Bible Reading Challenge Blog

It was getting old marching across the wilderness, especially since God had just discolosed to them that they were not going to enter the promised land, but their children would. So, it is time to find a new leader, similar to what is happening right now in the house of representatives, and it seems like that decision to find a new leader met with a similar fate as to what is happening right now. Moses and Aaron twice lay on their faces to protect the people from the wrath of God, and God responds and only takes out those who created the disturbance. But boy what a scene was made from earthquakes swallowing up the tents of the rebel rousers to a plague that begins to take out the people. The next few chapters we see Moses work to consolidate his and Aaron’s calling as God’s chosen ones to lead the people.

Then Moses does something that excludes him from entering the promised land. Earlier it was the people of that generation who were excluded, but now Moses is. He tries to show his own power, especially in the face of all these doubts, by striking the rock as if his stricking the rock would bring water as opposed to God’s Word. God wanted the people to see that only by Moses speaking would water come, but Moses wanted to show that he had a role as well. That puts Moses and Aaron on the outs with God and they are not allowed to enter the promised land as a result. Miriam dies, Aarong dies, and a new day begins.

In I Corinthians Paul is also explaining how he has the right to be called an Apostle and the right to be considered as one chosen by God to carry out his purposes. It seems like a lot of people are looking to consolidate their calling and are trying to boost their pedigree as someone whom God can not only use but has chosen for this time and this place. Paul is one, although he says it does not matter whether it is him or Apollos, or any of the other Apostles. The key is that God is building but the individuals that he uses is not as important.

Let’s give a brief overview of what we saw this today and then try to add some significance to it. We begin with the giving of the quail to the people of Israel because they were complaining that they were not eating meat. Yeah, I probably would have been complaining in that crowd with the non-meat diet. God provided, but notice that he wasn’t exactly pleased with the people of Israel in His provision. Why do they complain so much? Moses’ statement in 11:29 where he wishes that God would put his Spirit on all people comes to fruition on the day of Pentecost.

Chapter 12 is a fun story of Moses’ siblings being jealous about him and the punishment of Miriam because of that. We then move into the spies who look at the land and see it flowing with milk and honey but 10 out of twelve are afraid and say that we should not enter the land because it is filled with scary people. This next chapter is crucial because it is the first time that we see that the people lose their promised entry into the, well, promised land. Because they were afraid and refused to go into the land God tells them that they will wander in the wilderness for 40 years. We them move into the traditional sacrifices and what they are good for.

Moses continues to remain faithful to the Lord and yet the people remain unfaithful. Moses’ patience is tested as he cries out to God and asks God am I the one who birthed all of these people, and since I did not, why am I responsible for their action and why do I have to hold them by the hand and lead them to righteousness. It is a fair question.

When we get to I Corinthians we see right from the beginning that the Apostle Paul is upset with them because there were divisions within the community. Paul is not a fan of divisions because he says that they are caused by factions who want to take the credit for people’s experience with God. It is God who should take all the credit. We will see more from Corinthians.

There are a couple of chapters that literally repeat the same phrase over and over again. If you take Numbers 7 you will find the offerings that each tribe presented is identical to what the others tribes have given, and yet it is repeated 12 times. That reminds us that what the Lord requires, he requires of all of us. There is not a generational pass that goes with those who have served longer or those who have served shorter. The Lord requires devotion, full devotion, from all of us.

Don’t get lost in the details and miss the beauty of Numbers 6:24-26. The priestly blessing is very applicable to us today and is not something that we can relegate to the past. Probably if I had to do it over again, I would close all of my services with this benediction, but as it is I close with the benediction that my father used and which we can find in the New Testament. But this one is definitely solid. At the end of Numbers we see the people of Israel moving out for the first time after the Lord has given them the tabernacle and all of the instructions on how to move and how to take care of it. They begin moving and they begin to leave Sinai. This is before God becomes angry with Moses and relegates the entire nation of Israel to the wilderness for 40 years. That is coming up.

