Week Six Reading Assignment:
Leviticus 26 - Numbers 21
"The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul."
(Psalm 19:7a NIV)
(Psalm 19:7a NIV)
This Week's Video: Israel in the Wilderness
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This Week's Video: Israel in the Wilderness
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Bonus Video: Why Geography?
Most Bibles that we purchase today include at least some maps. A good study Bible will likely include a wealth of maps, both in the back of the book, as well as interspersed throughout the text. But even a Bible that does not attempt to be a study Bible will likely include at least a few general maps of the biblical world.
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After watching this bonus video about Bible geography, spend some time acquainting yourself with whatever maps your Bible has. You'll find that even just a few minutes spent looking over a Bible map will cultivate a growing resonance and familiarity as you read. And then, when our teaching videos in future weeks are devoted to some aspect of Bible geography, you'll be glad that you gave yourself a head start on the material.
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Good Book Review: A Life SentenceThe title of the book derives from a simple fact: it is full of numbers.
When the people arrive at the border of the Promised Land, they take a census in order to know how many men of fighting age they have for the military mission ahead. Then, forty years later, and back at the border again, they take another such census. It is an entirely different group of individuals being numbered, however. On their original trip to the Promised Land, the Israelites balked. They saw that the land God had for them was good and desirable, indeed. But they also saw that the inhabitants were big and strong, its armies were well-equipped, and its cities well-fortified. The Israelites feared that they had come all that way only to be slaughtered by a superior foe. The inhabitants of the land may have been superior to Israel, but they were not superior to God. Moses, Joshua, and Caleb advocated that point of view. Still, the people doubted, and so God sent them back into the wilderness. The 40 years of wilderness wandering represented a life sentence for Israel. The faithless generation had to die off and a new generation had to grow up. The Lord would then work and win with them. The Book of Numbers records the censuses at either end of the wilderness wandering, as well as highlights from the 40 years in between. Encouragement in your readingSome think that what Paul wrote about gospel power is not true of the whole Bible. They don't believe that every part of the Scripture is profitable. There are genealogies and pedigrees, primitive ways of dealing with lepers, and such things as instructions on how to sacrifice goats and oxen. These seem to have little value for today.
They may look pointless to you, but God did not set them down in vain. There is no sentence, no clause, no word, no syllable, no letter that is not written for our instruction. Our understanding is the problem. There is nothing useless in the word of God. |
What to Watch for This MonthConsider these three consecutive books — Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy — in terms of three great words: holiness, faith, and obedience.
Holiness is a central theme in the Book of Leviticus. How would you define “holy” based on your reading of Leviticus? What are the implications for Israel of the Lord being holy? Faith — or a lack of faith — is central to the plot of the Book of Numbers. In what ways do people demonstrate their faith or lack of faith in this book? Based on the stories in Numbers, what difference does faith make? In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses continually urges the people to obey. What historical examples does he cite in order to encourage their obedi-ence? What are the benefits of obeying God? What are the risks of disobeying? What patterns and purposes do you see in the holy days that Israel is commanded to observe? How would you characterize the behavior of the Israelites during their years in the wilderness? How would you characterize God’s actions during the years of the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness? When does complaining anger God, and when does it seem to be acceptable? What makes the difference? At the end of a day’s reading, it might be helpful to ask, “If I didn’t know anything about God except for what I read today, what would I know about Him?” At the end of the month, it might be interesting to compare and contrast some of the heroes of faith we have met thus far: e.g., Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and Joshua. |