Dec 31, 2018

The final chapter of the of Numbers is not quite what one might expect. Chapter 36 introduces us to five daughters of a man named Zelophehad. He had a problem. No, it wasn’t that his name was difficult to pronounce. It was that he was dead. And he had died without a male heir. So, according the Mosaic Law, his...

Dec 30, 2018

We all make mistakes. And sometimes our mistakes have costly consequences. But I think it’s safe to say that there is probably no mistake more costly than involuntary manslaughter – the accidental taking of another human being’s life. That’s something for which a simple, “I’m sorry” doesn’t seem quite...

Dec 29, 2018

The people of Israel are poised on the edge of the promised land. The time has come for them to cross the border and take what was rightfully theirs. It had been given to them by God, but it remained just a   promise as long as they stayed on the East side of the Jordan River. They were going to have go cross over and...

Dec 28, 2018

Sin, like nuclear fuel, has a half-life. Its impact doesn’t really ever go away. Its shelf life is measured in years, not minutes. And while sin’s impact may be invisible, it is far from inconsequential. When you least expect it, the ramifications of sin can appear out of nowhere, which has led to the...

Dec 27, 2018

Sometimes, when reading the history of the people of Israel as recorded in the Old Testament, we arrive at a passage like that found in Numbers 30-31, and it makes us uncomfortable. In these two chapters we have God command that the people of Israel completely wipe out the Midianites. In essence, He orders them to...