What can we say about Jude? It is a warning to beware of those within the church who are imbuing the community with false teachings. They can be hard to distinguish. There are false teachings on both side of the political aisle. There are those who would completely separate the authority of Scripture and say that our experience has the power to overrule Scripture. There are also those who see safety and security within our nation as the overriding goal and so seem to silo their faith from their patriotism and the two shall never meet. It is quite an old sin to establish gods within our lives that seem more important than our relationship with God and that relationship which is based up on the Scripture that we read.

This is arguably the most difficult section so far of what we have read. It is the beginning of the listing of names which God commanded Moses to number. But keep in mind that he only counted those who were of military age, which made sense because you needed to know who was going to be able to defend the people when war came, and was was bound to come. There were over 600,000 fighting age men which was not an insignificant number. I can’t help but think of the 360,000 who have been mobilized over these past few days in these hostilities that we see taking place over this past week. But it really isn’t much of a war, it will be more of a slaughter, a classic eye for eye and tooth for tooth. Jesus had a different way.

When we get to III John we see the words of It is Well repeated in vs.2. What does it mean when we say that it is well with our soul? I see it as a defiant statement that no matter what is surrounding us, no matter the difficulties and the trials and the tragedies that we may face, it is well with our soul because we know that Jesus will carry us through no matter what. That is an encouraging statement to me.

Are there any more powerful five chaptes in the Bible than what we find in I John. It all comes down to one idea: Love one another. There is absolutely no excuse for us to hate, there is absolutely no excuse for us to hold a grudge, there is absolutely no excuse for us to target people with our scorn or look down on them as if God somehow has placed us on a higher category than others. Love one another simply put means that we would treat a person exactly as we would treat our sons and our daughters. What a tragedy is happening in Israel because people on both sides are not able to love one another. For generations this has been true and for generations Israelies and Palestinians have been killing each other. None of this is an example of the commandments that we see in this Scripture.

The author’s goal is that our joy would be complete. Our joy can only be complete in Jesus Christ. He makes that very clear. We cannot experience the full joy of life without Jesus as our Savior. Jesus allows us to live without sin, and yet if we say we are without sin then we are liars. Wow, what a powerful statement that applies to all of us. We are all sinners. As a result we need Jesus. Look at I John 3:18 where we read: Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. Doesn’t this fit into our PSA? What a great phrase.

Focus on I John 4:16b where we read: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” What a reminder for us that not only is God love, but we are called to abide in God and so abide in love. There is no stronger common denominator among Christians other than we are called to live in love. There is no wiggle room there and no what ifs like what if someone doesn’t love me back? Well, that is addressed. You are to love them, period. I hope we are able to keep this on the forefront of our minds as we decide what actions to take in life.

We have to start with the last words of Psalm 19.  We see in 19:14 – “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”  This is how I pray before every sermon as I begin.  This is a real prayer that God would take my Words and make them His words so that what I might say would not only track with what God would want me to say, but that it is actually consistent with God’s Word in every way shape or form. 

There is more in Leviticus that should be discussed, such as the year of Jubilee.  Did you catch that?  Every 50 years the land is to go fallow, the slaves are to be set free, and things revert back to where they were before people took out loans and sold things to keep afloat.  What a wonderful example of bringing everything together in a family so that no one person suffers and no one person takes advantage of another, ever.

Guess where I am starting again today? In Hebrews, which contains the foundation of our faith…again. We begin with a definition of faith, look at 11:1 – “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” What a great defintion. But wait, there is more. Each chapter, it seems, begins with a classic verse. Look at 12:1-2a – “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” Hebrews 13 contains the following in vs.8 where we read: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” What a way to end this book of the Bible that provides us with rock solid theology on our Savior. If we can spend more time in this book we would be well served. Now to Leviticus.

