Read: Numbers 30:1-31:54; Luke 4:1-30; Psalm 63:1-11; Proverbs 11:20-21
Today’s reading was encouraging to me. Moses told them about vows and which ones counted. A vow is a promise or a covenant that you make with your mouth. You were bound to that promise if you were a man. The man stands for God who is bound to his Word and it is never revoked. The woman who makes a vow in her father’s house is a person who makes a vow before she is saved (married). If her father is God, he can object to it if he desires. If God doesn’t object, then the vow stands.
If you were a woman, which stands for the bride of Christ and you make some foolish vow, Jesus can nullify it and you won’t be held responsible for fulfilling it. If he doesn’t nullify it, then you are bound to fulfill it. A woman who doesn’t have a husband is a person who is mature enough to make their own decisions and has chosen not to be saved. They are bound to every foolish word that comes out of their mouth.
God wanted the Midianites and Balaam punished for leading the children of Israel into idolatry. Each tribe was to send 1,000 fighting men to battle against the people of Midian. They attacked and killed all the men and five of the kings along with Balaam. The kings show is the principalities of the Midianites. Their names mean “my desire”, “variegation”, a rock to besiege”, “a white hole”, and “a fourth part”. This tells us that they were willful, manipulating, warring, deceiving, and power-hungry.
They defeated them but got in trouble when they allowed the women that had led them into idolatry live. Moses had them kill all women who were not virgins. The plunder was divided in half. Half went to the fighting men and half to the people. Both groups were to give the Levites two tenths of their total. The Levites gave a tenth of their total to the Lord. Not one person died in battle!
In Luke, we read the temptations of Jesus. Notice that every temptation was a promise that God had given the one who would be the Messiah. 1) He would take the stone tablets of the law and make them bread for the people to eat. 2) All the kingdoms of the world were to be given to him. 3) Death would not be able to hold Jesus.
Jesus left his encounter with Satan full of the Holy Spirit and power. He taught in the synagogues and everyone loved him until he went home to Nazareth and read from the scroll of Isaiah. He read his own prophecy which they knew was about the Messiah, then claimed it was about him. As they were trying to wrap their heads around what he was saying, he went on to say that they wouldn’t be able to understand it because he was from their town. His popularity took a nose-dive when he brought up the two people in the OT that God did amazing miracles for. One was the widow from Zarephath and the other was the Syrian that God healed of leprosy. Both of these examples were not Jewish people which makes them irate. Jesus was trying to say that because they wouldn’t accept him, he would go to other people, just like God did in those stories. They stood for the Jewish nation, so Jesus would take his message to the Gentiles.
Lord, thank you for your divine plan was always for the whole world.
No comments:
Post a Comment