Category: Morning Musings

Morning Musing: Exodus 13:5-7

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“When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hethites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites, which he swore to your ancestors that he would give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you must carry out this ceremony in this month. For seven days you must eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there is to be a festival to the Lord. Unleavened bread is to be eaten for those seven days. Nothing leavened may be found among you, and no yeast may be found among you in all your territory.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I enjoy eating good pizza. I don’t know many people who don’t enjoy that. PIzza may not be considered comfort food by many, but there’s just something homey and familiar about eating it to me. But while my go-to is what I’m going to call “regular” pizza. I also enjoy a good flatbread pizza. That thin, yeast-free, crunchy crust adds a really nice texture to each bite. Flatbread pizza is a rare treat for me, and it’s always optional. For the Israelites coming out of Egypt, yeast-free bread wasn’t a treat, it was a command…at least for the Passover festival it was. Let’s talk a bit today about why.

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Morning Musings: Exodus 12:43, 48-49

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“The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘This is the statute of the Passover: no foreigner may eat it. . .If an alien resides among you and wants to observe the Lord’s Passover, every male in his household must be circumcised, and then he may participate; he will become like a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person may eat it. The same law will apply to both the native and the alien who resides among you.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the criticisms often leveled against Christianity today is that it is very exclusive. In a world in which being inclusive is one of our highest virtues (unless you are deemed insufficiently inclusive, in which case you are excluded with prejudice), this charge carries a lot of weight with some folks. It can be an apologetically difficult question to answer. Well, as we are going to see in the next part of our story here, this charge is not completely without merit. The people of God is an exclusive group. But it is exclusive in the most inclusive way possible. Let’s talk about it through the lens of God’s instructions about who could and could not participate in the Passover festival.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 12:35-36

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“The Israelites acted on Moses’s word and asked the Egyptians for silver and gold items and for clothing. And the Lord gave the people such favor with the Egyptians that they gave them what they requested. In this way they plundered the Egyptians.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the things we have to keep in mind when engaging with the Scriptures is that they were written a long time ago. A very long time ago. They feature stories and people and cultures which were vastly different from our own. The kinds of assumptions they made about what was okay to do and what wasn’t, about what kinds of behaviors were normal and which weren’t can occasionally seem utterly alien to us. This is one of those stories. Let’s talk briefly about what’s going on here, and why it nonetheless reveals something important about God’s character to us.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 12:33-34

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“Now the Egyptians pressured the people in order to send them quickly out of the country, for they said, ‘We’re all going to die!’ So the people took their dough before it was leavened, with their kneading bowls wrapped up in their clothes on their shoulders.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Sometimes God’s instructions don’t make any sense. He tells us to do something in a certain way that doesn’t really fit with how we would do it, and our first instinct is to question Him and do it our own way. When God gave the Israelites the instructions to have a feast with unleavened bread, that didn’t make a lot of sense. It seemed arbitrary and random. At least it did until it didn’t. Let’s talk today about God’s odd instructions, and why following them really does make the most sense.

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Morning Musing: Matthew 10:37-38

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“The one who loves a father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; the one who loves a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever doesn’t take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Today is going to be just a little bit different than our normal Friday conversations usually go. There are several reasons for this including the priority I endeavor to give to life and ministry (in that order) over writing these. The reason for this particular post as well as next week’s post at this time, Lord willing, is that the adult Bible study I teach on Wednesday nights has been having some powerful and challenging conversations as we have been working our way through Matthew’s Gospel. Our most recent conversation struck me as important enough that I wanted to share a glimpse of it with you. I’m going to keep this pretty short and to-the-point, but it’s worth your time to begin reflecting on the idea because it is a life-changing one. The idea is this: Are you worthy of Jesus?

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