This week

I am going to be on a super-secret mission this weekend, so the regular study shall be postponed. Maybe all you guys could get together and have a sweet hang-out time or something.

Information!!

1) If anyone wants to change the time that we meet for group on Saturdays, please let me know. We're trying to move the meeting time back to about 11 am-3 pm. So if this time change would or wouldn't work for you, please chime in.

2) No reading for this week. You're welcome.

So if anyone has started the reading and doesn't have any questions by now must be some sort of genius. What is the deal with the first two chapters? I thought Joshua died, but he lives and then he dies again? What gives?

Reading for this week...

Judges 1-7. Taking notes will be useful to help you remember all that goes on in these chapters.

Looking for some vital signs

I have a question for us. It's a simple, honest-yet-important question:

Why are you guys still Christians? Or: Why do we still claim to be Christians?

Reading for this week

Oh dang, we are in Joshua already! This week will have a meager 5 chapters of reading: chapters 1,2,6,7,8. Enjoy your week everybody, I hope to see you at the meeting.


UPDATE: Also, if any of you want to, I recommend reading Psalm 105 to see the people praise God for His providence and deliverance. I just read it today and it brought me to worship; I pray it does likewise to you.

Forgiveness, Atonement, Intercession, and...Stuff

Without giving away too much of this week's discussion (as if I could possibly know or predict what we will be talking about!), a certain topic hit me today that I'll like to throw up and throw out to all ya'll.

Numbers 18:1-7 is perhaps the most amazing paragraph in the Bible. In this paragraph, God gives Israel a way to save them from Himself. To paraphrase: "I give you a priesthood so that I won't destroy you all."

So...why does God give Israel a priesthood? Why is it significant that God is the one who gives it to Israel? Let me tell you: once you understand the significance of this, then you can understand the gospel, your salvation, even Jesus.

Introduction to Numbers

This is a bit of review from last week:

So we are now (not us, but the Israelites) in the second year after the exodus from Egypt (10:11). After the Exodus, Israel went to Mt. Sinai and entered into the Mosaic covenant with God (Ex 19:5-6). This covenant was made with the nation of Israel, and it is a conditional covenant. The blessings of the Abrahamic covenant are now mediated by obedience to the Mosaic covenant; that is, by faithful obedience to God and His law, Israel will be blessed and be given the land God promised to their forefathers. God also gave Israel instructions for building the tabernacle, which was the center of Israel's religious practices. It was primarily God's dwelling place with His people, and religious practices like sacrifices and offerings were done there. So now we are on our way to the promised land!

Meeting this week

After much head-scratching and thumb-twiddiling, a plan for this week's meeting has come about. We have tentatively planned on meeting at Sir Johnny the Buff's house around 3:00 in the afternoon, heading down to San Dimas to do a little hike, and then head back to Johnny's for some pizza. But that's not all! The real "meat" of the meeting is what we will be doing during the hike/meal.

We have given this meeting the theme of "conversation." We would like to use this meeting to stir up intentional, meaningful conversation amongst us. So, if this is not asking too much, it would be cool if we all could come with different things you'd like to talk about. Sure, that sounds a little silly, but we would like to hear what things in your life are confronting you, and we'd like to hear about them and talk about them (either events, issues, problems, back pains, etc.). You don't need a 12-page set of notes, complete with PowerPoint, but come ready to share and talk with others about what interests them. And please keep this night in prayer, as well as each of us.

Tear...

The saddest verse in the entire Bible (thus far)...

Numbers 14:4 "So they said to one another, 'Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.'"

Any thoughts?

For this week...

There will be no required reading this week. We will still meet, but it will be a night with a different focus. However, if anyone wants to start reading early, the reading for next week is Numbers 11-14, 16, 18:1-7, 20, 25. Also, if you are not going to be able to make it to this week's meeting (or any meeting for that matter), feel free to let me know so that we can plan accordingly. Stay tuned for any new info!

Exodus study #3

I don't have all the chapters picked out yet, but I'll give you what I have now.

Read: chapters 16, 17, 19, 20, 23:20-33, 40:34-38. These chapters are subject to change, but these are good for now.

