May 2022 – Dancing In The Kingdom

Chapter 6 – A Nation Settles

The Impossible Dance – Table of Contents

The Impossible Dance – Chapter 6 – A Nation Settles

Courage and memory

When the people of Israel first approached the Promised Land, Moses chose twelve spies to scout out the land. Joshua and Caleb were the only two spies that did not bring back a report of discouragement. The discouragement brought by the other ten spies caused all the people of Israel to rebel against God as they forgot all the miracles of God’s provision in their flight from Egypt. This resulted in God subjecting the people of Israel to encamping in the wilderness for forty years. All the adults except for Joshua and Caleb, were subject to die in the wilderness before the people of Israel would enter the promised land.

Therefore, God chose Joshua to lead the people into the Promised Land at the end of the forty years. As before, the nation of Israel would encounter other people already living in the land, so Israel would need to fight for the land; it would not be easy. Before Joshua led his people into the land, God repeatedly said to Joshua, “Be strong and of good courage … do not be terrified or discouraged.” Then as a refresher, God also performed miracles as the people entered the land, causing the Jordan River to cease flowing to allow the people to cross on dry land – repeating the miracle of the parting of the sea as they fled Egypt.

Before Israel even left Egypt, the Egyptian people gave the Israelites gold and other wealth that was not theirs, the water from miraculously made springs and the manna that fell from the sky was not theirs. Now the homes and fields that God gave them to capture were the provision of God as well.

God’s fullness, his followers’ emptiness

God’s provision though was going to require their involvement. It would start with the way they crossed the Jordan River where the people carrying the ark needed to get their feet wet in the river before it would stop flowing. And since this time, the river would now be the boundary of their new land, God told the people to set up a monument of twelve stones to be a reminder God’s provision. The next miracle which came soon after was the crumbling of the walls of Jericho which occurred after seven days of marching around the city. That miracle would be followed by others as the people of Israel continued to capture the cities.

According to the message that Yahweh shared with Abraham, the entry of Israel into the Promised Land meant that the sin of the Amorites had now reached its full measure. As with the time of Noah, that full measure would now end in the destruction of the inhabitants of the land, this time by the people of Israel. The danger to Israel would be, that if the current inhabitants of the land with their idolatries and atrocities, which included burning their children alive to sacrifice them to their gods, were allowed to live among the people of Israel, the people of Israel would be tempted to also turn from God.

So, beginning at Jericho, the people of Israel to instructed to “totally destroy” (Hebrew “herem”) the inhabitants of the city. God would repeat this instruction at other times as well. But Israel did not always follow these instructions with the consequent result that Israel continuously fell into the idolatries of the current inhabitants.

Before Joshua died, he challenged the people to serve Yahweh and the people responded that they would choose to serve Yahweh. Joshua replied that they could not serve Yahweh, the God who is so holy. Nevertheless, the people responded that they would serve Yahweh. Joshua then said that they were “witnesses against themselves.” They would be. In the end, they did not follow God’s commands to defeat the tribes in the Promised Land. They did not “completely destroy” the cities as God told them to do. Israel therefore allowed themselves to be subject to continual temptation to sin by turning from worshipping God and towards worshipping idols, participating the same atrocities that God found so reprehensible.

The God of War

One of the troublesome tensions of the Christian faith is how to reconcile our picture of Jesus who came to bring us peace with the picture of the “pre-Jesus” God who seems so violent. In particular, the God who commanded Israel to “totally destroy,” to leave no one alive in the cities of the “promised land” they were to inhabit.

It has been so hard to reconcile the two images of the God, one of the Old Testament that engaged in violence and the second of one of the New Testament who came to “bring peace,” that from the earliest days of the church some Christians felt compelled to abandon the Old Testament altogether. There are several issues that come affect how we deal with this problem.

There are less differences between God’s portrayal in the Old vs. New Testaments than many think. (See Chapter 2; Paradoxes and Mysteries; Gracious, Merciful and Just). If we have a problem with God in the Old Testament, then we have a problem in the New Testament as well. Both Testaments together provide the full story of the Gospel and a full picture of God.

We need to see all suffering and death in context of Jesus’ suffering and death by execution. Jesus is God the Son, present from before Creation, the God of Creation, the God of Abraham, Moses and Israel, and the God who commanded Israel to herem (“totally destroy”) the people in Canaan. We cannot separate Jesus from all the activity ascribed to God’s activity in the Old Testament. The Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace that we are more comfortable dealing with, is only available because of all that He had done beginning with Creation, extending through history of the patriarchs and Israel and eventually his own incarnation, suffering and death.

We need to accept that there is much that we do not know. This comes at us a couple of different ways. We must deal with our cultural separation from the times before Jesus, there are things going on with the ancient near east culture that we don’t know. We also must deal with a knowledge of God that is far beyond ours. We need to take seriously Yahweh’s criticism of Job, and of Yahweh’s admonition to Isaiah, “my ways are higher than your ways,” we must be careful to accuse Yahweh of injustice because there is much that do not understand.

The totality of destruction implied by herem catches our attention, but this is only a specific, though perhaps extreme, case of the question, “Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?” The answer to the everyday issue of why “innocent” people suffer, is the same answer that underlies the killing of people that we assume are innocent.

Our modern-day culture is in many ways sanitized compared to the Biblical culture. Because most of us do not witness the slaughter of animals we eat, we have a challenging time associating with those who lived in the time where there was the ritual slaughter of animals, not for the sake of food but for the sake of sins. We have not had to watch the slaughter of animals and contemplate the awfulness of our sin and of God’s hatred of sin because of its awful effect on us. All that makes is difficult for us to grasp the concept of a God so jealous for us that he would even offer himself to be slaughtered on our behalf.

Add to that difficulty is the reality, that although the church has not always lived up to its professed values, we still amazingly live in a world that has been cleansed by the effect of the grace of Christian values, even if the world is unable to recognize how our current values had their roots in Christian values. It was the Christian value of life that confronted the once customary practice of abandoning babies on the street to die and so today it is rare. It has been Christian values that have elevated the status of women and children. It has been Christian values that led to the development of modern science, technology, and medicine.

Yet another level of “sanitization” occurs when we don’t consider the extent of our own sin and depravity in context of the extent of the holiness of God. A contrast that caused the prophet Isaiah to proclaim, “Woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips from a people of unclean lips.” Hiding our own sins darkens our view, hiding the extent of sin around us.

We also are forgetful of the mercies of God. 1) Jonah was perturbed when Yahweh responded to the repentance shown by the Ninevites by not bringing about the threatened destruction. 2) The mercies shown to many of the idolatrous kings of Israel when they repented. 3) In the case of Israel entering the Promised Land, we don’t know what kind of warnings the Canaanites may have received prior to the “total destruction” of their cities. We do know that Yahweh patiently waited until he “sin of the Amorites would reach their full measure.” The Canaanites may have had sufficient warning to change their ways (and they had, among other abhorrent practices, that of sacrificing their children to the flames) and yet they didn’t. While we, in our time, may think of the “total destruction” as genocide, it may be instead an act of mercy – reducing the pain and suffering that would otherwise go on.

Sparing the lives of the “innocent” within the borders of the Israel did lead to the Israelites to continue the reprehensible practices of the Canaanite religions, prolonging the suffering that Yahweh wanted to put an end to. Israel’s fell into the sin of the nations around them, even after God warned them that allowing the original inhabitants to live alongside of them would cause the Israelites to adopt the same abhorrent practices – which is what happened.

God had already used the forces of nature to directly perform his herem version of justice (ex: The Great Flood which killed all people except Noah and his family, the crossing of the Red Sea in which innumerable Egyptian soldiers died). God’s commanding Israel to invoke herem was now calling Israel to serve as his agent in executing a type of justice that God had already been practicing.

How innocent were the Canaanites: men, women, and children? We can’t argue from silence that the Canaanites did not have a chance to respond to God’s warnings. We do know that God waited several hundred years before executing his judgement.

It is not just in the Old Testament that we witness immense suffering. All around us today and through the years before, there has been great suffering among God’s image-bearers caused by our own violence or the violence of natural events or the violence of birth defects. All these can cause us to question, “Why, God?”

All these are various issues, and likely not the only issues, to consider while grappling both with God’s implication in violent activity and with the suffering endured by those people who we consider to be innocent. These issues, even all taken together, will not necessarily provide us comfortable answers. But we also need to remember, that if we have a “God” we think we totally understand, then it is not God that we are really understanding. Also, if we have a “God” that we are fully comfortable with, then we are not fully dealing with the holiness of God and the totality of our sin.

Jesus dealt with the totality of our sin by his suffering and excruciating death. It is only by the violence endured by Jesus that He has become our Prince of Peace. And in the end, when Jesus returns, His promise to bring peace will include herem, the total destruction of sin and death. The Biblical images of that time are of much violence. This then, is the lens through which we must see the violence around us. But even with that lens, we are not likely to have a ‘satisfactory’ answer. Even with that lens we will still struggle.

Perhaps we are meant to struggle, to lament about all that’s wrong, evil, awful, terrible, sad, and more that our hearts can bear. But in our lament, not to give up the hope that is also in our hearts, the hope that God our Father is alive, that our Father cares so deeply that He gave His Son, that miracles still do happen and that we can expect God to show up in our midst.

Judges and the Cycle of sin

Israel’s action reveals to us what happens if we fail to totally destroy the sin around us. Because Israel had not been faithful to “totally destroy” the people whose land they conquered, the foretold consequence became true, Israel became ensnared in the horrid idol worship practices of those people. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

To discipline his people, God allowed the peoples surrounding Israel to plundered Israel until they cried for mercy. God then raised up leaders called judges to successfully fight off the oppressors and Israel would respond by turning from idol worship, but only for a while. Eventually Israel would fall away from Yahweh once again and the cycle of oppression, rescue, and falling away would repeat.

God raising his people

During the time of the judges, while the nation of Israel struggled and failed to follow God, we find that God was raising judges in response to Israel’s cry for help in their ongoing cycle of sin, God was also quietly working the background through individuals to fulfill His larger plan.

During the period of the Judges, God used drought to cause Elimelech and his wife Naomi and their two sons to move to Moab. Both of her sons got married in Moab and one of them married a woman named Ruth. When Naomi’s husband and sons died, Naomi moved back home to Israel. While Ruth could have stayed in Moab, Ruth desired to follow Naomi and particularly to follow Naomi’s God. God used that act of faith to arrange for Ruth to meet and married Boaz, and thus inserting a Moabite woman into the lineage of people who would become the ancestors of Jesus.

There is a recurring story that began in Genesis with Abraham and Sarah, where God working through women who have difficulties in pregnancy. In the time of Judges, the woman was Hannah. In her struggle to become pregnant, Hannah leaned on God. One day, while she was praying at the tabernacle, the priest, Eli, saw her and asked God to grant Hannah her wish. Shortly thereafter, Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son, Samuel. In an act of gratefulness, after giving birth to Samuel, Hannah committed Samuel to serve at the tabernacle with Eli. Little did Eli know at the time that God would raise up Samuel to be a priest in place of his sons. When Eli’s sons had become corrupt and unfit to serve as priests, God worked with Hannah’s fervent worship to raise up Samuel and eventually called Samuel to replace Eli as priest. Samuel ended up being a prophet for Israel and served as the last of the judges.

The Cycle of Sin Continues

While Eli was priest, there came a time when Israel had to fight the Philistines, a nation with iron instruments that was exceedingly difficult to fight. After the Philistines routed Israel in one battle, Eli’s sons thought that the solution for victory was to take the ark with them into battle. They thought that they surely would win the battle if they carried God, whose presence was supposed to be in the ark, into battle. What they didn’t do, however, was to consult with God. Not only did Israel lose again, but Israel also lost the ark itself to the Philistines.

The mistake that Israel made was a mistake as old as Adam and Eve. We would rather have a God that we can manage rather that one we are accountable to. Want wisdom? Don’t wait for God, just eat from the tree. Want to win a battle? Don’t wait for God to lead you, take God (as the ark) with you. One of the previous judges, Gideon, would make an ephod that would become an idol for Israel. Also, in the period of the judges, a priest named Micah, would make an ephod that would also become an idol. One of the convenient things about idols is that while they may not have the power of God, they don’t make uncomfortable demands about changing our lives either.

Rejecting God as King

Ever since the time of Adam and Eve, we have had a problem of thinking that we know better than God. After Israel started to settle into the Promised Land, that same problem appeared again with the diagnoses, “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” It was that problem that caused the cycle of God discipline of Israel: Israel would fall into sin, God would then allow surrounding nations to dominate Israel, Israel would then cry for help, God would raise up a leader who overcame the dominating nation, Israel would then turn back to Yahweh for a while, but then would fall into sin and the cycle would repeat.

Eventually, Israel figured that they thought they knew what the problem was … that they needed a king … like everyone else. When the prophet, Samuel, was old and people became uncomfortable with Samuel’s sons leading the nation (Note: It seemed that Samuel had the same kind of problem with his sons as Eli had with his), the people rebelled against God and asked the prophet Samuel to ask God to give them a king. Samuel was troubled because he knew that their diagnosis was wrong. Yahweh confirmed that when he told Samuel that the real problem was not that they rejected Samuel, but rather they’ve rejected Yahweh as king. Unexpectedly, Yahweh said that he would grant their wish anyway. They will get a king (!!!) … like everyone else (!!!). One of the lessons from this event is that we need to be careful; in our rebellion, God may condemn us to what we want.

