The covenant in my blood
Two very important things happen in Exodus chapter 24. Both are designed to encourage the people of Israel that God is serious about having them as his people.
Blog Category:
Old Testament
The Ultimate Plan
Exodus chapter 19 is a very important chapter.
Many of us know well the story of the Passover, the Exodus and the crossing of the Red Sea.
Exodus 19 tells us where this was heading - the ultimate plan. God says, in verse 4, "I brought you to myself". God brought them out of Egypt, so that they could gather around God's presence at Mount Sinai.
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The Sea
This morning, at our 8 am service, we had two readings. They weren't picked because they belonged together. We had Exodus 14 because we've resting the whole Bible as a church and this is where we've got to in the Old Testament. We had Matthew 8 because this is the BCP gospel reading for the 4th Sunday after Epiphany.
Yet they shed some very interesting light on each other.
Genesis 15 and the conquest of Canaan
Many Christians struggle with the conquest of Canaan in the Old Testament. We don't get there until the book of Joshua, but to the modern mind it can seem like barbaric genocide. The people of Israel were told to conquer the land of Canaan, which was already occupied.
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Use resources - but carefully
Photo: Germán Póo-CaamañoLots of churches have had their summer holiday clubs for children - they do them as soon as term finishes. We do ours the other end of the summer - just after the bank holiday weekend.
(Quick plug: If you live in or near Kemsing, and have children who have just finished a year at primary school, we can probably still fit you in - 4 mornings starting Tuesday 27th August).
I'm looking over some of the resources we've got for the club. Never mind which one we're using, as I'm not wanting to make a point about any resource in particular. As it happens, I think the resource we're using for this year's club is excellent.
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Thoughts on the book of Job
Coming across through a few old files on the computer, I found something I'd written on Job - ooh, back in 2007. At least, I think I wrote it. If someone else recognises this as their thoughts and writing on Job, I apologise. And I thank you.
Anyway - I wrote about how easy it is to misunderstand the book, and to draw conclusions that the book does not support:
Here are 4 really quite common ways in which the book of Job is misunderstood.
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And you don't want to meet him when he's angry
I feel prompted to post part of Psalm 2 this morning
1 Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
3 “Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”
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Eve as "helper" for Adam
Genesis 2:18 describes God making Eve as a "helper" (
This particular word occurs 19 times in the Old Testament, and it pays to notice carefully what it does and does not mean elsewhere.
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The tree of knowledge of good and evil
What was the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and why was it a sin to eat its fruit?
Bruce Waltke is very helpful, on page 86 of his Genesis commentary:
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What kind of account is Genesis 2?
One of the values of having a blog, is it gives me somewhere to put notes that will almost certainly not make it into the next sermon, but may interest some people. "If you're interested, for further reading,..."
Here's Bruce Waltke on Genesis 2:
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