Exodus 10 – Bargaining with God

Finally Pharaoh is ready to let the Israelites go. He will let them take all their families and leave. The only condition is that they must leave behind their livestock.

Moses says no, you do not bargain with God. So Pharaoh rescinds his offer and says, “Get away from me! Beware, do not see my face again, for in the day you see my face you shall die!” To which Moses responds, “You are right; I shall never see your face again!”

Don’t try to bargain with God; just do what God asks of you. If you try to bargain with God you will always get the short end of the deal.

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Paulos (Paul) The Koine Greek Word of the Day Podcast

Paulos (Paul) was also known as Saulos (Saul) and was an apostle to the gentiles.  To subscribe to this podcast please go to iTunes and subscribe to “The Koine Greek Word of the Day Podcast”.

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Exodus 9 – Confess and conversationssion

I had not noticed until chapter 9 that sometimes the Lord hardens Pharaoh’s heart and sometimes Pharaoh hardens his own heart. I would be interested to learn if there is any pattern, rhyme, or reason for these variations.

I was also interested by Pharaoh’s confession in 9:27, “I have sinned this time; the Lord is the righteous one, and I and my people are the wicked ones. Make supplication to the Lord, for there has been enough of God’s thunder and hail; and I will let you go, and you shall stay no longer.”

However, when Moses worships God and the plague is removed, Pharaoh reverts to his old self and refuses to let the Israelites go.

How often in times of trial do we call out to God for mercy? When our trials are over do we remember our petitions to God? If we can take the time to talk to God and confess our sins in the bad times, then we need to confess our sins and talk to God in the good times.

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Charis (grace) The Koine Greek Word of the Day Podcast

Charis (grace) may refer to goodwill, favor, generosity, or thanks.  To subscribe to this podcast please go to iTunes and subscribe to “The Koine Greek Word of the Day Podcast”.

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Fifth Sunday in Lent

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly
wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to
love what you command and desire what you promise; that,
among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts
may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with
you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

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Weekly Meanderings

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

Have a great weekend!

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Exodus 8 –Frogs

I have a ten gallon aquarium in which I keep a beta, a dwarf puffer, a small school of neon tetras, and half a dozen African dwarf frogs. I love sitting and watching the frogs just before bedtime. They’re nocturnal so the get most active just before I go to sleep. Sometimes I can hear the quite hum of their mating call as I drift off to sleep.

Each of the frogs has a different personality. I’ve not gone so far as to name them, but after a couple hours of study I know the differences between them. The two oldest frogs are low key home bodies; they tend to stay in their fake ceramic log. Most of the time they put up with the younger frogs. One of the younger frogs is skittish; he surprises easily and will run away from everything. Two of the younger frogs are athletic; they like to swim around, but otherwise they are pretty oblivious to anything going on in the tank. My favorite frog likes to chase my finger if I rub it slowly against the glass. He likes it when I pretend to scratch his tummy through the glass, and as soon as I put my head near the aquarium he’ll swim over to say hello to me.

Needless to say, I like frogs. But too many frogs would probably be a bad thing. If they covered the ground wherever you walked. If you were constantly stepping on them, slipping on them, crushing them under you. That would be pretty gross. But it seems like kind of a mild plague compared to the plagues that were coming. I never really noticed how the intensity of each plague became worse than the one before.

I guess the point is pay attention to God the first time, then he won’t have to send a second plague into your life.

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Ozymandias of Egypt by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

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Exodus 7 – Revealing God

Why did God harden Pharaoh’s heart? That’s a question I have heard many times. The answer appears two verses later. “The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand on Egypt and bring out the sons of Israel from their midst.”

Throughout the process of God leading the Israelites out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, God intended to become known to the nations of the world. If Pharaoh had immediately allowed the Israelites to leave, would the headline of the story be God’s sovereignty or Pharaoh’s benevolence. God wanted to be known.

Today God still wants to be known. But, rather than hardening the hearts of men so that God can overcome, God uses us. God uses those people who have a relationship with Jesus Christ to reveal God to the world. God is revealed through our actions, words, attitudes, humor, associates, and a myriad of other ways.

