Author: Pastor Bob

We find ourselves in the midst of God giving His people the law both in our Old Testament and in our New Testament readings.  Moses in chapter 19 hears God’s word and prepares the people for the reception of the commandments which then come in chapter 20.  Every year for the pre-K class in our preschool I teach the children to learn the 10 Commandments by heart.  We use a much shortened version than what is here, for example: there is only one God, no idols, say nice things, obey the Sabbath, love your mom and dad etc.  Every year they are able to memorize it and they get a prize for it.  

Chapter 21 is an extension of even more commandments.  Did you know that by the time that Jesus was walking on the earth in the first century there were hundreds of laws that had to be followed which were contained in what was called the Mishnah.  These laws were interpretations of the Scriptural laws and covered absolutely everything.  It was the attempt of the religious people to ensure that there was nothing grey, but rather that every little thing would be covered by a law of God.

This is why in Matthew Jesus says that he has not come to tear down the law but to fulfill it because so many other laws had been added to God’s law that people felt absolutely in prison as they lived their lives.  Jesus beatitudes in Matthew 5-7 really encapsulate the way of life according to Jesus’ perspective.  It ought to be followed completely.  But if you really want to know the entirety of the law you can find it very simply in Matthew 22:36-40 where Jesus is asked what is the greatest commandments and he replies: “Love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself.  All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.  Those are Jesus’ words.  We should follow them

We now get to one of the more memorable parts of the Exodus story, and that is the parting of the Red Sea.  Again, there are details to this story that potentially we did not see previously.  Did you know that the Egyptians had already caught up to them and they were in a bit of a stalemate before the Israelites crossed over to the other side.  The cloud, or as the Scripture states, the angel of the Lord, left its position in front of the caravan and moved to the back and plunged the Egyptians into darkness so that they could not overcome the Israelites.  Once they Israelites started moving across the dry land of the sea, then the Egyptians pursued them once again.

The death of the army of Pharaoh is classic and you would think that it would be enough to convince the people on this journey that maybe, just maybe, after 10 plagues, the parting of the sea, and other factors that seem to be obvious, God is in control and we are going to make it.  But repeatedly throughout these verses they complain about water, about food, about the desert and almost pine for the glory days when we had it good back in Egypt.  They seemed to have forgotten that they were slaves and here God is present in a visible, tangible way.

We end these chapters with Moses’ father in law setting up a circuit of judges who would decide minor matters and so thereby relieving Moses the pressure of having to decide everything by himself.  A pretty good idea which we have used in our government to make decisions.  We find ourselves at the doorstep of Mt. Sinai where Moses will meet God face to face.

Psalm 90 is a powerful Psalm which reminds us of the sin that we have committed and the forgiveness that comes when we confess our sin and recognize our shortcomings before the Lord.  

I love the order of this reading in that today we are able to see the entire story of the plagues and the escape from Egypt.  There is more to the escape, but at least we get to see all of the plagues.  Here is something that you may not be aware of.  The part of this story that is often forgotten is that Moses was only asking Pharaoh for permission to take the people of Israel out of Egypt for three hours so that they could worship their God and then return again.  It was like Gilligan’s Island where all Moses wanted was a three hour tour.  Now, we know that he would not have returned, but that was the request.  He didn’t request that he take the people of Israel away forever, even if that is what ended up happening.

An aspect of this story that is disturbing to some folks is why does God harden Pharaoh’s heart and is it really fair to Pharaoh if his heart was hardened how can anyone blame him for not wanting the people to leave?  Let’s be clear about this.  God is the potter, and we are the clay.  I say this not to discourage questions or wondering, but rather to remind us that we don’t really have that answer.  Is it fair?  Certainly not in our book it isn’t.  Is it fair that we deserve damnation for our sin and that Jesus died so that we would be washed clean?  No, it isn’t fair at all, but thanks be to God, God doesn’t deal with us according to our sin but rather to the grace and the love of Jesus.  I’m grateful that God treats us unfairly and gives us the grace we do not deserve.  I’ll take an unfair God any day.

