Daily Bible Reading - April 19 - A Worthy Man

In a coincidence in our daily reading schedule, the story of Ruth in the OT reading falls right after the story of the Day of Pentecost in the NT reading. This is ironic because the Jews traditionally read the Book of Ruth during Pentecost, probably because it occurred during the same time of year as Pentecost - "at the beginning of the barley harvest" (Ruth 1:22).

Given how dark and depraved the time of the Judges was, it is almost impossible that a story so sweet and gracious as Ruth's took place during that period, but it did. It is encouraging to know that even in the darkest periods of a society it is still possible for love and virtue to survive.

As I read the first two chapters of Ruth, I couldn't help but think how different Boaz is from the last of the judges in the previous book - Samson. Samson was a captive to his own lusts, and every woman he saw was someone to exploit for his own passions. Boaz is much different. He is a "worthy man" (Ruth 2:1), a term that can refer to a wide range of strengths, such as military prowess (see Judges 11:1) to moral excellence (as in Ruth 3:11).

When Boaz noticed the young Moabite girl gleaning in his fields for the first time, he did not see her as an object to exploit for his own gratification as Samson would have. Instead, he saw:

• A woman who needed to be protected (2:8-9a).
• A women who needed to be taken care of (2:9b).
• A woman who was loyal and hardworking (2:10-11).
• A woman who had committed herself to the Lord (2:12).

At this point in the story there is no evidence suggesting that Boaz had romantic affections for Ruth. He was simply doing what any worthy man should do to help someone as deserving as Ruth. And his kindness restored the faith of Ruth's demoralized mother-in-law, who went from deploring the catastrophe the Lord brought against her (Ruth 1:21) to praising God for His kindness (2:20).

Samson was mighty in some limited respects, but so weak in others. If we want to see what a true mighty man is like, we need to think about Boaz.

Sermon: The Bible and The Environment (or, Shane Becomes a Tree-Hugger!)

Introduction.

According to the calendar this Thursday is Earth Day. Normally, Earth Day is something that I would either ignore or ridicule. There are lots of people and beliefs connected with the environmental movement that I frankly do not want to be associated with. But over the last year I have noticed some passages in the Bible that I have never given much attention to before, and I have had to re-think my overall views about the environment.

This is one of those subjects that quickly divide people into two extremes. On the one hand, there are those who essentially worship the natural world, confusing the creation for the Creator. If you happen to see the movie Avatar, the worldview of the inhabitants of the planet Pandora was essentially that the planet they lived on was also their mother goddess. There is a fringe of the real-life environmental movement that worships earth as the mother goddess, Gaia. This is idolatry, and it defies the most important and profound truth of Scripture: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God existed before the creation and is never to be confused with the creation. He is the Creator.

But just as it is wrong to confuse the creation for the Creator, it is also wrong to deny there is any relevance between believing in a Creator and how we view the creation. If we truly believe the environment - the planet, its plants and animals – is the work of God’s hands, then there should be a respectful concern for nature, as there would be for any work of God.

So my goal in today’s lesson is to examine what the Bible says about God and the environment, and to understand what our obligations to the natural world are as believers.

The Bible and the Environment

So let’s begin with the most basic truth of all - God created the environment.

At the end of the creation account, the Bible says:

Gen. 1:31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

The entire universe – the stars and planets, the plants and animals, and humanity itself – was made by the power of God, and the Lord was enormously satisfied by the work of His hands.

God’s majestic power is so clear in creation, that in Israel’s book of praises the created order itself is said to rejoice in God’s work:

10 Say among the nations, "The LORD reigns!
Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved;
he will judge the peoples with equity."
11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
12 let the field exult, and everything in it!
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy (Psalm 96)

Consider Psalm 104. It begins with a summary of God’s craftsmanship in creation:

5 He set the earth on its foundations,
so that it should never be moved.
6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
7 At your rebuke they fled;
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight.
8 The mountains rose, the valleys sank down
to the place that you appointed for them.
9 You set a boundary that they may not pass,
so that they might not again cover the earth.
10 You make springs gush forth in the valleys;
they flow between the hills;
11 they give drink to every beast of the field;
the wild donkeys quench their thirst.