In everything we do we reveal some aspect of our relationship with God and the revelation of God to the world around us. When we fail we reveal God’s faithfulness, when others fail we reveal God’s forgiveness, when we succeed we reveal God’s power, when others succeed we reveal God’s encouragement. These are only a few examples, but in everything we do, we reveal God to the world.

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Exodus 6 – Be a need meeter

“Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments’…So Moses spoke thus to the sons of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses on account of their despondency and cruel bondage.”

This is why missionaries build hospitals, build up infrastructure, and meet the needs of the people as the share Jesus with the culture. An oppressed, suffering, dying community will eventually reach a point where all they can see is the cruelty and inequity in life. By meeting the needs of others a missionary demonstrates that there is someone who cares and there is hope. Once a person recognizes that hope does exist it is a much smaller step to recognize that the source of that hope is Jesus.

Too often at home we claim to be ministering, but we are doing it without actually filling any of the needs of the people to whom we are ministering. Worse, we attempt to meet the needs we think need to be met in their life, and fail to meet their actual felt needs.

We need to meet the needs of those we are ministering to. We need to make sure that we are meeting the needs they feel and not the needs we insinuate into their life. We need to come to a resolution that ultimately all needs are met in Jesus.

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Exodus 5 – Oppressed or oppressor?

When you read the story of the oppression of the Hebrew people under the direction of Pharaoh and his foreman, who do you identify with? If you are like most people I know you identify with the oppressed Hebrews. But in the real world are we the oppressor or are we the oppressed? Do our actions cause the suffering, disempowerment, and belittlement of other human beings?

I would argue we (North American) Christians are more likely to be playing the role of the Egyptians than the role of the Hebrews. It would be good to spend some time considering ways we may be complicit in human suffering, ways we may be enabling human enslavement, ways we are disempowering humans, ways we are entertained by human belittlement. Then we need to focus on ways to correct these behaviors.

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Exodus 4 – Learning to handle snakes

Ohhh ohhh; I love noticing things I never noticed before. Like this one…

“The Lord said to him, ‘What is that in your hand?’ and [Moses] said, ‘A staff.’ Then [the Lord] said, ‘Throw it on the ground.’ So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it.”

Did you catch that last part? God did a miracle “and Moses fled from it.” Given, it would be scary to throw your staff on the ground and have it become a potentially deadly reptile; but still, he’s talking to God, he should expect some weird stuff to happen.

How many times in our lives has God called us to do something, we protest, God provides a way to accomplish the task, and we run away like scared little children. I’ve done it; anyone else?

Instead of running away we need to learn to grasp the snake by its tail (as it were). We need to trust that God will enable us to accomplish God’s will.

And just because the chorus is running through my head (and with special thanks to Don Moen)…

God will make a way,
Where there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me
He will be my guide
Hold me closely to His side
With love and strength for each new day
He will make a way, He will make a way.

By a roadway in the wilderness, He’ll lead me
And rivers in the desert will I see
Heaven and earth will fade
But His Word will still remain
He will do something new today.

God will make a way,
Where there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me
He will be my guide
Hold me closely to His side
With love and strength for each new day
He will make a way, He will make a way

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Fourth Sunday in Lent

Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down
from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world:
Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in
him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, now and for ever. Amen.

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Weekly Meanderings

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

Have a great weekend!

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Exodus 3 – Walking by burning bushes without noticing

I wonder how long it took Moses to notice the burning bush. It appears that it was there for a while because Moses says, “I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.” You wouldn’t notice that the bush was not being consumed just by glancing at it. You would probably have to walk by a few times, and then all of a sudden you realize that the something strange is going on.

Was there more that was visible than just a bush on fire. The text says “The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush”. Did Moses fail to see the angel and only noticed the bush? Was he missing the miraculous because he was not paying attention? This is speculation, but it seems that Moses was just as dense as I am at certain times when God is trying to talk to me.