Saul

God gave Israel a king in the mold of other kings. In physical appearance, King Saul was a tall, handsome son of a powerful man, but spiritually, Saul would continue the national habit of “doing what was right in his own sight.” In fact, there were times when Saul was talking to Samuel that Saul made references to “Yahweh your God” instead of “Yahweh our God.” (That phrase was used before by Jacob before his wresting match with God and would be used again by King Jeroboam at a later time.) Saul had ceased to trust in God. There would also be other times when, instead of leaning on God for victory, Saul would also resort to making foolish, rash vows.

Saul barely began his 40-year ministry as king before Samuel had to inform him that God had rejected him as king. Although that rejection happened early in his career, God did not replace Saul until much later. Saul would have to endure the knowledge that God had rejected him for the rest of his career, which was most of his career, as king. That may have been a factor in him becoming more unstable as time went on. Yet despite his rejection by God, he did have some success in conducting war against Israel’s enemies, but Saul’s standing with God did not change.

David

Testing and Waiting

Meanwhile, God had selected David, who the Bible describes as “a man after God’s own heart,” to be the next king. However, David’s reign did not begin until many years later. This meant there was going to be a long and difficult in-between time of testing. In the meanwhile, there would be much conflict in which David had to trust God and do what he thought he needed to do. David didn’t test God by unnecessarily putting himself in harm’s way, rather he looked to God for wisdom and acted accordingly. When David had opportunities to kill King Saul, he refused to do so and instead waited for God to act.

This is the area where we typically fail: Adam and Eve could not wait for God to give them knowledge so they grabbed for it; Abraham and Sarah could not wait for God to give them a son through Sarah and so they used Hagar; Jacob could not wait for his inheritance so he and Rebekah had to trick Isaac; Moses could not wait for God to provide water by just speaking to the rock and so he had to strike it. In contrast, to be obedient, David was willing to wait for God to replace Saul and did not take advantage of the opportunities he had to kill him.

Friendship

In this difficult period, David would form with Saul’s son, Jonathan, the best friendship he ever had. Jonathan recognized that God had rejected his own father, Saul, as king. However, instead of jealously trying to hold onto what he could not have, he accepted David as the heir to the throne. In fact, Jonathan was crucial to David’s survival.

The war King

In time, Saul did die, and David became king, although it would be in phases. Initially there was a civil war as people that were loyal to Saul did not pledge loyalty to David but to another king. As in many conflicts, in addition to the overt conflict, there was much subterfuge and political intrigue as well which would have consequences later. Then, even after uniting the kingdom, David had to lead Israel through constant warfare as he expanded the kingdom. So even though God had called David to be king, that did not mean that there was a clear path to becoming king and it did not mean that there would be no conflicts once he became king. It also did not mean that David would be perfect.

Repentance

There were a couple of instances where David committed sin but, unlike Saul before him, David responded to Yahweh’s rebuke with repentance. The most egregious sin David committed was to have an affair with Bathsheba, the wife of one of his soldiers, getting her pregnant. Then when he failed to cover it up, he arranged for that soldier to be killed on the front lines. When the prophet, Nathan, confronted David about the sin, David repented and confessed his sin. The baby born from that affair died shortly after being born, but later David would have another child with Bathsheba, Solomon, setting up the next story line.

Messy family life

David did have many wives and concubines, but unlike Solomon, the king who reigned after him, David’s polygamy had not led him to worshiping other gods. The Bible doesn’t condemn David for his polygamy, but it seemed to exasperate a weakness in David. David had many children through his wives and concubines, but he failed to discipline them. His inability to discipline his sons resulted in rape of one of his daughters by one of his sons, who was then murdered by another son to avenge the rape, and then attempted to dethrone David. This all meant that the path to succession to David’s throne would not be straightforward, but in the end, David selected his son Solomon to succeed him.

Solomon

Solomon had a great start. David gave him materials with which he could start building the temple. Solomon’s heart was humble enough to ask Yahweh for wisdom above all things, for which God blessed Solomon not only with great wisdom but with great wealth besides. The one weakness in all this provision was that Solomon, like other Oriental kings, accumulated wives and concubines. The problem was that Solomon loved his wives who came from other cultures more than Yahweh. Because of that, he not only tolerated their idol worship but took part in that idol worship as well. One thing that Solomon ignored despite his great wisdom, was the warning for kings not to accumulate great wealth and many wives. One early sign of his failure may have occurred during his prayer of dedication for the new temple when, despite the use of wealth from donations or taxes and despite the slave labor and labor from other countries, he still said, “the temple I built.”

The Divided Kingdom

Solomon’s divided heart ended up dividing the kingdom. When Solomon’s son Rehoboam succeeded him on the throne, Rehoboam foolishly followed the advice to increase taxes, causing a revolt. Yahweh, who knows all things, had already selected Jeroboam to lead the revolt. The result was that ten tribes (the Northern kingdom, commonly called Israel) followed Jeroboam, leaving only two tribes (the Southern kingdom, commonly called Judah) to follow Rehoboam. With only a few exceptions, most of the kings in the divided kingdom participated in idolatry and the associated practices of the surrounding communities, earning God’s wrath. These two kingdoms were in continual conflict with each other until each came to an ignominious end.

Questions:

Read Deuteronomy 6:10-12. It is a good thing to have God provide for us, but what dangers are there when God does provide for us?
Read Deuteronomy 7:1-5. God certainly had the power to simply wipe out all the inhabitants of the Promised Land. God did many miracles, intervening many times on Israel’s behalf. Why do you think that God had the Israelites carry out those many battles?
Read Joshua 6:17-21; 1 Samuel 15:1-3. If you think about Jesus being one part of the moving, brooding, dancing God who invoked violence in the Old Testament, how do you process that?
Read Judges 2. The book of Judges is a record of our penchant to turn from God and of his patient faithfulness, continuing to rescue us despite our persistent failure. How does this cycle make you feel?
Read Ruth 1-4; Matthew 1:1-17. Think about the travails of Naomi and how God worked in the midst of her troubles to insert a foreign woman into Jesus’ ancestry. What does it mean that Jesus set it up so that non-Jews were part of his human ancestry?
Read 1 Samuel 8. Knowing that God may discipline us by giving us what we want instead of what we need, how should we then pray?
Read 1 Samuel 24:1-7; 26:1-12. On more than one occasion, David had a chance to kill the man who was out to kill him. Why not?
Read 1 Samuel 15-16; 2 Samuel 1-2. Many years and many difficulties passed between God anointing David to be the next king and then actually becoming king. Why might God call someone to do something but allow many difficulties to occur in the process?
Of the three kings of the united kingdom of Israel, why was only David was also known as a man “after God’s own heart.”
Read 1 Kings 11:11-13. What does this passage say about the messes we make and God’s plans for our lives?

Chapter 7 – Settlement

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of contents

Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom, Chapter 7 – Settlement

Courage and memory

[Bible references: Numbers 1; Deuteronomy 31:1-8; Joshua 1:1-9; Joshua 3-4; Joshua 5:13-14; Deuteronomy 6:10-12]

When the people of Israel first approached the Promised Land, twelve spies were sent out to scout out the land. Joshua and Caleb were the only two spies that did not bring back a report of discouragement. The discouragement brought by the other ten spies caused all the people of Israel to rebel against God as they forgot all the miracles of God’s provision in their flight from Egypt. This resulted in God subjecting the people of Israel to encamping in the wilderness for forty years. All the adults except for Joshua and Caleb, were subject to die in the wilderness before the people of Israel would enter the promised land.

It was therefore Joshua who was chosen to lead the people into the Promised Land at the end of the forty years. As before, the nation of Israel would encounter other people already living in the land, so Israel would need to fight for the land; it would not be easy. Before Joshua led his people into the land, God repeatedly said to Joshua, “Be strong and of good courage … do not be terrified or discouraged.” Then as a refresher, God also performed miracles as the people entered the land, causing the Jordan River to cease flowing to allow the people to cross on dry land – repeating the miracle of the parting of the sea as they fled Egypt.

Before Israel even left Egypt, the people were given gold and other wealth that was not theirs, the water from miraculously made springs and the manna that fell from the sky was not theirs. Now the homes and fields that God gave them to capture were the provision of God as well.

God’s fullness, his followers’ emptiness

[Bible references: Numbers 33:55-56; Deuteronomy 7:1-5; 12:2-3, 29-32; 6:17; Joshua 3:3; 4; 6; 10:1-15; 23-24; Isaiah 65:6-7]

God’s provision though was going to require their involvement. It would start with the way they crossed the Jordan River where the people carrying the ark needed to get their feet wet in the river before it would stop flowing. And since this time, the river would now be the boundary of their new land, the people were instructed to set up a monument of twelve stones to be a reminder God’s provision. The next miracle which came soon after was the crumbling of the walls of Jericho which occurred after seven days of marching around the city. That miracle would be followed by others as the people of Israel continued to capture the cities.

According to the message that Yahweh shared with Abraham, the entry of Israel into the Promised Land meant that the sin of the Amorites had now reached its full measure. As with the time of Noah, that full measure would now end in the destruction of the inhabitants of the land, this time by the people of Israel. The danger to Israel would be, that if the current inhabitants of the land with their idolatries and atrocities, which included sacrificing their children to be burned alive, were allowed to live among the people of Israel, the people of Israel would be tempted to also turn from God.

So, beginning at Jericho, the people of Israel to instructed to “totally destroy” (Hebrew “herem”)^[1] the inhabitants of the city. This instruction would be repeated other times as well. The problem that would appear is that Israel did not always follow these instructions with the consequent result that Israel would continuously get drawn into the idolatries of the current inhabitants.

Before Joshua died, he challenged the people to serve Yahweh and the people responded that they would choose to serve Yahweh. Joshua replied that they could not serve Yahweh, the God who is so holy. Nevertheless, the people responded that they would serve Yahweh. Joshua then said that they were “witnesses against themselves.” They would be. In the end, they did not follow God’s commands to defeat the tribes in the Promised Land. They did not “completely destroy” the cities as they were told. Israel therefore allowed themselves to be subject to continual temptation to sin by turning from worshipping God and towards worshipping idols, participating in the same atrocities that God found so reprehensible.

The God of War

[Bible references: Exodus 22:21-22; Leviticus 19:33–34; Deuteronomy 10:17–19; 24:19; Joshua 6:17-21; 1 Samuel 15:1-3; Psalm 10:14–18; 68:5; 146:9; Ezekiel 47:22–23; James 1:7]

One of the troublesome tensions of the Christian faith is how to reconcile our picture of Jesus who’s come to bring us peace with the picture of the “pre-Jesus” God who seems so violent. In particular, the God who commanded Israel to “totally destroy,” to leave no one alive in the cities of the “promised land” they were to inhabit.

There are less differences between how God is revealed in the Old vs. New Testaments than many think. (See Chapter 2; Paradoxes and Mysteries; Gracious, Merciful and Just). If we have a problem with God in the Old Testament, then we have a problem in the New Testament as well. Both Testaments together provide the full story of the Gospel and a full picture of God.

We need to see all suffering and death in context of Jesus’ suffering and death by execution. Jesus is God the Son, present from before Creation, the God of Creation, the God of Abraham, Moses and Israel, and the God who commanded Israel to herem the people in Canaan. Jesus cannot be separated from all the activity ascribed to God’s activity in the Old Testament. The Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace that we are more comfortable dealing with, is only available because of all that He had done beginning with Creation, extending through history of the patriarchs and Israel and eventually his own incarnation, suffering and death.

Our sanitized culture makes it difficult for us in the modern day who live in a time where we do not witness the slaughter of animals we eat. We have a hard time associating with those who lived in the time where there was the ritual slaughter of animals, not for the sake of food but for the sake of sins. We have not had to watch the slaughter of animals and contemplate the awfulness of our sin and of God’s hatred of sin because of its awful effect on us. We are then even further separated from the concept of a God so jealous for us that he would even offer himself to be slaughtered on our behalf.

Our perception is further sanitized because we live in a world that has been cleansed by the effect of the grace of Christian values (OK, we have to admit that the church has not always lived up to its professed values) and the ameliorative effects of technology and medicine. It has been the Christian value of life that confronted the once common practice of abandoning babies on the street to die and made it rare. It has been Christian values that have elevated the status of women and children. It has been Christian values that led to the development of modern science. So many of what are now commonly accepted values in Western civilization, were adopted from Christian values, but it’s easy to forget where those values came from.

Yet another level of sanitization occurs when we don’t consider the extent of our own sin and depravity in context of the extent of the holiness of God. A contrast that caused the prophet Isaiah to proclaim, “Woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips from a people of unclean lips.”

