Yesterday we heard a sermon about God striking Uzzah dead when he reached out and touched the Ark of the Covenant. David was bringing it back to Jerusalem and had a new cart built and two oxen to pull it. One of the oxen stumbled and Uzzah reached out and steadied the Ark as it…
I’ve been reading “The Trouble With Grace” by O. Keith Hueftle and it is really really good. Keith shows a real depth for God’s hospitality as it shows His character. It’s not just a hospitality of “if you come, I’ll take care of you” but a pursuing, hungry hospitality that tracks you down and then…
Malachi 1:8 For when you offer blind animals as a sacrifice, is that not wrong? And when you offer the lame and sick, is that not wrong as well? Indeed, try offering them to your governor! Will he be pleased with you or show you favor?” asks the Lord who rules over all. Whenever I…
Ezra 8:35 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. It’s pretty awesome to note that they…
Zechariah 12:10 And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him,…
John 17:6 I know this sounds like Yoda talking, but the fact that Jesus says “yours they were” shows that God didn’t CHANGE from the OT to the NT. People belonged to God and were faithful to Him and experienced some sort of grace before Jesus came. It wasn’t the fullness of salvation that Jesus…
I’ve been reading David Stern’s Jewish New Testament Commentary and listening to Dwight A. Pryor on the subject of Acts 2 and Pentecost. WOW. Texts: Acts 2, John 14, Exodus 20-32 The parallels between what the Jews celebrated and taught from the traditions about Pentecost and what happened on Pentecost 50 days after the Last…
I don’t usually write at night but I just read across something and want to ink some of this out before I go to bed… khesed/grace/mercy throughout the Old Testament is, by definition, costly. that’s the statement I read tonight It also involves hospitality, honor, and covenant. It is something that, when it happens, allows,…
In Ezekiel 16, God talks about finding Israel out in the field as he was passing by. She was lying in her blood-a newborn whose cord hadn‚Äôt even been cut. This was the ancient method of abortion, to have the baby and then dump it in a field. They didn‚Äôt even bother cutting the cord…
Ezekiel 3 14 The Spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness in the heat of my spirit, the hand of the Lord being strong upon me. 15 And I came to the exiles at Tel-abib, who were dwelling by the Chebar canal, and I sat where they were dwelling. And…
