Tag: Digging in Deeper

Digging in Deeper: A Special Birthday Wish

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“Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord will be praised. Give her the reward of her labor, and let her works praise her at the city gates.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

First, as a matter of business, the schedule for the next month is going to be a bit topsy-turvy. My family will have the chance to be out of town for a couple of short stints, I’ll be gone an entire week chaperoning a camp, and in the next five weeks, I’m only preaching three times because of pre-scheduled guest speakers. Some days I’ll get blogs posted, some days I won’t. Some days we’ll be in Exodus as scheduled, some days we won’t. Next week, for instance, I probably won’t post anything until Friday, if that. The summer schedule is in full swing for us, and I’m going to do my best to put my attention where it needs to be most…which won’t always be here. Fear not, though, come August things will settle back down into our more normal rhythm. Now to the task at hand…

I’ve gotten started at a new church as pastor twice in my life. Both times there were a handful of people the group serving as ambassadors for us insisted we absolutely had to meet right away. In both cases these folks were the recognized spiritual giants of the congregation. When we were getting started here in Oakboro, one of those individuals was Peggy Carey. We said, “See you later,” to her just a few weeks ago. There was another, though, who the search team was just as insistent that we all meet and as soon as possible. We pulled into her house on Main Street, walked into her sun porch, and were promptly greeted with a loud, “Heeey, Honey!” I knew right away that Ma Mae was indeed someone who was going to be worth knowing. She still is. And she turns 99 tomorrow. This is just a Happy Birthday note.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 27:9-19

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“You are to make the courtyard fro the tabernacle. Make hangings for the south side of the courtyard out of finely spun linen, 150 long on that side including twenty posts and twenty pronze bases, with silver hooks and silver bands for the posts. And so make hangings 150 feet long for the north side, including twenty posts and their twenty bronze bases, with silver hooks and silver bands for the posts. For the width of the courtyard, make hangings 75 feet long for the west side, including their ten posts and their ten bases. And for the width of the courtyard on the east side toward the sunrise, 75 feet, make hangings 22.5 feet long for one side of the gate, including their three posts and their three bases. And make hangings 22.5 feet long for the other side, including their three posts and their three bases. The gate of the courtyard is to have a 30-feet screen embroidered with blue, purple, and scarlet yard, and finely spun linen. It is to have four posts and their four bases. All the posts around the courtyard are to be banded with silver and have silver hooks and bronze bases. The courtyard is to be 150 feet long, 75 feet wide at each end, and 7.5 feet high, all of it made of finely spun linen. The bases of the posts are to be bronze. All the utensils of the tabernacle for every use and all its tent pegs as well as all the tent pegs of the courtyard are to be made of bronze.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever driven down a street everyone had forgotten? All the houses were run down or boarded up. Some of the street lights didn’t work. There was trash everywhere. You probably locked your doors and rolled up your windows. You definitely didn’t feel welcome. How about a brand new neighborhood? That’s usually a totally different experience. Everything looks new and clean and very inviting. It makes you want to live there. That, of course, is the point. The developer has a lot of money to make back, and if the whole place looks unappealing, that’s not going to happen very quickly. How something looks on the outside affects your mindset when you go inside. God understood that, and so He took care to give the people instructions to make sure the front yard of the Tabernacle was inviting. Let’s talk about the courtyard.

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Digging in Deeper: 2 Peter 1:16

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“For we did not follow cleverly contrived myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; instead, we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Religion is an interesting thing. It’s a powerful thing. Some try to argue that it’s a bad thing. But the truth is that religion is just a thing. How it’s used, who’s doing the using, and for what purpose determines exactly what kind of a thing it is. It’s not all bad, and it’s ignorant to argue otherwise. Neither, however, is it all good. Only a fool would think that. It has to be taken on a case-by-case basis, and some religions are better than others. But try as we might, we can’t escape it. We’re drawn to it. That’s part of what gives it such power. What has me thinking about all of this is my recently finishing both watching and reading Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic, Dune, in which religion plays a profound role. Let’s talk about it.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 24:12-18

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“The Lord said to Moses, ‘Come up to me on the mountain and stay there so that I may give you the stone tablets with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction.’ So Moses arose with his assistant Joshua and went up the mountain of God. He told the elders, ‘Wait here for us until we return to you. Aaron and Hur are here with you. Whoever has a dispute should go to them.’ When Moses went up the mountain, the cloud covered it. The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day he called to Moses from the cloud. The appearance of the Lord’s glory to the Israelites was like a consuming fire on the mountaintop. Moses entered the cloud as he went up the mountain, and he remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

We live in an instant society. We are so used to getting just about everything immediately now, that the idea of waiting for something for just about any length of time is wildly unappealing to us. And yet, things that happen instantly are rarely as good as those which take a little longer to develop. This is the case with all sorts of different things in life. As much as we want to hurry up, so often we have to wait. When God called Moses to Himself to give him the covenant laws for the people, it didn’t happen overnight. In fact, it took a pretty long time. Now that the covenant is in place, let’s take a look at Moses’ going to receive it and the events surrounding his departure.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 24:3-8

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“Moses came and told the people all the commands of the Lord and all the ordinances. Then all the people responded with a single voice, ‘We will do everything that the Lord has commanded.’ And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early the next morning and set up an altar and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel at the base of the mountain. Then he sent out young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. Moses took half the blood and set it in basins; the other half of the blood he splattered on the altar. He then took the covenant scroll and read it aloud to the people. They responded, ‘We will do and obey all that the Lord has commanded.’ Moses took the blood, splattered it on the people, and said, ‘This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you concerning all these words.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the things I always talk about with couples when doing their premarital counseling is that marriage is supposed to be a covenant, not a contract. We don’t distinguish very well between those two ideas today, and often think about marriage in contract terms rather than covenantal ones much to the detriment of our marriage relationships. In the ancient world, people were more accustomed to the idea of covenants and better understood just how serious they really were. After having heard the basic contours of the covenant God wanted to make with them, the people agreed to His terms and went forward with the covenant. Let’s take a look here at part of how this process unfolded.

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