We also are forgetful of the mercies of God. 1) Jonah was perturbed when Yahweh responded to the repentance shown by the Ninevites by not bringing about the threatened destruction. 2) The mercies shown to many of the idolatrous kings of Israel when they repented.^[2] 3) In the case of Israel entering the Promised Land, we don’t know what kind of warnings the Canaanites may have received prior to the “total destruction” of their cities. We do know that Yahweh patiently waited until he “sin of the Amorites would reach their full measure.” The Canaanites may have had sufficient warning to change their ways (and they had, among other abhorrent practices, that of sacrificing their children to the flames) and yet they didn’t. While we, in our time, may think of the “total destruction” as genocide, it may be instead an act of mercy – reducing the pain and suffering that would otherwise go on.

Sparing the lives of the “innocent” within the borders of the Israel did lead to the Israelites to continue the reprehensible practices of the Canaanite religions, prolonging the suffering that Yahweh wanted to put an end to. Israel’s susceptibility to fall into the sin of the nations around them. Israel was warned that allowing the original inhabitants to live alongside of them, would cause the Israelites to adopt the same abhorrent practices – which is what happened.

God had already used the forces of nature to directly carry out his herem version of justice (ex: The Great Flood which killed all people except Noah and his family, the crossing of the Red Sea in which innumerable Egyptian soldiers died). God’s commanding Israel to invoke herem was now calling Israel to act as his agent in executing a type of justice that God had already been practicing.

All these are various issues, and likely not the only issues, to consider while grappling both with God’s implication in violent activity and with the suffering endured by those we consider to be innocent. These issues, even all taken together, will not necessarily provide us comfortable answers. But we also need to remember, that if we have a “God” we think we totally understand, then it is not God that we are really understanding. Also, if we have a “God” that we are fully comfortable with, then we are not fully dealing with the holiness of God and the totality of our sin.

Jesus dealt with the totality of our sin by his suffering and excruciating death. It is only by the violence endured by Jesus that He has become our Prince of Peace. This is the lens through which we must see the violence around us. But even with that lens, we are not likely to have a ‘satisfactory’ answer. Even with that lens we will still struggle.

Time and time again, we see ordinary people approaching God with raw honesty about human suffering. And God responds to them, because they reflect his own lionheart that’s hell-bent against evil and death. God wants our protest against the evil and pain in this world. … To be a Christian is never to be apathetic toward evil and suffering, nor to avoid protesting God. Instead, we are told to work out our faith in “fear and trembling,” which includes unflinching lament at all the evil and death in this world. We are meant to hold our hands open in foolish faith, to watch and wait with hopeful expectation for God to show up in surprising ways—to remind us that he is good and powerful and that he will grant us his own steadfast courage. We are called to the daring and bold love of God in Jesus Christ, who stopped at nothing—not even death on a cross—to fight and win back the glory and goodness of God’s original creation.[3]

Judges and the Cycle of sin

[Bible references: Deuteronomy 32:28; Judges 2:11-13; 8; 17-18; 21:15, 25; 1 Samuel 4]

Because Israel had not been faithful to “totally destroy” the people whose land they conquered, the foretold consequence became true, Israel became ensnared in the horrid idol worship practices of those people. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

To discipline his people, God allowed Israel to be plundered by the surrounding peoples until Israel cried for mercy. God then raised up leaders called judges to successfully fight off the oppressors and Israel would respond by turning from idol worship, but only for a while. Eventually Israel would fall away from Yahweh once again and the cycle of oppression, rescue, and falling away would repeat.

God raising his people

[Bible references: 1 Samuel 1-2; Ruth 1-4; Matthew 1:1-16; Luke 3:21-38; 1 Corinthians 25; (See also, Sarah (Genesis 16-18) Rebekah (Genesis 25:19-26) Elizabeth (Luke 1:5-25))]

During the period of the Judges, God used drought to cause Elimelech and his wife Naomi and their two sons to move to Moab. Both of her sons got married in Moab and one of them married a woman named Ruth. When Naomi’s husband and sons were tragically killed, Naomi moved back home to Israel. While Ruth could have stayed in Moab, Ruth desired to follow Naomi and particularly to follow Naomi’s God. God used that act of faith to arrange for Ruth to meet and married Boaz, and thus inserting a Moabite woman into the lineage of people who would become the ancestors of Jesus.

The Cycle of Sin Continues

[Bible references: Genesis 3; Judges 8:22-27; 17; 1 Samuel 4]

While Eli was priest, there came a time when Israel had to fight the Philistines, a nation with iron instruments that was exceedingly difficult to fight. After Israel was routed in one battle, Eli’s sons thought that the solution for victory was to take the ark with them into battle. They thought that they surely would win the battle if they carried God, whose presence was supposed to be in the ark, into battle. What they didn’t do, however, was to consult with God. Not only did Israel lose again, but Israel also lost the ark itself to the Philistines.

The mistake that Israel made was a mistake as old as Adam and Eve. We would rather have a God that we can handle rather that one we are accountable to. Want wisdom? Don’t wait for God, just eat from the tree. Want to win a battle? Don’t wait for God to lead you, take God (as the ark) with you. One of the previous judges, Gideon, would make an ephod that would become an idol for Israel. Also, in the period of the judges, a priest named Micah, would make an ephod that would also become an idol. One of the convenient things about idols is that while they may not have the power of God, they don’t make uncomfortable demands about changing our lives either.

^[1] Lyon, William L. “Between History and Theology: The Problem of H9 Erem in Modern Evangelical Biblical Scholarship”

^[2] Rishawy, Derek. “God’s mercies aren’t so new”

[3] Hill, Preston. “Have Christians Forgotten How to Fight with God?”

Reflect

Joshua was certainly encouraged when the nation crossed the Jordan River on dry land just as the nation crossed the Red Sea on dry land 40 years earlier. When trying to follow God, what encourages you?

Observe

Read Deuteronomy 6:10-12. It is a good thing to have God provide for us, but what dangers are there when God does provide for us?

Reflect

Our culture has traditions like New Years’ Resolutions where we promise to make changes in our lives, yet 85% of resolutions fail.[1] What make us unsuccessful so often?

Observe

Read Deuteronomy 7:1-5. God certainly had the power to simply wipe out all the inhabitants of the Promised Land. God did many miracles, intervening many times on Israel’s behalf. Why do you think that God had the Israelites carry out those many battles?

Reflect

What have been your conflicting ideas between the Old and New Testaments?

Observe

Read Joshua 6:17-21; 1 Samuel 15:1-3. If you think about Jesus being one part of the moving, brooding, dancing God who invoked violence in the Old Testament, how do you process that?

Reflect

Whether it’s a physical talisman or a ritual procedure or task, we find it easier to call God into the plans we already made than to humble ourselves to His plans. Think of ways that we do this.

Observe

Read Judges 2. The book of Judges is a record of our penchant to turn from God and of his patient faithfulness, continuing to rescue us despite our persistent failure. How does this cycle make you feel?

Reflect

We can get distracted by events around us and lose sight of the fact that God is always working around us, even when things seem to be in turmoil. How can that help us in our daily lives?

Observe

Read Ruth 1-4; Matthew 1:1-17. Think about the travails of Naomi and how God worked in the midst of her troubles to insert a foreign woman into Jesus’ ancestry. What does it mean that Jesus set it up so that non-Jews were part of his human ancestry?

Reflect

What kinds of changes do you need to make in your life in order to reflect the true God and not the “god” you are comfortable with?

Observe

Read Judges 8:22-27; Proverbs 2:1-8. Gideon tried to do a good thing but created a big problem. How can we avoid creating a similar problem?

[1] Tabaka, Marla. “Most People Fail to Achieve Their New Year’s Resolution. For Success, Choose a Word of the Year Instead” Inc.com http://www.inc.com/marla-tabaka/why-set-yourself-up-for-failure-ditch-new-years-resolution-do-this-instead.html

The Tabernacle and the Law – Part 3

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom, Chapter 6 – A Nation Emerges

A set-apart people

[Bible references: Exodus 23; Leviticus 11, 17; Deuteronomy 14; Hebrews 4:1-13; 10:24-25]

What does it mean to be created in the image of a holy God? What do we mean when we say, “God is holy?” We first encounter the term in Genesis 2:3 when God indicates that the seventh day will be made holy, the seventh day was to be set apart from the other days. When Moses encountered God’s presence in a burning bush, Moses was told to remove his sandals because the ground was holy. It was also God’s intention to make Israel a holy nation, set apart from other nations and through which all the nations on earth would be blessed.

There were a couple of ways in which the nation of Israel would be distinguished from the nations around them, the food, and the calendar. There were some restrictions of the food they could eat such as certain meats, fish, birds, and insects, but the calendar provides the most distinguishing difference. While some cultures had recognized a 7-day calendar, it was the Israelites who set aside the seventh day of the week as a Sabbath on which no work was supposed be done. But that is not the only distinguishing characteristic of the calendar.

In the present day we have a universal calendar, and we have a priority for journalistic chronology. That is, we remember historical events on the particular day that the events happened according to our calendar. It is important for us to track events in the chronological order in which they happened. However, there are a few exceptions that we should note. Sometimes we set our remembrance day according to our convenience – for instance, we always celebrate days such as Martin Luther King’s birthday, not on his actual birth date, but always on a Monday because of our priority for extended weekends.

For the Israelite calendar, the priority was not chronology but liturgy. The remembrance days for events were not set according to the actual historical date on which they occurred but were set according to the liturgical calendar. This practice become clear when you trace out the timing of events in the Pentateuch (first five books of the Hebrew Bible) and compare them to the remembrance dates. It was more important to have events in the context of God’s activity rather than the contexts of the events themselves.

This concept provides the background for celebration of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was such an important concept for the Jews, that the account of creation in Genesis 1 was used to present the concept of Sabbath.^[1] When we think about God’s creating activities, God did not need six days to carry out creation, nor did he need to rest. So why do set up the remembrance of God’s creation in a 7-day timeframe? Once again, the important point is not the chronology but the liturgy.

The important point about the creation event was not the event itself, but what it was for. The purpose of creation was to create a “temple,” a place where God could “rest,” that is, “be” with his people. That’s the main point. There are tasks to be done of course as we join God in his creative work in the universe, but the point of the tasks is to be with God. When you look at Genesis 1-2, you will notice that the first six days have a defined beginning and end, an evening, and a morning. The seventh day does not have a defined closing – that implies that we are in the seventh day. This day we are in, the age we are in, is the “day” that we “rest” with God. It was intended at the beginning that all our activities done with, at rest with, God.

This brings us to a second distinguishing characteristic of the Jewish Biblical calendar: the first month was during the spring equinox, harvesting time, whereas in the surrounding cultures the first month of the calendar was set in the fall equinox, crop planting time. The difference in meaning was that since Israel’s year started with God’s work, the year begins God’s provision of the harvest which fed the nation and provided seed for the fall. This contrasted to the surrounding cultures which began their calendar with their work, so their year began with their work that provided for the next harvest.^[2]

What can be confusing is that in current practice, Jews do not use the biblical (or liturgical) calendar but the civil calendar which places the first month in the fall instead of the spring. Christians do have an equivalent practice: our civil calendar begins in January, which was set by the Roman government and coincided with Roman elections whereas some in the Christian community observe a liturgical calendar which begins in the fall with the season of Advent.

The liturgical focus of the calendar with its de-emphasis of the chronology of historical events helps explain some interesting discontinuities and apparent conflicts in the Biblical text. If we allow the events described in Exodus to be interpreted liturgically instead of chronologically, we can make better sense of the flow of Exodus.

One of the “apparent conflicts” occurs in Exodus 19, as the Israelites arrived at Mount Sinai. At the beginning of the chapter, Yahweh made a covenant similar to the one with Abraham and declared that they were to be a “kingdom of priests,” and that they were to prepare to go up the mountain after the sounding of the ram’s horn. And yet, at the end of the same chapter, Yahweh told Moses to not let the people, even the(people designated to be) priests, to go up the mountain. By noticing such apparent conflicts, we can better chronologically rearrange the events in Exodus so that they make better sense to chronologically minded folks such as we are.

A possible chronological arrangement of events looks like:^[3]

The initial, Abrahamic-like covenant was given (including building earthen altars) followed by the Decalogue (10 Commandments)
The golden calf incident occurred
There was a covenant renewal
The code for priests was given along with instructions for building a tabernacle
Another incident with idols, this time goats, was documented
A Holiness code was given to the people
The covenant is renewed again

While the rearrangement may help us who are chronologically minded make better sense of the text, in the end we are left with Israel now being a nation with priests and the community centering its worship around a large tent called the Tabernacle. The liturgical intent of the text as it is written, is to focus on the final outcome, that Israel will be a nation with priests serving a holy God who may reside among them but who is not directly accessible.

Worship at the tabernacle was a community event. No one could do this by themselves. Different people were assigned to different tasks, which not only included direct involvement in worship but also in the care of the tabernacle and its furnishings. Even one’s individual sins required the use of priest to handle the sacrifice. Before the tabernacle, offerings could be made by anyone, but with the tabernacle, only designated priests could perform the sacrificial offerings.

This arrangement continues the pattern of representing the holiness of God in creation. God’s image-bearing creatures are set aside from all other creatures; Sinful humans are separated from the Garden of Eden; Noah and his family are set aside in the ark from all other people; Abraham is set aside from all other people to usher in the blessing of all people; Moses is set apart from the other Israelites to see God face-to-face; the Levites are the tribe set apart from the other tribes to manage the care of the tabernacle; the priests are set apart from the other Levites to carry out the rituals in the tabernacle; the Sabbath from all the other days as a reminder of God’s provision, in particular his provision for rest – and the list goes on.

