Tag: Understanding the Scriptures

Digging in Deeper: Exodus 14:23-28

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“The Egyptians set out in pursuit – all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen – and went into the sea after them. During the morning watch, the Lord looked down at the Egyptian forces from the pillar of fire and cloud, and threw the Egyptian forces into confusion. He caused their chariot wheels to swerve and made them drive with difficulty. ‘Let’s get away from Israel,’ the Egyptians said, ‘because the Lord is fighting for them against Egypt!’ Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the water may come back on the Egyptians, on their chariots and horsemen.’ So Mose stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea returned to its normal depth. While the Egyptians were trying to escape from it, the Lord threw them into the sea. The water came back and covered the chariots and horsemen, plus the entire army of Pharaoh that had gone after them into the sea. Not even one of them survived.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I was on the Scholar’s Bowl team when I was in high school. Imagine little jeopardy competitions but without the answers needing to be in the form of a question. It was a ton of fun. (Yes, I know, I was a nerd.) But while I was pretty good at knowing or otherwise coming up with an answer in my areas of specialty (science, culture, and random, useless knowledge), what I struggled with was being fast enough on the buzzer. Knowing the answer was one thing. Knowing the answer and then buzzing in fast enough to beat the other team was another. You didn’t get any points if you buzzed in late. As the Egyptians chased after Israel into the dry seabed of the Red Sea, they realized they had made a mistake. Unfortunately, for them, they realized this too late. Let’s talk about what’s going on here.

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Digging in Deeper: Mark 6:17-20

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“For Herod himself had given orders to arrest John and to chain him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because he had married her. John had been telling Herod, ‘It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.’ So Herodias held a grudge against him and wanted to kill him. But she could not, because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing he was a righteous and holy man. When Herod heard him he would be very perplexed, and yet he liked to listen to him.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever been in a situation that blew up to such an extent that you figured God had completely forgotten about you, or perhaps was punishing you for something you didn’t even realize you had done? That can be a scary and disorienting place to be. You thought you were right on track with Him, but suddenly things go sideways, and it seems like the devil had won that particular battle. There was no way God could do something to redeem this. It was simply a lost cause. And then some well-meaning jerk came along to remind you of Romans 8:28 where Paul said that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purposes. And while perhaps he didn’t mean it this way, the implication is that either you didn’t love God enough, weren’t being called according to His purposes, or both. You didn’t punch him, but you did wonder a bit if maybe he wasn’t on to something. What are we supposed to do when our situations blow up and it feels like God is nowhere to be found?

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Morning Musing: Exodus 6:6-9

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“‘Therefore tell the Israelites: I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians and rescue you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment. I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians. I will bring you to the land that I swore to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.’ Moses told this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their broken spirit and hard labor.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever been presented with a golden opportunity that you passed up because you just didn’t have the energy to take it? There are occasionally times in life when something comes along that looks incredible, but we don’t jump on it for one reason or another. Sometimes those reasons are good and understandable. Sometimes the people around us think we are certifiably insane for passing up on whatever it was. God, through Moses, was making some pretty incredible promises to the people of Israel here. Yet because Pharaoh had so broken their spirits, they wouldn’t believe any of it was really true. Let’s dig in a bit to what is going on here, and talk about staying encouraged when things seem bleak.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 6:2-5

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“Then God spoke to Moses, telling him, ‘I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, but I was not known to them by my name ‘the Lord.’ I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land they lived in as aliens. Furthermore, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are forcing to work as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When a school gets an educational path right, everything you learn builds on what came before it. I’ve talked before about a very specific experience of that I had when I was getting my chemistry degree. My senior-level chem professor sat us down on the first day of class and said we were going to spend the semester learning why everything we had learned before wasn’t correct. He was being mostly tongue-in-cheek. What he meant was that we were going to spend the semester building on the foundation of what we had learned before in ways that made it hard to recognize some of what we had originally been taught. This is something God does throughout the Scriptures and especially here in the story of the Exodus. Let’s pause on this little section to see how He is doing this here.

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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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