Resources For "Enough" From Each Harderwyk Preacher
I. New For This Week
Character of God Word Study by Bible Project: This study we will dive into Exodus 34: 6-7. Bibleproject did a 6 video word study on verse 6. They are well done and insightful. Again they also put together a study guide worth exploring. For the ambitious you can also find 14 podcast episodes on the same verses. God speed!
- Character of God Video Link: CLICK HERE to Watch: Visual Commentary of Exodus 34:6-7: The Character of God Video | BibleProject™
- Character of God Study Guide: CLICK HERE for downloadable pdf document
II. From The Commentaries On This Passage
From John Goldingay in “Exodus and Leviticus for Everyone”:
“Exodus 34 gives us one clue why that it so. The Israelites have imperiled their relationship with God, with potentially fatal results. That is symbolized by Moses’ breaking the tablets inscribed with God’s commands. Those tablets were to be deposited in the sanctuary as a symbol of the relationship between God and people, but the people have broken the commands, and Moses has broken the tablets. It is as if the relationship is over. But God is prepared to start again, and reinscribing the commands on two new blocks of stone is an expression of that. The renewed gift of the commands is a reason for enthusiastic rejoicing. The relationship is not irretrievably broken.
The implications are worked out in God’s self-description, a succinct summary of systematic theology, of a doctrine of God, that is often referred to in the Psalms and the Prophets. What is God like?
1. God is compassionate. The word is related to the Hebrew word for the womb, so it suggests that God has the feelings of a mother for Israel. How can a mother cast off the children of her womb? So how could God cast off Israel?
2. God is gracious. Grace means showing favor to someone when there is nothing about the person to merit it. Israel’s righteousness was not the reason that God chose Israel; its failure therefore does not mean God unchooses Israel.
3. God is long-tempered. If it did not look like that in Exodus 32, the readers of Exodus can look back over Israel’s story (and the church’s story) and see how God’s not casting off the people shows how long-tempered God is.
4. God is big in commitment. Like grace, commitment means God gets involved with Israel even though there is nothing special about them. It goes beyond grace in declaring that God maintains commitment even though people forfeit any right to expect that God would do so.
5. God is big in truthfulness. God stays faithful and steadfast. What God says, happens. When God makes promises, they come true.
6. God keeps commitment to thousands—to judge from what follows, this likely implies thousands of generations, which takes us up to our own day and way beyond.
7. God carries waywardness, rebellion, and shortcoming. When the child rebels or disobeys, the mother rolls with it, leans into the wind. When the child hurts itself by doing something stupid and disobedient, the mother comforts the child and bandages the wound, accepting responsibility for the waywardness rather than saying, “Serves you right, deal with it.”
8. God does not acquit. After numbers one to seven, this is a surprise. Mother’s temper does not hold forever. She may say, “That’s it,” and let the child suffer for a while.
9. Indeed, God can pay us a visit as a result of our waywardness. It is a wondrously, frighteningly mafia-like image. Like a visit from the mafia, it may implicate not merely the offender but the family, because the fate of families is bound up together.
The good news is that you can take God for granted. The bad news is that you cannot take God for granted. A relationship with God is like any other personal relationship. When the other person is loving and gracious, you must be wary of thinking that your response to this counts for nothing. When you have done wrong, you may get into trouble, but you can remind yourself that love and commitment are more basic to the other person than anger or jealousy.”
John Goldingay, Exodus and Leviticus for Everyone, Old Testament for Everyone (Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press; Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2010), 124–126.
III. Ongoing Resources
1) Spiritual Formation Resources Page - CLICK HERE - This is still a work in progress, but be a part as we look to build out.
2) Scotty Smith’s Heavenward Daily Prayers - CLICK HERE - to see the daily prayer blog of Scotty Smith. You will see an option to have them delivered to your email inbox each day as well. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/scotty-smith/
3) Simple Lectio Divina Overview - CLICK HERE - for a simple introduction of the spiritual practice of a more personal way of experience the Word through contemplation and reflection.
Comments
Post a Comment