^[1] LeFebvre, Michael. “The Liturgy of Creation: Understanding Calendars in Old Testament Context”

^[2] LeFebvre, Michael. “The Liturgy of Creation: Understanding Calendars in Old Testament Context”

^[3] Sailhammer, John. “Introduction to Old Testament Theology” (Appendix b)

The Tabernacle and the Law – Part 2

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom, Chapter 6 – A Nation Emerges

Sacrifice and death

[Bible references: Genesis 4:4; 8:20; 36-39; Leviticus 1-7; Hebrews 7:27-28]

God also gave detailed instructions about how and when to conduct the rituals surrounding the tabernacle. Burnt offerings^[1] had been offered before the tabernacle was built but now there were additional offerings to be made.^[2] In the case of all the offerings, something had to die. The cost of sin was death, and it takes death to restore one’s relation with God. Moreover, the animals presented for sacrifice for the burnt offerings needed to be pure and without blemish or defect.

These “perfect” sacrifices were pointing to our ultimate need for a truly perfect sacrifice made on our behalf. The sacrifice would have to more than an animal with no visible blemishes. The sacrifice would have to be made by a perfect human whose identity would gradually prophetically be revealed … by a new “Adam” who would succeed where the first Adam failed.

Sacrificial death, though, can take a different form than we expect. In Psalm 51, David declares,

“For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:16-17 ESV)

and Micah declares.

“With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:6-8, ESV)

and later, the apostle Paul declares,

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable, and perfect. (Romans 12:1-2, ESV)

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20, ESV)

These passages indicate a sacrifice of dying to oneself, of laying one’s own interests aside for the sake of another … for the sake of Christ. A sacrifice not to “make things right” with God but because things are right.

^[1] Hal, Doulos. The Fire Sacrifices and Offerings of Israel – The Burnt Offering” Impact Bible.org blogs 4 Apr 2020 blogs.bible.org/the-five-fire-sacrifices-and-offerings-of-israel-the-burnt-offering. Burnt offerings are sometimes called whole offerings (because none of the offering is put aside for eating) or ascent offerings.

^[2] Tam, Stephen, “The Five Offerings in the Old Testament” “The Five Offerings in the Old Testament” Moses Tabernacle 2003-2018 www3.telus.net/public/kstam/en/tabernacle/details/offerings.htm; Bible.org “The Law of Burnt Offerings” bible.org/seriespage/2-law-burnt-offerings-leviticus-11-17

Reflect

How many people are willing to die for the sake of others?

Observe

Read Psalm 51; Romans 12:1-2. We do not have a temple to make animal sacrifices. What we do have is the opportunity to offer ourselves as a daily sacrifice. What is meant by a broken spirit?

The Tabernacle and the Law – Part 1

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom, Chapter 6 – A Nation Emerges

The Tabernacle, shadow of something greater

[Bible references: Exodus 25-27; Numbers 2; Hebrews 8:5-6; 10:1-18]

During the time in the wilderness, the Israelites were instructed to build a tabernacle that would serve as the point of presence for Yahweh in the community. God would be seen both as an unapproachable and transcendent God^[1] and as a personal, immanent God living among his people.^[2] The tabernacle would serve to display the shadow of a deeper reality.

Art and artists

[Bible references: Exodus 20:4-6; 31:2-3; 35:4-9,32-35; 36:1-7]

The instructions are quite detailed. The materials used to build the tabernacle were gifts given to the Israelites as they left Egypt. Those materials were then freely shared to be used as materials used to construct the tabernacle. God dedicated the workmen for building the various parts of the tabernacle, filling them with his Spirit and then giving the skills and abilities they needed. God gave everything needed for the construction of the tabernacle. Between the detailed instructions, the materials provided by the Egyptians and the skills of the craftsmen, the tabernacle would be a beautiful work of art. Although the Israelites were told not to make graven images to worship as idols, that obviously did not mean that they couldn’t create works of art, in this case works that would be used to enable worship.

Law and Love

[Bible references: Exodus 20:1-17; Leviticus 1-7; 19:18, 34; Deuteronomy 4:27-31; 6:1-6; John 13:35; 1 Timothy 1:5]

The amount of killing carried out in the tabernacle to fulfill the necessary sacrifices would be a constant, grisly reminder of the cost of our sin. There were sacrifices to be made for many types of occasions: burnt (or ascension) offerings, sin offerings, guilt offerings and others. There was much bloodletting from the many animals sacrificed on the altar, a constant reminder of the cost of our sins.

In addition to the rules of the tabernacle, God also gave other rules that covered other areas of life. Most of us are familiar with the moral code we know as the ten Commandments, but there were many other laws that covered other situations as well. Of the 613 rules (mitzvot) that can be found,^[3] they can all be summarized in the commands: Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; Love your neighbor as yourself. Whether in the ten commandments or in the 613 mitzvot, all the rules are predicated on love, thankfulness and pleasing one another. All the instructions point to practical ways for us to love God and one another.^[4]

^[1] The Holy of Holies could only be accessed once a year and only by the high priest.

^[2] The presence of God was indicated by the pillar of fire by night and smoke by day where the people could see it. Also, Moses was able to have face-to-face contact with God.

^[3] Judaism 101, “List of the 613 Commandments” Judaism 101 http://www.jewfaq.org/613.htm

^[4] Isaacs, Ronald H. “Rabbinic Reasons for the Mitzvot;” Messianic Jewish Bible Society “Love and the Hebrew language” myjewishlearning.com http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/rabbinic-reasons-for-the-mitzvot/; Levinson, John D. “The Shema and the Commandment to Love God in its ancient context” The Torah http://www.thetorah.com/article/the-shema-and-the-commandment-to-love-god-in-its-ancient-contexts

Reflect

For the nation of Israel, the tabernacle and its rituals provided a visible reminder of that the presence of God was among them, but God was still not accessible except once a year by the high priest. Does God seem like that to you?

Observe

Read Hebrews 8:5-6; 10:1-18, 1 Peter 2:9. The Tabernacle was designed to represent a greater reality. Our relationships among people also represent a greater reality. What is it?

Reflect

Arts and crafts, as long as they enhance and don’t distract from the worship of God, are useful in the worship experience. What are some ways can you express the worship of God?

Observe

Read Exodus 20:4-6; 31:2-3; 35:4-9,32-35; 36:1-7. What kinds of arts and crafts went into the construction of the tabernacle?

Reflect

If you had to live through the experience of seeing many animals slaughtered as sacrifices for the sake your sins and others’ sins, how would that affect your thinking?

Observe

Read Matthew 22:37-40. The Great Commandment is about loving God and neighbor. Keeping that commandment, is just as difficult as following the 613 other commands that can be found in the Old Testament. What do you think your life would look like if you fully lived into the Great Commandment?

Exodus

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom, Chapter 6 – A Nation Emerges

Fullness of time

[Bible references: Genesis 15:16; Exodus 2-4; 7-11; Galatians 4:4; Ephesians 1:1-14]

The emerging story of the chosen people of God becoming a nation started slowly with Abraham, with one child of the promise, Isaac, who had two children, only one through whom the promise would come, Jacob. Finally, Jacob had thirteen children. But it would take time for that family to grow into a size that could be called a nation – and that took a couple hundred more years – in which time the “sin of the Amorites would reach their full measure.”

Although the Bible does not specifically mention it, there may have been other things that God was waiting to happen such as the development of the Israelite community and the consequent interaction of the Israelite community with the Egyptian community during the Israelite captivity. God allowed events to gradually unfold until “the fullness of time” came for God to orchestrate a dramatic release of the Israelite community. This event would serve as a foreshadowing of another event, the spiritual release of all peoples from slavery to sin.

So it was, that in the fullness of time, when the sin of the Amorites reached its full measure,^[1] Yahweh called Moses to release the enslaved Israelites from Egypt to bring Israel back to the Promised Land.

Discipline, Miracles, and Death

[Bible references: Genesis 15:13-14. Exodus 7-11; 12:31-36; 13:17-22; 16; 17:1-7; 20; 32; Numbers 13-14]

Miracles abounded.

There were the ten plagues that God brought upon the Egyptian captors to show the Pharoah that Yahweh was not just a local God in Canaan but that His power extended over all creation, even in the land of the Egyptian gods. In the process, the Pharoah’s own heart continued to harden against Yahweh to the point where God would seal the Pharoah’s fate and further harden the Pharoah’s heart. In the end, it took the killing of the firstborn of Egyptian families, including the family of the Pharoah to not only convince the Pharaoh to let people of Israel go, but the people of Egypt also supplied the people of Israel with great wealth as they left, with some Egyptians joining the people of Israel in their flight.

Then there was the miracles of the pillars of cloud and fire, which would continue until the nation entered the Promised Land, and the miracle which let Israel cross the Red Sea on dry land followed by the drowning of the Egyptian army. The pattern of punishing a nation that was used to discipline the people of Israel would be repeated throughout Biblical history.^[2]

Once on their way, the Israelites experienced more miracles, the mountain enshrouded in a cloud where Yahweh talked with Moses and delivered the Commandments and other rules, manna and quail falling from the sky, springs of water in the desert. Despite seeing all those miracles, Israel wasn’t ready to have Yahweh lead them into the Promised Land to face the obstacles there and so God had them encamp in the wilderness for 40 years until all the adults who refused to trust Yahweh died. So many deaths must have happened, but scripture barely mentions them. Here we will see, not for the last time, which seeing miracles not only did not change hearts but that all our hearts seem predisposed to turn away from God.

^[1] cp. Galatians 4:4; Ephesians 1:10; see also White, James Emery. “Is God a Moral Monster? The Slaughter of the Canaanites” Church&Culture 22 Oct 2020 http://www.churchandculture.org/blog/2020/10/22/is-god-a-moral-monster

^[2] Ex: Egypt (Genesis 15:13-14). Babylon (Isaiah 13, 21,23), Assyria (Isaiah 10, 14; Zephaniah 2)

Reflect

Often, when we are younger, we think we know everything. But most of the time, we discover over time that we need maturing – to grow in wisdom – a process that takes time and experience. What things have you learned through time and experience?

Observe

Read Galatians 4:4; Ephesians 1:3-14. We do not have God’s perspective. We don’t know why God waited so long after the time of Adam and Eve before Messiah came – the first time. We don’t know why God is waiting to return. Not with all the pain and suffering we see around us. What hints do these passages provide for us?

Reflect

We discover in the Exodus narrative, that being able to see and to live in the midst of miracles, was not sufficient to change the hearts of the people. What does that say about us?

Observe

Read Exodus 8-10. In the narrative of the 10 plagues, several times we are told that Pharoah hardened his heart, but then there came a time when Yahweh reinforced that trajectory and Yahweh hardened the Pharoah’s heart. What kind of warning might that be?

Strange interlude: captivity

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom, Chapter 6 – A Nation Emerges

Process is important

[Bible references: Genesis 15:12-21; Exodus 1:1-22]

After Joseph and the Pharaoh who knew him died, the growing nation of Israel became enslaved in the land of Egypt just as it had been foretold to Abraham. There are various questions that surrounded the captivity of Israel in Egypt:

When there was a drought, why didn’t Yahweh provide for the Israelites in Canaan instead of having them go to Egypt?
If they needed to be in Egypt, why did they need to be enslaved instead of just living there as guests?

We know that Yahweh told Abraham that a great nation would come from him and that they would be given the land of Canaan to live in. But why the side-trip into Egypt and why the slavery? The only reason given to Abraham was that “the sin of the Amorites was not yet reached its full measure.”

The reason given to Abraham for being in Egypt follows a general pattern. Although God occasionally supernaturally intervenes in the course of events, it seems that God most often allows natural, normal processes to take place, whether they be physical, psychological, sociological etc. We see that process in living things – plants, and animals – as they grow through specific physical processes^[1]. Regarding, the great flood in Noah’s time, that only occurred after evil gradually, through normal psychological and sociological processes, eventually reached a particular threshold.

^[1] Natural, physical processes are so well fixed and so well understood that they have become known as scientific laws.

Reflect

Joseph’s discipline involved finding God in the midst of difficult circumstances and discovering how God could use him there. Are there any difficult circumstances you struggle with? Have you found God at work in your life in those circumstances?

Observe

Read Genesis 15:12-21; Exodus 1:1-22. We often don’t know the reasons for the difficult circumstances in life. How might Abram’s dream explain why God originally provided hospitality and refuge in Egypt but then allowed Israel to be enslaved?

Chapter 5 – Family to Nation

The Impossible Dance – Table of Contents

The Impossible Dance – Chapter 5 – Family to Nation

God working through broken individuals and communities

Although the all-powerful Creator and Sustainer of the universe is capable of simply doing things by a show of great power and irresistible force, he usually chooses to work through His image-bearers. He can work through individuals or groups, although even when he works through groups it’s typically through individuals within those groups. Most surprising is that even though all his image-bearers have flaws, God has still chosen to do His work within those flaws. Despite our persistent failures, not only does God patiently empower us to fulfill the responsibility of stewardship of Creation that He gave us from the beginning, but He also empowers us to participate in His work of restoring the universe.

