Questions Along the Way

We Made It! Now What?

2012-01-04T11:40:00.001-05:00

A New Year has dawned, and we just have to say how glad we are that so many of us made it all the way through he Scriptures in 2011! We do still have a few questions we're drafting answers to, and we haven't yet decided if we're going to post them or just send them to those who asked. But you mighty be more interested in what we're doing for 2012:

We will have fresh new bookmarks available for anyone who wants to read through again (because so many of you have asked.) Meanwhile, the plan we are promoting this year is a little different: We want 2012 to be the year when our families begin to regularly read the Bible together.

Beginning in February, we are going to start a Family Worship Plan, custom designed month-by-month by our pastoral staff to be done together as a family. The reading will be much lighter, often as little as a chapter per week. And we will add fun things like memorization, suggestions for activities, prayer, and even songs.

Since every family is different, we are going to set the reading and memorization plan and let you choose everything else: How many days a week to have Family Worship, how to break the reading up, what to pray about, whether you should sing, how you are going to make it fun. We'll have suggestions, but we're hoping that your own creativity and knowledge of your own family will make the difference.

Stay tuned in Sunday Worship for more details!

An Empty Curse?

2011-09-23T13:27:00.000-04:00

In 2 Samuel 3, David curses Joab for committing murder, but then quickly makes him commander of his Army. Why would he place him so high in the Kingdom if he was that upset with him?

The character of Joab is an interesting one to study. Sometimes he's the ultimate war hero. Sometimes he's ruthless and insubordinate. At one point he's David's accessory to the murder of Uriah. At another he rebukes David for mourning the death his rebellious son. He's not exactly easy to figure out, and that makes him a lot like us.

This particular story has to do with Joab's revenge on Abner, the murderer of Joab's brother. Joab sneaks behind David's back, calls a private meeting with Abner, and strikes him dead. The speed with which the Scriptures tell the story shows the bluntness of the crime. But the pace also shows that it's really a build-up to the real point of the story: David's curse on Joab.

And so, when David hears of it, he utters the following curse at Joab:

“I and my kingdom are forever guiltless before the LORD for the blood of Abner the son of Ner. May it fall upon the head of Joab and upon all his father’s house, and may the house of Joab never be without one who has a discharge or who is leprous or who holds a spindle or who falls by the sword or who lacks bread!”
-2 Samuel 3:28b-29, ESV

May none of us ever hear words like that from the mouth of God's anointed! And, yet, just a few chapters later (in chapter 8) we read that David made Joab the commander of his army! Later, he would disobey David and be replaced with a man named Amasa, only to kill him as well and be reappointed. Eventually he conspired against David's choice of a successor while David was dying, forcing Solomon to hunt him down and execute him once he assumed the throne.

This leads us to ask a number of questions:

Was the curse actually effective?

Given David's status as prophet/king and the tendency of these biblical blessings and curses to be central to characters' lives, we would expect it to be a true curse. But we see at least some of it confirmed in the very story, as Joab himself "falls by the sword." So, while he gets to continue living by the sword for David' sake, he dies by it as well. It looks like God is confirming the curse by mentioning that. Then Joab's line drops off the narrative altogether, further confirming it. It looks like God took intentional steps in the narrative to tell us that Joab's curse was effectve.

Was David right to rank someone so unfaithful so highly?

This is the harder question. To answer it, we must look to the one David is meant to foreshadow: King Jesus. It's true that Jesus is a friend of sinners and that He welcomes the lowest of the low into his Kingdom. A character like Joab, if he repents and comes to Christ, will be brought in as a royal son. But regarding those already in His kingdom, Jesus rewards faithful servants, not wicked ones, by setting them over more. David does the exact opposite, failing to show us what Jesus' rule will be like. So, no, David was not right to appoint an unfaithful man as commander again and again. Even King David could not perfectly point us to King Jesus.

How could a curse like this be made to someone so close to Jesus' lineage?

