Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to reside there as an alien, for the famine was severe in the land.
Major foreshadow here, perhaps? A famine–be it spiritual or material–can lead you easily to wicked places, both geographic and spiritual.
I gathered them by the river that runs to Ahava, and there we camped three days. As I reviewed the people and the priests, I found there none of the descendants of Levi. Then I sent for Eliezer, Ariel, Shemaiah, Elnathan, Jarib, Elnathan, Nathan, Zechariah, and Meshullam, who were leaders, and for Joiarib and Elnathan, who were wise, and sent them to Iddo, the leader at the place called Casiphia, telling them what to say to Iddo and his colleagues the temple servants at Casiphia, namely, to send us ministers for the house of our God. Since the gracious hand of our God was upon us, they brought us a man of discretion, of the descendants of Mahli son of Levi son of Israel, namely Sherebiah, with his sons and kin
—Ezra 8.15-18
Here, you see Ezra refuse to settle for who he had before him. He was determined to see that the ministers to God’s people be the absolute most qualified people they could be. They had to be Levites. There were none there. Did he just throw up his hands and say that they had to “settle” for who was there and willing? No! He went out and sought qualified ministers.
The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Raise your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Rise up, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.” So Abram moved his tent, and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron; and there he built an altar to the Lord.
I find it really interesting that this promise comes after Abram more or less left this land allotment to chance and Lot’s choice. He let Lot choose what land he wanted, and then God pretty much says to Abram “everything else Lot didn’t choose is yours!” This becomes the Promised Land for the people of God. And it was essentially leftovers. Oh the tension between Providence and Human Action!
Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” —Matthew 9.13
Notice here the emphasis. Evangelicals tend to stress how Jesus came to “save” (which he did, for sure). But Jesus here doesn’t day he came to “save” sinners. But rather to “call” them. I wonder if this speaks to the thought that salvation is everyone’s, and “evangelism” is more the process of calling people to be the saved people they are rather than to “get” or somehow “acquire” salvation. It’s a call to be something, not a call to get something.
But[, Noah,] I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.
I really don’t get how the idea of Covenant fits into the narrative flow here. Is this covenant “different” than the Abrahamic one? How so? What happened to it? How do we know that the Abrahamic covenant isn’t just a new administration of the Noahic one?
Lent is a time that we dwells a lot on Sin. It’s a preparation for Easter and celebrating the Resurrection, and so to prepare for this, we must meditate on those things that Resurrection itself addressed. Resurrection was a response to Sin and Death. The more we feel and dwell in the reality of our Sin and Death, the more tangible Resurrection becomes.
This can seem morose, annoying, unnecessary, or not in line with our identity as Christians. Should we do this though it might make us depressed, feel like self-focused navel-gazing, or if it distracts us from much of the rest of our Christian living?
There’s definitely a time and place for it and a degree after which it becomes unhealthy, but more than what this does for/to us or our emotional state, could I offer another reason that it’s good to have times where we bring our focus to our weakness and sinfulness?
God loves it.
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And the priests and the Levites purified themselves; and they purified the people and the gates and the wall.
—Nehemiah 13:19-21
Notice the order that the priests purify: themselves, then the people, and then their city.
Marginalia is a section of this blog dedicated to (mostly) short reflections, meditations, questions, and difficulties I have while going through my Bible reading plan. I generally post between 1 to 3 of these per day, which can be difficult to keep up with. To aid in helping people engage with these posts, every weekend I post a round-up of all of Marginalia posts that appeared during that week. This list is in biblical canonical order.
Haha.
The OT has some great stories to tell great truths. It’s love stories, however…
In which the father of the bride says Adam’s marital vows to the future son-in-law.
Some interesting church/state arrangements here
How capitalism can kill our souls.
Here’s one pastoral task we often miss.
Turn on some slow jams and read this. Also be sure to catch the comments.
This is why I started this series. Read this, and then read the comments. My mind was blown. Hopefully yours will be as well.
It seems the Holy Spirit shows no favoritism.
Bet you never caught the context of this key verse….
We get a little deep into some reader-response literary criticism and biblical studies.
The Gospel. Is. Everything.
_________________
Update (3/8): This little seemingly inconsequential post caused quite the comment thread on Facebook and represented every reason I’ve started this series. I got challenged and my view of the book of Esther got broadened more than I ever could have imagine. I’ve reproduced those comments below.
In every province, wherever the king’s command and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and most of them lay in sackcloth and ashes. —Esther 4.3
Notice here that when the Jews are faced with political persecution, and an actual existential threat from the political authority, their response is not activism, nor violence, nor lobbying, it is instead to pray, weep, lament, fast, and cry out to God, their true king and political leader.
Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther, explain it to her, and charge her to go to the king to make supplication to him and entreat him for her people. —Esther 4.8
Well…Okay, okay. I see that only a few versus later, Mordecai does try to appeal to Esther, the political insider, to lobby on behalf of her people. So, that sort of goes against what I just said above.
But, notice that they still did not use violence or mass political demonstrations or mobilization. They peacefully engaged those from their community who were specifically equipped to engage politically. They didn’t see themselves as primarily political creatures, nor their problems primarily as political problems, nor the answers primarily as political solutions. The political piece was merely one facet in the kaleidoscope of human experience through which God works his will, and not even the main one.
My not-so-subtle point: the Evangelical obsession with political activism and using politics to accomplish (what they view as) the goals of the Kingdom are anti-biblical and find no basis in Scripture.
See other Marginalia here. Read more about the series here.
