Imagine, if you will, that I start to run a coffee shop. Not one that sells cups of brewed coffee. One that sells packs of freshly roasted coffee beans, to be ground at home and turned into a cup of the very best.
Here’s the price label on a 250g bag of single-origin, know-the-farmer-personally, roasted-yesterday Guatemala.
“Price: £5.
For those who cannot afford £5, the price is £2.
Those who cannot afford £2 may pay £0.50.”
What a funny kind of shop I would be running.
Hmm. Not sure.
It’s often been said that the golden calf is a breach of the 2nd commandment, rather than the 1st. That is: It’s not worshipping another God. It’s worshipping the right God in the wrong way – by use of images. In support of this is Aaron’s declaration: Behold, your God who brought you out of the Land of Egypt.
But I wonder.
The contrast between Moses up the mountain and what goes on as the people below get bored is striking.
Exodus 7-15, there is a pattern.
Egypt asserts her might as the enemy of God and his people (7-11)
God defeats Egypt (12-13)
God destroys his defeated enemy (14-15)
That’s a pattern that recurs.
Linking my two previous posts. That is:
Really we shouldn’t be surprised by the way we treat the environment. Here is the heart of human sin
Romans 1:18-32: We, the human race, have suppressed the knowledge of God that we all have. We all have it because God has made his existence, deity and power known in his creation. The creation is his conscious handwriting intended to communicate to us. We have done so effectively, such that Paul can say we all knew God. The problem is not ignorance, it is culpable suppression of what we know.
God’s temporal judgement for this is to hand us over to self-harming sin. The human-race is constantly attempting to self-destruct; Romans 1 interprets this as God taking off the reins.
I find Genesis 19:14 one of the most sobering, and scary, verses in the whole Bible.
“So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, ‘Up! Get out of this place, for the LORD is about to destroy the city.’ But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting.”
Tragic
But surely that’s just the Old Testament, right?
Yes, I’m back in Jonah 1 again!
What happens if we take the view that Jonah represents Israel?
I was asked one very specific question after my last sermon on Luke 21.
I developed one implication that the temple was to come to an end, which is the implication developed in Ephesians 2. The era of Jewish national privilege has closed, so that in the new creation none of us will have a second class spot – specifically, no Gentiles will be penalised for being Gentile.
After the service I was asked why, if this is the case, I still hold that there will be a distinction in the roles taken by men and women in church life.
/a
In November and December 2007, I preached a series of 3 sermons on Luke chapter 21. You can read the transcripts on this site, should you wish to.
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