Joab was David's nephew, the grandson of Jesse. And Jesse, David's father, was an ancestor of Jesus himself. They were all sons of Judah, the one from whom the messiah would come. But after this you don't hear of Joab's house anymore- only of David's. This stands as one more example of what Paul means to say in Romans 9, that it's not the ancestry (found in this case in Judah through Jesse) that counts, but the promise. Both of these guys are sons of Judah, but David is promised a house with a king forever and Joab is promised a house with a curse forever. Being born of Judah wasn't the important thing here- it was the promise God had made that was important. Likewise, who you are born of today doesn't determine your fitness for entry into God's kingdom- only God's promise in Jesus does.

I think we can all be glad for that.

Do you have a question as you read through the Bible with us? Send it to questions@OstervilleBaptist.org

What's His Name Again?

2011-06-02T13:22:00.000-04:00

Why is Solomon given one name and then called by another in 2 Samuel 12:24-25?

The story you're asking about says, "and she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon. And the LORD loved him and sent a message by Nathan the prophet. So he called his name Jedidiah, because of the LORD."

Strangely enough, the Bible never refers to Solomon as Jedidiah again. Which, of course, leaves us to wonder why it's included in the first place.

To be sure, Jedidiah means "Beloved of the Lord." This would have read in Hebrew something like, "And the Yahweh loved him and sent a message by Nathan the prophet. So he was called Beloved of the Yahweh." It was a name given to him, but a special name. It was very much his real name, just as "Solomon" was, but it doesn't seem like he was called by it very often.

The only reason I can think of that the Holy Spirit would have included this in the story is to emphasize and re-emphasize that Solomon received the Lord's favor from birth. This is right after King David loses a son because of his own sin with the boy's mother, and we may be tempted to think that the entire union of David and Bathsheba would be cursed as a result. But it isn't. Instead, they conceive immediately afterward and God calls the child His own beloved. This child would become the favored King, and the wisest man alive. God surprises us yet again.

Yet another reminder of God's great mercy. You and I are much like Solomon. We would expect not to receive God's favor, but He has granted it to us anyway. We were born in sin, yet He called us to be His beloved ones. To put it as simply as I know how, that is what He does.

Praise God.

John 20:21-23: Who Can Forgive Sins? (But God Alone!)

2011-03-30T16:01:00.000-04:00

John 20:21-23 says, “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I am sending you.’ Then he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven; if you don’t forgive them, they aren’t forgiven.’”

Based on this scripture couldn't you say that the role of forgiving sins has been delegated to believers? If you say that it was only the Apostles then it appears that they were the only ones to receive the Holy Spirit too. Does that mean if I forgive my unbelieving brother’s sins that God will forgive him, too?

Sincerely,

Already Forgiven

This is a great question for many reasons. The question of who has the authority to forgive sins is pivotal to our faith, while at the same time entirely relevant to the Catholic context of Cape Cod. You and I walk among many who plead with their Priests for absolution of their sins, and they just might have this passage in mind when they do so.

After the Resurrection, the disciples were still in hiding behind a locked door. Jesus (apparently miraculously) came and stood among them, wished them peace, and showed them his wounds. This made them glad, and he wished them peace again. After wishing them peace this second time, he sent them out. Jesus, the sent one, became the sender- and the followers became the sent ones. As he did so, he breathed on them the Holy Spirit and said this to them: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

Today we’re most concerned with what that last phrase means, but I actually think it’s fair to limit its weight to the very Apostles who heard it that day. The reason for this is that the rest of the church received the Holy Spirit on a different day (Pentecost, Acts 2,) and now each believer receives the Spirit upon their conversion. In the same way, other believers receive callings and commissions of their own (think of Paul, being converted and commissioned at the same time on the road to Damascus.) Each of our callings is different, and many of us have different stories of how the same Holy Spirit opened our hearts at our conversions. The one Spirit brings many gifts, calling, and stories. Given that this is their story, and their commission, I think it is fair to apply this gift only to them.

But onto what it means.

