them; He has been with them all along!  There is no need to doubt God’s presence, His hand, or His power.

For me, this is a great lesson about which I need to be reminded.  It is easy to worry about the future.  It is easy to doubt that things will go as needed.  It is easy to believe in Murphy’s Law and assume that everything that can go wrong will go wrong.  But I need not live in that perspective at all.  Has not God been with me my whole life?  Has He not been active in my life?  Has not the presence of His hand and the force of His power been there, sustaining me for as long as I’ve been alive?  I might not always do a great job recognizing it in the moment, but if I look back I can certainly see it at work.

There is one last thing that Moses says about remembering.  Since God has been with the people, the great error the people can be made is falling away from God because they forget about Him or because they do not acknowledge His work.  The people need to remember God’s work and walk with Him.

Again, this message applies to us as much as the Hebrew people.  Since God has been with us in our life, we need to remember Him.  We need to walk in His ways, or at least try.  We need to be repentant when we fail, acknowledging our mistakes rather than testing our God.  Since God’s presence in our future is not in doubt, our obedience to Him should not be in doubt, either.

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Year 7, Day 154: Deuteronomy 3

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Having spoken yesterday about a God who remembers His Word and protects those who are in agreement with Him, today I’m going to talk about the opposite.  Today we hear about the conquest of the land east of the Jordan River.  We hear about the defeat of Og and the distribution of the land to the two and a half tribes who desire to settle east of the Jordan.

Unlike the people of Lot and the people of Esau, these people are not in relationship with God.  They are not showing any concern for His ways.  They are hardening their hearts against what God is doing in the world.  They are actively engaging in attempts to defeat God’s plan.  They are promoting themselves.  They are pursuing their own desires and taking what their heart leads them to take.

Do you remember the stories from Numbers about how the Hebrew people tried to negotiate peaceful passage through these lands and the people of these lands would not allow it?  Whether it was because they saw the Hebrew people as a threat or an opportunity to gain easy wealth, these people opposed the Hebrew people and resisted their passage.  They put their hearts against God and His ways.  Because of this, they are destroyed and their land is given over to the Hebrew people.

There is a rather significant lesson to be learned in all of this.  Clearly God will respect His agreements with those who abide by Him and respect the agreement in return.  God will honor His Word as long as the bargain is kept.  However, when we turn and make ourselves an enemy to what God is doing, watch out!  As soon as we declare ourselves an enemy to Him, our hearts are hardened and we are susceptible to replacement.

As proof of this, think about the end of the story of the Hebrew people in the Old Testament.  They break the covenant and are dragged off into exile, replaced by the Babylonians and Assyrians for a time.  Granted, when they return to the covenant God still honors the covenant.  But the message is consistent.  If we desire God to honor and respect His end of the bargain, we must honor and respect our end, too.  That doesn’t mean we must be perfect in every way – that could never happen anyways!  But it does mean that we respect the agreement.  We try as hard as we can to keep it.  When we fail, we acknowledge the failure, confess it, and humble pledge to try better.  That’s what being in a relationship is all about.

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Year 7, Day 153: Deuteronomy 2

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Within chapter 2 of the book of Deuteronomy, I see an overarching theme of commitment.  The Lord is committed to His people.  Mind you, I’m not just talking about the Hebrew people.  After all, while the Hebrew people may be the main subject of God’s interaction in the Old Testament, they are not the only subject.  God is committed to all those with whom He is in relationship.

Do you hear how Moses recounts that the people are not to go into Edom – the area around Mount Seir?  They are not to go into Edom because it is Esau’s people.  The Hebrew people come from Jacob.  However, God entered into a promise with Esau and gave the land of Edom to him.  So long as Esau’s people do not do anything deserving of being tossed out of the land, God will keep His promise.  That land is Esau’s land and the people of Jacob are to have no part in it.

