NUMBERS 30
There is a very simple point in this chapter: God listens when we speak. Our words are important to Him. And He wants us to take our words as seriously as He takes them.
Nowadays, business is run on the basis of written contracts. If you have to take a business partner to court, the court will make a judgment based on the terms of the signed contract. With little exception, what is contained in "the four corners of the contract" determines the outcome of the case.
NUMBERS 29
There’s an interesting observation to be made in Numbers 29. Here, we find instructions for three religious festivals that the Israelites were to observe in the seventh month. Actually, this was a very practical thing, because this was the time of year between harvest and seed-time, so it was the perfect opportunity for the people to slow down and attend to worship.
NUMBERS 28
Before the Israelites entered the Promised Land, once again, God went through His expectations of them regarding the offerings and sacrifices they were to bring to Him at the sanctuary. This included daily offerings, Sabbath offerings, monthly offerings, and sacrifices to be offered during The Passover and The Festival of Weeks. With daily, weekly, monthly, and annual sacrifices prescribed, it sounds like God wanted the Israelites to come see Him often.
NUMBERS 27
Long before there was the National Organization of Women, there was God. In this chapter, the daughters of a man named Zelophehad came to Moses to plead their case: their father had died, never having had any sons, and under the current rules of ownership in Israel, they would be left without any land inheritance. So they said, "Why should our father’s name disappear from his clan because he had no son? Give us property among our father’s relatives." (vs 4)
NUMBERS 26
Just before entering the Promised Land, God had Moses take another census of the Israelites — men over the age of one month. And the census ends with this declaration: "These are the ones counted by Moses and Eleazar the priest when they counted the Israelites on the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho. Not one of them was among those counted by Moses and Aaron the priest when they counted the Israelites in the Desert of Sinai. For the Lord had told those Israelites they would surely die in the wilderness, and not one of them was left except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun." (vs 63-65)
Photo © Unsplash/Patrick Fore
Nobody plans to win the lottery.
Not really.
The unexpected doesn't arrive
when it's expected.
Nobody goes to the well for water
supposing to find a husband instead.
And nobody who goes to the well for a wife
imagines the answer
before the Amen.
Instead, we assume an ordinary life,
quickly forgetting (did we ever know?)
that ordinary
is the largest part of extraordinary.
The miracle always comes
in the midst of the mundane,
the exceptional
in the midst of the everyday.
In a world conceived by the Supernatural,
there are no natural moments.
Even if you're
on your same way
down the same road
to the same well
with the same jar
in the same shoes you were wearing yesterday
and every day for the last ten thousand days,
this is
no ordinary day
no ordinary shoes
no ordinary jar
no ordinary well
no ordinary road
no ordinary way.
Expect.
NUMBERS 25
If you’ve already read the chapter for today, you might be wondering how you can find the "fairness" element in it. It’s a pretty gruesome chapter. The men of Israel went off whoring with some Moabite women — who subsequently took them to church in order to offer sacrifices to their god, Baal. What happened next wasn’t pretty: the ringleaders of this little jaunt were killed and publicly exposed, an Israelite man and Moabite woman were both run through with a sword and killed after acting in open defiance against the Lord’s command, and then a subsequent plague killed thousands of people.
NUMBERS 24
Sometimes, I get these tiny glimpses of God and see, once again, just how far removed He is from our human nature. I find Him acting in ways that are totally contrary to how I would act, and I’m in awe all over again! There was another such wonderful glimpse for me in this chapter. Balaam is still blessing Israel. By the time this chapter is over, he will have handed out seven blessings — ah, such a Biblical number!
NUMBERS 23
I love this! Right on the heels of yesterday’s blog, God is not a manipulator, comes today’s message: Neither can He be manipulated by others! Both of these are important, right? We don’t want God to be someone who pulls puppet strings and manipulates us. But neither do we want Him to be someone that we can push around.
