Bible Reading Challenge Blog

If you look at the structure of the Presbyterian Church (USA) you will see that it is not in any way a top down organization.  We have people within the church who have taken on leadership responsibilities, but they are members of the church just like any other member of the church.  In this chapter in Numbers we see that God chose specific people with very distinct individualistic roles which revolved around worship and the tabernacle.  From within his people he chose people who would be responsible for the detail of spreading a tent and cloth over the tabernacle.  There was another group of people responsible for carrying the tabernacle from point A to point B and every point in between.  There was another group of people responsible for carrying the accouterments around the tabernacle.  

The way in which the people from these three categories were chosen depended on the family into  which they were born.  So every person born in that family had one role and one role alone and they could not have grown out of their role or responsibility.  That is not the way in which we ask people to serve around here.  We don’t have all the people of one last name serve in this capacity, and another last name in a different capacity.  Where you are called to serve is where you will be asked to serve.

This week the young adults Sunday School class is taking a spiritual gifts inventory.  It is supposed to help to discern where we are gifted and so ultimately where we are called to serve.  I have never done this before at a church before, but I am looking forward to it because it should give some direction and guidance to people who are looking to get plugged in.  Notice that Moses continues to obey the commandments of the Lord and it seems at this point that things are going pretty well.  

What happens in this chapter is a very detailed description of the roles of the Levites in the temple.  The chapter begins with the sons of Aaron.  Remember Aaron was chosen by God to be the head priest before the people of Israel.  The descendants of Levi, they were called the Levites, were given the responsibility to help Aaron as he carried out his priestly function.  So this tribe was called the priestly tribe.  This chapter contains the details of what the sons of Levi were supposed to do.  

You will see starting in vs.25 the “responsibilities” that one of the sons of Levi had.  The next son had other “responsibilities” that are delineated starting in vs.31.  Another son and his “responsibilities” are laid out starting in vs.36.  From there you see that it was commanded that the first-born of each family and every tribe in Israel was supposed to go to the Lord, was supposed to be offered to the Lord.  

Now, even though the Lord required this offering, the Levites as a whole were counted as a substitute for that offering.  So instead of each first-born son from every tribe being offered to the Lord and taken from his parents in order to serve God, the Levites were counted as a substitute for that offering.  It is interesting that the number of first-born and the number of Levites were about exactly the same. 

So while this whole concept of God demanding the first-born son from every family seems to be a bit draconian, the substitute clause allows for the grace of God to shine through.  That is a common theme in all of Scripture.  What at first seems to be “unfair” is then met with the complete grace of God.

If you want to know where to focus on when we are looking at numbers and names don’t forget to look at what I call the bookend verses.  So the bookend verses for chapter two would be found in vs.1-2 and vs.34.  Each of the soldiers of the people of Israel were to be put in their families and lined up  in their grouping.  Each camp, so all 12 of the tribes, were to be facing the tent of meeting so that the tent of meeting would be the wheel from which all of the spokes would emanate.

I love that image.  I love the image of the house of worship being the center of the community.  When you go to Europe you will find piazzas (not pizzas!), or squares, which were the center of the community.  That is why it is called the square because it is supposed to be in the center of the community.  In each piazza was the central church, or the cathedral.  That is such an important image to remember  that it takes a church, or a group of churches, to raise a village.  

A simple guide to the book of Numbers doesn’t really exist.  It is a book which describes the passage of the people of  Israel from Mount Sinai, where they received the 10 Commandments, all the way to the border of the promised land.  Within this book we will find census lists, ancestral promises, divine presence and guidance, revelation and human leadership, holy people and holy priests.  I can’t encourage you enough to hang in there as we make our way through this book of the Bible.  It is here where most people lose interest as they are reading the Bible from beginning to end.  Don’t lose interest.  Let’s look at the first chapter.

Do you remember when God got really, really angry with David because he took a census back in II Samuel 24?  Not so here with Moses in the very first chapter of Numbers.  God actually asks Moses to take a census of how  many young men there would be who might be able to do battle for Israel.  So he counted the 12 tribes and came up with a number for each tribe.  The final number comes out to 603,550.  Remember this doesn’t include women and children or the tribe of Levi which was the priestly class.  That is a lot of people for back then!

I love the detail of the last verses which describe the Levites from vs.48 to the end of the chapter.  It describes this priestly class and their roles and their responsibilities and how they were not counted as those who were to go to battle because they had very specific religious duties that they had to fulfill.  Keep this tribe in the front of your mind because we will see them play a primary role a bit later on.

Dear FPC family and friends,

            We begin a new year.  How many of you thought you would live to see the year 2020?  We continue along in our challenge.  How many of you thought we would get to the point where after this current challenge before us we will only have 6 books of the Bible left before we can say that we made it all the way through the Scripture together?  What a task, but we still have work ahead of us.

            For this challenge we will be able to look at one of the more difficult books of the Bible to read which is Numbers.  Its difficulty does not come because of its length, but rather because of its subject. It is a long list of genealogies and laws which many see as not germane to this 21^st century.  How can any of this be edifying?  I think you will find that there are hidden gems in these Scriptures and they teach us how God is involved in every single detail of our lives.  Don’t look past Numbers, soak it in and claim it as one of your favorite books of the Bible.  But don’t take my word for it, read it and see for yourself.