This reading begins with the first plague and takes us all the way to the plague of the passover of the angel of death.  We have seen chapter 12 a little more closely in our Bible Study a week ago or so.  We saw the similarity between the sacrificed lamb whose blood was spread over the door posts, and Jesus as the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  

This reading doesn’t have the crossing of the red sea yet.  But we do see God leading the Israelites with a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  How much of a relief would it be to have God’s presence in a visible and tangible way leading us day after day.  I could get used to that!

If you take the term Exodus at face value it simply means a departure.  This is the intent of the title and you will see the longest process of Exodus that we find in Scripture.  We basically pick up where we left off in Genesis.  Joseph brings his brothers and his father into Egypt in order to escape the famine and that is where they have remained.  But remember way back when God gave the covenant to Abraham and said that he would have the land of Canaan as part of the covenant.  Well, Canaan is not Egypt and so it is time for the people of Israel, God’s people, to head back to the promised land.

By now the people of Israel have become slaves to the Egyptians, and they are increasing in number exponentially which is a threat to Pharaoh.  So, a solution is to kill all the male children (does that sound like what Herod commands in Bethlehem in Matthew?), but he doesn’t get any buy in from the Hebrew midwives.  Moses is born, discovered in the water, taken into Pharaoh’s household, and basically becomes the son of Pharaoh.  But he knows his roots.

You know this part of the story, Moses, basically the son of Pharaoh, sees and Egyptian beating a Hebrew and he intervenes and kills the Egyptian, that is found out and he flees to Midian because Pharaoh is actually looking to kill him.  He gets married and lives a peaceful life as a shepherd in the deserts of the middle east.  Not a terrible life, but very different from being the heir apparent to the throne in Egypt.  Remember, his family and his people are still back in Egypt.

God hears the cry of the people of Egypt and in the iconic burning bush Scripture he calls Moses to deliver his people.  Moses objects to the point where Aaron is called in, his brother still living in Egypt by the way, and Aaron becomes his spokes person.  Now look at this strange Scripture in 4:24 where God looks to kill Moses and it is staved off by the circumcisions of his child.  This is huge.  We know that Moses would have been circumcised as a child in order to fulfill the commandments of the covenant, but he has not circumcised his children.

No one is going to be a part of God’s plan who does not follow through with what God wants them to do.  This was obviously something that God required of his people, obedience, and the fact that Moses’ child is not circumcised says something important about Moses’ status before God.  That is remedied and the story moves on.  Moses appears before Pharaoh and makes matters only worse to the point where the people of God, the Israelites, are wondering why in the world he had come at all.  We haven’t gotten to any of the plagues yet, but we are getting close.

And we are back!  A couple things happened at once which prevented me from posting as I would have liked.  The first is that I was on vacation until Thursday evening and honestly simply wanted to step away from the blog for a couple of days.  I did that, and now we are back on Thursday evening.  The second thing that happened was that our website is not allowing us to post things and so as a result I was not able to post on Thursday evening as I had planned.  Sorry about all that, but now we are back!

            Galatians, we find ourselves in what is probably the first book of the New Testament that was written.  It was written by the Apostle Paul.  Paul is a hugely important person in the Bible for a variety of reasons.   One of those reasons is that he wrote most of the New Testament.  He also has given us some of the most important theological truths that we find in Scripture, such as the foundation of the Reformation which is that we are saved by grace through faith.  Let’s look at it.

            Chapter 1 Paul greets the churches that he founded, especially the church in Galatia.  Here he is showing his credentials to his readers which is that he was raised as Pharisee and so had everything that anyone needed in order to be a first class disciple of Jesus Christ.  Chapter 2 gives us the basic tenet of the faith that we are “justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing works.”  This is crucial to remember anytime that we find ourselves that we deserve to get into heaven because we are “good people”. 

            Chapter 3 gives us what I believe is one of the more important verses in regards to how to run the church.  Look at vs.28 where we read: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer salve or free, there is no longer male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”  I have often used this verse in order to help people understand the calling of men and women to the ministry of ordination simply because Paul says that all are one in Christ Jesus.  Chapter 4 Paul once again speaks about the persecution that he experiences as a disciple of Jesus, which again should give him some street cred.

