Today's Reading
Exodus. Today begins the long struggle between God and Pharaoh. I noticed how God tried to get Moses to take on the full responsibility of speaking and Moses argued that he wasn't eloquent. The Lord seems reluctant to make Aaron the spokesman "to the people." I wonder if that is because Aaron is the one who would give in to the people in the matter of the golden calf. How often does God prompt us in a direction that we refuse and we find out later that He was trying to protect us from pain.
Before Moses arrived back in Egypt, a mysterious event takes place when it seems as if God will judge Moses because he has refused to circumcise his son. Here is at least part of the meaning...
Circumcision was the sign of Israel's covenant with God. The shedding of blood in this way looked forward to the day when blood would be shed to pay for all the sins of humankind. It was, then, a severe violation that Moses hadn't circumcised his son. It was a compromise on Moses' part. Ethnically Hebrew, he had grown up like the Egyptians. When he fled to the wilderness, he married a woman who grew up worshipping other gods. Perhaps it was Zipporah who didn't want to circumcise her son in the custom of the Jews and Moses didn't push the matter. Now, though, they were going back to be among God's chosen people and the true nature of the compromise was seen. God himself would have intervened if Moses' wife hadn't. Why didn't Moses take care of it? What do you think?
Matthew records some strong words and some beautiful promises in today's passage. Your thoughts?
Even as the first part of Psalm 22 was prophetic of the cross, today it looks forward to the spread of the Gospel and Jesus' ultimate reign as King of Kings. I think this is a beautiful passage.
With great wisdom, Proverbs today narrows on a significant temptation for men and the attitude we should have.
I look forward to your responses!
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I am confused by Exodus 4:24 - why did God confront Moses?
ReplyDeleteAs I was reading the story of the Israelites, I thought about slavery in the U.S. and drew a lot of parallels. Maybe that's why there are so many old African American Spirituals about the plight of the Israelites.
I loved Matthew today. I am such a new testament person.
God confronted Moses several times during his life. More than once it was because Moses was living in disobedience. Much of Moses' ministry was like a living picture of redemption that would later come in Christ. It was under Moses that Passover was instituted and we celebrate it every time we have Communion. God gave us the Old Testament so we could see living examples of the truth that He gave us as doctrine in the New Testament epistles.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, circumcision was God's command as a sign of the covenant between God and His people. It pictured a "cutting away" and symbolized that blood (ultimately of Christ) would cut away or separate us from our sins. Moses' failure to complete that picture with his son was completely unacceptable.
At the risk of overstatement, Lara, think of it this way. If you were teaching very young students how to write their letters and you had a student who consistently wrote his "a" backwards, you would adamantly refuse to let him develop it as a habit because it would go with him the rest of his life. You would be nice about it, but you wouldn't back down. In a way, this was God refusing to let Moses live this part of his life "backwards."