Tag: Digging in Deeper

Digging in Deeper: Exodus 34:12-14

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“Be careful not to make a treaty with the inhabitants of the land that you are going to enter; otherwise, they will become a snare among you. Instead, you must tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, and chop down their Asherah poles. Because the Lord is jealous for his reputation, you are never to bow down to another god. He is a jealous God.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the most important things that successful companies put in place when they are being formed are a set of core values. These are the things that define them as uniquely them. They set them apart from every other company that offers the same services or sells the same products. Smart companies understand that these values have to be guarded. If they let the success or failure another company experiences lead them to drift from those values, they will cease to be who they are. God created Israel uniquely and to be different from all the nations around them. Let’s talk about how He helped them maintain their identity.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 34:5-7

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“The Lord came down in a cloud, stood with him there, and proclaimed his name, ‘the Lord.’ The Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed: The Lord – the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the gifts that is often given to expectant parents is a book of names. It’s basically a dictionary for names. There are hundreds of pages of names with their approximate meaning. They range from mundane to bizarre. The weight of naming a new human can be a heavy one. Today, many parents try to be creative with their name selections. While I can appreciate the desire to not pick the same name everybody else is choosing, leaving a child with a name that will be forever misspelled or mispronounced isn’t exactly a gift. Used to be, names were chosen because they were traditional in a family or because of the character they were understood to convey. When God came down to reveal Himself to Moses as the latter requested, this revelation primarily involved proclaiming His name…which was all about His character. Let’s talk about it.

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Digging in Deeper: Proverbs 17:28

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“Even a fool is considered wise when he keeps silent – discerning, when he seals his lips.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

We live in a day when social media dominates the cultural landscape. It has become our public square in all sorts of ways. None of this has served to make us necessarily more social – in fact, a growing body of evidence suggests that it is isolating us more and more from one another and feeding into what multiple public health experts have described as a loneliness epidemic across the developed world. What it has done, though, is given everyone the ability to contribute their voice to public discussions. The trouble is that while all of us have opinions about the goings on in the world around us, being able to share those opinions with the world don’t make them well-informed or necessarily worth sharing. Still, many people seem to feel the pressure (whether actual or only imagined) to share their thoughts on everything. Sometimes this is helpful and beneficial to the people around them. Sometimes it falls somewhat short of that. So then, how do we know whether to share or not? Let’s spend a few minutes thinking that today.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 33:18-23

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“Then Moses said, ‘Please, let me see your glory.’ He said, ‘I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim the name “the Lord” before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.’ But he added, ‘You cannot see my face, for humans cannot see me and live.’ The Lord said, ‘Here is a place near me. You are to stand on the rock, and when my glory passes by, I will put you in the crevice of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take my hand away, and you will see my back, but my face will not be seen.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Depending on my audience, I’ll occasionally ask a congregation if they’ve ever read the passage in the Bible where God moons someone. When I do that, adults mostly look bemused and a little awkward. Kids snicker or outright giggle. Then they wait for me to tell them where since I’ve whet their curiosity. It’s right here in this very passage. I’m kidding, of course, but it provides a good opener for talking about what exactly Moses is asking God for here and why God responds the way He does. Let’s explore one of the most important requests of God in the Scriptures, and why it is a good one from us to make as well.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 32:25-29

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“Moses saw that the people were out of control, for Aaron had let them get out of control, making them a laughingstock to their enemies. And Moses stood at the camp’s entrance and said, ‘Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.’ And all the Levites gathered around him. He told them, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel says, “Every man fasten his sword to his side; go back and forth through the camp from entrance to entrance, and each of you kill his brother, his friend, and his neighbor.”‘ The Levites did as Moses commanded, and about three thousand men fell dead that day among the people. Afterward Moses said, ‘Today you have been dedicated to the Lord, since each man went against his son and his brother. Therefore you have brought a blessing on yourselves today.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When we were growing up we had a dog named Ginger. She was the reddest golden retriever I’ve ever seen, and she was the best dog in the world. When she was a puppy, she would get so excited when my dad got home from work that she would pee on the floor. If a person did something like that, we’d say they got out of control. When people get out of control, sometimes it takes extreme measures to get their attention again. The people of Israel who joined in the worship of the golden calf got out of control and had to be stopped. This next part of the story is hard. Really hard. Let’s talk about what’s going on here.

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