            We will also be covering I and II Kings, where we will see the work of the prophets Elijah and Elisha.  Finally, we will conclude with Song of Solomon which is the closest thing to an erotic message in the Bible.  It is based upon the beauty of human wholeness found in marriage.  There we find the joy of human sexuality and not just mere procreation.  Maybe now that I have your attention I would encourage you to read and enjoy this 90+1 Day Challenge IX.  The plus one comes from the fact that we no longer will be able to do perfect 90 day challenges because the math simply does not add up and I don’t want to interrupt a book of the Bible in mid book. 

            Enjoy your reading as it will take you from February 2, 2020 to May 2, 2020, or as we could write: 02-02-2020 to 02-05-2020.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Bob

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The last verse of this chapter, and the last verse of this challenge, is one that I want to look at a bit.  It states: He will turn the hearts of parents to their children… Normally when we speak about this topic it is reversed, it is that the hearts of children are turned to their parents, but no, not here.  It is the opposite, that parents will take the time, will focus upon their children and see their children as the reason for why, in many ways, we pursue what we do.

It is fascinating that in this time in my life when the kids are no longer in high school so we aren’t directly involved in all of their decision making, that there is a definite void.  But it is a pleasant void.  It is one where you know that the children are launched and you hope and pray that you have set the foundation and prepared the ground in such a way that they are able to make those decisions in a way that would reflect positively on their future.

Turning a parent’s heart to their children must involve recognizing that every single thing that you do is seen and understood by your child through a prism that you may not understand so you better be consistent and you better be doing things in public and behind closed doors that are pleasing to the Lord.  That doesn’t always happen.  Kids notice it when those things don’t always happen.

Thank you for going on this journey with us.  We will have another 90 Day Challenge coming up in the near future.  Keep your eyes open, your hearts open, and your hands working for God’s kingdom in our midst.

We have some familiar verses in this chapter that once again appear in our Christian calendar when we come to Advent and specifically John the Baptist.  Look at vs.1 and we hear about the messenger that is being sent ahead of the coming Messiah.  Remember the term “my messenger” is literally in Hebrew Malachi.  If you read Matthew 11:10 and its corresponding Gospels (Mark 1:2, Luke 1:17,76) we see it referring to John the Baptist.  

He then follows up that reference with what God will do when the Messiah comes.  The image of a refiner’s fire is brought up which is used in relationship to people and how they will be purified before they are able to approach the Lord.  Here those who are purified are specifically those who come from the priestly families because all along it was the priests who were turning their back on God.  Here is a song that makes me think of a refiner’s fire.  Oldie but goodie.

Notice once again how God will judge when the Messiah comes.  He will bear witness against, he will speak out against and rule against in a negative sense the following: sorcerers, adulterers, those who swear falsely, those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, those who oppress the widow and the orphan, those who oppress the immigrant, those who do not fear the Lord.  That’s a long list but it is doable if we think about it.  

The last part of this chapter is a castigation to those who do not give the full tithe to the Lord.  There is a temptation to give what is left over at the end that we think we can afford.  I have always said that we are to give our tithe, our 10%, at the beginning and then go from there.  It has to be a part of our budget from the very beginning.

Once again we have a strongly worded rebuke against the priests of the day.  We didn’t cover this in chapter 1 but it is thought that this was written after the re-establishing of Jerusalem as the center of worship with the rebuilding of the temple.  So the messenger of the Lord is not satisfied with the offerings and the tithes that are being given to the Lord.  In the midst of this chastisement is a very strong word against divorce.  It seems a bit out of place, but it does find itself in this Scripture and we can’t ignore it.

The almost singular reason that is given in vs.14 for why God is not showing favor is because we have turned our back on our first love.  While the writing expresses it in a literal way, the wife of our youth, we have seen throughout Scripture, and I would think it applies here as well, that it applies to our first love of God, our first excitement when we turned our hearts and our minds to the love that we have for our Savior.

The chapter ends again with one of those questions which really should go unanswered, but it is answered by the Lord.  “How have we wearied him (God)?”  The answer comes back to us that we say that all who do evil are a delight to the Lord.  What kind of evil?  Let’s go back because it struck me that this is becoming quite an epidemic.  Look at vs.7-8.  The pastors are the ones who should have instruction from the Lord and sharing that with the people.  But instead, Malachi states, we are teaching in a way that carries an agenda, or as Malachi states, our instruction has shown partiality.  May God save us from a partial message.

We find ourselves in the last book of the Old Testament, even if in our Challenges we have a few books in the OT that we have to go back over and address since we haven’t quite covered all of them.  Malachi is not a proper name of a prophet, it is simply a word in Hebrew which means “my messenger”.  So there is no Mr. Malachi, or the prophet called Malachi, but rather a book of the Bible which is called Malachi which simply means my messenger.  

I get a sense that Malachi is written more in layman’s terms and he seems to say things that are easier to understand.  Who doesn’t understand the Lord requiring us to respect our parents, or to give the best to the Lord, or to make sure that our promises are fulfilled?  Remember in Matthew 25, here we go again, when the person who is either included or excluded asks the very simple question, and it is the same question for both: But when did we see you hungry, or naked, or in need…etc.?  These same questions are asked here in Malachi but always in a negative sense.  When did we despise your name?  The priests ask the Lord.  When you offer blind animals for sacrifice when you are supposed to offer the best of the best.  

There is a verse that has a camp song attached to it.  Look at vs.11 and see if you recognize this tune.  Also, you see basically the same verses in Psalm 113:3.