Abraham

Walk of faith

Sometime after the scattering of nations, from the line of Shem and Noah, God called a man named Abram to leave his country in the Euphrates River Valley and go to a land “I will show you.” As Abram left his home country, at the age of seventy-five, God promised not only to bless Abram and his descendants but to bless the entire world though Abram. Despite his occasional failures, Abram (later named Abraham) was noted for his faith because he believed God and showed this by being obedient in following God’s instructions even when they didn’t make sense.

When God called Abram to journey to another land, we don’t know what earlier experience Abram or his family or any other citizens of Ur or Haran may have had with God. Was there any experience at all? If not, then with what confidence did Abram have that he was following God when he took that journey to the Promised Land? Then after Abram arrived in the Promised Land, what further questions may Abram have had when he experienced a deep drought in that same land, such that he needed to take a brief trip to Egypt?

After Yahweh told Abram, that he would make a great nation from him, Abram initially expressed his faith by his obedience when he took that journey to the Promised land. Again, when Yahweh showed him the stars and told him that his descendants would be as numerous as those stars, Abram believed, and Yahweh credited that to him as righteousness. Then Yahweh reiterated the promise again when Abram was 99 years old and changed Abram’s name (which meant exalted Father) to Abraham (Father of many nations).

God told Abraham that a great nation would come out of him and Sarah. Yet, this did not look promising when the only son born to Abraham and Sarah was Isaac who was not even born until Abraham was one hundred years old and Sarah was ninety. Isn’t it interesting that God told Abraham and Sarah to name their son, Isaac, which means “laughter.”?

Hospitality

One day, while Abraham was sitting in the entrance to his tent, he saw three visitors approaching and offered them water to wash their feet and then went to much effort to offer them something to eat and drink. As we read this description of Abraham’s greeting his visitors, it may sound extravagant to us, but would have been normal for the culture of the time. The normal custom was to regard visitors as those who have been sent by God.

Pleading to God

We don’t know the moment that Abraham recognized that one of the visitors was Yahweh, but it apparently happened by the time the visitors talked about Sodom and Gomorrah, which they were going to destroy. Concerned about his nephew Lot, who was living down there, Abraham made a plea to save the city if there were righteous people living in the city. At first, Abraham asked what if there were fifty righteous people living there, would they still destroy everyone there. When Yahweh said no, then Abraham asked, what about if there were 45 or 30 or 20 righteous people there. Each time, Yahweh said that he would not wipe out everybody if there were only that many righteous people there. As it turned out, God destroyed both Sodom and Gomorrah after He gave Lot and his daughters the chance to escape.

Faith and obedience

In one of the most controversial events, God called Abraham to take Isaac and go to a mountain, build an altar, and then offer Isaac as a sacrificial offering. Abraham must have severely tested, but Abraham obeyed God and went through the entire process to the point where he was about slay Isaac when God provided a substitute, a ram. Isaac would indeed be the next link in the genealogical chain connecting Abraham ultimately to the birth of the Messiah 2000 years later.

Slow and steady

The man who Yahweh would say would be the “father of many nations” had only one son born very late in his life and that son, Isaac, would have only twins. Even then, Esau and Jacob were born late in Isaac’s life, so the “father of many nations” would die only seeing two grandchildren.

Isaac

Ordinary believers

Meanwhile, the Biblical record for life of Isaac is unremarkable. God had blessed Isaac with wealth, however, the most notable events in his life were 1) failing just as his father Abraham had done in fearing that king Abimelech might kill him to get his wife, so he claimed that his wife was his sister and 2) when he was preparing to die, he got fooled by Jacob into giving Jacob the primary blessing instead of his older twin brother, Esau. Blessed, fallible, unremarkable, yet still used by Yahweh to accomplish Yahweh’s will.

Jacob

Deceit instead of faith

The biblical descriptions of Jacob and his twin brother Esau are not flattering. Esau is the older twin brother, but for a pot of porridge Esau was willing to give up his birthright. To seal the deal, Jacob and his mother, Rebekah, would conspire to deceive Isaac: They would take advantage of Isaac’s blindness by deceiving Isaac and setting it up for Jacob instead of Esau to receive the primary blessing from Isaac. This deceit happened even though when Rebekah was pregnant with the twins that Yahweh had told her that “the older would serve the younger,” so it is curious that Isaac still insisted on giving the primary blessing to Esau instead of Jacob and that Rebekah saw fit to use deceit to help Jacob receive that important blessing.

A higher order

The case of Jacob and Esau is not the only example where Yahweh would choose to upset the common order of things. In this case, it was side-stepping the normal primogeniture and instead have the older sibling serving the other sibling. In other times it would be stronger serving the weaker or having people outside the family displacing sins within the family. God repeats this pattern later by selecting Samuel to replace Eli instead of Eli’s sons, and in God selecting David to replace Saul instead of Saul’s son. And in all these cases, we see God preparing someone new to lead while he arranges to end another’s leadership.

Nation of wrestlers

After the deception of Isaac, Jacob’s would continue his pattern of deception. Yet, despite that character flaw, God would continue to bless Jacob with success just as he had blessed Abraham and Isaac. Jacob’s deceit with Isaac and Esau forced him to leave home and visit his uncle Laban, in Haran for many years. On the journey to Laban, Yahweh shared with Jacob the promise he made with Abraham and with Isaac, that “all the people on earth would be blessed through you.”

While staying with Laban, Jacob would continue his deceit to take advantage of Laban. Then years later, when Jacob left Laban to return to the promised land, God saw fit to engage with Jacob on both the journey to and from home. On the journey home, Jacob now has two wives and two concubines, thirteen children and a great wealth in flocks, herds, and servants. On that trip home, Jacob finds himself in a wrestling match with a man that Jacob learns was God. During that struggle, Jacob confessed his character by admitting that his name means “deceiver,” but then was given a new name, Israel (which means “wrestles with God”). Wrestling with God would become a hallmark of Israel’s descendants (that is, the nation of Israel) and is evident throughout the Old Testament.

Joseph

Discipline and character development

Of Jacob’s 12 sons, Joseph was the most notable. When Israel treated Joseph as his favorite son and then Joseph developing a sense of self-importance, Joseph created a sense of jealousy among his brothers. So, on one occasion while out tending flocks on one opportune occasion his jealous brothers sold him off to merchants traveling to Egypt. In Egypt, the merchants sold Joseph to a captain of the Pharaoh’s guard as a slave. While he was a slave to the captain, Yahweh caused Joseph to prosper in whatever he took care of, inspiring the captain to trust everything to Joseph. However, Joseph became imprisoned because of an unjust charge by the captain’s wife.

Bloom where you are

While Joseph was in prison, Yahweh continued to cause Joseph to prosper, inspiring the warden to entrust many things to Joseph. A couple of the prisoners, the cupbearer and baker for the Pharoah, had dreams to which Yahweh gave Joseph the interpretations. The predictions Joseph revealed to the prisoners did come true, the cupbearer was restored to his job, but the baker was executed. Sometime later, when the Pharaoh had dreams that he wanted to have interpreted, the cupbearer informed the Pharoah about Joseph. Through the help of Yahweh, Joseph was able to interpret those dreams. This led to the Pharoah making Joseph his second-in-command, putting Joseph in charge of overseeing the harvesting and storage of grain in preparation of a coming 7-year drought.

Dreams come true

The drought extended up to the Promised Land, Canaan, where Israel was living. This gave the opportunity for Joseph to invite Israel and all the rest of the family to come to Egypt where Joseph would make sure they were provided for. Joseph was able to see that while his brothers had intended to harm him, Yahweh was able to use for the good. In fact, this provided the setting that Yahweh had revealed to Abraham in a troubling dream, that “your descendants will be strangers in a land not their own.” For a moment, Egypt seemed to be promising, but it wasn’t the final destination. It particularly wasn’t the promised land. More than that, God warned that dark times lay ahead before they would arrive there.

Discipling (a nation)

Following the process of growth

After Joseph and the Pharaoh who knew him died, the growing nation of Israel became enslaved in the land of Egypt just as God had foretold to Abraham. There are various questions that surrounded the captivity of Israel in Egypt:

When there was a drought, why didn’t Yahweh provide for the Israelites in Canaan instead of having them go to Egypt?
If they needed to be in Egypt, why couldn’t the Pharoah continue to treat them as guests instead of enslaving them?

We know that Yahweh told Abraham that a great nation would come from him and that He would give them the land of Canaan to live in. But why the side-trip into Egypt and why the slavery? The only reason given to Abraham was that “the sin of the Amorites was not yet reached its full measure.”

The reason given to Abraham for being in Egypt follows a general pattern. Although God occasionally supernaturally intervenes during events, it seems that God most often allows natural, normal processes to take place, whether they be physical, psychological, sociological etc. We see that process in living things – plants, and animals – as they grow through specific physical processes. Regarding, the great flood in Noah’s time, that only occurred after evil gradually, through normal psychological and sociological processes, eventually reached a particular threshold.

Fullness of time

So it was, that in the fullness of time, when the sin of the Amorites reached its full measure, Yahweh called Moses to release the enslaved Israelites from Egypt to bring Israel back to the Promised Land.

Discipline, Miracles, and Death

Miracles abounded.

Then there was the miracles of the pillars of cloud and fire, which would continue until the nation entered the Promised Land, and the miracle which let Israel cross the Red Sea on dry land followed by the drowning of the Egyptian army. The Bible reveals the pattern of God punishing nations that He used to discipline the people of Israel.

Once on their way, the Israelites experienced more miracles, the mountain enshrouded in a cloud where Yahweh talked with Moses and delivered the Commandments and other rules, manna and quail falling from the sky, springs of water in the desert. Despite seeing all those miracles, Israel wasn’t ready to have Yahweh lead them into the Promised Land to face the obstacles there and so God had them encamp in the wilderness for 40 years until all the adults who refused to trust Yahweh died. So many deaths must have happened, but scripture barely mentions them. Here we will see, not for the last time, seeing miracles not only did not change hearts but that all our hearts seem predisposed to turn away from God.

Shadows of the Kingdom

The Tabernacle

During the time in the wilderness, God instructed the Israelites to build a tabernacle that would serve as the point of presence for Yahweh in the community. God’s presence within the Tabernacle would allow Israel to see God both as an unapproachable and transcendent God and as a personal, immanent God living among his people. In this way, the tabernacle would serve to display the shadow of a deeper reality.

The instructions are quite detailed. The materials used to build the tabernacle were gifts given to the Israelites as they left Egypt. God dedicated the workers for building the various parts of the tabernacle, filling them with his Spirit and then giving the skills and abilities they needed. God gave everything needed for the construction of the tabernacle. Between the detailed instructions, the materials provided by the Egyptians and the skills of the craftsmen, the tabernacle would be a beautiful work of art. Although the Israelites were told not to make graven images to worship as idols, that obviously did not mean that they couldn’t create works of art to be used to enable worship.

Sacrifice and Love

The amount of killing conducted in the tabernacle to fulfill the necessary sacrifices would be a constant, grisly reminder of the cost of our sin. There were sacrifices for many types of occasions: burnt (or ascension) offerings, sin offerings, guilt offerings and others. There was much bloodletting from the many animals sacrificed on the altar, a constant reminder of the cost of our sins.

In addition to the rules of the tabernacle, God also gave other rules that covered other areas of life. Most of us are familiar with the moral code we know as the ten Commandments, but there were many other laws that covered other situations as well. The 613 rules in the Old Testament can all be summarized in the commands: Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; Love your neighbor as yourself. Whether in the ten commandments or in the 613 rules, all the rules are predicated on love, thankfulness and pleasing one another. All the instructions point to practical ways for us to love God and one another.

God also gave detailed instructions about how and when to conduct the rituals surrounding the tabernacle. In the case of all the offerings, something had to die. The cost of sin was death, and it takes death to restore one’s relation with God. Moreover, the animals presented for sacrifice for the burnt offerings needed to be pure and without blemish or defect.

These “perfect” sacrifices were pointing to our ultimate need for a truly perfect sacrifice made on our behalf. The sacrifice would have to more than an animal with no visible blemishes. The sacrifice would have to be a perfect human whose identity would only be gradually prophetically revealed … by a new “Adam” who would succeed where the first Adam failed.

Sacrificial death, though, can take a different form than we expect. In Psalm 51, David declares,

and Micah declares.

and later, the apostle Paul declares,

The Calendar and liturgy

What does it mean to for us be created in the image of a holy God? What do we mean when we say, “God is holy?” We first encounter the term in Genesis 2:3 when God indicates that the seventh day was made holy, the seventh day was to be set apart from the other days. When Moses encountered God’s presence in a burning bush, God told Moses to remove his sandals because the ground was holy. It was also God’s intention to make Israel a holy nation, set apart from other nations and through which He would bless all the nations on earth.

The nation of Israel established a couple of practices which distinguished them from the nations around them: the food, and the calendar. There were some restrictions of the food they could eat such as certain meats, fish, birds, and insects, but the calendar provides the most distinguishing difference. While some cultures had recognized a 7-day calendar, it was the Israelites who set aside the seventh day of the week as a Sabbath on which no work was supposed be done. But that is not the only distinguishing characteristic of the calendar.