[image credit: “Esther and Mordechai write the Second Letter of Purim” by Arent de Gelder]
“It might be argued that there is not one explicit reference in the New Testament to a child being baptized. Have we any warrant then for doing it? If we require explicit texts for our practice, then there would be no warrant for women to come to the Lord’s Table. There is no single explicit reference to that in the New Testament. Our warrant is not in isolated texts or precedents, but in the Gospel itself. Christ died for men and women, adults and infants, and we acknowledge that in faith in baptism…”
— from James B. Torrance’s beautiful book Worship, Communion, and the Triune God of Grace
If you don’t care about the commentary, and just want the amazing music, you can get it at Noisetrade. If you’d like to listen to the album first, just press play:
Since high school my favorite band has been Cool Hand Luke. Back then they were a little hardcore screamo band. At that time, to get their CD, you had to mail a check to the lead singer’s house. As time when on, their style changed at the very same time and in the very same way as my own. It felt like we were growing together.
Around my senior year of high school, they came out with an album called Wake Up, O Sleeper. Anyone who’s heard of CHL probably knows them from this stunningly powerful work of art. It quickly became the most influential and “favorite” album of mine. And it has been ever since.
Towards the end of college, I became pretty good friends with the lead singer. For a while, every few months, we’d talk for a couple of hours on the phone. He was discerning whether to go to seminary and what to do about the financial mess their shady manager had left the band in. I got to see his heart and the heart behind the beautiful music they made.
Eventually, he got married, I started seminary, and he decided it was time to end the band and begin seminary himself. But there was one last project he felt he had to do.
Of Man.
At that time those who had come from captivity, the returned exiles, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel, twelve bulls for all Israel, ninety-six rams, seventy-seven lambs, and as a sin offering twelve male goats; all this was a burnt offering to the Lord. They also delivered the king’s commissions to the king’s satraps and to the governors of the province Beyond the River; and they supported the people and the house of God.
—Ezra 8.36
Interesting line… Is this saying that they had people “on staff” who managed their civil tithe to the secular authority (taxes), and the lay people supported the House of God? Is this like tax accountants “on staff” among the leadership of the temple?
When it began to be dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut and gave orders that they should not be opened until after the sabbath. And I set some of my servants over the gates, to prevent any burden from being brought in on the sabbath day. Then the merchants and sellers of all kinds of merchandise spent the night outside Jerusalem once or twice. But I warned them and said to them, “Why do you spend the night in front of the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you.” From that time on they did not come on the sabbath.
—Nehemiah 13:19-21
Interesting economic implications. There was a real understanding of human nature that understood the power of economics on the human self. If you let the market or commercialism have any real presence among the people of God, it destroys them, and invites God’s wrath upon them. The market destroys souls. We cannot “un-economize” our selves. Hence Paul’s disruption of the Ephesians market when people are converted. This is essentially what the Pope wrote about recently. We can use the market to serve human flourishing, or we can serve it at the expense of that flourishing. Nehemiah knows the tendency of the human heart to serve economics rather than have it serve us, so he keeps the merchants away from God’s people on the Sabbath, when they should be re-syncing themselves with the Living God.
After they had set a day to meet with him, they came to him at his lodgings in great numbers. From morning until evening he explained the matter to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the law of Moses and from the prophets. Some were convinced by what he had said, while others refused to believe. So they disagreed with each other; and as they were leaving, Paul made one further statement: “The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your ancestors through the prophet Isaiah,
‘Go to this people and say,
You will indeed listen, but never understand,
and you will indeed look, but never perceive.
For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
so that they might not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and understand with their heart and turn—
and I would heal them.’Let it be known to you then that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen.”
He lived there two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to him,31 proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.
— Acts 28.23-31
What a thesis statement for all of Paul’s ministry and the books of Luke: the hard-heartedness of the Jews and the inclusion of the Gentiles. Perhaps this was a main reason why Luke wrote both of these books to the mysterious Theophilus. Maybe he wrote these to offer assurance to this Gentile man (as evidenced by his Roman name) of his inclusion in the mission and salvation of God.
On a side note, it’s odd that this statement of the Gentile inclusion in the family of God (throughout Paul’s preaching) rests primarily on the a story of the preaching ministry of Paul. It’s well-known that Luke draws literary parallels between Jesus in the Gospel of Luke and Paul in Acts. But since this was being written to Theophilus, and these writings about Paul seem to rest on an implied authority and trust that it seems Theophilus would have had in Paul (if he said it, then it must be true), then could this be a hint that Theophilus met Paul at some point or even that Paul was the one that converted him?
Just a thought. A pure, conjectural thought.
Last night, my church had their Ash Wednesday service. I had the honor of helping lead the liturgy by offering the greeting and opening introduction/ explanation. Unlike most times we gather, the kids stayed in the service so I was asked to make sure my opening words were at least somewhat comprehensive to children.
This turned out to be one of the most helpful exercises for me. I ended up spending more time thinking through these brief opening words than I normally do and crafting each line as intentionally as possible. And so, for the heck of it, I thought I’d throw this up on the blog for anyone who was struggling with explaining Lent and/or Ash Wednesday to their young ones, and also to get your thoughts on how best to communicate this to kids. Here’s what I said:
(Lent: Two things hold us back)
Tonight kicks off the Church season of Lent. Most all of us live our lives wanting to be better people than we are right now. But if we’re honest, there are two things that can get in the way of that sometimes and make us frustrated as we try and become the people we want to be.
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the long way home 