Meditate on it

"Joshua may have felt a sense of loneliness, and waited expectantly near the Jordan River to hear the voice of God. He was not disappointed. When God’s servants take time to listen, He always communicates. In the present Age He usually speaks through His written Word. But in the Old Testament He spoke in dreams by night, in visions by day, through the high priest, and occasionally in an audible voice."  -BKC Interesting to think about the ways that God communicates---differently at different times.  I never have quite understood this.  He is the same yesterday, today and forever, yet his communication is different.  Why?

God tells Moses to teach the people a song: "In the song that Moses would teach them they would find the reason for their judgments and the path of repentance (Deu_31:19-22). The song would also serve as a warning of the judgment to come for apostasy. God is fully aware of the tendency of the human heart to stray from Him: I know what they are disposed to do."  -BKC Song was used to teach people truth that needed to stay in their hearts. Also interesting: "After a life of service to the nation Moses heard saddening news from the Lord… these people will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering."  -BKC Moses spent his life ministering to this group of people and the next generation of people only to

Interesting little tidbit on stewardship: Deu 20:19  "When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human, that they should be besieged by you? Deu 20:20  Only the trees that you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down, that you may build siegeworks against the city that makes war with you, until it falls. "Why should Israel cut down trees whose fruit she could eat? And why should trees, that were not men, be besieged? Even in lands outside Canaan the practice was to be avoided because it showed a lack of respect for God’s creation and an infatuation with the harsh and excessive use of destructive power." -BKC To me, it boils down to not infringing upon His creation in insensitive ways.

"The law of retribution, known in Latin as the lex talionis, was previously given in Exo_21:23-25 and Lev_24:17-22. This law was given to encourage appropriate punishment of a criminal in cases where there might be a tendency to be either too lenient or too strict. The law codes of the ancient Near East did provide for the maiming of a criminal (e.g., gouging out an eye, cutting off a lip, etc.). With one exception (Deu_25:11-12) Israelite law did not explicitly allow such mutilation. Apart from this one instance, therefore, only the first part of this law, life for life, was applied to indicate that punishment ought to fit the crime (punishment in kind). Thus a slave who lost his eye was freed (Exo_21:26). The lex talionis also served as a restraint in cases where the punisher might be inclined to be excessive in administering punishment. Jesus did not deny the validity of this principle for the courtroom, but He denied its usage in personal relationships (Mat_5:38-42). There sho

Heard a good discourse on the self-centeredness of God yesterday with John Piper.  I can't even begin to quantify it as it's such an abstract deep thing.  It's certainly not about the narcissistic self-centeredness that plagues the best of us, but more about God's self-existent and fully satisfactory, complete nature, His glory and desire to bring all things to Himself and that those things glorify/magnify Himself. Anyway, this passage from Deuteronomy touches back unto this for me (the jealousy as part of His nature) Deu 6:13  It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. Deu 6:14  You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you-- Deu 6:15  for the LORD your God in your midst is a jealous God--lest the anger of the LORD your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth. "And this act of unfaithfulness would result in judgment since the Lord… is a

On 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel 1 Kings, 2 Kings Paraphrased from Daily Audio Bible:   1 and 2 Samuel were called 1st & 2nd Kings 1 and 2 were called 3rd & 4th Kings in the Septuagint From Wikipedia: Septuagint--Greek translation of OT, dated as early as late 2nd century AD, Paul references in NT writings, possibly commissioned by Ptolmey II The Septuagint derives its name from the Latin versio septuaginta interpretum, "translation of the seventy interpreters. Latin Vulgate 4th century, largely the work of St. Jerome "The Vulgate is a late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was largely the work of St. Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of the old Latin translations. By the 13th century this revision had come to be called the versio vulgata, that is, the "commonly used translation",[1] and ultimately it became the definitive and officially promulgated Latin version of the Bible in the Roman Catholic Church. Its w