Notice how God’s providence for His creatures is comprehensive:

12 Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell;
they sing among the branches.
13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains;
the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.
14 You cause the grass to grow for the livestock
and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth
15 and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine
and bread to strengthen man’s heart.
16 The trees of the LORD are watered abundantly,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
17 In them the birds build their nests;
the stork has her home in the fir trees.
18 The high mountains are for the wild goats;
the rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers.
19 He made the moon to mark the seasons;
the sun knows its time for setting.
20 You make darkness, and it is night,
when all the beasts of the forest creep about.
21 The young lions roar for their prey,
seeking their food from God.
22When the sun rises, they steal away
and lie down in their dens.
23 Man goes out to his work
and to his labor until the evening.

Such a benevolent and thoughtful Creator deserves praise!

24 O LORD, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom have you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
25 Here is the sea, great and wide,
which teems with creatures innumerable,
living things both small and great.
26 There go the ships,
and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.
27 These all look to you,
to give them their food in due season.
28 When you give it to them, they gather it up;
when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
29 When you hide your face, they are dismayed;
when you take away their breath, they die
and return to their dust.
30 When you send forth your Spirit, they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.
31 May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
may the LORD rejoice in his works

The Lord rejoices in His works! His creation rejoices in His providence! The natural world resounds with praise for God. This is the message of Psalm 148, which is the basis for the song “Hallelujah Praise Jehovah.”

All you fruitful trees and cedars, all you hills and mountains high,

Creeping things and beasts and cattle, birds that in the heavens fly,

Kings of earth, and all you people, princes great, earth’s judges all;

Praise His Name, young men and maidens, agèd men, and children small.

Doesn’t the fact that the world is God’s workmanship have enormous implications for how people who love God should look at the environment? If the natural world is a testimony to God’s greatness, we should be concerned about how we treat it.

But before we get to our responsibilities, I want to make a second point from Scripture. Not only did God create the environment, He deeply cares for the environment. This divine concern is expressed in passage after passage, some of which are very familiar to us.

For instance, when Jesus taught against anxiety in the Sermon on the Mount, remember His illustration?

26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? (Matt. 6)

God feeds the birds; God clothes the grass of the field. God cares for His world.

Later, Jesus said this care extended to even the smallest birds:

29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. (Matt 10)

God is intimately aware of what happens in the environment, and cares for His creatures.

This care was encoded in many of the laws God gave to Israel. Certainly the most important of these was the Sabbath law itself. God wanted a day of rest for all of creatures – not just man.

8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (Ex. 20)

Not even the livestock were to work. They needed time to recover just like people. This is explicit in the restatement of the command in Ex. 23-

12 Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed.

God wanted a Sabbath for man, animal, and even for the land itself. Every seven years the people were to let the land rest.

2 Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the LORD. 3 For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, 4 but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the LORD. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. 5 You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. (Lev. 25)

Centuries before conservationists ever warned about soil erosion or the loss of topsoil, God instituted a provision for the land to be left alone to recover. Think about what a sacrifice this was in an economy like ancient Israel’s in which everything depended on agriculture. How tempting it would be to ignore this command. Perhaps that is why on the next chapter of Leviticus God warned the people what would happen if they failed to keep the Sabbath year for the land. Israel would be invaded and exiled…

34 Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. 35 As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it. (Lev. 26)

And this is exactly what happened. Israel did ignore the command, and God deported them to Babylon. The Chronicler explained the captivity in these terms:

20 He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, 21 to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years. (2 Chron. 36)

God’s care for the natural world can also be seen in other statutes in the Mosaic code. Here’s an interesting command, taken from the instructions God gave for how to engage in warfare in Deuteronomy 20:

19 When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human, that they should be besieged by you? 20 Only the trees that you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down, that you may build siegeworks against the city that makes war with you, until it falls.