Just to make his point clear, God also tells the Hebrew people to not go into or harass the Moabites.  The Moabites were mingling with the people of Lot.  God reminds the Hebrew people that in the same way as God has been protective of Esau’s people, He is remembering Lot’s people as well.  These are people who have been in an agreement with God from practically the same time as the Hebrew people entered into the covenant through Abraham!

God is faithful to His Word.  It doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, and what your status is.  God is faithful to His Word.  If you hold up your end of the agreement, God will hold up His end, too.

As a bit of an aside at the end, I am also mindful that this shows us that God does not have an exclusive relationship with the Hebrew people.  The Old Testament is largely the story about God’s relationship with the people of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  But this is not an exclusive relationship.  They do not own God, so to speak.  There are other people in relationship with god and those relationships are equally as meaningful to Him.  Our ability to be in relationship with God does not depend on biology, it depends upon our heart.  I believe that this is a very subtle but consistent theme in the Old Testament that often gets overlooked.

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Year 7, Day 152: Deuteronomy 1

Theological Commentary: Click Here

The book of Deuteronomy is a book listing Moses’ final words.  The people are about to follow Joshua into the Promised Land.  Moses is about to go up the mountain and die.  This is his final sendoff.

When I think about this book, I truly value what it means in history as well as in the example it sets for us.  Here is what it means to be a leader.  Moses is on his way to die and be collected to his God.  Yet, where is Moses’ focus?  Is he mourning his approaching death?  No.  He is minding his calling.  He is making sure that when he dies that the people will have as much of their weight on the correct foot as possible as they walk ahead.  That is leadership.

As for its place in history, look at what Moses says.  He starts by reminding them of God and what God has done for them.  Then, Moses reminds the people about their multiple collective sins and disobedience.  Moses doesn’t pull any punches.  Moses tells the truth exactly as he remembers it.  That, too is leadership.

We have much to learn from Moses.  I enjoy the books from Exodus through Deuteronomy for the growth we can see in Moses.  We started so many months ago watching an impulsive man who had trouble controlling his anger.  He does still struggle with controlling the anger, but he is so much more mature now.  As Moses grows, he doesn’t eliminate his failings.  Rather, Moses manages his failings while helping those around him become better people, too.

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Year 7, Day 151: Numbers 36

Theological Commentary: Click Here

I find my reaction to this passage strangely different to the chapter that I read a week or so ago.  When we first read about Zelophehad, we get the impression of a grace-filled God who desires to accommodate circumstances more than inflexibly enforce legislation.  I remember praising that chapter well!

In this chapter, though, I find myself chaffing against the same pronouncement.  However, I think I have more against the way the pronouncement is made than the pronouncement in general.  Do you hear how the women are forced to marry within the clan even though they are retaining their inheritance?  For me, this has all of the trappings of maintaining the status quo than it does of being compassionate in the moment.

Don’t get me wrong.  It is highly possible that I am extrapolating a legal ruler meant for that particular time and place into a new time and place where it does not fit.  In those days, people would not stry far from home.  They would not likely have many relationships outside of their clan.  They would probably marry within their clan in the normal course of action.  In the time in which this was written, the ruling would not have likely had any significant consequences.

My point in all of this is that we need to be careful.  We should never seek to relegate teachings in scripture to their culture and think that they have nothing to teach us.  Equally wrong, however, is to forget that the teachings in the Bible are cultural documents.  At times like this, when rules are being established in preparation for conquest of a new land, we should remember the context.  There is a need to balance the letter of the Law with the spirit of the Law.

The good news is that I find this to be a friendly struggle.  This is the very struggle that Jesus felt in his time on earth.  This is the battle that he had with the Pharisees, Herodians, and Sadducees.  This is a battle that we as human beings don’t often get write, and we certainly always struggle with it.  It is good to have chapters like this to remind us that being obedient to God is about balance in the context of life, not strict and blind obedience.

