my burg

Bible reading for Dec 15.  2 Chronicles 17. "His heart was courageous in the ways of the LORD. And furthermore, he took the high places and the Asherim out of Judah." (17:6)  JEHOSHAPHAT, a good king of Judea, is next in the Chronicles' account. He had a lengthy reign (25 years) and was noted for seeking the Lord and obeying his commandments. He built a strong military and fortified Judah from their enemies, which included Israel at times.  Further, Jehoshaphat was unique in that he had the courage to address the faith and practice of the people outside of Jerusalem. He sent out teachers of the Law to instruct people in the cities and towns of Judah, as well as shutting down the high places of worship (vv 6-9).  THE HIGH PLACES. At first there seems a discrepancy between the statement in verse 6 about removing the high places, and what's reported in 1 Kings 22:43, "Yet the high places were not taken away, and the people still sacrificed and made offerings on th...

Bible reading for Dec 4.  2 Chronicles 3-4. "He set up the pillars in front of the temple, one on the south, the other on the north; that on the south he called Jachin, and that on the north Boaz." (3:17)  BUILDING THE TEMPLE . These two chapters describe the structure and furnishings of the temple Solomon builds. It's the same basic plan as the Tabernacle that Moses constructed. Notice the imagery in the temple which recalls both the early chapters of Genesis (e.g., cherubim, fruit trees, etc.) and the later chapters of Revelation (e.g., gold, precious materials, the cubical layout of the most holy place, etc.). All of these images reveal the unity of Scripture and tie together the story of redemption. Christ himself is the sacrifice, the sea of cleansing, the light and bread of life, our priest, and the one who brings us into the presence of God. He restores the garden we lost and constructs a city of eternal glory.    REFLECT. I find it interesting that the two b...

Bible reading for the weekend of Aug 22.  I Samuel 14-15. "And Samuel said, 'Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has also rejected you from being king.'" (1 Samuel 15:22-23) SAUL AND JONATHAN (14). We are introduced to Saul's son Jonathan, who will later become David's best friend. He's a young man of faith, full of godly initiative, at a time when there were few fighters and even fewer weapons at hand. But the Lord's blessing is upon him. Again, in God's perfect timing an earthquake coincides with the attack (14:15), and the confusion that resulted helped Israel win the battle that day. Saul, slow to enter the battle, speaks rashly with a curse --  no one shal...

Bible reading for July 9.  Joshua 11. "So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the LORD had spoken to Moses. And Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal allotments. And the land had rest from war." (Joshua 11:23) THE NORTHERN CAMPAIGN. The battle for the cities of northern Canaan was more challenging than in the south. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, the combined armies of the Canaanite tribes totaled 300,000 armed footmen, 10,000 horsemen, and 20,000 chariots.  Hamstringing the horses seems cruel, but it was necessary to render them unfit to pull chariots. The chariot was a powerful advance in military technology at that time and was a grave danger to the Israelite soldiers, all on foot. For more details on this chapter see Constable's notes in the NET Bible . The hardening of the enemy's hearts (v 20) parallels the hardening of Pharaoh's heart at the exodus (Exod 7:3, 13).  TAKEAWAY. God fulfil...

Bible reading for March 25 -- Exodus 36; John 15.  "The people bring much more than enough for doing the work that the LORD has commanded us to do." (Exodus 36:5) Building God's house (Ex 36-40).   At least 25 times in the remaining chapters of Exodus it speaks of obeying what God had commanded through Moses in building the tabernacle.  And at this point in the story the people do so freely and generously.  The tabernacle -- and later the temple in Jerusalem --  was to be a meeting place between man and God, a place of worship and offerings, a "dwelling" for God, not in the sense that he needed a place to stay (2 Chron 6:18; Acts 7:48), but a place where he would manifest his presence to his people .  As I read through these "construction" chapters I observed a few things... -- Design and details matter. -- It is built with precious and beautiful materials. -- Some of the materials and design foreshadow the city of Rev 21-22.  -- Every...