I had never noticed this command until Andrew asked to study Deuteronomy with me last year. It reminds me of the scene in Tolkein’s The Two Towers, where tree-like creature called Ents—usually a very patient, deliberate people—become angry at Saruman, whose armies are cutting down large numbers of their trees and march on Saruman's fortress at Isengard. Israel was forbidden to engage in such indiscriminate destruction of trees.

Or how about this law, quoted in the New Testament:

4 "You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain. (Deut. 25)

When a beast of burden was hard at work, it wasn’t to be muzzled so it could eat and sustain itself while working. And of course this passage is quoted twice in the NT by Paul to establish the case for the financial support of preachers, arguing from the lesser to the greater.

Three times the Law contains this command:

Ex. 23:19 You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.

This is the basis of the kosher principle which forbids eating milk and meat at the same time, but the precise reason for the command is a mystery. The best guess really is that it would be cruel to boil a young goat in that which should be life-giving. It is therefore a display of compassion.

That may also explain this directive from Lev. 22-

27 "When an ox or sheep or goat is born, it shall remain seven days with its mother, and from the eighth day on it shall be acceptable as a food offering to the LORD. 28 But you shall not kill an ox or a sheep and her young in one day.

And it certainly explains the reason for this ordinance in Ex. 23-

4 "If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. 5 If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.

All of these commands illustrate the great consideration the Lord has for the land, for animals, and since these commands maintain sustainable natural order - ultimately His consideration for us.

These laws also illustrate the important role we play in God’s care for the environment. That is the third key point to draw from Scripture - God delegated care for the environment to humanity.

In Gen. 1 God said:

26 "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

This dominion God delegated to us is based on our creation in His image, status that no other creature has. As the psalmist reflected on this he was amazed:

4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
7 all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas. Psalm 8

This is the reason the radical fringe of the animal rights movement is so misguided. Not only does trying to equate animal life with human life end up devaluing human life, it is precisely because mankind is superior to animals that we can provide shelter, care and protection for animals. Animals don’t build hospitals to care for people! People build hospitals to care for animals!

That is our duty as God’s delegated authority – to care for creation. This was true even in the paradise of Eden.

15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. (Gen. 2)

This was before the entrance of sin into the world in Gen. 3, so the work laid out here in Gen. 2:15 is not a punishment – it is a divine mandate. Adam was to work and keep the garden. And in a nutshell, that is what Adam’s offspring are to do.

This holy work of careful stewardship of nature is seen all through the Law of Moses, in many of the passages we have already looked at. Just let me show you two more.

In Lev. 19 the Lord set forth a law regarding the use of trees-

23 When you come into the land and plant any kind of tree for food, then you shall regard its fruit as forbidden. Three years it shall be forbidden to you; it must not be eaten. 24 And in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy, an offering of praise to the LORD. 25 But in the fifth year you may eat of its fruit, to increase its yield for you: I am the LORD your God.

God did not want the people to pick fruit from trees until they were mature. The issue was not that it was wrong to eat the fruit – the issue was responsible use of the trees.

And consider this passage in Deut. 22-

6 If you come across a bird’s nest in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young. 7 You shall let the mother go, but the young you may take for yourself, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long.

Again, the issue was not that it is wrong to eat eggs. The issue was proper management of the food supply. God designed the environment to provide sustainable life for His people, provided they followed His laws and used the natural world responsibly.

That is why failure to care for the land and for animals was such an offense to God. It revealed a heart that was irreverent and disrespectful for the Creator.

There is such a strong connection between our character and the way we use creation that the wise man wrote:

10 Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast,
but the mercy of the wicked is cruel. Prov. 12:10

I realize that many of the passages we have looked at were specific laws for the people of Israel in the specific context of living in the land of promise, the land of Canaan. While these laws must be kept in their original context, they display a broad divine regard for the natural word. What should we as Christians take away from what the Bible says regarding the creation?

Some Applications

1) We must live in a way that reflects gratitude for God’s creation.

It is easy to be grateful for the beauty of the environment in this part of the country! I know that many of you are enthusiastic campers and hikers, and relish the glory of God’s creation. He made it for us to enjoy! But you don’t have to be Grizzly Adams to be a nature lover. If you eat you are a nature lover, because we can’t separate food from the environment. And that is why we all have reason to be grateful for God’s goodness.