Remember

At the last meeting, one of the major themese I tried to stress was "remembrance." God wanted Israel to remember their deliverance from Egypt, so He set up a couple of festivals they would hold yearly to remember what God had done for them. Sweet.

There was a side point I wanted to add to the discussion that I felt was very pertinent to the discussion. In my reading last week, I came across a passage that takes the concept of remembrance and really drives it home for us Christians. See the passage below, 2 Peter 1:2-9:

"2Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. 3His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
5For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins."

I hope that if you understood what Peter is writing about, you nearly choked like I did. Could it be that I am not being spiritually formed because I have forgotten my salvation, my cleansing of sins? C'mon Pete, you can't be serious! But really, could it be that we do not fully understand our salvation, what we have been saved from, and what we are heading towards?

Contact (not that lame movie)

Like I promised at the last meeting, here's the post where we can post all of our "other" contact info (AIM, MySpace messenger, etc.). I can be reached on AIM under the name theekevy (I'm not creative). Please add yours so we can hassle you more often!

Don't Be Vague; Name Your Plague!

Hey guys -

What's you're favorite plague? I've gotta say, something about killer golf-ball sized hail just makes me shake my head in wonder. It must have been a warzone in Egypt.

How about you?

The Art of Blogging (Without getting a Flogging)

Hey, guys. Theekevy and I have been talking about the proper use of this blog a lot. We have occasionally popped into you guys' posts and complained that they are not "on topic;" to make matters worse, we never really defined exactly what to post on the blog. Obviously, posts about God, weekly readings and such are perfectly appropriate, but we run into gray areas pretty quickly.

Firsty, theekevy and I talked about the possibility of making another blog for more general discussion. After all, we had originally intended this blog to be strictly a Bible discussion page. But for many reasons, we came to the conclusion this is not the best idea; another blog could get confusing and messy.

So we decided the best thing was to open this blog up to more freedom. We've created a new set of blog guidelines for proper blogging. We hope you enjoy the possibilities, and that all of you involve yourselves fully into the subjects God draws you to without fear of retribution. Enjoy:

Appropriate blog topics:

- Group information
- Kevin mostly posts these things, though if someone has a get together in mind, post at your free will)

- Any topic regarding the reading

- Any topic regarding the Lord

- Any topic regarding Christian living
- Christian topics, as opposed to personal issues

- Any topic regarding temptations and spiritual battles
- Again, drawing from experience for discussion rather than merely sharing experiences

Inappropriate blog topics: (these should be emailed to group members rather than posted on the blog.)

- Politics

- Prayer requests

- Personal issues

- Secular discussions
- Somehow, your topic should relate to God. If not, use e-mail to discuss


Can't wait to hear what you guys want to discuss!

Exodus study #2

For this week we will be hammering through chapters 6-14. Don't fear the eight chapters; plan your time accordingly and read two chapters per day twice each day and take notes on what happens.

The Cross-Section of Insurrection

Sometimes I think we imagine God as a bloodthirsty warmonger out to kill His enemies; his most important goal to crush open rebellion. At least, this is the picture I get from the Old Testament. He commands the Sons of Israel to kill the pagans. He threatens the Sons of Israel with plagues, slavery and other horrors if they do not obey Him.

And it is a completely accurate description. God's justice remains perfect even if we don't think our sin is a big deal. He gives us exactly what we deserve. But we are missing a big, hugely important aspect of God if we think He is most furious with the pagans and their open rebellion. Angry, yes, but I think we can conclude from Exodus 1-4 is that what really gets Him is the behavior of His so-called "friends." Moses, for example, does not seem to have any particular vices--sure, He killed an Egyptian out of indignant, just rage for the treatment of his people, but you could hardly call that entirely evil. But, boy, does Moses get under the Lord's skin.

God provides richly for Moses from birth. An undeniably divinely scripted event, Moses is plucked out of the Nile and saved from Pharaoh's daughter herself when Pharaoh commanded the death of the Sons of Israel. A boy who should have been drowned in that river gained ownership of it, as well as all of Egypt. Again, when Moses was chased out of Egypt for murder, God protected him, and gave him a wife and family to accompany him in the wilderness (2:19-22).

