Old Testament
1. Offerings- wave...friendship, burnt, grain, guilt, sin. The priest's share. The Lord's share.
2. The ordination of the priests. The priests are set apart for purity and to worship the Lord.
3. Urim and the Thummim: the sacred breastplate.
- The description of the clothing of the Jewish high priest in the Book of Exodus portrays the Urim and Thummim as being put into the sacred breastplate, worn by the high priest over the Ephod. It seems to have been used for some type of divination- to answer questions.
- There is no description of the form of the Urim and Thummim in the passages. Nevertheless, the passage does describe them as being put into the breastplate, which scholars think implies they were objects put into some sort of pouch within it, and then, while out of view, one (or one side, if the Urim and Thummim was a single object) was chosen by touch and withdrawn or thrown out; since the Urim and Thummim were put inside this pouch, they were presumably small and fairly flat, and were possibly tablets of wood or of bone. Accoding to rabbinical literature, in order for the Urim and Thummim to give an answer, it was first necessary for the individual to stand facing the fully dressed high priest, and ask the question briefly and in a simple way.
- Josephus, a first century Jewish scholar, believed that Urim meant lights, argued that divination by Urim and Thummim involved questions being answered by great rays of light shining out of certain jewels on the breastplate; each jewel was taken to represent different letters, and the sequence of lighting thus would spell out an answer (though there were 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and only 12 jewels on the breastplate.
4. The priests were anointed and set apart? Are you set apart to servethe Lord? Can anyone tell?
5. The Lord says, once again, that all this sacrifice is to pay for your sins!
6. After the sacrifices and doing all the things asked of them, the people get ready...the Lord is coming!
- Are we ready?
New Testament
7. Jesus' comments about His mother and brothers may seem on the surface a rude coment. I think what He is trying to say is the in Christ and in love we are all brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers.
- In the church environment that I grew up in there was always a "Mother" of the church, and several other women whom we addressed as "mother", instead of Mrs. or "sister." These women seemed to have a certain wisdom about them. When my own mother couldn't comfort me or answer a question, there was always someone in my church family that could help me out. This in no way diminished my relationship with my mother, but gave me a much broader and richer experience. Experience which I can now draw on as an adult, and offer to others.
8. The parable of the farmer and the seeds. Refer to this parable discussion in Matthew, from previous posting. But,
- God is the Farmenr in this metaphor.
- The seed is the Word. Not money that you send into the televangelist.
- How fertile is the ground of our hearts for God's word. There is an advesary who seeks to kill and destroy! Are we in that group of people who hear and beleive the word...but fall by the wayside frequently because of life's worries, and business, and duties, and distractions?
- How good is the fruit we bear? I know I have said it before, but we are not here just to get stuff. To collect things, and get bigger SUVs, and get big bank accounts. We are not here just to become monetarily prosperous and get "the good life. We are here to help BRING THE KINGDOM OF GOD! That's what we are here for.
- The purpose of the parables is to teach us what the kingdom of God is like, in simple stories we can understand. Things we can get our minds around.
9. The parable of the lamp. Why buy and expenve lamp if you're going to hide it? Is your light for Christ showing, or do you hide it?
Psalm
10. Out of wickedness we will die by our own swords.
11. "Day by day the Lord takes care of the innocent, and they will receive an inheritance that lasts forever." This isn't just about money. It's about health and relationships, and so much more than money.
12. "The Lord directs the steps of the godly...Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand." Listen for the voice of God. He will tell you which way to go. Jesus says in the New Testament reading, those that have ears, let them listen.
- And, think carefully about what you hear. Don't just accept what someone says. Investigate. Read it for yourself. How many times have you watched those men and women on TV and they said something that didn't quite make sense, or didn't sound quite right. Go look it up!
13. "...Yet I have never seen the godly abandoned." You may feel like it at times, but the Lord is always with you.
Proverbs
14. Don't be lazy...
See you next post...
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