some thoughts

I’m strolling through the Bible again this year–I say strolling because I’m allowing myself the freedom to stop and gaze at certain passages or themes that seem to jump out at me. While I realize the discipline of reading daily is very important, it’s not to be preferred at the expense of actually understanding and engaging with what I’m reading. So, just for the heck of it: here are a few thoughts I’ve had while meandering through Exodus:

1. Be Fruitful and Multiply. Exodus 1:7 reads: “But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.” What land? A good land, one “flowing with milk and honey.” And what were they to do there? “Inherit the land,” subdue it, drive out the heathen-inhabitants, and set up a holy theocratic kingdom. Does this pattern ring a bell? It should: After He created man and placed him in the garden-temple-kingdom, He “…blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ ” (Gen. 1:28). What about after the whole earth had been wiped out, and Noah was “starting over”, what did God tell him to do? “And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” (Gen 9:1). Such it was with the old creation, the ethnocentric chosen people of God, the biological offspring of Abraham. And so it is now in the new creation, the Christocentric chosen people of God, the spiritual “offspring” of Abraham: “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.’ ” Just as Adam couldn’t obey the command until his helper (Eve) came along, so also the Church could not obey ours until our Helper came along, He for whom our fathers “tarried in Jerusalem.” (Acts 1:4-5). These parallels/recurring themes are no accident - it’s the story of reality.
2. What must I do to be saved? …is the question the common-folk of Egypt must’ve been asking their Jewish “neighbors” (though we know they didn’t technically live nearby) after the first couple of plagues fell on them. The crisis was between the Satan\antichrist figure (in the line of the “seed of Satan” from Gen 3) Pharaoh and the Intercessor figure (in the line of the “seed of the woman” - Gen 3), true enough, but those subject to Pharaoh, those in his charge and kingdom, how much convincing do you think they really needed to forsake their ignorant fool-hearted non-divine king and declare allegiance to the God of Moses?
3. The Earth is the Lord’s. Exodus 9:29 - “Moses said to [Pharaoh], “As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will stretch out my hands to the Lord. The thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the Lord’s.” This is no tribal, territorial, demi-god which with Pharaoh must have to do: No, this is the God, the Creator of all, The King of kings and the Lord of lords–the Pharaoh of pharaohs, one might say! He is not Lord only of Goshen, Pharaoh, he is the High Imperial King of All that is - he is God of the living and the dead…do not think you can cast this God aside, that you can ignore the cries of His precious ones…He is Jahveh–and the earth belongs to Him! (What a scene that must’ve been!)
4. Endless Genealogies Have way through a list of “Jehoshaphat begat Jehazreal”s I remembered Paul’s warning to not pay attention to endless genealogies (1 Tim 1:4). I wondered, then, why there are (seemingly) endless genealogies in Scripture–to which we must be devoted (Joshua 1:8)? Again, I thought back to Genesis 3:15 and the whole “promised seed” theme — which doesn’t just “run through the Bible” by the way, it’s what the whole Bible’s about. Here’s my point: genealogies are crucial only until the promised seed, the Messiah, actually comes. As I see it, (and please correct me if you think I’m missing something here,) the whole point of keeping all those lists of names is to continually narrow down the “potential line and land” wherefrom and wherein the Messiah would appear. Now that He has come, we need no longer care about tribes and names and descent — except in evangelistic\apologetic encounters with Jews or others who hold the Torah/Tanakh in high regard.
5. Cut off.. Exodus 12. Better to cut off a piece of yourself from your person than to have all of yourself cut off from your people. (Sounds like something Jesus might say.)
6. Content vs. Jurisdiction.. I don’t know why people don’t understand that even though most of the moral content of the Sinaitic law carries through and is included in the Great Commandments (Matt 22:34-40) of the New Covenant (Rom 13:9, Gal 5:14), the Mosaic covenant has no legal jurisdiction over the new covenant church. Wrong time, wrong place, and (usually) wrong race. It’s like bringing charges against me under the statutes of the Articles of Confederation: they’re not wrong or bad laws, they just no longer have jurisdiction. I’m not a Jew, and I don’t live in the theocratic nation-land of Israel 2000+ years ago. What’s more, Acts 15. There’s plenty to keep me striving in the Beatitudes…
7. A New Creation. “The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. ‘” (Exodus 12:2) For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ. (Col 3). You have been tranferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the beloved. (Col 1). The old has passed away, the new has come. (2 Cor 5:17) You no longer serve Egypt, you no longer live and move and have your being under their calendar, their worldviews, their standards, you are new and you are free and you are irreversibly mine…Exodus is like the passion\gospel of the Old Testament.

…so that’s all for now. Thanks for dropping by!