Tag Archives: Read the Bible in a year

Daily Bible Study

February 5, 2019 Bible Study — Wait Until the Facts Are In

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 13.

Several of the commentaries I found on this passage say that it suggests that the Israelites had a problem with leprosy in their camp that was exacerbated by the heat and dryness of the desert when they left Egypt.  I will not say that is not true, but this passage delivers a different message to me.  The passage tells us not to jump to conclusions.  It sets up a system to minimize the risk to others while encouraging people not to panic and rush to judgement.  The passage assumes that most of the people who exhibit symptoms which might be a serious contagious disease will heal and not be contagious after a short time.  

Daily Bible Study

February 4, 2019 Bible Study — Waiting For Instructions From God

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 10-12.

Two of Aaron’s sons died because they burned incense using the incorrect fire source. It is not clear how they were supposed to know the correct way to burn the incense, but perhaps that is the point. Perhaps their sin was that they tried to burn the incense without knowing the correct way to do so. We know of other incidents where people died from doing something they did not know was dangerous. There are two ways we can look at this, and both lead to the same conclusion. First, the materialistic way: they were working with fire and with a volatile mixture. Caution was in order to make sure that the incense mixture did not explode. They did not exercise such caution. Second, the spiritual way: they were working in an extremely holy environment. They should have waited for Moses to give them God’s instructions to be sure that they were doing it in the appropriately holy manner. In either case, they died because they did not wait for proper instruction. They did not know what they did not know because they were foolish. A wise person would have realized that what they were about to do was potentially dangerous and would have made sure they knew the correct way to do it.

Daily Bible Study

February 3, 2019 Bible Study — The Ordination Of Aaron

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 8-9.

Today’s passage describes Moses ordaining Aaron and Aaorn’s sons as priests.  There were two parts to the ordination.  Moses dressed Aaron and his sons in the garments which had been made for them as priests.  Once they were dressed in their priestly garments, Moses annointed the Tabernacle, its furnishings, and each of them. Then Moses offered a sin offering for Aaron and his sons, a burnt offering, and an ordination offering.  Once Moses was done offering these sacrifices he had Aaron and his sons sit vigil at the entrance to the Tabernacle for seven days and nights.  On the eighth day they began to serve as priests, offering sacrifices on behalf of the rest of the people of Israel.

The passage seems to imply that the sacrifices Moses offered were all done on one day, but I wonder.  First of all, looking at what was involved in those sacrifices seems challenging for one man to perform in one day.  Second, since it appears that Aaron and his sons only ate their portion of the sacrifices, what did they eat from the 3rd through 7th day of their vigil (earlier, God commanded that those portions not be eaten after the second day)?  It is possible that Moses spread the sacrifices out over the seven days of the vigil, or that other sacrifices were offered over that time period. 

I really wanted to focus on the vigil which Aaron and his sons sat.  They spent seven days thinking about what it meant to be called out to represent the people before God.  Each of us would benefit from sitting such vigils to meditate on what it means to serve God as followers of Christ.  Not necessarily for seven days, but a weekend now and again would serve us well (and I will not argue against spending seven days on such an endeavor).  I will note that Aaron went from making a gold calf for the people to worship to the High Priest before God in a relatively short period of time.

Daily Bible Study

February 2, 2019 Bible Study — Testify to What You Know, But Don’t Commit YOurself to Foolish Actions

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 5-7.

The passage begins by describing a few of the actions which might require one to offer a sin offering.  First, it is a sin to refuse to testify about something which one has seen, or knows about.  Another sin listed here is the making of a foolish vow.  Both of these are sins which require a sin offering.  Remaining silent when we see injustice being done is not an option for those who serve the Lord.  Of course, the second sin I mentioned warns us to temper that action because behaving foolishly is a sin as well.  We must make sure that the injustice we “see” is what we think it is.  

The passage makes clear that often times we sin without realizing it.  Perhaps we called someone out for injustice based on partial information.  If we learn more information which shows that the person had not committed an injustice, an “Oops, my bad” is insufficient.  We must admit that we were wrong, that we had sinned when we condemned them.  We no longer bring sacrifices to the altar to present to God, but we may need to consider offering restitution to those we besmirched by our rush to judgment.  Have we failed to speak up when we knew who had committed a wrong because we “didn’t want to get involved”?  Have we committed ourselves to a foolish course of action?

Daily Bible Study

February 1, 2019 Bible Study — Making Offerings to the Lord

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 1-4.

The passage describes three types of animal sacrifices which the people might make.  The first is a burnt offering where the entire animal is burnt on the altar, except for the skin.  The second is a peace offering, where only select portions are burnt on the altar.  This passage does not specify who eats the remaining meat of the offering, but the context suggests that it is eaten. The final type of offering is the sin offering, which differs depending on whose sin is being covered by the offering.  In all cases, a select portion is burnt on the altar, with the rest being dealt with differently depending for whom the offering is made.  Also in this passage is a description of various grain offerings.