The particular words we are concerned about here are “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” If you are a grammarian, you will be interested to know that the words I have italicized are in the Greek perfect aspect, communicating a past completed action. If not, you will want to know that the clearest translation of them would be something like, “it has already been forgiven them,” and “it has already not been forgiven them.” So, if the Apostles forgive sins, those sins have already been forgiven by God in heaven. This is very different than being forgiven because the Apostles forgave them.

Why didn’t they just translate it that way? Probably because you have to add words to do that, and good Bible translators don’t like to add words. “It is forgiven them,” is also in the English perfect tense (the closest parallel to the Greek perfect aspect.) It just doesn’t communicate that past completed action the way the Greek did. It's accurate, it just isn’t as clear as it could be.

So Jesus is telling the Disciples (who is he now making Apostles) that, by this Spirit He is giving them, they will have the ability to declare forgiveness of sins to those who have been forgiven, and to warn those who have not been forgiven. We are called to do the same thing, but the difference is that they were guaranteed to be right when they did it. We know the Gospel, and we know that someone who trusts in Christ has had their forgiveness secured by Him. We proclaim that forgiveness to someone who professes trust in Christ- but we might be wrong about them. The Apostles, apparently, were not.

I can think of two times when Apostles do this very thing. John would later write to believers and say to them, in 1 John 2:12, “I am writing you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of His name.” He apparently knew that their faith was genuine and was prompted by the Spirit to proclaim their forgiveness to them.

On the other side, we can consider Acts Chapter 5. Ananias and Sapphira sell their property and give only some of the proceeds to the Lord while pretending to give it all. Peter is there, and with no apparent evidence, says to Ananias, “Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?” In a shocking moment, Ananias dies upon hearing those words. Peter was all too right. His wife Sapphira then goes through the same experience when she arrives. How did Peter know? Because of the Spirit that Jesus gave him that day and the particular gift It gave to the Apostles.

The whole Bible teaches, in unity, that only God can forgive sins. When Isaiah 43:25 says “I, I am he, who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins,” it is God who is speaking. When, in passages like Mark 2 and Luke 5, Jesus forgives sins and is met with objections like “who can forgive sins but God alone?” it is because they do not realize He is God. The Apostle John, who was there, would later write in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” None of this would be true if Jesus were giving them or anyone the authority to forgive sins in His place.

So you don’t have the authority or the responsibility to forgive your brother’s sins on God’s behalf. But you do have the authority and the responsibility to warn him that his sins are not forgiven, to pray for him, and to tell Him of the one who has secured forgiveness for us: Jesus. You may not be an Apostle with a capital “A,” but you have been sent nonetheless.

Are you reading through the Bible with us? Send your questions to Questions@OstervilleBaptist.org

Leviticus 21:16-23: Is God Really Compassionate?

2011-03-08T16:06:00.003-05:00

This whole book of Leviticus has been difficult reading, but I'm particularly struggling with chapter 21. It was very hard to read that those with physical defects were disqualified from being a priest. What was that all about and where is our compassionate God in this? Very few of us are without a defect somewhere.

Sincerely,
-Not Quite Perfect

In an age of discrimination lawsuits, many would rather not worship a God who would only allow the descendants of one family of one nation to be priests, and only priests without physical defect to actually offer priestly service. Is this the same God who says "whatever you did for the least of these, my brothers, you did for me"? Is it the same God who says that pure and undefiled religion is to visit widows and orphans in their distress? Yes, it is. But why would He do this, and why is it right for Him to?

As we ask this, let's remember that He is God. He does not answer to the Supreme Court, me, or the ACLU any more than He answers to the Ku Klux Klan, The Taliban, or the Nazi Party. It is we who need to reform ourselves and get in line with reality, not Him. This is crucial to remember each time we have a question like this one. We should wrestle with it, yet we should do so in faith that He is good no matter what we may think of Him.

The answer starts when we consider the priests' role in Israel. They essentially represented the people to God and God to the people. For instance, when all of them came before God on the Day of Atonement, only the High Priest actually went into His presence. But when he went before God, all of his sin had to be atoned (paid for) for by the blood of a bull and a ram, or he would die. If there was any sin or evidence of sin put before God's very eyes, God's holiness would swallow up whoever stood before Him.