4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. (1 Tim. 4)

We must be grateful.

2) We must live in a way that reflects wise stewardship of God’s creation.

In 1 Tim. 6 Paul writes-

6 Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, 7 for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.

Think about the implications of verse 7. Look at everything you have on, think about everything you have at home. You came into the world with none of it, and you will leave the world and all its stuff behind. That means everything we have is on loan; it doesn’t belong to us; it belongs to God. That is what stewardship means – to take care of someone else’s stuff. The earth is the Lord’s and all it contains – so we need to take good care of it. That is the biblical basis of stewardship of creation.

The ally of stewardship is contentment, which Paul defines in verse 8.

8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.

A steward sees material blessings as a tool to use for God’s glory, and is humbly grateful for the provision God has given. But in a wealthy country like ours, it is easy to be overcome by the enemy of stewardship, which is greed.

9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

So how do we discern the difference between contentment and greed in the way we use the creation? Do you remember the Aesops’ fable about the goose that laid the golden egg? There was a farmer who had a goose, and one day he went to gather her eggs, only to discover that she had laid a golden egg! Each morning he went to the henhouse, and each morning he found a golden egg. But one day he decided that one egg wasn’t enough, and he killed the goose to get all of the golden eggs out of her. But when he killed her, there were no more golden eggs.

God created an environment that produces lots of golden eggs - food and clothing and shelter. If we are responsible stewards of creation, His provision is sustainable. But whenever people are overcome by greed and try to exploit the natural world, the result is disastrous. The golden eggs run out.

Good stewardship means that we do our best to take good care of the little plot of this planet we live on, and learn the virtue of living within our means, using what God has loaned us to glorify Him and serve others.

3) We must live in a way that reflects love for our neighbor.

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Gal. 5

Simply put, we have to think of the consequences of our actions not only for us, but also for others – including the choices we make in how we use the natural world. It is hard to think of a manmade environmental catastrophe that doesn’t involve at its core a failure to follow this principle.

It would be great if companies, corporations, and countries all lived by the golden rule, but they don’t. But you and I can choose to be different than the world, and do what we can in our own little world to treat others like we want to be treated in the way we use the resources of nature.

Conclusion.

I am convinced that part of what drives a lot of the radical environmental movement is the belief that this life is all there is, that we have to save the planet because this is the only place we’ll ever have. Christians though have a different belief, that this world will end some day, that there is a new heavens and earth yet to come.

But this belief doesn’t relieve us of the duty to be good stewards. Think of it like this. Here is a dollar bill. How many of you believe we ought to be careful and prudent in the way we use these pieces of paper? We all do – even though we all believe a day is coming in which the world – including its money – will be no more. Yet we think we should handle money responsibly. If that is true of money, it is true of the trees from which the paper this money is printed on comes from, and the ground the trees grow in, and the water the trees use, and so on.

What complicates life for us now is that we live on a cursed planet. Sin has invaded our world, and it is under a curse. God in His mercy still allows us to enjoy creation in so many ways, but the thorns and thistles and diseases and disasters, the toil of labor by the sweat of the brow, the pain and heartache of this life, all remind us of sin’s curse.

Through Christ we each can have a new start; we can become in the words of 2 Cor. 5:17 a “new creation.” And when Christ comes back we will have new bodies designed for a new heavens and earth, which is described like the Garden of Eden. It will be paradise as it was intended to be, and it will be forever. What a great day that will be, one eternal day, one joyous day with God and Jesus and one another.

Daily Bible Reading - April 16 - An Ugly Story But a Happy Ending

Today's OT reading (Judges 19-21) is the most repulsive story in the Bible. It is not repulsive because the Bible is bad, but because people are bad. It contains the worst elements of sinful humanity: sexual perversion, brutality, stubbornness, cruelty, impudence.