NUMBERS 22
Here’s what I love about this chapter: it proves that God is not a manipulator. He’s not a control freak. He doesn’t stack His own deck. How do I know that? The story of Balaam shows just how few options God really had for "prophets." Prophets are the people who are supposed to be in tune with God, the ones who will listen to Him. And what do we find in Numbers 22? A donkey was more attuned to God’s presence than Balaam: "When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, it turned off the road into a field. Balaam beat it to get it back on the road." (vs 23)
NUMBERS 21
There’s no way to write a blog about Numbers 21 without talking about the poisonous snakes. Oh, the snakes. Here’s how the story reads: "Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, 'We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.' So Moses prayed for the people. The Lord said to Moses, 'Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.' So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived." (vs 6-9)
NUMBERS 20
In this chapter, we see part of what it means to say that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. It doesn’t mean that God arbitrarily punishes children who have wicked parents. It doesn’t mean that He "takes out His anger" over sins committed by the older generation on the younger generation. It does mean that the evil tendencies and influences that children grow up with have an effect on them too, and often, they repeat the same behaviors and hold the same attitudes as their parents. (Look no further than our own society for modern-day examples of this.)
Photo © Unsplash/Scott Rodgerson
God
promised
Abraham
Canaan, the land,
as a gift to him and his descendants.
Years passed with no fulfillment of the vow,
but Abraham
had learned to
trust in
God.
When
Sarah
passed away,
he bought a grave,
and laid her there to rest in promised land.
Israel's first piece of Canaan was a
burial plot,
a wager
on God's
word.
*Tetractys: A poetic form consisting of at least 5 lines of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 10 syllables, respectively. Tetractys can be written with more than one verse, but each must follow suit with an inverted syllable count.
NUMBERS 19
Right off the bat, I have to be honest. This was a weird chapter, and it was difficult to settle on what I was going to write about. It felt a little hard to "get my bearings" in this chapter. First of all, I don’t understand why the red heifer. After doing some research, the best I could find was that it may have been another repudiation of Egyptian custom and tradition. Apparently, the Egyptians regularly sacrificed red heifers in worship to their "evil god" Typhon. But that connection was somewhat tenuous, at best.
NUMBERS 18
After the blogs on defiance over the last week or so, I’ve been itching for a short and sweet blog. And Numbers 18 gives me the perfect opportunity for that. Nestled in amongst instructions to Aaron and the Levites about their priestly ministry in the sanctuary is this little nugget: "But only you and your sons may serve as priests in connection with everything at the altar and inside the curtain. I am giving you the service of the priesthood as a gift." (vs 7)
NUMBERS 17
This chapter contains one of my favorite Bible verses. But I doubt it’s one that makes the usual "Top Ten" list of most-quoted Scripture: "The next day Moses entered the tent and saw that Aaron’s staff, which represented the tribe of Levi, had not only sprouted but had budded, blossomed and produced almonds." (vs 8)
NUMBERS 15
Have you heard the story of the kindergarten teacher who was having trouble getting a little boy to sit down in his chair? After a long battle, the boy finally plopped down into the chair with his arms crossed, glaring at his teacher. After a moment, he said, "I may be sitting down on the outside, but I’m still standing on the inside!"
Photo © Wikimedia Commons/Laurent de La Hyre
It has been said
that Abraham was crazy,
that the voice he heard
asking him to sacrifice Isaac
was not God's,
that God would never ask a father
to sacrifice his son—
even to prove a point.
I don't buy it.
Not because I'm so convinced
God would use such a method
to make such a point,
but because I'm pretty sure
that any man who obeyed the voice
which asked him to cut off the tip of his
— you know what —
would recognize that voice
if it ever spoke to him again.
NUMBERS 14
As I read this chapter of Numbers, it occurred to me that it contained a fabulous example of how God’s forgiveness doesn’t equal salvation. I was just about to write that this was a fabulous example of how God’s forgiveness doesn’t have anything to do with salvation. But I don’t think that’s entirely true. If God wasn’t a forgiving Person, we would have no opportunity for salvation in the first place. So, forgiveness and salvation are linked in that way.