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Year 7, Day 150: Numbers 35

Theological Commentary: Click Here

What I love about this chapter is the successful mixture of law and grace.  We don’t have too much law so that there is oppression.  Neither do we have too much grace so that there are no consequences.  We have balance, as we would expect with a perfect God.

We start with the city of refuge concept.  The city of refuge is a place that someone can flee to in the instance that a life was lost.  For the record, I think it is really important that we understand the specific circumstance of the city of refuge, as many in our culture want to take this idea and use it to save anyone.  The city of refuge was specifically for the person who was involved in a case where life was lost.  It was a place that a person could go until it was determined whether the loss of life was a manslaughter or a murder.  It was a place where the perpetrator of the crime could go until a jury of his peers – the congregation – could be gathered to judge his crime.

No harm could come to the perpetrator while he was in the city of refuge.  No vengeance could be taken until the trial was held.  Here is one dynamic of grace.  The city of refuge was meant to protect people until judgment could be determined.

Once judgement was determined, we have the law and consequences come forth.  If the person was guilty of murder, not even the city of refuge could protect the person.  The murder was executed for their crime.  Now we see the law come in and consequences are meted out.

The perpetrator of manslaughter – a crime where someone died and there was no evidence of forethought to the crime – could be protected within the city.  These people would be considered safe within the walls of the city.  The crime of manslaughter was not punishable by death within a city of refuge.  The perpetrator of manslaughter could live out a full life within the city of refuge.  Here we see more grace.

We do have a condition where the perpetrator of manslaughter could be put to death.  Should such a criminal leave the city of refuge, they could be caught and have vengeance applied by the family of the victim.  In fact, the Bible is clear that such an act of vengeance would not even incur any guilt!  This means that while the perpetrator of manslaughter was safe within the city, they could never leave the protection of the city.  The city of refuge became both a place of refuge as well as a jail for them.  There are consequences applied, even in the greater context off grace.  Here we see once more that there is the balance of the law.

This is a very important chapter for me to remember as I try to balance the law and grace in my life.  I must pursue the greater context of grace.  God is incredibly gracious to me in my life, I must demonstrate God’s grace to others in their life through my actions.  However, there is a problem with only extending grace.  When the balance of the law is removed, there are no consequences.  Then the balance of the law is removed, we have a self-entitled society that thinks of the individual ahead of the collective.  In fact, in a truly off-balance society, we end up with a society that thinks only of itself and never of the other.  As we see in this chapter, we must try to always remember that grace and law exist in balance when we are living a godly life.

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Year 7, Day 149: Numbers 34

Theological Commentary: Click Here

There is something to be said for planning and expectation.  Every single person that I know truly enjoys the feeling of knowing what to expect when a time of difficulty is about to happen.  Military people spend almost all of their time drilling for those unexpected circumstances of action so that they actually do know what to expect. As a teacher, I always like to know what to expect when my schedule is interrupted with fied trips special assemblies, testing days, etc.  Even when we are driving on the road we pull out maps, GPS devices, and phones to help tell us about the traffic and what to expect.  The reality is that human beings prefer to be in a state of knowing what to expect – especially as familiarity decreases.

I think this is the brilliance of this chapter in Numbers.  Before the people go in, Moses tells them what to expect.  He tells them what the Lord has told him.  He tells them the boundaries of the land that they are about to conquer.  He tells them the leaders of the people who are going to be making the decisions about who gets what share of the land.  The people are about to undertake a massive military campaign to push the native inhabitants out of the land.  Moses wants them to see the end result and know what to expect when they get there.

As much as we would care to deny it, there is a lot of uncertainty in everyday life.  I don’t know that a car won’t collide with my car on the way to work.  I don’t know that a fire might not start at my place of employment of my home while I’m gone.  I don’t know that my health or the health of any of my family might not give out at any time.  When we look at the big picture of life, there is plenty of uncertainty.  That’s why we need to feel like we know what to expect.  Knowing what to expect helps us deal with the uncertainty.

