Christian Life

I think this post from Steve Jeffery is very helpful

2 Samuel 6 describes what King David did when the Ark of the LORD was brought into the city of Jerusalem.

I'm delighted to see that a new edition of Operation World is due to be published tomorrow.

(paid link)

Amazon are showing a price of £11.14 for the paperback (paid link); or £21.24 for the paperback book and a CD-ROM copy (paid link). It is also available in hardcover (paid link).

"Once you are convinced that your people need — I say need — the whole Word of God, and you get over the shock to your indolent flesh that you are not in the ministry for an easy job, you simply roll up your sleeves, and having gathered, or being in process of gathering, the most helpful library of commentaries and reference books you can find, you get down to it: and book by book you give your people a balanced diet of the truth." (William Still, The Work of the Pastor (p

The Lord's Supper is the world in miniature; it has cosmic significance. Within it we find clues to the meaning of all creation and all history, to the nature of God and the nature of man, to the mystery of the world, which is Christ. It is not confined to the first day, for its power fills seven. Though the table stands at the center, its effects stretch out to the four corners of the earth. (Leithart, Blessed are the Hungry (paid link), page 11)

For those of you who belong to a small group at church, Richard Perkins has a couple of excellent posts on how you can belong to one so as to make it thrive, and how to belong to one so as to make it struggle.

The Bible repeatedly says that idols, being false gods, are little use. There is plenty of mockery of them to make the point. I love this detail...

The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. And they stripped him and took his head and his armour, and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to carry the good news to their idols and to their people. (1 Chronicles 10:8-9)

We are forever looking for things God has done for us for which we can give him thanks. Things he has done for us and for no other people. That could be a temporal thing - we want things he has done for our generation and not for previous ones. That could be a spatial thing - we want things he has done for our village / town / county / nation and not for others. It could be both at once - things he has done for me and me alone.

Psalm 105 is a total contrast. It starts

Oh give thanks to the Lord;
call upon his name;

I find Motyer (paid link)'s proposed structure of Exodus 32-34 more convincing at some points than at others, but it definitely contains some useful observations about how the section as a whole is working:

A1      Moses doubted (32:1-6)
      B1      Covenant under threat. Moses’ intercession (32:7-14)
            C1      The broken tablets (32:15-19)

“It is most fitting that the Sabbath be the sign of this covenant. Israel, as we have noted, is a new creation. This is a new people of God, whom he intends to use to undo the work of the first man. Also, the tabernacle is a microcosm of the created order, a parcel of edenic splendour established amid the chaos of the world. The Sabbath is not just a reminder of the original creation in Genesis 1 and 2, but a reminder of God’s re-creation of the cosmos in the tabernacle.”

“To put it another way, the tabernacle is holy space. The Sabbath, by contrast, is holy time. By building the tabernacle and setting apart one day in seven, God is truly recreating heaven in space and time. Weekly Sabbath worship is on holy ground in holy time. There is no more holy spot on the face of the earth than the tabernacle on the Sabbath… By entering the tabernacle, Israel entered God’s house; by keeping the Sabbath, Israel entered God’s rest.” (Peter Enns (paid link), pages 544-546)

A bit of background information for those who are interested. This coming Sunday I will be preaching on Exodus 25-31. Desmond Alexander's book, From Paradise to the Promised Land (paid link) has some very helpful things to say. Below are some excerpts