Sometime God hits us over the head with his leading and we completely fail to recognize it. Then all of a sudden we go “wait a minute, that bush is still burning; I wonder why that is?” It makes me feel a little better that Moses does not appear to have been totally on top of paying attention to God; but it makes me sad how often I fail to notice God in my everyday life. I suspect the more time we spend with God in prayer, discipleship, worship, and study; the more we will recognize God in the low key burning bushes of our everyday life.

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Spring by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Nothing is so beautiful as spring—
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

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Exodus 2 – How we mess up the Bible

I know I’ve read Exodus 2 before, but I was shocked at how much of Moses’s life is skimmed through in one chapter. I guess I’ve watched “The en Commandments” too many times and I’ve started confusing the Hollywood mythology with the actual Bible.

It is amazing how many things we think are part of the Bible, but actually come from external sources. Our brains capture all the stories, theologies, ideas, and legends and mix them up to create a cohesive whole. Unfortunately, they conclusions our brains come to are not always based in reality.

This is why it is so important to regularly spend time returning to the Bible and reading the actual words God has handed down too us. It informs our spirits, it corrects our misperceptions, it edifies us. Regularly read the Bible, it will make you a healthier Christian.

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Exodus 1 – Prayer and love

The two midwives who were serving the Hebrew population were presented with a choice. They could do what the Pharaoh instructed them to do or they could follow what God was telling them to do. The woman chose to be faithful to God and God blessed them.

This story does not give us license to ignore earthly powers. As Christians one of the ways we demonstrate Christ to the world around us is by living within our social constructs. However, when society dictates that we do something that is antithetical to God’s will, we must follow God.

The tricky part is determining when society and God are in conflict. If the law of the land dictated I murder ever boy of a certain race I come across, it is pretty easy to determine that that is against what God has commanded. But what about the grayer, more difficult cases. What about stem cells, and IVF, and the death penalty, and civil unions, and a host of other issues. Our first impulse should be prayer; our second impulse should be to express love. If we get those two right, the rest becomes easier.

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Ruth 4 – Fighting against our circumstances

So Ruth becomes the great grandmother of David; she is blessed by God by her descendants.

I’ve been talking to a high schooler at youth group for a few weeks now. He is a bright kid who has not grown up in church, his parents are not Christians as far as I know, and he is just beginning to explore the ideas of God, Jesus, and Christianity.

He’s been asking me all the big questions; but sometime he made a comment that was a little unusual. He asked, how can anyone be responsible for their actions when they are product of their situation. He went on to illustrate: if one kid grows up in a house of meth addicts and one kid grows up in a house where the parents go to church, why is the first kid a bad kid and the second kid a good kid.

I thought that was a profound and significant question and we have only begun to explore it. While I do believe that regardless of our situation we are all responsible for the choices we make, I have to admit that he has a point; we all come from different circumstances and to some extent we are a product of the circumstances we were born into.

To phrase it in a more “churchy” way: the sins of the parents will go down to their children (even to the second and third generation).

Coming back to the story of Ruth we can view this principle in a more positive light. The goodness, holiness, and God-centeredness of Ruth and Boaz was be passed down (to some extent) to their descendants. The holiness of the parents was passed down to the children.

In a nutshell, my kids are probably going to be more similar to me than dissimilar. I have a responsibility to think before I act and to do my best to pass on the best of the legacy that was passed on to me.

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Ruth 3 – Strive to be a person of excellence

Naomi and Ruth plot a way to entice Boaz into seeking out a marriage with Naomi (spoiler alert: it works). In the midst of the wooing process Boaz says, “all [the Israelites] in the city know that you are a woman of excellence.” That is an amazing complement.

Is there anyone in your community of whom it could be said “everyone knows he or she is a person of excellence”? Is there anyone in your community of whom it could be said “all the Christians know he or she is a person of excellence”? Is there anyone in your church of whom it could be said “the whole church knows he or she is a person of excellence”?

Strive to be that person. Not so you can “excellent”. But so others can see the amazing ways in which God is working through you.

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