The important thing to remember about physical defections like those listed in this passage is that they only happen to people who are born fallen, and in world that is fallen. Had our father Adam not sinned before us, no one would have a blemish, a mutilated face, blind eyes, or an itching disease. Those problems are not just inconvenient and painful, they are physical markers that we are a sinful people who are not worthy of approaching Him. It's true that those with handicaps or physical blemishes are not worthy of approaching God, but that's because none of us are! The better question is this: why did God allow priests without physical blemishes to approach Him if they were just as sinful? And, as you asked, aren't we all imperfect somewhere?

Come to think of it, the priest did have to wear very elaborate priestly garments that included a headdress. Add a fierce beard, and you wouldn't have been able to see much of him at all. Most of his defects would have been covered- except for those listed in Exodus 21:16-24. Reading through them, all of them would have either shown through the garment or been revealed by the priest's behavior or voice. It would be clear that they weren't sinless people- and only sinless people can come before God. If their imperfection showed, the offering would not have been accepted.

So the whole point of this was to teach Israel the very thing you and I want to reject: that only perfect people can come into God's presence and make an offering. Would that make them notice what you noticed, that all of us are imperfect? I hope so. Will a perfect priest ever come to make an offering for us? God was preparing them, showing them how deeply they needed that perfect priest.

This has two huge implications for us:

First, it makes us, like them, long for a perfect priest to represent us. Jesus has come, perfect as He was, and offered a sacrifice that the Father accepts. Colossians 1 says that he did so in order to present us holy and blameless and without reproach to Himself. Now we can indeed go into God's presence, healthy and handicapped together.

But second, how can we live forever in God's presence in the New Kingdom with all these imperfections? Only perfect people can do that, right?

Let that be one more reminder that He's going to fix them. Of those disqualified Levites, the ones with faith will be with us one day: holy and blameless and above reproach- and also perfected. And they will enter God's presence because a perfect priest eventually did come along.

If you have any questions, send them to Questins@OstervilleBaptist.org

Exodus 21: Does God Approve of Slavery?

2011-03-02T15:25:00.000-05:00

The beginning of Exodus 21 quotes laws from God about how we are to treat other human beings.

The treatment of slaves and women doesn't seem respectful or fair. For example, verse 20: why is the man who beats his servant to death not put to death himself? Does God not hold each of His created beings with equal care? Shouldn't we also?

Your civil & human rights advocate, 1440 BC

This is a great question. Before I discuss the implications of Exodus 21:20 I need to discuss “distance.” That is the distance that lies between myself and the historical setting of the Biblical text. This will help when it comes to the question: Why did God allow this? Consider the nature of some of the laws being discussed in Exodus 21.

We see discussion of slavery. Something considered deplorable in our day and age. We may ask: how could God allow such a thing to happen?

We see discussion of a father selling his daughter. Why in the world would a father do such a thing?

We see a law that condemns a person to death for striking or cursing their parents. By this standard, there would be a lot of dead teenagers in America!!!

Obviously, a quick glance at this reading places me in a time and a culture that is quite different than my own. It makes me feel tension with the Scriptures because I have framed how life should look according to my culture and my upbringing. It might tempt me to read the Scriptures anachronistically, saying, “God should have changed this wrong thinking” Or “These people should have known better because I know better.” We fail to recognize that our thinking might be strikingly different had we grown up in this different setting.

There are several considerations that we must think through with a passage like this: (1) Who is to say that our so called “modern” or “enlightened” thinking is best? (2) Are our suppositions about the passage 100% correct? (3) Would the people of this day have considered the laws in this passage to be unjust or we they consider it an advancement in justice from what they had previously know justice to be?