This is part of why my relationship with God is so important to me.  I like living knowing that God can work all things to His glory.  I like living knowing that God can take anything and work His hand in it.  I like knowing that in the end, there is a place for me to abide in His eternal glory.  I like living in that comfort and stability in the midst of a very uncertain world.

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Year 7, Day 148: Numbers 33

Theological Commentary: Click Here

It’s time to be completely transparent.  I read chapters like this and immediately have to fight the urge to gloss over the words.  After all, how interesting is it to read about where the Hebrew people traveled?

We must remember that there is great value in remembering where you have come from.  There is great value in community recognition.  We need to pass down the stories about what has come before us so that we can learn from the example.  We need to learn to imitate the good things.  We need to learn to avoid the bad things.  That’s what this chapter is all about.

We hear about the fact that God brought the people out of Egypt.  We hear that they went into the desert for God’s sake.  We then hear about all of the wandering that the people did.

Moses is recounting this story so that the people remember from where they came.  As they transition into the conquest of the Promised Land, Moses wants them to stay focused on their calling.  God has called them to the Promised Land.  God has called them to bring judgment upon the native Canaanites.  God has called them to drive out the Canaanites and inhabit the land themselves.  They will need to remember from where they’ve come and who brought them here in order to accomplish the task ahead successfully.

Moses also wants to make sure that the people realize the consequences of not accomplishing the task.  If they do not drive out the people, the native people will be a constant thorn in their side.  Unfortunately, we know that it is this very scenario that plays out.  The people will lose sight of from where they came and who brought them there.  They will become complacent and accepting.  Eventually, they too will become tossed out of Canaan by the Babylonians and the Assyrians much like the Canaanites before them.  Chapters like this and the messages they contain are easy to overlook and vital to our continued faithfulness.

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Year 7, Day 147: Numbers 32

Theological Commentary: Click Here

When I read this chapter, I discover another example of a teaching that it took me several years of my adult life to embrace.  We cannot only judge people by their actions and their words.  We need to know their heart, their inner motivations, before truly knowing whether something that they do is right or wrong.  It is so much easier to create a static list of rights and wrongs and then judge people by where their actions fall.  But this is not effective and true.  I can’t tell a person’s sin just by what they do.  I need to know them, first.

How do we see this in the story?  Some of the Hebrew people see the land east of the Jordan river and ask Moses if they can settle there instead.  Moses immediately hears their words and compares them to the sinful generation who were afraid to follow God into the Promised Land.  Moses remembered the decision that kept him wandering through the desert for forty years, and this request sounds suspiciously like that fateful day.  Moses intercedes, reminding the people who are making this request about the failings of their parents.

This generation, however, surprises us.  Once Moses takes the time to get to know their motives, he figures out that they are making the request because they genuinely like the land.  They aren’t afraid to go into the land and conquer it!  They will do their duty willingly.  They simply like this particular area of fertile ground.

In this we learn the value of knowing the human heart.  There are a host of reasons to not want to cross into the Promised Land.  Some of them are genuine as we see in this chapter.  Some of them could be disingenuous as we see at the beginning of the wandering in the desert.  If all we did is look at the action, we might easily mistake one for the other.

This is ultimately why relationship is important.  If we are not careful, we sit off in a distance and judge people as they go by without knowing anything about their life.  We make assumptions and rationalize our judgmental nature.  What relationship does is to help mitigate this cold and distant permission to judge.  Relationship teaches us to know people and walk life in their shoes.  Once we get to know people and not just observe them, we are far more equipped to be God’s influence in the world.

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Year 7, Day 146: Numbers 31

Theological Commentary: Click Here

There are several really neat dynamics within this passage.  First of all, God sends the Hebrew people out against the Midianites prior to Moses’ death.  God wants to finish what Balaam started a few chapters back.  God wants to prove that His favor is with the Hebrew people right now.