NT reading for Mar 24 -- John 14.  "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." (John 14:27) Untroubled (Jn 14:1, 27). We, like the disciples in the upper room, are looking at a world which has great uncertainty about it .  The corona virus pandemic has people asking, "How is this all going to end up?  Will my family and my loved ones be all right? Am I ready for this?"  Of course there are practical matters to attend to: enough canned goods on the shelf, making sure children know where important papers are, and so on. On the night of Jesus' betrayal the disciples were certainly beginning to ask similar questions -- what if things turn out badly? ...what if Jesus is not going to be here? ...what will we do and how will we manage?  These days are -- as those days were -- uncertain and troubling. And Jesus begins by saying, "Let not your heart...

Bible reading for Feb 21:  Exodus 4; Luke 7. But [ Moses ] said, "Oh, my Lord, please send someone else." (Exodus 4:13) "Send someone else" (Ex 4). The Bible never whitewashes the failings of the heroes of the faith. Every portrait is painted with warts and all.  Moses does not really want his assignment as deliverer of God's people. He gives excuse after excuse .  My take-away: we can never exempt ourselves from obeying God by some limitation we have, or think we have.  God says, "Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak." (Ex 4:11-12)    Killing Moses? Perhaps the most surprising (and abrupt) thing about this chapter is verse 24: "At a lodging place on the way the LORD met him and sought to put him to death."   As God's leader, Moses is not exempt from obeying God. Apparently, in ...

Bible reading for Feb 5:  Genesis 38; Mark 8. Then Judah identified them and said, "She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah." And he did not know her again. (Gen 38:26) Judah's moral failure (Gen 38).   His failure is two-fold: his lack of family care for Tamar, his daughter-in-law; and his intercourse with [ what he thought was ] a local cult prostitute, who turned out to be his daughter-in-law. Both show his disregard for God's institution of marriage and family.  Add to that his self-righteousness when Tamar's pregnancy was discovered.  Nevertheless, in God's great mercy the messianic (royal) line will go through Perez, the son of Tamar by Judah (Matt 1; Lu 3). However, since this chapter is placed between the introduction of Joseph (37) and Joseph's sexual integrity (39), it's purpose is to show us that Joseph is a true man of God's covenant and points ahead to the perfect bride-groom , Jesus (Eph 5; se...

Bible reading for January 21:  Genesis 22; Matthew 21. "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." (Genesis 22:12 ESV) Yesterday, I was planning to make some cornbread and wondered if the quart of buttermilk in our refrigerator -- which has been there... awhile -- was still good to use.  The label had a certain date on it (I shall not say), but the proof came in opening the container and seeing and smelling what was inside.  Thankfully, it was good and cornbread will be on the menu today!  Labels can say one thing, but sometimes what's inside needs to be tested to see if it matches the label .  So it is, and has always been, for men and women who wear the label, "believers in God".  The testing of faith (Gen 22).   James says that this testing of Abraham showed "...that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed b...

According to a TIME magazine article in 2015 , "The average attention span for the notoriously ill-focused goldfish is nine seconds, but according  to a new study from Microsoft Corp., people now generally lose concentration after eight seconds, highlighting the affects of an increasingly  digitalized lifestyle on the brain."  The article goes on to cite a dubious upside to this: "On the positive side, the report says our ability to  multitask has drastically improved in the mobile age."   I fear, for myself and for others, that this also affects our study of God's word.  A brief passage, or a devotional moment (aka a "devo"), cannot replace more  prolonged meditation and application of God's word.  Psalm 1 tells us that the way to flourish and bear fruit in the Lord is to meditate on his Law "day and night", and to be rooted in the Scriptures like a tree near a life-giving stream of water. To do otherwise is to let our lives beco...

"Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day."   (Psalm 119:97 ESV) Following are some reading highlights from Jerram Barrs' Delighting in the Law of the Lord: God's Alternative to Legalism and Moralism   (Crossway, 2013) ...  "All biblical study of the law begins with the conviction that God’s own character stands behind the moral order of this world and behind the commandments that he gives to us his creatures. This is the fundamental reason why the Scriptures speak so positively about the law. Praising a set of commandments is an alien notion in our cultural context, but that is where the biblical view begins: with praise and thanksgiving for the law. Psalm 19 is an example of this high view of the law of God.         "God’s law is beautiful because it reveals God’s character. This is the most basic reason why we should love the law. "At the heart of God’s covenant there is always a relationship of love. ... God commits himself t...