In the present day we have a universal calendar, and we have a priority for journalistic chronology. That is, we remember historical events on the actual day that the events happened according to our calendar. It is important for us to track events in the chronological order in which they happened. However, there are a few exceptions that we should note. Sometimes we set our remembrance day according to our convenience – for instance, we always celebrate days such as Martin Luther King’s birthday, not on his actual birth date, but always on a Monday because of our priority for extended weekends.

This concept provides the background for celebration of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was such an important concept for the Jews, that God used the account of creation in Genesis 1 to present the concept of Sabbath. When we think about God’s creating activities, God did not need six days to complete His creation, nor did he need to rest. So why do set up the remembrance of God’s creation in a 7-day timeframe? Once again, the crucial point is not the chronology but the liturgy.

The crucial point about the creation event was not the event itself, but what it was for. The purpose of creation was to create a “temple,” a place where God could “rest,” that is, “be” with his people. That’s the main point. There are tasks to do of course as we join God in his creative work in the universe, but the point of the tasks is to be with God. When you look at Genesis 1-2, you will notice that the first six days have a defined beginning and end, an evening, and a morning. The seventh day does not have a defined closing – that implies that we are in the seventh day. This day we are in, the age we are in, is the “day” that we “rest” with God. God has intended that all our activities should be done with, at rest with, God.

The liturgical focus of the calendar with its de-emphasis of the chronology of historical events helps explain some interesting discontinuities and apparent conflicts in the Biblical text. If we interpret the events described in Exodus liturgically instead of chronologically, we can make better sense of the flow of Exodus.

One of the “apparent conflicts” occurs in Exodus 19, as the Israelites arrived at Mount Sinai. At the beginning of the chapter, Yahweh made a covenant like the one with Abraham and declared that they were to be a “kingdom of priests,” and that they were to prepare to go up the mountain after the sounding of the ram’s horn. And yet, at the end of the same chapter, Yahweh told Moses to not let the people, even the(people designated to be) priests, to go up the mountain. By noticing such apparent conflicts, we can better chronologically rearrange the events in Exodus so that they make better sense to chronologically minded folks such as we are.

A possible chronological arrangement of events looks like:

Covenant established – Exodus 19:1-25; 20:18-21
The initial, Abrahamic covenant was given followed by the Decalogue (10 Commandments) – Exodus 20:1-17; 20:22-23:33; 25:1-31:18
The golden calf incident – Exodus 32
A covenant renewal – Exodus 33-34
The code for priests – Exodus 35-Leviticus 16
An incident with goat idols – Leviticus 17:1-9
The Holiness code – Leviticus 17-25
Israel renews the covenant – Leviticus 26

While the rearrangement may help us make chronological sense of the text, in the end, the text in Exodus presents Israel as now being a nation with priests and the community centering its worship around a large tent called the Tabernacle. The liturgical intent of the text is to focus on the outcome, that Israel will be a nation with priests serving a holy God who may reside among them but who is not directly accessible.

Worship at the tabernacle was a community event. No one could do this by themselves. God assigned different people to do different tasks, which not only included direct involvement in worship but also in the care of the tabernacle and its furnishings. Even one’s individual sins required the use of priest to handle the sacrifice. Before the tabernacle, anyone could make offerings, but with the tabernacle, only designated priests could perform the sacrificial offerings.

The liturgical calendar also helps in understanding the creation account in Genesis 1. God did not need six chronological days to complete His creation. God established the six days for liturgical reasons: for establishing a week which consists of six workdays followed by a Sabbath as enunciated in Exodus 20:8-11. The Sabbath would be one of the markers that would set apart the Israelites from the other nations.

This arrangement continues the pattern of representing the holiness of God in creation. God’s image-bearing creatures are set aside from all other creatures; Sinful humans are separated from the Garden of Eden; Noah and his family are set aside in the ark from all other people; Abraham is set aside from all other people to usher in the blessing of all people; Moses is set apart from the other Israelites to see God face-to-face; the Levites are the tribe set apart from the other tribes to manage the care of the tabernacle; the priests are set apart from the other Levites to carry out the rituals in the tabernacle; the Sabbath from all the other days to remind us of God’s provision, in particular his provision for rest – and the list goes on.

Questions:

Read Psalm 51:17; Isaiah 40:8; 58:12; Philippians 3:20-21. What should our attitude be as God fulfills his plans through us?
Read Genesis 18:1-8; Hebrews 13:1-2. In the nomadic culture, hosts readily showed hospitality to any visitors because they were supposed to regard all visitors as being from God. What keeps us from exhibiting the same attitude?
Read Genesis 24-25. We can never know how God will use the ordinary things in our lives to fulfill his purposes. How does that knowledge help you look at your own life?
Read 1 Samuel 3-4; 1 Samuel 15-16. These passages illustrate how God continues to accomplish his will despite the messiness of our lives. How does that affect how you pray?
Read Genesis 32:22-28. God would rename Jacob to Israel, which means “wrestles with God,” which would eventually become the name of the nation descended from Jacob, and the nation through which the Messiah would come. Can we be strong in our faith in God if we have not wrestled with God?
Read Genesis 15:12-21; Exodus 1:1-22. We often don’t know the reasons for the difficult circumstances in life. How might Abram’s dream explain why God originally provided hospitality and refuge in Egypt but then allowed the Egyptians to enslave Israel?
Read Exodus 8-10. In the narrative of the ten plagues, several times the Pharoah hardened his own heart, but then there came a time when Yahweh reinforced that trajectory and Yahweh hardened the Pharoah’s heart. What kind of warning might that be?
Read Hebrews 8:5-6; 10:1-18, 1 Peter 2:9. God designed the Tabernacle to represent a greater reality. Our relationships among people also represent a greater reality. What is it?
Read Psalm 51; Romans 12:1-2. We do not have a temple to make animal sacrifices. What we do have is the opportunity to offer ourselves as a daily sacrifice. What is meant by a broken spirit?
Read Hebrews 10:19-39. The New Testament does not command Gentile believers to set aside people as priests nor to observe the Sabbath. However, we not to “neglect gathering together” so that we can “stir one another to love and good works,” and help each other persevere in our faith. How can we then help each other practice holiness by the setting aside of things in our life, to consecrate them to God?

Joseph

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom, Chapter 5 – Patriarchs

Discipline and character development

[Bible references: Genesis 37:1-11, 28-36; 39:1-20: 50:20]

Of Jacob’s 12 sons, Joseph was the most notable. Between being treated as Israel’s favorite son and then having a sense of self-importance, he created a sense of jealousy among his brothers. So, on one occasion while out tending flocks on one opportune occasion his jealous brothers sold him off to merchants traveling to Egypt. In Egypt, he was sold to a captain of the Pharaoh’s guard as a slave. While he was a slave to the captain, Yahweh caused Joseph to prosper in whatever he took care of, inspiring the captain to trust everything to Joseph. However, an unjust charge by the captain’s wife caused Joseph to be imprisoned.

Bloom where you are

[Bible references: Genesis 39:21-23; 40; 41]

While Joseph was in prison, Yahweh continued to cause Joseph to prosper, inspiring the warden to entrust many things to Joseph. A couple of the prisoners had dreams to which Yahweh gave Joseph the interpretations. The predictions Joseph revealed to the prisoners did come true. Sometime later, when the Pharaoh had dreams that he wanted to have interpreted, he was informed about Joseph. Through the help of Yahweh, Joseph was able to interpret those dreams. This led to Joseph being put in second-in-command to the Pharaoh through which he was able to oversee the harvesting and storage of grain in preparation of a coming 7-year drought.

Dreams come true

[Bible references: Genesis 15:12-14; 15:12-21; 42-46; 50:15-21] The drought extended up to the Promised Land, Canaan, where Israel was living. This gave the opportunity for Joseph to invite Israel and all the rest of the family to come to Egypt where Joseph could see they were supported. Joseph was able to see that while his brothers had intended to harm him, Yahweh was able to use for the good. In fact, this provided the setting that Yahweh had revealed to Abraham in a troubling dream, that “your descendants will be strangers in a land not their own.” For a moment, Egypt seemed to be promising, but it wasn’t the final destination. It particularly wasn’t the promised land. More than that, God warned that dark times lay ahead before they would arrive there.

Reflect

In academic disciplines, we train our minds in order to become doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. These disciplines are usually evaluated by written tests and practicums. What are some spiritual disciplines and how do we evaluate our progress?

Observe

Read Genesis 37, 41, 40. Joseph’s discipline involved finding God in the midst of difficult circumstances and discovering how God could use him there. Are there any difficult circumstances you struggle with? (NOTE: One goal in the Benedictine order is stability. The idea is that God is everywhere and if you can’t find him where you are then you won’t find him anywhere. deWaal, Esther. “Seeking God”)

Reflect

Complaint is the usual response to unjust treatment. But although Joseph was enslaved, he took his stewardship responsibilities and then when imprisoned he was open to God’s interpretation of dreams. What do you think Joseph learned?

Observe

Read Genesis 37; 39-41. Because Joseph was the oldest son of Jacob’s favorite wife, Jacob made Joseph his favorite son – and spoiled him. It didn’t help when Joseph flaunted some dreams in front of his brothers who then found an opportunity to sell him as a slave. How did the hardship of slavery mold Joseph’s character?

Reflect

What are your visions of what the future will look like?

Observe

Read Genesis 50:15-21. Back in Canaan, Joseph used his dreams to put down his brothers, who responded by selling him into slavery. But when it came time for the dreams to be re-enacted in real life, he had a different attitude about those dreams. How does Joseph’s experience affect the way you view the events of life?

Jacob

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom, Chapter 5 – Patriarchs

Deceit instead of faith

[Bible references: Genesis 25:29-34; 25:23; 27:1-40]

A higher order

[Bible references: 1 Samuel 3-4, 15-16]

The case of Jacob and Esau is not the only example where Yahweh would choose to upset the common order of things. In this case, it was side-stepping the normal primogeniture and instead have the older sibling serving the other sibling. In other times it would be stronger serving the weaker, the sons being displaced by someone outside the family. This pattern of displacing the normal order of primogeniture and inheritance is repeated later in Samuel following Eli instead of his sons Hophni and Phineas and in David replacing Saul instead of Saul’s son Jonathan. And in all these cases, we see God preparing someone new to lead while he arranges to end another’s leadership.

Nation of wrestlers

[Bible references: Genesis 31:25-45; 28:3-4; 27:42-45; 28:10-22; 32:22-32; 35:22-26; 30:21; 32:1-5]

While staying with Laban, Jacob would continue his deceit to take advantage of Laban. Then years later, when Jacob left Laban to return to the promised land, God saw fit to engage with Jacob on both the journey to and from home. On the journey home, Jacob now has two wives and two concubines, thirteen children and a great wealth in flocks, herds, and servants. On that trip home, Jacob finds himself in a wrestling match with a man that Jacob learns was God.^[1] During that struggle, Jacob was forced to confess his character by admitting that his name means “deceiver,” but then was given a new name, Israel (which means “wrestles with God”). Wrestling with God would become a hallmark of Israel’s descendants (that is, the nation of Israel) and is evident throughout the Old Testament.^[2]

^[1] Sproul, RC “A Wrestling People” ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/wrestling-people.

^[2] Although there are many examples of people questioning God, the Psalms contain many examples.

Reflect

What things in our life do we tend to “help God with” rather than figure out what his ways are?

Observe

Read Genesis 25:21-34; 27:1-40. The family dynamics in Isaac’s family were typically messy and complicated as many real families are and yet God will carry out his purposes. How can we use the example of Isaac and his family to give us confidence that God is able to carry out his purpose for us?

Reflect

Sometimes what looks like chaos to us is actually a pattern that we haven’t figured out. One example is encoded messages – we can’t read them without knowing the underlying order. What patterns from God confuse you?

Observe

Read 1 Samuel 3-4; 1 Samuel 15-16. These passages illustrate how God continues to carry out his will despite the messiness of our lives. How does that affect how you pray?

Reflect

God is able to fulfill his purposes as we wrestle with him. Do you feel compelled to wrestle with God about anything?

Observe

Read Genesis 32:22-28. God would rename Jacob to Israel, which means “wrestles with God,” which would eventually become the name of the nation descended from Jacob, and the nation through which the Messiah would come. Can we be strong in our faith in God, if we have not wrestled with God?

Isaac

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom, Chapter 5 – Patriarchs

Ordinary believers

[Bible references: Gen 17:17; 21:5; 21:1-7; 25:21; 26:1-11; 27:1-29]

Reflect

What is our prayer when we know that our time in this life is limited and most of us will not accomplish anything spectacular, and yet, God may use our life to achieve a greater impact than we realize?

Observe

Read Genesis 24-25. We can never know how God will use the ordinary things in our lives to fulfill his purposes. How does that knowledge help you look at your own life?

Abraham

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom, Chapter 5 – Patriarchs

Walk of faith

[Bible references: Genesis 12:1-20; 15:1-6; 16:1-5; 17:1-14; 20:1-13; 22:1-18; 24:7; 28:16: 50:24; Romans 4:9; Hebrews 11:17]

Sometime after the scattering of nations, from the line of Shem and Noah, God called a man named Abram to leave his country in the Euphrates River Valley and go to a land “I will show you.” As Abram left his home country, at the age of seventy-five, God promised not only to bless Abram and his descendants but to bless the entire world though Abram. Despite his occasional failures, Abram (later named Abraham) is noted for his faith because he believed God and showed this by being obedient in following God’s instructions even when they didn’t make sense.