When a sin offering is made, only a select portion is burned on the altar.  How the rest is disposed of depends on whose sin the offering is for.  If the sin offering is for sin committed by the high priest or for sin committed by the people as a whole, the parts of the offering not burned on the altar are burned outside of the camp at a designated location.  For everyone else no method of disposal is specified for the portions not burned on the altar.   The implication of several phrases is that the rest of the meat is consumed by someone.  The point I want to ficus on is that sin by the high priest is treated the same as if the entire people had committed the sin.  Whereas for all other leaders of the people the only difference between their sin offerings and that of the common people is that the leaders offer a male animal and the common people offer a female animal.  I am quite sure that there is meaning to this difference, but I am unsure what it is.

 

 

Daily Bible Study

January 31, 2019 Bible Study — Completing and Dedicating the Tabernacle

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 39-40.

I struggle each year to read in detail this description of the making of priestly garments and the dedication of the Tabernacle.  I am really tempted to skim over it because I generally don’t find much to take out of it.  Today was no exception.  One thing that struck me was that the writer found it important to describe how Bezalel made the gold “thread” for the ephod.  I am unsure why this detail was considered important enough to record.  It does not seem any more important than what dies were used to get the colors for the other threads.  Unless perhaps when Moses described the plan for the ephod which God had given him, other craftsmen had said that gold thread was impossible.  The most important part of this passage is that once the Tabernacle was completed and dedicated, the Israelites were ready to set out from Mt Sinai.

Daily Bible Study

January 30, 2019 Bible Study — Building the Tabernacle

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 36-38.

Moses told the people that several craftsmen had been specially gifted by God with the skills needed to build the Tabernacle.  The people donated the materials necessary for building the Tabernacle.  I will note that the people gave so much that the craftsmen building to Tabernacle had to ask Moses to tell the people not to give any more.  The craftsmen who built the Tabernacle constructed the various parts of it to be easily put together and taken down.  In addition, when taken down the parts were designed for ease of transport.  While the Book of Exodus tells us that the design of the Tabernacle was given to Moses from God, it seems to also tell us that the craftsmen were responsible for designing the supports and curtains to be easily assembled and easily transported.

Daily Bible Study

January 29, 2019 Bible Study –Others Saw the Glory of God Shining Through Moses

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 33-35.

Today’s passage begins with the conclusion to the story of the gold calf.  The writer tells us that God told Moses that the people should get going, that He would send an angel before them to drive out the inhabitants of the Promised Land, but He would not be going with them.  In response to this message, the Israelites stopped wearing jewelry and fine clothes.  However, the Israelites did not move on from Mt Sinai for more than another forty days because the passage tells us that Moses spent forty days at the top of Mt Sinai after this.

When Moses came down from Mt Sinai the second time, his face glowed from being in the presence of God, but Moses was unaware of it.  Everyone else saw how being in God’s presence had changed Moses.  When we spend time communing with God it changes us in ways which others will see long before we do. 

 

Daily Bible Study

January 28, 2019 Bible Study — Moses and the Gold Calf

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 30-32.

Today’s passage continues with instructions for making furnishings for the Tabernacle.  In the middle of this God gave the command for what was referred to as the Temple Tax in the Gospels.  The most important element of this tax was that it would apply equally to everyone, rich and poor.  Everyone had an equal share in the maintenance of the Tabernacle.  This tax was to be collected whenever the leaders felt it necessary to conduct a census of the fighting men of Israel.  The tax, and the count, only applied to those men who were over 20 years of age.  There are references to this elsewhere, but here is one of the places that a man was not eligible to be part of the Israelite Army until after his 20th birthday.

The story of the gold calf in today’s passage contains some elements which I never noticed before.  It seems to me that there are either missing details, or the order of events was different than the order in which they are written.    When Moses came down the mountain and saw the people reveling in worship of the idol, he smashed the stone tablets which God had given him.  Next it tells us that he burned the gold calf, ground it into powder, mixed the powder with water, and made the Israelites drink it.  Then it tells us that he stood at the entrance to the camp and called for those on the Lord’s side to join him.  It says that all of the Levites joined him and he told them to go through the camp from one end to the other killing everyone.

However, the passage tells us that only about 3,000 people died that day.  Now thinking about this from a perspective of how stories get told and of how things are likely to happen allows us to see how this discrepancy would occur.  The first point on that I want to make is to remind everyone that writing was laborious and writing materials expensive.  So, one did not simply discard what one had written and start over if you realized that you had left something out.  You added it on where you were at.  I am not quite sure what exactly happened here, but it seems likely that Moses smashed the tablets and called for those who were on the Lord’s side to join him before destroying the gold calf.   From there I am not quite sure.  Perhaps those who died were those who resisted Moses’ destruction of the gold calf, or perhaps it was those who refused to drink the concoction he made out of it.  My initial thought was the latter, but further thought makes me believe it was the first.

 

Daily Bible Study

January 27, 2019 Bible Study

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 28-29.

We have here a description of the clothing which Aaron, and his successors as high priest, was to wear when he offered sacrifices to God.  The names of Jacob’s twelve sons were to be engraved on two onyx stones where were to be fastened to the shoulders of the ephod (a sort of apron).  In addition, twelve gemstones representing the twelve sons of Jacob were to be attached to a chestpiece which Aaron was to wear.  Each gemstone was to have one of the names of Jacob’s sons engraved on it.  Both of these engravings of the names of Jacon’s sons was to remind Aaron, and each of his successors, that he represented the people when he went before God.  The very garments which marked Aaron as separate and special were designed to remind him that his calling was to serve the people, not himself.