Word Surprises

The previous two posts have discussed how we can despise our spiritual birthright by not valuing our relationship with God. This post takes a look at how the priests and men of Israel were dishonoring their birthrights by despising their relationships with their wives. In Malachi 2:10-11  we see that the men of Israel were profaning their covenant with God by marrying foreign women and divorcing their Jewish wives to do so.  The consequence of this was that the Lord refused to regard their offerings anymore and  declared that His altar was being covered with tears, weeping and crying. Who was doing the crying does differ between translations but I'm inclined to think it was the rejected wives who were crying out to the Lord for help ( Mal 2.13-14 ).  Stop breaking their hearts  When Malachi declared this to the priests they responded with " for what reason? ". God informs them that He had seen their treachery when they had divorced their Jewish wives for foreign...

In Malachi 1:6 God asks " where is my honor ... you who despise my name ". In response the priests do not ask "how have we not honored You?" but rather they switch to a question that attempts to put them on an equal footing with God. They respond by asking "how  have we despised your name?" as a means to deflect attention away from the requirement to answer first question by attempting to force God to answer another question. Blind offerings When God tells them that they " have defiled my altar " they again side-step the issue and ask "how have we defiled You?".  The repenting prodigal son Their question immediately tries take the focus off the altar of the Lord and attempt to force God to explain how they have defiled Him?  This question makes it apparent that they had disconnected offerings from a means to honor God,  to something that was just a ritual. They didn't realize that by not offering the best meant they were openly desp...

My previous post looked at how Esau despised his relationship with his father when he sold his birthright. While researching the Hebrew word "bazah" (Strong's # H959), translated as "despise" in Genesis 25:34, I found that it was disproportionately represented in the book of Malachi which is just 52 verses long. On average every 10 verses there is a reference to despising something and the opening verses are all about Esau. I felt this was no coincidence and on rereading Malachi it was obvious that people of Israel were despising their birthright. They had been miraculously returned to the land of Israel after 70 years of captivity in Babylon and yet the nation, especially the priests, were far from God and their society was in spiritual decline. At this point the prophet Malachi is sent by God to call the nation back to Him.  Eight questions Malachi is written as a dialogue between God and Israel about their relationship with Him.  God starts the conversation w...

Imagine being the son of a rich farmer, and that you will inherit all your father's wealth and status when he dies simply because you were the first born and therefore the inheritor of the birthright. You have a close relationship with him and the prospect of a great future. Despite all this, you sell your birthright to your younger twin brother for a small amount of food. This situation is described in Genesis 25:27-34     27 So the (twin) boys grew. And Esau (firstborn) was a skillful hunter, a man of the field; but Jacob (second born) was a mild man, dwelling in tents.  28 And Isaac (father)loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah(mother)loved Jacob.  29 Now Jacob cooked a stew; and Esau came in from the field, and he was weary.  30 And Esau said to Jacob, "Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary." Therefore his name was called Edom.  31 But Jacob said, "Sell me your birthright as of this day."  32 And Esau said, "Look, I am...

Image being asked to leave home just because you a have a new baby step-brother? Worse than that, your mother is a slave to your step-mother and has no choice in the matter! The clincher; your father loves you dearly and doesn't want you to go but has no choice but to ask you to leave. The scenario described above is recorded in  Genesis 21  which covers the period from the birth of Isaac (baby step-brother) until he was weaned. Abraham (father) held a feast to celebrate this milestone but during the feast Sarah (step-mother) sees her 16 year-old step-son Ishmael teasing her son. This was too much for her, and she demanded that Abraham "cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, namely with Isaac." (v10).  For more than sixteen years Hagar (mother) had served Sarah as a bondwoman (servant). The problem was that Hagar also had borne a child to Abraham (with Sarah's agreement) and Hagar's son Ishmael had become ...

Was Lot a "boiled frog" ? It has been said that changes in values and morals are like frogs in a pot of cold water gently simmering away. What the frogs don't realize is that the water is heating up bit-by-bit and they slowly cook to death without any attempt to jump out. In other words, by the time we see the consequences, it is too late. In Genesis 19 we meet up with Abraham's nephew who is now married with children in Sodom which seems a long way from the days when he was part of Abraham's extended family who traveled from Haran ( Genesis 12-13 ) with their livestock. Over time both Abraham and Lot became wealthy after settling in Canaan but strife between Lot's and Abraham's shepherds led to Abraham offering him the choice to live in any area away from Abraham's herds and flocks that he wanted. Lot immediately c hose the lush green Jordan river valley instead of the barren desert hills that he and Abraham's flocks and herds presently ...