            Chapter 5 Paul gives a bit of a moral encouragement to be sure that we do not gratify the desires of the flesh.  This assumes that the desires of the flesh are inconsistent with the desires that God wants for us.  But that is not always the case.  God often gives us our desires and they correspond with his desires for us.  There is nothing wrong with that.  Chapter 6 Paul encourages us to bear one another’s burdens.  And just like that we have made it through Galatians.  Well done!  Let’s move on to Exodus.

We come to the end of the Joseph story with the description of the death of Jacob, also known as Israel.  In 48 he blesses the younger son over the elder son.  This should not have been that strange in this family.  Jacob was younger over Esau, Joseph was younger over his other 11 brothers, and so the trend continues with Joseph, where the youngest is actually the one who is blessed by God.

After that blessing then Jacob calls his sons and “blesses” them.  Did you read those blessings carefully.  Most of them were not super positive.  Some of them seemed more like curses than blessings.  Jacob then dies and he is buried in the cave that had been set apart for him and his family.  Did you see how all of Egypt went out with Joseph to bury his dad.  The people of that place recognized the importance of the event.

Psalm 31 is one that some of the words should sound familiar.  Remember when Jesus was on the cross he said as his last words: Into your hands I commend my spirit, just like what we find in vs.5.  Probably my favorite of these verses is the last one, 24, where we are called to gain strength as we wait for the Lord.  The waiting for the Lord doesn’t seem to be our strength at all most days.  We would much rather God work on our time frame and in the way that we ask.  But we are actually made stronger as we wait for the Lord to act. 

I legitimately have a hard time getting through these chapters without my eyes tearing up.  The reunion of Joseph and his brothers is incredibly touching to someone who has three brothers and can’t imagine being apart from them for years and then finally coming together again.  The most important verses in these chapters, and really one of the most important lessons in all of Scripture is found in 45:4-9.

Let’s spend some time in these verses.  “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth…So it was not you who sent me here, but God.”  The perspective of Joseph is not only correct, but incredibly dispassionate.  What I mean, is, yes, I know he is a babbling fool during all of this, what I mean is that he was somehow able to take into perspective his brothers shoving him in a pit, selling him in slavery, sold to the head of the guards of Pharaoh, seduced by a wife, thrown into prison, forgotten by the cupbearer and then finally being put in charge of all of Egypt.  

So much wrong has happened to Joseph that it would have been so easy for him to focus on the incredibly terrible and tragic things that have happened in his life.  But he was able to put it within the context of Romans 8:28 where Paul tells us: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” 

What a lesson for us that in the midst of our tragedies how do we see the hand of God working so that we are led to a point where we can say: “It was not you who sent me here, but God.”  He is basically saying, God sold me into slavery so that all of Israel could be saved.  I didn’t know it at the time, but I know it now.  Just powerful.  Simply powerful.  

We dive right into the story of Joseph, and chapter 37 gives us the impression that we are diving into almost a whole different story.  Look at vs.2 where it states: “This is the story of the family of Jacob…”  It is the story of the family of Jacob, but it is predominantly the story of Joseph.  Chapter 37 lays out the priority of Joseph in the family, especially calling him the favorite of Jacob.  

Chapter 38 is a bit of a side note describing the relationships of one of Jacob’s sons, Judah, and Tamar who ends up bearing sons as a result of a bit of trickery that was somewhat justified.  We get back to Joseph in 39 where we see him once he arrives in Egypt as a result of being sold by his brothers into slave in chapter 37.  The story of Joseph to me is the second most powerful story in all of Scripture next to the account of our Savior Jesus.  We see God at hand even in those circumstances that seem impossible for God to be involved.

From the first step to the last we see how God is steering Joseph’s life to be one that will ultimately result in recognizing God’s kingdom through his life and his desires.  In chapter 40 we see that Joseph is elevated even in the prison where he is prisoner and he interprets the dreams of the cupbearer and the baker which puts him strategically in a place where he can have an audience, eventually, before Pharaoh.

In 41 we see Joseph remembered by the cupbearer and brought before Pharaoh so that he can begin the work that God had planned for him all along.  His plan was to place Joseph where he was so that the nation of Israel could be saved from famine.  Of course, the nation of Israel was the father of Joseph and his brothers.  