I will begin with the first consideration. The major tension that we feel with Exodus 21:20 is corporal punishment. In this society (3500 years ago), it was perfectly acceptable to punish a servant physically. In fact there are still cultures in our “modern” world, which use this mode of discipline. Read this commentators comments (Stuart, NAC: Exodus, p. 490 footnote):

“Corporal punishment remains widely in use in the modern world, being built into the familial and even formal legal structures of many nations. It was virtually universally practiced in the ancient world and predominated in the modern Western world until the latter part of the twentieth century. Although many modern Westerners would today regard slapping, spanking, caning, to be forms of abuse, it should be noted that their opinions are not historically grounded.”

So then, we need to understand that in this day and age—the historical circumstance in which this passage of Scripture was written—it was perfectly acceptable to use corporal punishment with a servant. The Scriptures indicate that this should be done when a servant has willfully done wrong. God’s Word is beautiful because it is revelation—God speaking to people. But as we read through the Scriptures we are quickly confronted with the fact Scripture was written to people in a specific situation. For example, we broadly read in the Old Testament about one nation and the concerns of this one nation. The writings spoke to this people during this time about specific situations that concerned them. This isn’t to say that God’s Word is “confined” to that situation. But it certainly speaks most clearly to a person living in that situation. So for God to speak to a person living in 1500 BC and to say that everything they understand about life is wrong or to speak to matters that would have been completely outside of their scope of understanding would not have made much sense. For God to have spoken to circumstances that concern us more than them would have meant that He was speaking to us and not them—3500 years would have passed without people being able to interact with the Scriptures. That is precisely why anachronism doesn’t work with revelation. We can look back at history and understand historical circumstances and learn from these historical circumstances. But antiquity could not have looked forward to our time, analyzed it and bridged the gap.

The second consideration… Exodus 21:20 in my understanding does require a life for a life if a master kills his slave. The word “avenge” (translated this way in the ESV) is a rather specific term in the Hebrew language. It is used to talk about God’s justice and fairness (Smick, Theological Words of the Old Testament, p. 598-599). In this context, it appears that the meaning of the word is “life for life” justice. Verse 21 is a bit trickier: “But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money” (Exodus 21:21, ESV). It appears that the slave is bed ridden for several days and then is able to get up again and work. As we saw in the previous section (vv. 18-19), a man who injures a free person owes compensation for the number of days it takes for him to recover. However, this is not possible in the context of a slave or servant. The master is losing money because the slave is not working. He can’t compensate the slave because he is not paying the slave. We see later in the passage (vv. 26-27) that if the master disciplines the slave so that they receive physical damage (i.e. an eye or a tooth) that fair compensation to the slave is freedom. Therefore, it seems that this passage elevates the dignity of slaves. (1) Slaves are considered just as valuable in terms of life. If a master kills a slave, they have shed blood and deserve the punishment of a murderer. (2) If a master hurts his slave, he has proven himself unfit for the slaves service and must give the slave their freedom.

The third consideration... Exodus 21 is an advance in this cultures justice system. The primary fact to keep in mind is that the Jewish people chose to become slaves. It would look more like the “indentured servitude” that took place in America. Also, Hebrews could not enslave one another for life (they were not to hold each other in bondage like they were held in Egypt). Masters could discipline their slaves but only within reason. As we saw above, the master was to be tried for murder for killing his servant. If the master maimed a servant, the servant was to go free. The loss of work to the master and the gain of freedom to the servant were considered adequate compensation. The servant likely would have preferred their freedom to knocking out their master’s tooth regardless. God in Exodus is changing the way these people treated one another and teaching basic justice principles. The “eye for an eye” principle (also called Lex Talionis) changed a system that was rather lawless. People in this time period might have sought a person’s life if they injured them. God was establishing checks and balances. Where slavery is concerned, we have to remember that there was no such thing as the middle class as we know it today. People became slaves of other people in order to survive (again, reading through the context seems to indicate that they became servants by choice)—they wanted food and shelter in exchange for work! And we also need to remember that we in our day and age struggle with how to deal with the poor just as much as these people did. How do we take care of the 30,000 children who lose their life every day in Africa? What do we do with the rising homeless population in our own backyard? These are difficult questions. Just like how does one treat slaves left under their care was for this people.

