Aug 1, 2009

Texts:
Numbers 10 and 11
Luke 1:1-38

Pastor Marci is away. Julie is filling in.


Numbers 10- 11: Now we get to the meat of Numbers, literally. They are leaving Sinai and starting their trek through the desert. The people complain that they have no meat to eat. (As a side note, I found this odd since we just read 9 chapters about animal sacrifice. Surely, they had some meat if they had livestock to offer to God. Maybe Marci wants to help me out here?)

Anyway, the people complain about Moses and he has a great whine session with God where he tells the Lord he does not want to be all these peoples nurse maid (It really sounded like something I would say). And God sends quail for the people to eat. It seems like a nice gesture but appears to be a bit of a trap because they all got sick. It says "While the meat was still between their teeth the Lord burned with anger against them and caused a plague."

My footnotes suggest that only those who complained about the type of meat God sent were sick because they were ungrateful.

Luke 1:1-38: The beginning of Luke foretells the birth of John the Baptist. John is described as being a path cutter for a greater good. Luke wants to be very clear that John was only meant to pave the way for the Messiah later on, and that he is in no way the actual Messiah.

Way back when I was in Bible college we studied John the Baptist and discussed why Luke emphasises so much that he was only "preparing the way". At the time the Gospels were written there may have been some disagreement among people as to who was actually the Messiah, John or Jesus. Luke very clearly tells us that it is Jesus who is the son of God and was in his mother's womb (see tomorrows reading for more on this.)