When the Hebrew people do go out and fight, they decide to kill all the men but keep the women and children.  Of course, from the perspective of the ancient world, this action makes sense.  When the Hebrew people do take possession of Canaan, they are going to need slaves to do all of the hard work so that these Hebrew people can live in luxury.  These Hebrew people are just trying to lighten their work load.

Please don’t misunderstand me.  I’m not trying to justify what they did.  What they did was wrong.  In fact, that’s really my point.  What they did was wrong, yet it makes perfect sense from a worldly mindset.  The point should be clear.  Often what the world thinks makes sense is truly wrong.

Furthermore, think about the lasting effects of their decision.  God is rejecting the native people of Canaan because of their false worship and their lifestyle.  If these Hebrew people bring a bunch of slaves into the land with them, they will also be bringing in their gods and all of the things that God has rejected!

What I love about the end of this chapter is the grace the is shown to these warriors.  In spite of their decision to keep the Midianites alive, they suffer no consequences.  Instead, they are told about why their decision was wrong and then told to go and make amends.  Then they are told to purify themselves because of their recent combat.  Then life goes on as normal.  It shows that we need to be a people who forgive mistakes and who teach and support people who do make mistakes.

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Year 7, Day 145: Numbers 30

Theological Commentary: Click Here

It is so easy to get wrapped up in the man vs. woman debate when reading this passage.  Now that I’ve mentioned it, I also want to avoid it.  If you want to hear my thoughts on that dynamic, click on the theological commentary link above.

Instead, I want to focus on what I consider to be the more important theme in this passage.  Ultimately, this passage is about people learning to keep their word.  This chapter teaches us that when we make a promise, we need to try our very best to make that promise come to fruition.  After all, we serve a God who kept His promises – even sending His own Son to die so that His promises would be kept.  God keeps His promises, it shouldn’t surprise us that He wants us to keep ours, too.

Furthermore, if we are going to keep our promises, then we really need to think before we speak.  When we open up our mouths, the thought should have crosses our mind and we should approve of it.  After all, how can we be expected to keep our every word if we haven’t taken the time to process and think through our words?

Truthfully, I think this is a chapter that can really bring benefit to our modern culture if we don’t allow ourselves to get hung up in a debate about the sexes.  We live in a culture that is about immediate gratification.  We live in a culture where much of our contact with other people is done via quick texts, even quicker snapchats, and impersonal Facebook posts.  Our culture is becoming a culture where there is no personal consequence for the words that come out of our mouth.  I believe the results of such a culture are coming more and more to bear.  We can learn much from the underlying premise of this chapter indeed.

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Year 7, Day 144: Numbers 29

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Today, I am going to start with the fifteenth and the eight day of the festival.  Hopefully as you read, you picked up on the differences within the paragraphs that reference these.  These days are holy days.  These days are days without normal work to be done.  Naturally, being seven days apart, these days would line up with the idea of Sabbath.

If we step back from this concept, for a second, we can rationalize it really quickly.  We are very comfortable with the idea that Sabbath means no normal work.  It fits really well with what we understand of traditional Judaism.

On the other hand, let’s look at the non-Sabbath days.  These are also days of worship, yet there is no prohibition for normal work on these days.  What does this tell us?  I believe the message is subtle, yet clear.  Worship does not have to be separate from life.  We can worship God while going about our life.  We can worship God while being in the world.

So often we like to compartmentalize.  We think that there is worldly life and then there is godly worship.  What we see here in this chapter, though, is different.  There is worship while we go about our worldly business and there is worship while we separate ourselves from our worldly work.  In other words, we can take God with us wherever we are.  We may not think of worshipping God while we are out and about in the world, but that is our problem and not God’s problem!

In addition to this thought, I have some very interesting thoughts in my commentary from several years back.  You can read them if you want a completely different perspective on this chapter.  In that post, I focus on an entirely different element in these verses, not necessarily contrary thoughts.

