Morning Musing: Exodus 23:13

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“Pay strict attention to everything I have said to you. You must not invoke the names of other gods; they must not be heard on your lips.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There are few things that give rise to cynicism quite so effectively as religion. Not often religion that is true and genuine, but religion that is pursued for the sake of religion. When people who don’t really believe in a particular deity nonetheless speak and act like they do for the sake of image or power or something else along those lines, not only do they grow cynical about the whole thing, but so do the people who see their show. This is one possible reason behind this next command God gives the people of Israel. Let’s explore this a bit further, and talk about why it still matters today.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 23:10-12

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“Sow your land for six years and gather its produce. But during the seventh year you are to let it rest and leave it uncultivated, so that the poor among your people may eat from it and the wild animals may consume what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive Grove. Do your work for six days but rest on the seventh day so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female slave as well as the resident alien may be refreshed.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the things we ask God for are blessings. We all want to be blessed by God. We want our nation to be blessed by Him. At a recent community prayer event a member of my church sang a beautiful rendition of “God Bless America.” We want to enjoy His abundance. And, our God is a blessing God, so that’s a good and right thing for us to ask for. But the thing we don’t understand as well both at all and in terms of its implications is that God’s blessings are always directional. God is always thinking about and aiming for the other. We see a pretty good example of this character on display here in a couple of laws that don’t seem to have anything to do with this. Let’s talk about another reason for Sabbath.

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Group Work

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Some things are just better experienced together. As we continue in our series, Authentic Church, this week, we are talking about the importance of community (something that will be a part of the next two entries in the series as well). Up first in this journey-within-a-journey is the importance of worshiping the Lord together. Worshiping together acts as the glue that holds the rest of the things that make the church the church together. Using a psalm of David as our guide, let’s explore why worshiping together is so important.

Group Work

In 2014, the Kansas City Royals made the postseason for the first time in nearly 30 years. They earned their official postseason birth in an incredible wild card play-in game against the Oakland Athletics. The game took place on Noah’s birthday. My dad was actually at the game, sitting on the front row behind the inside corner of the A’s dugout courtesy of a good friend of his. He even held up a sign wishing Noah a happy birthday that got put on camera. Watching from home, I stayed up pretty late to see the finish, but when we gave up the lead late in the game, I gave up and went to bed. I couldn’t bear to watch yet another disappointing season come to an end. In the middle of the night, though, I checked my phone and saw that the game was not yet over. I quickly turned the TV on and hit the record button to be able to watch how it actually ended in the morning. It was an awfully exciting time. 

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Digging in Deeper: Matthew 13:10-13

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“Then the disciples came up and asked him, ‘Why are you speaking to them in parables?’ He answered, ‘Because the secrets of the kingdom of heaven have been given for you to know, but it has not been given to them. For whoever has, more will be given to him, and he will have more than enough; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. That is why I speak to them in parables, because looking they do not see, and hearing they do not listen or understand.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the arguments of the original postmodernists was that a literary text had no fixed meaning. Rather, the meaning of a certain text was whatever the reader wanted it to mean. In other words, everything was interpretation and no interpretation was incorrect. Everything was dependent on the perspective and experience of the individual. Of course, none of those guys seemed to have appreciated the irony of arguing that nothing could really be understood in one way while wanting to be understood a certain way, but we’ll leave that alone for now. Today, I want to look at something Jesus said about how and whether people were understanding Him. He acknowledged many folks might not, but His reasons were not postmodern. Let’s talk about it.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 23:6-9

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“You must not deny justice to a poor person among you in his lawsuit. Stay far away from a false accusations. Do not kill the innocent and the just, because I will not justify the guilty. You must not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and corrupts the words of the righteous. You must not oppress a resident alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be a resident alien because you were resident aliens in the land of Egypt.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Sometimes you come across a passage of Scripture that seems pretty straightforward on an initial reading. A bit closer of an inspection confirms this, but it can also help us see what made sense in the beginning with a little more depth and clarity. These verses once again remind us of the inherently just nature of God’s character. Let’s talk about what’s going on here, and then put them in the bigger context of the larger passage here at the beginning of Exodus 23.

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