So to conclude this rather lengthy response… God’s law does require equal treatment of all people. God does not show partiality. This is a principle we see repeated throughout the Scriptures. The reason we feel tension is because we have “distance” between us and the setting in which this Law was written (this was the rather lengthy portion of this reponse). God is equally concerned about all people. Listen to a description out of Deuteronomy concerning God’s concern for people:

“For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. ¹⁸He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. ¹⁹And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt. ²⁰Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name. ²¹He is your praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes. ²²Your forefathers who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky” (Deuteronomy 10:17-22; emphasis mine).

-Rob Wheeler

Assistant Pastor for Student Ministries

Exodus 13:11-13: Does God Require Child Sacrifice?

2011-02-22T10:35:00.000-05:00

I am completely confused about God's commands on firstborn sons and donkeys. Is God commanding that they sacrifice firstborn children? Doesn't He say elsewhere not to do that? And why do they have to break the donkey's neck?

Sincerely,

A Firstborn Son

You're right that God commands Israel not to sacrifice their children. He does so in several places. And, don't worry, God isn't contradicting Himself here. This isn't child sacrifice. But that sense of eye-openin shock is, I think, part of what God intended here.

Think back to the last plague, which happened just before this command was given. God killed all the firstborn of the Egyptians, but spared the firstborn of the Israelites only because of the blood of the lamb He commanded the to put on their doorpost. The lambs died in the place of the firstborn of Israel. In Exodus 13, God institutes something to remind them of this event, and to help them pass the knowledge of God's acts on to their children.

All the male firstborn of the animals were to be either sacrificed or redeemed (bought back) with a lamb, and all of the firstborn sons were to be redeemed. So if a married couple's first child is a boy, he belonged to God and was set apart to be sacrificed, but the parents were to buy him back with one lamb. They could decide whether or not to buy the animals back, but they had no choice concerning their sons; they had to buy them back. So God is actually speaking against child sacrifice once again.

If the animal was a donkey and they did not want to pay a lamb for it, they were to break its neck. Whether this established breaking of the neck as the way to kill all sacrificed firstborn animals isn't clear. But it was the prescription for sacrificing firstborn donkeys, at least.

Why did they have to go through this whole act? Why not just require them to sacrifice a lamb at the occasion of a child's birth as a thank offering? Because God wanted these children to know what it meant to be bought back (redeemed) with the blood of a lamb. The same blood had saved their fathers. And when their children asked what this was all about, they were to tell them, "I sacrifice to the Yahweh all the males that first open the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem." Why? Because of what God did in Egypt. It served as a reminder that God not spare them because they were his special nation- he spared them because their lives had been paid for.

But, in His great mercy, God was also preparing them for the coming of His son. When he would come, and go to the cross as a lamb to the slaughter, there would be a number of firstborn sons standing there who knew just what it meant to be bought back by the blood of the lamb.

God wanted Israel to know that they didn't rest on being His chosen nation, but on being bought with blood. He wants the same for us. Do you rest in the fact that you are a Christian, that you attend a good church, that you are a Baptist, or even that you are one of God's elect? Or can you sing along with the old hymn, "nothing but the blood of Jesus."?

In God's house there are many blood-bought orphans, you and I included. But we're not just children of the Heavenly Father, we're firstborn sons (even the ladies.) And when we, the children, ask why he had Israel buy back their firstborn sons, his answer is that of the Israelite father: "All the firstborn of my sons I redeem."

Exodus 14:4: They Knew?

2011-02-15T16:09:00.000-05:00

Exodus 14:4b reads, "and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD.” If they knew who He was, why didn't they worship Him?

Sincerely,

Someone Who Knows

This is a great question! For it gets to the very core of human nature. A short answer, that God hardened their hearts, is in the first half of that very verse, but a more complete answer is much later in Romans 1.