We just have a few short readings but we do have the three primary religious holidays laid out. We see directions on how the people of Israel are to celebrate: the Sabbath, Passover, and the Feat of Unleavened Bread. A commonality in this Scripture is that there is a command to take a day in which no work is done and in which what we do we do unto the Lord completely and without fail. I’ll just leave you with a thought. What day is your Sabbath and how do you dedicate the entire day to the Lord. I don’t mean just Sunday worship, for you do well in attending that but how else do you dedicate that day to the Lord in its entirety?

Let’s start in Hebrews because once again it lays out for us the building blocks of our faith. Look at 9:22b where it states: “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins”. You may ask, why not? I would answer because that is the way that God instituted it. All of our readings in Leviticus point to the shedding of blood as being efficacious for the forgiveness of sins. Here it is Jesus’ blood once and for all that forgivess us of our sin. Look at 9:26b where it states: “But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Is there anything more fundamental to our faith than the truth that Jesus’ blood was shed for our sins once and for all as an eternal sacrifice so that our sins could be removed. This Scripture lays it out.

Once again we read in Hebrews 10:10 – “And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Hebrews is a book of the Bible that we can read and reread over and over again. If someone could remind me that I want to preach on Hebrews after we are done with Matthew. It needs to be preached because it is so fundamental to our faith. Now to Leviticus.

Molech was a god that the people of the land, not the Israelites, worshipped and who required human sacrifices. The fact that God speaks so strongly against it makes us realize that probably at some time the people of Israel did worship Molech and did need to be told not to do it. We also see a series of sins that were forbidden with death that dealt with nakedness and sexual immorality and impropriety. They deal with family, animals, and same sex relationships. None of these things according to Leviticus were allowed, in fact they were forbidden in the strongest of terms. It is interesting that many in today’s culture would agree with the prohibition against sex within the family and with animals, but not necessarily same sex. There is an inherent inconsistency there. I think I have said enough on this matter.

Leviticus takes us throught once again a series of laws, but this time they are focused on leprosy, discharges, and finally, the all important day of atonement. We cannot overlook this important day in which the people of Israel were forgiven. This dayof atonement was basically the precursor of the sacrifice that Jesus made upon the cross. In Jesus’ death and resurrection his blood was the blood that made us clean once and for all. No longer was a goat needed in order to be sacrificed and then one let loose as the scapegoat which carried our sins in the wilderness. This is the connection between the Leviticus and the Hebrews Scripture. As Hebrews 8:13 says the old covenant has become obsolete and the new covenant is now in its place. This new covenant was the one that Christ has brought.

We find the term scapegoat used in Leviticus in the word Azazel which literally means scapegoat. It is upon this goat that the sins of the people are placed and then released in the wilderness. When we go to Israel and we see where the goat is released to wander in the wilderness, the fear was that the goat might wander back with all of its sins upon its back. So, you can see that the release point tends to be a cliff that would make it pretty much impossible for the goat to survive as it makes its way out of town down the cliff. That scapegoat was not coming back.

God continues to give orders to Moses and Aaron about how to lead the people in religious worship while at the same time giving clear directives on diet and what can be eaten and what should be avoided. We have an unfortunate incident of two of Aaron’s sons who decided to go rogue and strike out on their own and create their own religious traditions. God was not pleased to say the least, to the point where Aaron and his sons who survived were not allowed to mourn at all.

The detail of what could be eaten and what could not be eaten is pretty extensive. But keep in mind these dietary laws were also in place to keep the people alive. Can you imagine the slaughter if people ate pork in a way that it was not supposed to be eaten? But fortunately we have Peter in Acts who has a dream which allows people to eat all that which God has created and basically makes these dietary laws null and void.

Hebrews continues to provide us super solid foundational Scripture. One section that caught my eye was 5:4 where we read that those who are called to ordained ministry shall not presume this “honor”, but only take it when they are called by God. What a reminder that we do not choose on our own whether we are called by God to ordained ministry, but rather God does the choosing and then the congregation affirms that this is indeed God’s call. Sorry, it caught my attention.