As we have stealthily made our way to the cross, we now find ourselves in the empty tomb with the women who discover only the linen cloths.  From there we see Jesus appear three times to the disciples, with Thomas being dubbed the doubter and yet he is the only one to call Jesus “God” in all of Scripture.  I like Thomas, he got it right, finally.

The final scene is that of the rehabilitation of Peter who denied Jesus three times and so had to admit his love for Jesus the same number of times.  We have now finished the Gospel of John, arguably the most important of the Gospels.

I am really appreciating the comments and the interactions that we are having as we read Genesis and John together.  It seems like Genesis is attracting most of the attention because of the unique characters that are there, and the flaws of those characters.  And yet quietly Jesus is being led to the slaughter.

In Genesis we find the encounter of Esau and Jacob, one that we feared would create fireworks, but hardly a spark was seen.  Esau acted as the one whom God should have chosen by hugging his brother and treating him with a grace that he did not deserve.  I find it interesting that they even stay together, their families and their flocks, until later when the land can no longer support them then they separate and go their own way.

Just a chapter by chapter breakdown.  Jacob and Esau getting back together again is in 33, then we move on to a horrific story of the rape of Dinah.  We don’t hear at all how that rape affected Dinah, but we hear much more about how it affected her brothers and the vengeance that they take out on the Hivites.  Chapter 35 gives us the story of Jacob who is moving around a lot and the people of the neighboring lands being somewhat intimidated by the presence of him and his family.  

Chapter 36 gives us a long list of the sons of Esau and the long line of descendants that came from his sons.  Not a whole lot to write about here, but just keep in mind that God did not completely forget about him and he continues to be a son of Abraham.  

In John we find the arrest of Jesus after his betrayal by Judas.   The suffering of Jesus is pretty intense and it is only intensified by the disciples running away and Peter denying him.  Pilate’s concern of Jesus being a King is seen by all as he puts above Jesus’ cross the title of :”King of the Jews”.  The death and burial of Jesus take place in a way that is prophesied in Scripture.  Really from the beginning of Jesus’ life to the end we see Him as the one that has been prophesied in Scripture from the very beginning.  

The story of Jacob is a complicated, and frankly, a disturbing one.  We find him fleeing from his brother and settle into the camp of his uncle after finding his beautiful cousin at a well that he wants to marry.  Laban seems to fall in line with the rest of the story by deceiving Jacob, who was the ultimate deceiver.  

We then have a rundown of babies that are born to Jacob from a multiplicity of women, all of whom were either his wife or his wife’s servant, much like Sarah and Hagar.  Eventually Rachel, the favorite wife, bears a son and that son is Joseph.  Keep your eye on that Joseph, he is going to figure pretty prominently in the rest of Genesis.  Also, there is a reason why Dinah is mentioned, she will also be an important figure in Genesis.  

Once Jacob flees Laban with his flocks and his family Rachel seems to follow along in the deception gene and steals the family gods from Laban.  This should be troubling on a whole variety of fronts, not the least of which is the fact that she is an idol worshipper.  That is a problem with God.  God wants to be worshipped alone and idols are a pretty big no-no for Him.  But she gets away with it and Laban and Jacob depart peacefully.  

We now have Jacob’s name changing to Israel which is where the nation of Israel gains its name.  When Jacob wrestles with God, God gives him that name as a tribute to his constant striving against those around him.  That name continues to be relevant today as well.  We will see what happens when Jacob meets Esau in the next chapter.  One would expect that Esau would want blood vengeance.  Let’s see.

John gives us one of the most relevant chapters in all of Scripture.  We find Jesus praying to the Father that his disciples would be one just as he and the Father are one.  Jesus knew that on his death his disciples would scatter and that even today his churches would not be unified.  So he prays that at some point we would be unified and one.  That has not happened yet.  A significant encyclical was put out by Pope John Paul II called Ut Unum Sint, which means that they would be one.  You can read it here, it isn’t very long: https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25051995_ut-unum-sint.html

We were in Naples serving at the time and I remember that it was a significant document because for one of the first times in history Protestants were called brothers and sisters in Christ.  That is a good step toward unity.