In Romans 1, starting at verse 18, the Spirit of this very same God inspires Paul to write of a path that all humans (except one!) have walked down. Simply, we suppress the truth. The path looks like this:

1. God and his awesomeness are made plain to us through nature.
2. Though we know God, we refuse to honor Him as God.
3. Because we refuse to worship God, our minds are darkened.
4. Because our minds are darkened, we start to worship idols. All the while we think we are the wise ones.
5. Because we choose to worship creation rather than the creator, God hands us over to other gross practices.
6. Our minds are further darkened by the gross things we do.

So it's not just that we don't know God is God. We don't want to know, and we don't act like we know. We would rather suppress the truth so that we can walk in darkness than acknowledge the God who made us. Unless you were saved as a young child, you can probably remember being completely like this yourself. Come to think of it, we're still a little like that now.

To think of an Egyptian who had just been through the plagues and seen God rescue His people, he is one of the billions of people who have walked down that path. He has worshiped idols, practiced awful things, and suppressed the truth in his mind. Then, when God makes His glory known to the Egyptians, that takes care of the mind part. That should be enough, right? But no, we still have his heart and his hands to deal with. He doesn't want God to be God, and that causes him to do more terrible things. Then those terrible things darken his mind even more, and we're back where we started. Soon enough, he is probably in complete denial that the thing he saw that day was the glory of the Living God.

This is important for us because the very people we share the Gospel with every day are not different from that Egyptian. Have you ever seen what seemed like real results when sharing the Gospel with someone, only to be disappointed later? It's like a switch turns in their head- they get it. They need Jesus. But a few days later, they are back to their old ways, beliefs, and desires. Just like with the Egyptian, knowing isn't enough. If they don't want to worship God, they will suppress the truth in their minds and walk in darkness again.

But when God changes you it's different. He opens you eyes to see Him, yes. And he also opens your heart to want him. Then he cleans up your life as well. This is why James tell us (along with much other Scripture) that the fruit of a changed life is the sign of a true Christian. That is why our Church repeats our "Changed Lives, Changing lives," slogan all the time. He has changed us, not just changed our minds about Him.

People don't just need to know about Jesus- they need to be changed by Him. That's why the Egyptians didn't change their ways, and that's what we have to remember is still true today.

Exodus 4:24-27: Bridegroom of What?

2011-02-04T11:15:00.000-05:00

In Exodus 4:24, it seemed everything was going along ok, according to plan. But of a sudden God wanted to kill Moses . . . or Moses' son! Where did that come from? What does it mean that she touched the foreskin to Moses’ feet? And what’s with the abrupt ending, going right back into the storyline in verse 27? Am I missing something?

Surely,

Your Confused Blood Relative

Dearest relative,

When Emily and I read this passage two nights ago, we wondered many of the same things. It does indeed seem to be an abrupt interruption in the story, but that very thing ought to tell us something. Often when something is inserted into the narrative like that, it means that the two things are connected in a very important way. God didn’t make factual errors in the Bible, and He didn’t make compositional errors either. But what does it mean?

In the sentences before this, God tells Moses that Pharaoh will not listen to Him because of a hard heart, and that as a result Pharaoh will lose his firstborn son. If Pharaoh will not believe Yahweh or his threats, he will lose his firstborn.

Many years before, in Genesis 17, circumcision was instituted by this same God. It was a sign of the covenant between Abraham and Himself. And, gross as it was, Abraham did it to all the males of his household. How long his descendants continued to be faithful with this isn’t completely clear. Maybe Moses and all the Israelites that day were still circumcised- maybe not. Some other people did varying forms of circumcision: the Egyptians themselves even performed a modified version of circumcision on their sons, which the Israelites called “the reproach of Egypt.” And the Midianites, from whom Moses’ wife Zippoah came, also circumcised their sons.

But it was clear that one person was not circumcised: Moses’ son. And, according to Yahweh, this was a problem. The important thing here is that the potential result of Moses’ lack of faith and denial of the covenant was the same as the result of Pharaoh’s hardness of heart: the death of his son! This means that without the covenant, and without faith, Moses is no better off than Pharaoh.