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Year 7, Day 143: Numbers 28

Theological Commentary: Click Here

In the blog post to which I reference above, I end with a tally of the amount of sacrifices that this chapter would require.  I find it a rather neat total.  It isn’t neat in that the numbers are of any great significance.  It’s neat in the sheer volume of sacrifice that is required on a yearly basis.

That being said, let me take a step back and acknowledge something.  I am not saying that the sacrificing is neat because all of these animals had to die.  I am not a fan of the slaughter of innocent animals, nor do I promote any kind of senseless killing.  I’m not celebrating the death of these animals in any way other than they are killed at the command of God.

Having said that, let’s talk about why I find this neat.  If we do the math, we find that the Hebrew people are being asked to sacrifice well over a thousand animals, well over a ton of grain, and over a thousand containers of oil and wine.  Why is this neat?  It is neat because in order for the people to accomplish this, they must have had it in the first place!

In other words, it guides us to a necessary aspect of God’s character.  God only asks us to give back to Him out of what He has already given to us.  He doesn’t even require us to give it all back.  God only asks us to give back a portion of His provision.  God is a very understanding God.

Furthermore, we learn about His provision.  If God is going to ask for a significant sacrifice, He’s going to give an even more significant provision!  That is an important thought to have.  We cannot out-give God’s provision in our life.  When we read chapters like this, we should be reminded about the provision of God that allows chapters like this to even be possible in the first place.

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Year 7, Day 142: Numbers 27

Theological Commentary: Click Here

For today, I’m going to talk about the daughters of Zelophehad.  Probability tells us that this situation would happen.  Even though families back in those days would have between 10 and 20 children, only about 3-7 would make it to five years old.  Of those, usually only 2 or 3 would make it to adulthood.  Naturally, we would have families whose only offspring would be girls.  In the modern world, this wouldn’t be a problem.  In the ancient world, where inheritance was passed from man to man, this was a large problem.  What do you do with an inheritance if there were no men to receive it?

What I love about this passage is that it shows us that that the typical critique of the Old Testament is completely wrong.  So often we hear that the Old Testament is chauvinistic.  We often hear presentations of the Old Testament that leave out the women and treat them as unimportant.  In this passage, we see that God isn’t this way at all!  God has no trouble with the inheritance of a man being passed into his daughters!  If God truly preferred men to women, he would have overlooked these daughters of Zelophehad and send the inheritance on to the man’s brothers directly.  This is not what God does.  The inheritance goes to the daughters.

Second, this shows us the flexibility of God.  So often we hear about God in terms of rigidity.  God is not rigid at all!  God understands that life and circumstances bring change.  When necessary, we absolutely need to think and make decisions based on the life around us.  We are not designed and created to be automatons.  God did not give us a brain so that we could abdicate critical thinking!  God desires us to always be willing to think as we apply His ways to our life.

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Year 7, Day 141: Numbers 26

Theological Commentary: Click Here

If we look at this census and compare it to the census that was done at the beginning of the time in the wilderness, we notice that the number of Hebrew people went down. In Numbers 1 we hear that the number of grown men was 603,550.  In Numbers 26, we hear that the number is now 601, 730.  Naturally, this is forty years later.  We wouldn’t expect the number to be the same.

What I find significant, though, is that it was this grumbling and complaining generation that experiences the decrease.  They had every opportunity to trust in God, to enter the Promised Land, to take over, and to prosper under God’s provision.  Instead, they lived in fear and wanted to lean on their own strength.  This decision led to a decrease in the size and strength off the people.  When we reside in our own strength and grumble against the Lord, why would He prosper us?

The other dynamic hear that I find significant is the way that this chapter ends.  Only two adult people – Caleb and Joshua – who left Egypt were listed on the census as they get ready to enter into the Promised Land.  In other words, God fulfills His promises.  Even when the promises aren’t particularly pleasant, God is true to His word.  When God says that He will wait to bless the next generation, He means it!

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