It begins with a Levite from Ephraim tracking down a run-away concubine. As they return home, they stop in the city of Gibeah (in the territory of Benjamin), where no one offers to take care of them. Eventually a fellow Ephraimite who happened to be staying in the city took them in. What follows is a nightmare. The men if the city demand to gang rape the Levite. In desperation the man and the Levite give the mob the concubine, who is abused all night and falls dead at the threshold (was she begging to be let back in? what a horror!). The Levite dismembered her, sending a grisly message to each tribe to let them know what had happened.

The tribes were outraged, and demanded that Benjamin punish the men of Gibeah. Not only did the Benjamite refuse, they mustered for battle, and at the end of the incredibly bloody conflict 40,000 Israelites were dead and nearly all of the men of Benjamin were annihilated (25,100 of 26,000). The book concludes with Israel trying to find a way around its impudent vow not to marry anyone from Benjamin, leading to the brutal invasion of Jabesh-gilead and the kidnapping of hundreds of women for the survivors of Benjamin to marry.

The book of Judges began with the story of Israel's efforts to subdue to the Canaanites. It ends with a tribe of Israel nearly wiped out like the Canaanites were supposed to have been, a sad reminder than in many ways Israel had become indistinguishable from Canaan.

However, today's NT reading (Acts 2) presents a much different picture. Instead of Israel at war with itself, Jews from every nation under heaven were gathered in one place, and by the miracle of tongues able to hear the message of the gospel. And that message was not just for Israel, but for "whoever calls on the name of the Lord." By the end of the chapter, thousands of new Christians "were together and had all things in common."

This is the power of the gospel. It reconciles sinful men with God, and with each other.

Daily Bible Reading - April 15 - Religion for the Highest Bidder

I once heard a joke about a man who decided to proposition a woman.

"Will you sleep me with for one million dollars?"
"Sure!" she replied.
"OK, what about a thousand dollars?"
"Just what kind of woman do you think I am?"
"Lady, we've already established that - now we're just figuring out the price!"

This joke is a not-so-funny commentary on human depravity. A sell-out is a sell-out; the price is just a quibble. And today's OT reading is a tragic illustration of this.

In Judges 17-18 a man in the hill country of Ephraim named Micah decides to create his own religion. He sets up shrine, complete with an idol and ephod (a priestly garment), and installed his own son as a priest. Some time later a Levite wandered into his house, and Micah offered to set him up as priest - offering a handsome salary and new wardrobe! The Levite accepted the offer, and became Micah's "house priest."

Having demonstrated he was for sale, the Levite was bound to find a better deal. And he did - the form of a group of Danites leaving their tribal territory and migrating north. When they stumbled upon Micah's house and saw the Levite, they offered him a chance to be a priest not just for one man, but "to a tribe and clan in Israel" (18:19). The Levite's "heart was glad" (18:20). Of course it was - we already knew what kind of man he was; this was just a discussion about the price.

The most shocking detail of all comes in 18:30, where we learn the identity of this priest for hire. It was none other than the grandson of Moses - Jonathan! How quickly a family can turn from conviction to compromise.

All of this happens under the refrain that appears several times at the end of Judges - "in those days there was no king in Israel" (18:1). Rather than submit to God as king and worship according to His rules, Micah made up his own religion. Rather than live in his own city, the Levite looked for greener pastures. Rather than remain in their ancestral home, the Danites looked for better land. In such an environment, with respect for the rule of God's law gone, the only rule is might - which is why muted protest is all Micah can do when the Danites carry off the god that he made.

What is your price? For what will you sell out? And what do you think you will gain?

Daily Bible Reading - April 14 - When I Am Weak Then I Am Strong

(My apologies for my month-long sabbatical from blogging!)

Today's OT portion is the story of Samson (Judges 12-16). His very name is synonymous with strength, yet the text makes it clear that Samson was beset by many serious weaknesses: lust, anger, and revenge, to name a few. In fact his story revolves around two women: his marriage to a Philistine woman from Timnah (Judges 14-15), and his dalliance with the Philistine temptress Delilah (Judges 16).

In the larger context of the book of Judges, Samson is the very personification of what the nation of Israel as a whole was like at this time. Judges 17:6 says that, "In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes." This is Samson's story in a nutshell. Judges 14:3 says that Samson wanted to marry the Philistine girl because "she is right in my eyes." What mattered to Samson was not God's will - all that mattered was what looked good to him.