But Zipporah, being raised by a Midianite priest, knew something about circumcision. So she stepped in and fixed the problem for Moses and the boy. She performed the ritual herself, fulfilling what Moses was lacking in faith and obedience. But it is the description of this event that leaves us puzzled. Verse 25 of the ESV says, “Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it and said, ‘Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!’” Most of the other mainstream translations are very similar.

As much as I hate to be the pastor who says that our translations are wrong, I think the answer here is in the Hebrew. The translators have two wild cards to deal with here: some euphemisms that may mean a few different things, and some pronouns that don’t have clear references. It’s sort of like if I said to you, “Joe went with John to his house in his car and painted the place red.” Whose house did they do to? In whose car? Did they get out paintbrushes, shoot someone, or win a bunch of money there? Now try translating that into articulate French!

Particularly, the phrase “Moses’ feet” is unclear here. It’s really “his feet,” which could refer Moses or his son. And “feet” is often a Hebrew be a euphemism for . . . not feet. Moreover, the phrase translated “bridegroom of blood” here is literally “relative of blood.” So the translators basically made a judgment call here and decided that she must have been talking to Moses, translating it in way that reflects this assumption. Though I wish I didn’t, I think they were wrong.

I think what happened here is that Zipporah touched the flint to her son’s . . . not feet . . . and circumcised him. I think the phrase “Surely you are a relative of blood to me,” is something she picked up from her father, the Midianite Priest, as part of his circumcision ritual.

But it could very well be that the translators are right, and Zipporah threw either the bloody flint or the foreskin down to Moses’ feet and called him a “bridegroom of blood” as some sort of insult. Fortunately for us, it doesn’t really change the meaning.

The important thing here is that God was not going to let Moses go back to Egypt as His mouthpiece without the sign of His covenant. Only after he is back in obedience and, truly, back within the covenant does God actually call Aaron to come meet Moses. Because, without that covenant, Moses would have been swallowed up by Pharaoh immediately.

What about us? Do we try to accomplish the work of God without living in his new covenant? Do we try to serve the church without walking in faith? Do we take the Lord’s Supper without trusting in Jesus’ blood, the blood of the new covenant? May we also not try to face God’s enemies without first choosing to follow Him wholeheartedly.

What Exactly Are We Doing?

2011-02-02T17:03:00.001-05:00

Osterville Baptist Church has been through a lot in 175 years, but one thing has stayed the same: we have always had a reputation for being a people of the Holy Bible. We read it to each other, read it in our homes, memorize it, study it in groups throughout the week, and preach from it every Sunday. We hold it highly for one reason: the God who wrote it has changed us. Indeed, the Good News within it can change anyone.

Our pastors decided late in 2010 to make 2011 a marker year for OBC. The same way we remember 1837 as the year the quill atop our steeple began testifying of our love for the Bible, 2011 would be the year we read through the entire Bible together. 120 of our 171 active members committed to walk through it with us. Some fathers pledged to read it aloud to their families. Some children pledged to read it on their own. Some promised to read it through for the first time. Others had lost count of how many times they had read it, but they wanted to read it again. We then decided to take excerpts from the weekly readings and include them in Sunday Worship.

But something happened- something that shouldn't have surprised us at all. As they read, people started asking questions. Where did Cain's wife come from? Who are the Nephilim? Why did God ask where Adam was if He already knew? We were glad to hear these questions, and especially glad to see members talking about them with one another. By February 1st, the opportunity was clear: this is a very unique chance to disciple many of our people personally and, at the same time, on a mass scale.

That bring us to today. If you have been reading through the Bible with us and have a question, ask a pastor in person or email it to Questions@OstervilleBaptist.org. Then check back here- we just might have an answer for you. Pastor Nick, Pastor Dave, and Pastor Rob all hope to contribute.

But one word of caution. Don't let this stop you from asking each other, as you have been! The dialogue this project has created has been valuable, and we'd hate to replace it with this Blog.

In the meantime, let's be praying that God will continue to work deeply in our hearts as we read His word together.