In  Genesis 18  the Lord visits Abraham and Sarah to announce that they will have a child within a year and also let Abraham know that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah had reached a level that God had come down to 'see for himself'.  Obviously God knew what was happening but He purposefully orchestrated a discussion with Abraham that prompted Abraham to plead for the lives of the righteous who lived in Sodom and Gomorrah.  In verse 17 the Lord quizzically asks "shall I hide from Abraham what I am going to do since he's getting all the blessing anyhow and why should it matter to him?" (paraphrased). Of course God is inviting a response, and pleasingly, when Abraham hears God's question he doesn't blithely wander back home content in the knowledge that God had promised him great things, but rather he comes before the Lord and and asks: “Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked? 24 Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You ...

Spiritual bias Until recently I had never read the story of Hagar in its own right and in the past generally skipped across the detail focusing on Abraham and his faith. This  changed recently as I slowly read through  Genesis 16  and realized just how much God loved Hagar and her son. It's an amazing story about a son of promise (Ishmael) but not "the son of promise" (Isaac).  I skipped this detail because I carried a negative image of Hagar into the story each time because  my thinking has been shaped by St Paul's use of  the story of Sarah and Hagar and their sons Ishmael and Isaac to illustrate the differences between the bondage of the Old Testament Law (Hagar representing being born into slavery) and t he Gospel (Sarah representing being born into freedom).   This chapter graphically displays how God works in the midst of human failure to show His love and mercy to all people no matter who they are. Hard work Genesi...

After reading about Abram's journey through Canaan in Genesis 12-15 and the altars he built whenever God spoke to him, I've been thinking about how we mark "God encounters" like he did.  Over the years I've collected a bundle of "encounter" memorabilia; things like key verses, magazine or book articles that have spoken to me just at the right time, or tokens of encouragement from people. At the moment they are scattered in various places and I'm now forced to concede that I need to put something more organised in place to remind me of those moments or they will be devalued by forgetfulness. A simple way to build a "spiritual alter" would be to: 1. Write it down or store it immediately in a special place like an journal or folder that you can keep all through your life. My experience is that the enemy encourages us to forget these wonderful times.  2. Tell someone who you trust about it but only after you've written it down or ...

Seeing it is Easter , I thought I'd post a couple of thoughts I had while reading    Genesis 3:14-15.    When Adam and Eve were deceived by the serpent, God immediately cursed him and said "on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life." It crossed my mind that Satan ( Rev.12:9 ) is always found slithering across the floor of life and the dust that he seeks to "eat" is us! God made humankind from the dust and in His image ( Gen 2:7 ) but the devil wants to bring us down to his level and destroy that image. However God's words indicate that Satan's dust-eating days would be finite and he would have an end! Verse 15 further shows that right from the start God had a plan to redeem mankind and destroy Satan's power. There would be enmity between Satan and the woman's seed (Jesus) and He would crush the serpent's head and destroy him while Satan would strike at His heel. This was at the Cross. When Jes...

In Genesis 9:8-17 we read the narrative about the covenant God made with mankind and the sign of the rainbow. Notice what God says in verses 13-17: v.13 " I set My rainbow in the cloud ... for a sign .. between Me and the earth." v.14 "when I bring a cloud over the earth ..." v.15 " I will remember My covenant ..." v.16 " I will look onto it and remember ..."   What struck me as that the narrative doesn't neutrally say "when a rainbow appears in the sky" or "when you see a rainbow remember the covenant" instead we see God's very personal involvement in this covenant and how He constantly reminds Himself and the earth about it.  Apart from Genesis there are only three other verses in the Bible that refer to rainbows and they are  Ezekiel 1:28, Revelation 4:3 and 10:1.  The first two refer to the Lord seated on His throne and the last refers to the great Angel of the Lord declaring the fulfillment...

A Surprise: After many years of reading the Bible I recently stumbled onto God's command to Israel to read the Law every seven years. Even though I would have read Deuteronomy 31:10-13 a number of times through the years, it was a surprise to see that I had missed these verses on previous occasions mainly because I was in too much of a hurry.  The Seven Year Plan: As I thought about this command I decided that I would restart my Bible reading at the beginning and take seven years to slowly read through the whole Bible. I would take time to "smell the spiritual roses on the way".  I calculated that I needed to read about 15 verses a day to complete it in the required seven years. I accepted that I would miss some days and and I didn't want to get too worried about "catching up".  Reading two Old Testament books to every one New Testament book would also mean so that I wouldn't go for four years before reading anything in the New Testament! The Jour...