Moses sent a unique order throughout the massive camp of the Israelites: “No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.” And so the people were restrained from bringing more, because what they already had was more than enough to do all the work.

Paul wrote a note of thanks to a group of his benefactors: I have received full payment and have more than enough. I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent.

I swim in a world of non-profit resource acquisition. My wife and I raise funds for our work, and I speak at dinners raising funds for local campus ministries. I enjoy sharing the vision of reaching out to college students and professors and engaging others in this work though giving.

I tend to dwell on how much more we need to do the work, and how much more we need to continue the work. But when I pause and reflect, I realize that I am amply supplied. The Lord’s goodness extends to me through the gracious giving of committed, faith-filled donors. Which encourages me to remain a committed donor to those places where I give my money.

These biblical snapshots of generosity motivate me. When believers work together, pooling their resources, great works can result. In the first instance, a beautiful sanctuary centered the nation’s worship on the one true God. In the second, small bands of missionaries introduced others to that one true God.

Venues for worship and missions to the unreached. Causes still worthy of our generosity—powerful enterprises to supply in ample ways.

Exodus 36 & Philippians 4 in Through the Bible in 2024

Photo by pina messina

I’m always amazed when I read the story about the golden calf. When Moses failed to return from meeting with God on top of a smoking, blazing mountain, the Israelites panicked and fashioned a idol. Turning from the mountain, they bowed instead to this hand-crafted god.

Why ditch the Lord so quickly? Why substitute an image for the living God? How did they eat manna for breakfast and later thank this shiny cow for their supper?

The Lord frightened them. The children of Israel (not all of them, it should be noted) wanted control over their lives and futures, and so they needed control over their god.

I’m much the same. I cannot fully grasp the Lord or totally understand his ways. He’s mysterious, and yet requires my allegiance. God is strict. I watch lots of people move away from the Lord for this reason. Better the flattering self than a master with rules. One modern teacher epitomized such faulty thinking: All you need is already within you, only you must approach your self with reverence and love.

Yet the Scriptures tell a different story. The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure. Who can understand it? “I the Lord search the heart
and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct,
according to what their deeds deserve.”

What we need is definitely not already within us. We need a touch from the God atop that smoking mountain. We need to lean into our Creator. God is still God and his ways, while stringent, lead to our flourishing. Ditch the cheap gods in your life. Avoid the substitute. Stick with the real thing.

Exodus 32 & Jeremiah 9 in Through the Bible in 2024

Photo by Possessed Photography

I spend a good bit of time following politics and international events. Not only do these goings on affect our lives, I find the constant shifting and striving for power fascinating. Often the rise of a nation comes at the expense of their neighbors. Extremely rare are those leaders who help everyone around them flourish.

More often humankind makes a mess of our world. Struggles for power never settle down. Like those volcanoes in Iceland, hatreds boil out of site, waiting for a fissure to open and spew destruction.

Thankfully, in the midst of our see-sawing world the Lord remains the ultimate power. The psalmist wrote:

The Lord foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.

God controls all nations and all peoples, whether acknowledged or not. Later in the Psalms we read that the nations will fear the name of the Lord, all the kings of the earth will revere your glory.

Eventually all will comprehend God’s preeminence. Some day we’ll reach this marvelous end, but not in my lifetime. Lots of politicking and power-shifting still ahead. I endure the games knowing that the ending will be infinitely better than the world we see today. I keep the faith despite the fractures around me.

Psalms 33 & 102 in Through the Bible in 2024

Photo by Jonatan Pie

When reading about the consecration of priests in ancient Israel, I’m struck by the vast amounts of blood involved. Aaron and his sons, the men undergoing the ritual, corralled a bull and two rams. After praying over the bull, they slaughtered it in the meeting tent. With their fingers they painted the horn of the alter with blood, then poured the rest out at its base.

Next they slaughtered the first ram and splashed its blood against the side of the alter. They applied blood from the second ram to the lobes of their right ears, the thumbs of their right hands, and the big toes of their right feet. They splashed more blood on the alter, then sprinkled blood over each of the priests and their garments. Only then were Aaron and his sons considered consecrated before the Lord and qualified to serve in his temple.

That’s a lot of blood. Such a foreign practice in my experience, (although I have seen chickens sacrificed in a temple in India to a different god). Only the spilling of blood purified and made holy the priests and their house of worship.

The author of Hebrews sheds light on these sacrifices: The law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

According to the Scriptures, only blood yields forgiveness. It’s easy to forget this in our sanitized world. We don’t haul animals to church for liturgical slaughter anymore. The system collapsed because of one sacrifice—good for all times and all peoples—on the cross.

We avoid the whole bloody mess because Jesus became a bloody mess for you and me.

Exodus 29 & Hebrews 9 in Through the Bible in 2024

Photo by Alan Bowman