When God called Abram to journey to another land, we don’t know what earlier experience Abram or his family or any other citizens of Ur or Haran may have had with God. Was there any experience at all? If not, then with what confidence did Abram have that he was following God when he took that journey to the Promised Land?^[1] Then after Abram arrived in the Promised Land, what further questions may Abram have had when he experienced a deep drought in that same land, such that he needed to take a brief trip to Egypt?

God told Abraham that a great nation would come out of him and Sarah. Yet, this did not look promising when the only son born to Abraham and Sarah was Isaac who was not even born until Abraham was one hundred years old and Sarah was ninety. No wonder that Isaac was given a name that means “laughter.”

Hospitality

[Bible references: Gen 18:1-8; Hebrew 13:1-2]

Pleading to God

[Bible references: Gen 18:16-33]

We don’t know the moment that Abraham recognized that one of the visitors was Yahweh, but it apparently happened by the time the visitors talked about Sodom and Gomorrah, which they were going to destroy. Concerned about his nephew Lot, who was living down there, Abraham made a plea to save the city if there were righteous people living in the city. At first, Abraham asked what if there were fifty righteous people living there, would they still destroy everyone there. When Yahweh said no, then Abraham asked, what about if there were 45 or 30 or 20 righteous people there.^[3] Each time, Yahweh said that he would not wipe out everybody if there were only that many righteous people there. As it turned out, both Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed after Lot and his daughters were given the chance to escape.

Faith and obedience

[Bible references: Gen 22:1-19]

In one of the most controversial events, God called Abraham to take Isaac and go to a mountain, build an altar, and then offer Isaac as a sacrificial offering. Abraham must have severely tested, but Abraham did as he was told and went through the whole process to the point where he was about slay Isaac when God provided a substitute, a ram. Isaac would indeed be the next link in the genealogical chain connecting Abraham ultimately to the birth of the Messiah 2000 years later.

Slow and steady

[Bible references: Genesis 17:5; 21:4-5; 26:34; 2 Peter 3:8]

^[1] Although the term “promised land” is not used directly as the place of where Abram and his descendants were called to settle down in, there are several references to the “land that is promised you.”

^[2] Wight, Fred H. Manners and Customs of Bible Lands (Kindle Locations 863). 1953. Kindle Edition.

^[3] De Young, Kevin. “Passionately Pleading with God is a Good Thing”

Reflect

Making long-term commitments is always an act of faith, because we never know what all the circumstances will be in the future. What long-term commitments have you made and held to even when you encountered circumstances you never planned on?

Observe

Read Genesis 12:1-20. This renowned Patriarch of faith, Abram, believed Yahweh, and left his homeland to some destination that Yahweh would show to him. When Abram arrived at the place Yahweh led him to, he built an altar and set up his tent. Good start at a life of faith. Sometime afterwards, Abraham winds up in Egypt where he is now afraid for his life and asks his beautiful wife Sarah to say that she’s his sister instead of his wife, so that they people won’t kill him to get her. This does lead to complications we won’t discuss here but just to point out that we, never mind Abram, are subject to a wavering faith. Do you have incidents in your life where your faith wavered?

Reflect

What kind of hospitality have you received that made you feel special?

Observe

Read Genesis 18:1-8; Hebrews 13:1-2. In the nomadic culture, hospitality was readily shown to any visitors as they were regarded as visitors from God. What keeps us from exhibiting the same attitude?

Reflect

What passionate concerns do you want to bring to God?

Observe

Read Genesis 18:16-33; 1 Samuel 7:1-9; 2 Chronicles 30:1-20; Nehemiah 1:1-2:10; Philippians 1:3-10. How are we encouraged to plead to God?

Reflect

The Hebrew word, “shema,” means not just “listen” but “listen and obey.” How often do we listen intently to a friend or loved one such that we are ready to provide for any need implied within the conversation?

Observe

Read Genesis 22:1-19; 1 Corinthians 10:13. Theologians have wrestled with this passage in Genesis as we cannot fathom how God could command a human sacrifice, even if He knew how He would intervene before it would happen. How confident are you that God will provide for you in the midst of difficult decisions?

Reflect

God answers prayers on his timeline, not ours. He will fulfill his purpose for us – also on his timeline. Does that make you frustrated or assured?

Observe

Read Genesis 17:5; 21:4-5; 25:19-26; 2 Peter 3:8. God renamed Abram to “Father of many nations.” Abraham. Abraham had one “child of the promise,” Isaac whose only children were twin born when Abraham was 160 years old. How do you make sense of that in light of 2 Peter 3:8?

God working through broken individuals and communities

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom, Chapter 5 – Patriarchs

[Bible references: Psalm 51:17; Isaiah 49:8; 58:12; Jeremiah 59:19; Philippians 3:20-21]

Although the all-powerful Creator and Sustainer of the universe is capable of simply doing things by a show of great power and irresistible force,^[1] he usually chooses to work through His image-bearers.^[2] He can work through individuals or groups, although even when he works through groups it’s typically through individuals within those groups.^[3] Most surprising is that even though all his image-bearers have flaws, God has still chosen to do His work within those flaws.^[4] Despite our persistent failures, not only does God patiently empower us to fulfill the responsibility of stewardship of Creation that He gave us from the beginning, but He also empowers us to participate in His work of restoring the universe.

^[1] Spurgeon, C.H. “The Power of Christ Illustrated by the Resurrection” 19 January 1871 Biblehub biblehub.com/library/spurgeon/spurgeons_sermons_volume_17_1871/the_power_of_christ_illustrated.htm.

^[2] Welchel, Hugh, “Three Key Passages Concerning Stewardship in the Bible” The Institute of Faith, Works & Economics 19 Oct 2016 tifwe.org/stewardship-in-the-bible

^[3] Cole, Stephen J. “Lesson 51: How God Uses Ordinary People (Genesis 26:1-35)” Bible.org 29 Aug 2013 bible.org/seriespage/lesson-51-how-god-uses-ordinary-people-genesis-261-35

^[4] Wilson, Jarrid, “God Uses Flawed People To Share Hope To a Flawed World” jarridwilson.com 16 Mar 2014 jarridwilson.com/god-uses-flawed-people-to-share-hope-to-a-flawed-world/

Reflect

What does it mean to you that the One who has all knowledge prefers to carry out his plans for us through us who not only have incomplete knowledge but have corrupted intentions?

Observe

Read Psalm 51:17; Isaiah 40:8; 58:12; Philippians 3:20-21. What should our attitude be as God carries out his plans through us?

Chapter 4 – The Rebellion

The Impossible Dance – Table of Contents

The Impossible Dance – Chapter 4 – The Rebellion

Confronting our freedom

To be creatures designed in the image of the transcendent creative, loving God, we needed the kind of independence that could allow us to choose who or what to love – or not love – and to be free to imagine and create wildly new and different things as proper for God’s image-bearing creatures. We were free to do this in a place where everything was very good and designed so that we could flourish. However, that very freedom which gave image bearers the possibilities of independent thoughts, also gave those image-bearers the opportunity to also confront temptation.

God made His image-bearers the opportunity to meet with Him and to walk with Him in a specially designed garden, and also gave us the opportunity for questions, even to question the motives of the God who made them:

Was God withholding something good being from them?
Was God deprived them of some power?
What would be available to them if they violated the restriction?
Would they actually die?
What special knowledge was God depriving them of – particularly this knowledge of good and evil?
Everything they had encountered had been good, why would their thinking about violating this one restriction not be good?
Was the Creator so good anyway?”

Sin’s consequences

And so, it happened. The one thing that could create the ultimate catastrophe did happen. The good Creator, who only intended good things, allowed his image-bearers to give into their temptation, to put their own authority above His and violate the one restriction placed before them. This violation by the stewards of His creation broke everything: the relationship between themselves, the relation between them and Him, the relation between them and creation. Sin has affected all of creation which is even now waiting for God to make things right again.

God designed everything in creation to be good, to reflect the good character of the good God; to be a place where God and his image-bearers could keep on creating good things and bring increasing glory to God. But now, although the ultimate structure of creation was still good, it was headed in the wrong direction. The broken universe would now cause things to move away from God’s glory.

The brokenness started with the decision that would be continuously repeated. Even in a time like now, where we can get things so quickly and easily compared to times in the past, we want what we want, and we want it now. And the desire to get what we want now overwhelms our capacity to think of others, as we put ourselves at the center of our part of the universe, replacing God with ourselves. In the case of the first humans, they wanted to grab knowledge and wisdom for themselves instead of waiting to receive it from God.

After many generations, we would prove that we could not successfully resist the temptation to grab what we want instead of waiting to receive what we want from God. That would remain for Jesus, as our divinely ordained human representative, to do. So, until that time, the earth would remain separated from the Kingdom of God until Jesus began His restoration of the Kingdom. So, until that time the place of human habitation would be separate from the place where God’s good rule and reign is absolute. And it will not be until God fully reunites heaven and earth, that we will fully experience the overflowing shalom that God has intended for us. Until that time, the broken earth will stay separated from heaven and allowed to sink into disorder and chaos. Until that time, the overflowing goodness and shalom that God had provided will be masked by the brokenness of not just Creation but also by the brokenness of the co-creators. Look at what we have done!

We were meant to be in communion with each other and with God. We were meant to be “gardening” with God to make our place, a place of thriving and abundance in concord with the type of thriving and abundance with which God originally made the universe. God intended for us to live connected to Him and filled with His Spirit so that we would be fully enabled and prepared to be co-creators with Him of good works. But our rebellion has separated us from the one who is the source of goodness. In that sense, since the time of Adam, we are less human than we should be.

Hope in the brokenness

The rebellion broke everything. Spiritual death, the separation between God and his image-bearers, happened immediately. Physical death would mirror the spiritual death when the image-bearers would no longer have access to the Tree of Life. This was a great tragedy that we could not undo. But as we look around us, we can see that, despite the tragedy around us, things aren’t totally bad. Even though evil is very evident around us, goodness is also evident. It is in that observation that we can glimpse the possibility of hope.

God had ordained the penalty of death, spiritual and physical, to be the consequence of turning away from him. Spiritual death, the separation God’s image-bearers from God happened immediately, but physical death, the separation of soul and body, did not happen right away. What God did, was to apply discipline to his image-bearers. He also gave a hint of the solution to the problem created by sin, the first of many other hints that were to come.

There was also evidence for hope in the continued creation by God, as he continued to sustain the universe he created, and within that universe He continued to create new living things, plants, and animals alike. Related to that hope, was that the mandate given to the image-bearers was still in force, although there would now be suffering involved in the fulfillment of the mandate.

There was also hope hidden in God’s very name. The name given to us, and which Moses first revealed in Genesis 2, is “Yahweh” (Hebrew, יהוה). In the ancient Hebrew, the characters would have looked a little different and each character would represent an object or action. In Hebrew, the characters are read from right to left. The first character (י) represents a hand or arm and could also represent work or worship. The character (ה) represents a man with arms raised and could also represent displaying or revealing something. The (ו) character represents a nail or tent peg and could also represent fastening something together. So, embedded in the name יהוה is the message “hand revealed nail revealed” – a foretelling of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

The sacrifice of Jesus followed a life in which Jesus successfully waited to receive those things that His Father intended to give, resisting the temptation to grab those things for himself. In his life and death, Jesus successfully accomplished what Adam and all those who came after Adam had not.

In the beginning, we were eager to grasp for ourselves wisdom and the knowledge of good and evil on our own terms. What we didn’t plan on the consequences that would follow. Sometimes God gives us what we think we want even though it would bring us the suffering that God was trying to steer us from. It’s a continuing pattern we see from the beginning until now, that it is not always a good thing when we get what we think we want.

The plan to restore creation

The apparent penalty for sin, physical death, was more than that, it was also a blessing. Unlike the angels who rebelled against God, death provided the rebellious image-bearers a means of avoiding an eternity separated from the source of goodness and grace. But for the image-bearers, death would provide a means where God could rescue not only them, but all of creation from decay and death.

The plan of restoration would start to slowly unfold in ways that would sometimes be baffling and confusing and on a timetable that is beyond our comprehension. Over time though, God would gradually reveal how he intended to restore our relation to him, to end our pain and suffering, and to overcome the evil that seems to pervade everything.

The process of God’s revelation of hints of restoring creation started right at the beginning. God gave the initial clue in the curse given to the serpent, but the hint must have been a cryptic comment to His newly broken image-bearers. But since we have the privilege of looking back, we can see that God’s then cryptic reference was to the death and suffering of the character revealed in the Old Testament as the Messiah. As time went on, the Creator gradually revealed increasingly more clues about the plans He had to restore His creation. This gradual revelation was, and still is, a painfully slow time of waiting as we suffer the consequences of broken relations and a broken creation.

Fortunately, as we have waited in our broken universe, God’s grace has continued to intervene throughout history so that things are not as bad as they could possibly be. Our rebellion has not deterred God from providing for our everyday needs nor has he ceased to work on his plan to rejoin heaven and earth.

