Category: Morning Musings

Morning Musing: Exodus 4:27-31

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“Now the Lord had said to Aaron, ‘Go and meet Moses in the wilderness.’ So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him. Moses told Aaron everything the Lord had sent him to say, and about all the signs he had commanded him to do. Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the Israelites. Aaron repeated everything the Lord had said to Moses and performed the signs before the people. The people believed, and when they heard that the Lord had paid attention to them and that he had seen their misery, they knelt low and worshiped.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When you don’t have the rhythm or melody of a song, it’s really hard to understand and enjoy it. It makes it harder for other people to enjoy it too. I remember once when I was playing drums for my high school jazz band – and in a competition no less! – and I flipped the beat. I had had my hi-hat foot chomping along on the 2 and the 4, and suddenly I was riding hard on the 1 and the 3. Or, if you’re not a music person at all, I messed up big time. The whole band nearly fell apart, and would have but for our director’s quick thinking and directing like we were a concert band until I could get the beat back in the right place. In a similar sort of way, it’s hard to understand and apply passages of the Scriptures – especially in the Old Testament – when we don’t have their rhythm down. Let’s talk a bit about the rhythm of these verses, and what it might look like to incorporate them into our lives.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 4:24-26

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“On the trip, at an overnight campsite, it happened that the Lord confronted him and intended to put him to death. So Zipporah took a flint, cut off her son’s foreskin, threw it at Moses’s feet, and said, ‘You are a bridegroom of blood to me!’ So he let him alone. At that time she said, ‘You are a bridegroom of blood,’ referring to the circumcision.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of my favorite Monty Python movies is “Now for Something Completely Different.” It’s just a string of sketches, each one totally different from the last. Every time they switch from one to another, something completely random comes across the screen and one of the comedy troupe members looks right at the camera and says, “And now for something completely different.” This story would fit rather snuggly in that category. It seems to come totally out of left field and doesn’t make a lot of sense. Let’s talk about what may be going on here, and how it fits in the larger story.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 4:18

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“Then Moses went back to his faither-in-law, Jethro, and said to him, ‘Please let me return to my relatives in Egypt and see if they are still living.’ Jethro said to Moses, ‘Go in peace.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the less exciting classes I Took in college was one called Form and Analysis. We spent an hour three mornings a week looking at different classical pieces to learn about some of the rules composers tended to follow when writing their works. One of the things all composers do is to introduce a musical theme toward the beginning of the piece and then spend the rest of the time developing and refining it. What we are seeing here is God introducing some themes that are going to be developed throughout the story. Let’s talk through what some of these are and why they matter.

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Morning Musing: Matthew 10:16-18

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“Look, I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves. Beware of them, because they will hand you over to local courts and flog you in their synagogues. You will even be brought before governors and kings because of me, to bear witness to them and to the Gentiles.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the most pernicious lies about the Christian life that has nonetheless remained popular in our culture over the last 100 years or so is that the center of God’s will is the safest place to be. Although the person invoking that kind of idea may or may not actually mean it this way, the way it is generally received by audiences is as an assurance that when we are endeavoring to be faithful to God, nothing bad can happen to us. Not a few people have had their faith wrecked because they bought into that idea only to discover by experience that it isn’t even remotely true. In this passage, Jesus reminds us of just how untrue it is while at the same time giving us a bit of a perspective shift for how to handle some of the hard times we face so that we come out with our faith intact. Let’s talk about it.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 4:13-14

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“Moses said, ‘Please, Lord, send someone else.’ Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses, and he said, ‘Isn’t Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, he is on his way now to meet you. He will rejoice when he sees you.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I played basketball for a few years growing up. Well, I played basketball for a team for a few years. I played a lot of driveway basketball until high school. Then we moved to a house that didn’t have a goal in the driveway and I was too busy with other activities anyway (also, I was terrible). But in my few years of playing, one of the stories my dad told me to encourage me was of Larry Bird’s practice regimen. Bird was, of course, one of the greatest of all time. And while there was certainly an element of tremendous natural talent at play, he became such a superlatively great shooter because he would shoot the ball hundreds of times a day. There was a time, though, when he wasn’t so great. There was a time when Moses wasn’t so great either. This was it. Let’s talk about it.

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