As if Moses' blessed life was not up to this point proof of God's care for him and purpose for him, the Lord actually visits Moses in the wilderness, a miraculous burning bush that does not burn up. He then speaks to Moses, and grants Moses the power of miracles to go and free the people of Israel. What an amazing gift of confidence and caring. You might say, "Yeah, but God was putting Moses up to doing His dirty work." Let's not forget that Moses ran from Egypt because he KILLED A MAN for mistreating an Israelite. He is clearly passionate about the well-being of God's people. God is not demanding of Moses his time, He is granting him his dream!

But Moses argues. God, I can't do this, he says; I'm not a good public speaker (4:10). God's response to him is essentially, "I made you, and I can help you speak" (4:11-12). If I were God, I would have said, "Dude, I just turned your wooden staff into a living snake. I think I can help you not to stutter." Yet Moses persists. Basically, he says, send someone else (4:13). Verse 14 says God is pretty upset with Moses, yet relents and tells Moses to meet up with Aaron, who will be his mouthpiece.

We could attribute Moses' disobedience to abject fear, but I don't think so. Look at 4:24. "...at a lodging place on the way the Lord met him and sought to put him to death." Who is "him"? If we look at verse 23, the "him" is Moses! My study bible confirms that God was trying to kill Moses. Read on. In verse 25, Moses' wife circumcises his son and the Lord apparently relents. What was going on, here? Well, Moses was not following God's commandment to the Israelites in Genesis 17:10--to uphold the covenant by circumcising their sons. My study bible suggests that perhaps Moses' wife, Zipporah, didn't like the idea of circumcision, so Moses obeyed her instead. Whatever the reason, Moses disobeyed a direct commandment and ignored God to the last.

What I am seeing is a pattern of laziness, an uncaring heart and hesitation to place faith in God. What Moses is essentially avoiding is sacrifice: if he goes back to Egypt, his life is on the line. If he circumcises his son, his marriage is on the line. Even when shown unquestionable miracles, Moses continues to... well... not care. He doesn't want the hard work, the danger, and the sacrifice that comes with being a servant of God. And it really pisses God off.

Can you sense the irony? We constantly complain about God's decisions with humankind, the state of the world, the starving children in Africa, the unsaved. Yet when the rubber hits the road and God calls us to action, we hesitate. Will I lose friends? Will I be hated? Will I be in danger? We seem to care, to be passionate, yet there is no sobriety, and no willingness for personal sacrifice and pain.

So your dream is to see people saved to Jesus Christ, to please God, to help others, to be an example of love? Be careful what you wish for, because God may actually call you to those things. And when He does, if you back out because of a noncommittal, weak heart, it will anger Him. How else could he feel? He's being stabbed in the back by the one's He's blessed. Instead, we should be willing to risk everything for Him, and trust that His purpose is good. Has He not proved this to us over the centuries? Has he not paid for us with the murder of his only son?

I am just as convicted and guilty of these blasphemies as anyone, if not more.

Exodus study questions, week #1

Okay brethren, here we go into Exodus. Only four chapters to read this week (chapters 1-4, in case anyone forgot). Since we are still in the realm of the familiar stories, I hope we all can take time to not only read over the stories well, but think, pray, and worship (yes!) over the stories we have before us.

1) As I have kept on emphasizing in the past study questions, look for what is emphasized in each chapter. For example: in chapter 1, how much attention is placed on Israel's (not the person or the country, but the people group) hardship and suffering in Egypt (hint: not much). So again, what is each chapter focusing on?

2) How are these beginning chapters in Exodus connected with the end of Genesis? How does the story of the Israelites flow from Genesis to Exodus?

3) One thing I have done in my Bible is underline all the places where God says "I will________ (do such and such). You don't have to do this, but it might be helpful in understanding the story, as well as being an amazing testament to our great God!

You guys may have noticed that my questions are rather vague. I do that because vague questions really make us think about what we're reading.

I might be back later this week with more questions, and if you have your own questions then please throw them up here. Also, if you guys want another mid-week get-together-and-study, I'm down for that. Until then, I look forward to seeing y'all at this week's meeting with your Bibles, some notes, and stuff to write with for prayer requests!

No group meeting tonight.