Meanwhile, God invites us to take part with him in the continued creation of the universe, bringing healing, health and hope directly into the midst of our now broken world, a task that he and we will continue until God fully restores his kingdom. Towards that end, he has provided spiritual gifts, gifts that we can share with one another, to build up one another and to bless the world as his ambassadors.

There are many things about the plans of God that we do not understand. God’s plans for us seem to stretch out over a long time in which there is much suffering and pain. But God can redeem even the suffering and pain we endure to help us become more like the Desire of our Hearts, the One who gave all Himself so that we all may become more like Him.

Turning from shalom

Although we try to cling to the hope of God and our final restoration, we, in our sin, face a world broken by sin. While waiting for the restoration of creation, we find ourselves continually turning from God and rather towards bringing further destruction into God’s good creation, constantly bending on turning from shalom and towards a substitute that gives us pain and despair. Evil and injustice flourish. The consequence of choosing to go our own way has put us on a path where we continue to separate ourselves from the source of goodness and shalom. Indeed, we find ourselves on a path of destruction despite God’s continual provision for us as he continuously and unrelenting pursues us and pours out his limitless grace. And so it is, that we find ourselves in a world where both good and evil abound, where the good things God created are corrupted continuing to turn us away from God.

Rampant evil

So that we can know what terrible direction we were headed without that intervening grace, God initially allowed his image-bearers to live long lifespans. The long lifespans seemed to postpone the penalty for sin such a long time by delaying the penalty of physical death, that the image-bearers behaved as if there were no consequences for their God-defiant behavior. The result was rampant unrestrained evil that infected nearly everyone, causing God to destroy all but one family. Sadly, even with that severe penalty, it would not be long before our God-defiant behavior would threaten to be our undoing again, but God would continue intervening with grace as He would gradually work out His plan to restore us to Himself beginning with the rainbow as a sign of hope.

Tower of Babel

Despite the catastrophic destruction that destroyed all people except Noah and his family, the image-bearers’ defiance would emerge again when, thinking themselves to be wiser than God, they refused to spread out over the earth as God had commanded and then proceeded to build a tower as a monument to themselves. God’s response was very measured. By causing them to speak different languages so that they could no longer communicate with each other, the image-bearers would no longer be able to come together to complete the tower, rather they were now forced to divide into seventy different groups and spread out across the earth as God had intended. This breakup would lead to the creation of different nations – and eventually lead to God’s working out His solution to our predicament by the calling out from one of the nations, one man through whom God would begin His work of restoration.

Questions:

Read Genesis 3:1-7. What did the woman choose to trust when she chose to eat the forbidden fruit?
Read Gen 3:14-15, 20-21; Psalm 4:1, 8. The world around us is filled with problems. What signs of hope do we have?
Read Genesis 50:20. After Jacob’s death, Joseph spoke to his brothers about their selling him into slavery and said, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” What can we learn from this?
Read Gen 3:1. We often know in our mind what God’s instruction is when we are tempted to do our own thing apart from God’s instruction. We somehow find a way to justify our actions by questioning God’s authority. Does this give us a strategy for dealing with temptation?
Read Genesis 11:4. The construction of the tower at Babel was not a positive development, but God’s plans won’t be thwarted. What confidence does that give us about the difficult situations we see around us today?

Turning from shalom

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom, Chapter 4 – Deforming the intended direction for creation

[Bible references: Psalm 53:1-3]

Although we try to cling to the hope of God and our final restoration, we, in our sin, face a world that is broken by sin. While waiting for the restoration of creation, we find ourselves continually turning from God and rather towards bringing further destruction into God’s good creation. We seem to be constantly bent on turning from shalom and towards a substitute that gives us pain and despair. The history of the world is filled with the flourishing of evil and injustice. The consequence of choosing to go our own way has put us on a path where we continue to separate ourselves from the source of goodness and shalom. Indeed, we find ourselves on a path of destruction despite God’s continual provision for us as he continuously and unrelenting pursues us and pours out his limitless grace. And so it is, that we find ourselves in a world where both good and evil abound, where the good things God created are corrupted continuing to turn us away from God.^[1]

Rampant evil

[Bible references: Genesis 6, 9]

So that we can know what terrible direction we are headed without that intervening grace, God initially allowed his image-bearers to live long lifespans. The long lifespans seemed to postpone the penalty for sin such a long time by delaying the penalty of physical death, that the image-bearers behaved as if there were no consequences for their God-defiant behavior. The result was rampant unrestrained evil that infected nearly everyone, causing God to destroy all but one family. Sadly, even with that severe penalty, it would not be long before our God-defiant behavior would threaten to be our undoing again, but God would continue intervening with grace as He would gradually work out His plan to restore us to Himself beginning with the rainbow as a sign of hope.

Tower of Babel

[Bible references: Genesis 11:1-8; Genesis 12:1-3]

^[1] Brister, Tim. “6 Destructive Ways We Minimize Our Own Sin”

Reflect

Think about some things that should be inherently good but are used for evil purposes.

Observe

Read Gen 3:1. We often know in our mind what God’s instruction is when we are tempted to do our own thing apart from God’s instruction. We somehow find a way to justify our actions by questioning God’s authority. Does this give us a strategy for dealing with temptation?

Reflect

If there were no consequences for bad behavior, what do you think the world would be like?

Observe

Read Genesis 6 and 9. God sent a flood to deal with the rampant sin in the world but it wasnot long after the flood that signs of human rebellion sprung up again in Noah’s family. What kind of trajectory did this indicate for humanity?

Reflect

Even within a family, different experiences cause people to think differently causing conflict. They all use the same words but have different thoughts about what is right. Larger problems occur when people grow up in entirely different environments. When people use different languages, those different languages amplify the differences in how people think. In your own situation, what different cultures do you interact with and how do you process conflicts with people in those cultures?

Observe

Read Genesis 11:4. The construction of the tower at Babel was not a positive development, but God’s plans won’t be thwarted. What confidence does that give us about the difficult situations we see around us today?

The plan to restore creation

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom, Chapter 4 – Deforming the intended direction for creation

[Bible references: Genesis 3:13-15; 50:20; Isaiah 53; Micah 6:8; Zechariah 7:9; Matthew 10:28-31; Luke 19:11-27; 1 Corinthians 12; Galatians 3:13-14,23-29; Ephesians 1:11-12; Hebrews 1:1-3]

The apparent penalty for sin, physical death, was actually a blessing. Unlike the angels who rebelled against God, death provided the rebellious image-bearers a means of avoiding an eternity separated from the source of goodness and grace. But for the image-bearers, death would provide a means where not only they but all of creation could be rescued from decay and death.

The process of God’s revelation of hints of restoring creation started right at the beginning. God gave the initial clue in the curse given to the serpent, but the hint must have been a cryptic comment to His newly broken image-bearers. But since we have the privilege of looking back, we can see that God’s then cryptic reference was to the death and suffering of the character revealed in the Old Testament as the Messiah. As time went on, the Creator gradually revealed more and more clues about the plans He had to restore His creation. This gradual revelation was, and still is, a painfully slow time of waiting as we suffer the consequences of broken relations and a broken creation.

There are many things about the plans of God that we do not understand. God’s plans for us seem to be drawn out over a long time in which there is much suffering and pain. But even the suffering and pain we endure can be redeemed to help us become more like the Desire of our Hearts, the One who gave all Himself so that we all may become more like Him.

Reflect

What would the world look like if there was no goodness?

Observe

Read Genesis 50:20. This sentence was spoken by Joseph to his brothers in regard to their selling him into slavery. What can we learn from this?

Hope in the brokenness

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom, Chapter 4 – Deforming the intended direction for creation

[Bible references: Genesis 2:16-17; 3:14-15, 23; Psalm 4; Hebrews 1:1-4]

Everything was broken and separated from God. Spiritual death, the impaired relation between God and His image-bearers was immediate and would be mirrored by the physical death caused by separation of the people who would no longer have access to the Tree of Life. This was a great tragedy that could not be undone, not by the image bearers. But as we look around us, we can see that, despite the tragedy around us, things aren’t totally bad. Even though evil is very evident around us, goodness is also evident. It is in that observation that we can glimpse the possibility of hope.

There was also hope hidden in God’s very name. The name given to us, which was given to Moses and first revealed in Genesis 2, is “Yahweh” (Hebrew, יהוה). In the ancient Hebrew, the characters would have looked a little different and each character would represent an object or action.^[1] In Hebrew, the characters are read from right to left. The first character (י) represents a hand or arm and could also represent work or worship. The character (ה) represents a man with arms raised and could also represent displaying or revealing something. The (ו) character represents a nail or tent peg and could also represent fastening something together. So, embedded in the name יהוה is the message “hand revealed nail revealed” – a foretelling of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

^[1] Benner, Jeff A. “Hebrew Alphabet Chart”

Reflect

It’s not hard to see signs of brokenness around us. Are there any signs of hope that can be seen?

Observe

Read Galatians 3:13-14; Ephesians 1:11-12; Jeremiah 29:11; Isaiah 1:26; Matthew 17:11; Acts 3:18-26. Throughout the Bible, God has chosen to share his future plans in pieces at a time. Because of that, what exactly those plans are, have been the subject of much debate within the church. What is your understanding of God’s plans for the future?

Confronting our freedom

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom, Chapter 4 – Deforming the intended direction for creation

[Bible references: Gen 3:1-7]

While the image-bearers were given the opportunity to meet with God and to walk with him in a specially designed garden, they were also allowed the opportunity for questions. They could even question the motives of the God who made them:

Was something good being withheld from them?
Were they being deprived of some power?
What would be available to them if they violated the restriction?
Would they actually die?
What special knowledge were they being deprived of – particularly this knowledge of good and evil?
Everything they had encountered had been good, why would their thinking about violating this one restriction not be good?
Was the Creator so good anyway?”

Reflect

It seems to be part of human nature, to be suspicious of those things or those people who are different than us. The question is, when does doubting someone else’s motives become an act of sin?

Observe

Read Genesis 3:1-7.

What did the woman choose to trust when she chose to eat the forbidden fruit?

Sins consequences

Dancing in the Kingdom – Table of Contents

Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom, Chapter 4 – Deforming the intended direction for creation

[Bible references: Genesis 3; 6:5; Romans 8:19-22; Ephesians 2:10]

And so, it happened. The one thing that could create the ultimate catastrophe did happen. The good Creator, who only intended good things, allowed his image-bearers to give into their temptation, to put their own authority above His and violate the one restriction placed before them. This violation by the stewards of His creation broke everything: the relationship between themselves, the relation between them and Him, the relation between them and creation. All of creation was affected and is even now waiting for things to be made right again.

Everything in creation had been designed to be good, to reflect the good character of the good God. Creation was designed to be a place where God and his image-bearers could keep on creating good things and bring increasing glory to God. But now, although the ultimate structure of creation was still good, it was headed in the wrong direction. The broken universe would now cause things to move away from God’s glory.

“Anything in creation can be directed either toward or away from God – that is, directed either in obedience or disobedience to his law. This double direction applies not only to individual human beings but also to such cultural phenomena such as technology, art, and scholarship, to such societal institutions as labor unions, schools, and corporations. and to such human functions as emotionality, sexuality, and rationality. To the degree that these realities fail to live up to God’s creational design for them, they are misdirected, abnormal, distorted. To the degree that they still conform to God’s design, they are in the grip of a countervailing force that curbs or counteracts the distortion. Direction therefore involves two tendencies moving either for or against God.” ^[1]

The brokenness started with the decision that would be repeated again and again. Even in a time like now, where we can get things so quickly and easily compared to times in the past, we want what we want, and we want it now. And the desire to get what we want now overwhelms our capacity to think of others, as we put ourselves at the center of our part of the universe, replacing God with ourselves. In the case of the first humans, they wanted to grab knowledge and wisdom for themselves instead of waiting to receive it from God.

The failure to resist the temptation to grab what we want instead of waiting to receive what we want from God would only be successfully resisted by Jesus. So, after the rebellion occurred, the earth would remain separated from the Kingdom of God until Jesus began His restoration of the Kingdom. So, until that time the place of human habitation would be separate from the place where God’s good rule and reign is absolute. And it will not be until heaven and earth will be fully reunited, that we will fully experience the overflowing shalom that God has intended for us. Until that time, the broken earth will be separated from heaven and allowed to sink into disorder and chaos. Until that time, the overflowing goodness and shalom that God had provided will be masked by the brokenness of not just Creation but also by the brokenness of the co-creators. Look at what we have done!

We were meant to be in communion with each other and with God. We were meant to be “gardening” with God to make our place, a place of thriving and abundance in concord with the type of thriving and abundance with which God originally made the universe. God intended for us to be connected to Him and filled with His Spirit so that we would be fully enabled and prepared to be co-creators with Him of good works. But our rebellion has separated us from the one who is the source of goodness. In that sense, since the time of Adam, we are less human than we should be.

^[1] Wolters, Albert M. Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview (Locations 685-689)

Reflect

In what ways do we replace God’s authority with something else?

Observe

Read Gen 3:14-15, 20-21; Psalm 4:1, 8. The world around us is filled with problems. What signs of hope do we have?