Ironically, by pursuing a lifestyle based on what looked good in his eyes, Samson eventually lost his eyes when he was captured by the Philistines (16:21). And just as God allowed Israel to be sold into bondage for becoming indistinguishable from their pagan neighbors, God allowed Samson to be pressed into slavery after a life of reckless relationships with the Philistines.

It was in that very hour of weakness and blindness that Samson finally saw that God was the true source of strength. He prayed to God for help, and God enabled him to bring down the house of Dagon, killing more of the enemy in his death than he had in all his other exploits combined (16:30).

In 2 Corinthians 12:10 Paul stated a basic principle: "when I am weak, then I am strong." It is only when we are vulnerable and helpless that we are driven to rely on God's strength rather than our own. But since God's strength is so much more potent than our own, this is a good thing!

Of course very few of us suffer from the physical blindness that Samson suffered from. Ours is more like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, who walked for a while with Jesus but did not initially recognize who He was. The great news is that Jesus opened their eyes, and He can open ours - to see who He is, to see how weak we really are, and to see what He can do through us.

Daily Bible Reading - March 11 - The Rock of Quarreling

Today's reading includes one of the saddest stories in the Bible - Moses' failure at the Rock of Meribah (Numbers 20). Once more the people were grumbling because of the rigors of their journey (which they earned by believing the unfaithful spies). And once more God graciously provided the people with water. But something went horribly wrong-

Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, "Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?" And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock. And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them." (Num. 20:10-12)

Just exactly what did Moses do wrong? The text indicates a couple of things-

1) Moses spoke harshly to the people. When the Lord told Moses to speak in 20:8, He told him to speak to the rock, not the people. Not only did Moses speak to the people, but he spoke harshly to them. I can certainly understand why he lost his cool with them. As the psalmist wrote later:

They angered him at the waters of Meribah,
and it went ill with Moses on their account,
for they made his spirit bitter,
and he spoke rashly with his lips. (Ps. 106:32-33)

2) Moses struck the rock instead of just speaking to it. Nowhere in God's instructions did He tell Moses to use his staff (unlike His instructions in Ex. 17:6). Moses was to tell the rock to yield its water, rather than to strike it, which would be an even greater display of God's power. But Moses acted in a way that obscured the power of God.

3) Moses acted with a "high hand." In 20:11 the text says "Moses lifted up his hand." This is the same language that is used in 15:30 to describe those who sin with a "high hand." The text may be implying that Moses acted with a presumptuous spirit in striking the rock twice rather than doing what God said.

As a result of this, Moses could not enter the Promised Land after leading the people so long and through so much tribulation. God takes His holiness seriously, and since Moses did not uphold God as holy before the people (20:12), he paid a heavy price.

Daily Bible Reading - March 10 - The Law Stated and Applied

The Book of Numbers is quite a mixture of forms of writing. It contains both legal texts as well as narratives. Today's reading (Numbers 15-18) is a good illustration of this diversity. Numbers 15:1-31 describes the sacrifice for unintentional sins; Numbers 15:32-36 narrates the story of the man gathering wood on the Sabbath; and Numbers 15:37-41 details the law about tassels on garments.

I don't know that you can always make a clear link between the legal sections and the narrative sections, but I think you can do so here in Numbers 15-16. The law for unintentional sins precluded an offering for presumptuous sin. That is followed by a story about intentional sin - the gathering of wood on the Sabbath, and the severe punishment that followed. Next comes the law about tassels, which of course were to remind the people to remember God's commandments and not follow their own vision of what is right - which sets the stage for the story of the rebellion of Korah and his cronies.

This pattern afforded Moses the opportunity not only to state the Law, but also to show the application of the Law. Further, it shows the extent to which God went to help the people to remember His Law. Objects like the tassels, or Aaron's rod that budded (Num. 17) were visual aids to remind the people to be obedient to His Law. Such clear commandments combined with visual reminders left the people with no excuse.