Author Archive
Hospitality
Peter Leithart writes of hospitality:
Feasting and care for the poor have been polarized in contemporary culture. If you’re a “conservative,” you’re in favor of free trade, consumption without guilt, festivity without concern for those who can’t join you, who probably deserve their poverty anyway. If you’re a “liberal,” you renounce festivity because other people are hungry and how dare you eat when someone else isn’t.
The Biblical prophets combine a promise of festivity with severe denunciation of greed, luxury, and oppression. But they combine the two seamlessly by emphasizing hospitality. The promise is a feast like the feasts of the Pentateuch, where the widow, stranger, and Levite are not forgotten but included as welcome guests.
Against both “conservative” indifference and liberal asceticism, the Bible presents the ideal of the hospitable society.
Joshua
Chapter summaries in Joshua.
Joshua 1 – God instructs Joshua and Israel to enter the land, and to be strong, courageous and faithful.
Joshua 2 – Joshua sends spies to Jericho who stay with Rahab and return with a good report.
Joshua 3 – Israel crosses the Jordan opposite Jericho on dry ground.
Joshua 4 – Israel builds a memorial of twelve stones from the Jordan to remember God’s might and fear him.
Joshua 5 – The nations fear Israel; Joshua circumcises the men and they celebrate the Passover; Joshua sees the commander of the army of the LORD.
Joshua 6 – God grants victory over Jericho.
Joshua 7 – Israel is defeated at Ai; Achan, his family and possessions are destroyed for Achan’s sin.
Joshua 8 – God grants victory over Ai; Joshua builds an altar and Israel reaffirms God’s covenant with its blessings and curses.
Joshua 9 – Gibeon deceives Israel into making them servants rather than conquering them.
Joshua 10 – The sun stands still in Israel’s battle against Gibeon’s enemies, the five Amorite kings; Israel is victorious and the kings are executed; Israel is victorious over all of southern Canaan.
Joshua 11 – Northern Canaan allies against Israel; God grants Israel victory. Joshua took the whole land and gave it for an inheritance to Israel.
Joshua 12 – A rehearsing of the kings defeated by Moses and by Joshua.
Joshua 13 – Joshua is old; the north’s Philistines and the south are unconquered. The inheritance East of the Jordan is recounted.
Joshua 14 – Caleb is given Hebron at his request.
Joshua 15 – The inheritance of Judah and of Caleb; the Jebusites are not driven out of Jerusalem.
Joshua 16 – The inheritance of Ephraim and Manasseh; Gezer is not driven out.
Joshua 17 – The inheritance of Manasseh; some Canaanites are not driven out.
Joshua 18 – Men are sent out to describe the remaining land; Benjamin’s inheritance.
Joshua 19 – The inheritance of Simeon, Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, Dan. Joshua is given a city.
Joshua 20 – The cities of refuge are established.
Joshua 21 – Cities and pasturelands are given to Levi. God fulfilled his promises of victory and gave Israel rest.
Joshua 22 – The eastern tribes return home; there is a misunderstanding over their altar of witness.
Joshua 23 – In his old age, Joshua reminds Israel of God’s goodness to them and charges them to remain faithful to God.
Joshua 24 – Israel renews their covenant, choosing to serve the LORD and forsaking other gods; Joshua dies.
Better
“God has better plans for you than an easy life and victories to follow victories.” — Daniel Baker
Deuteronomy
Chapter summaries in Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy 1 – Moses explains the law to Israel before they enter Canaan. He recalls his appointing leaders and Israel’s former rebellion at entering the land.
Deuteronomy 2 – Moses recalls Israel’s wandering in the wilderness and Israel’s defeat of Heshbon.
Deuteronomy 3 – Moses recalls Israel’s defeat of Bashan; Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh’s possessing the land; and Moses’ being forbidden to enter the land.
Deuteronomy 4 – Moses charges Israel to obey God’s law, warns against idolatry, proclaims God’s greatness, and establishes three cities of refuge east of the Jordan.
Deuteronomy 5 – Moses repeats the ten commandments, and urges Israel to remain faithful to God.
Deuteronomy 6 – Moses commands Israel to love God, keep his commands and teach their children God’s commands; he urges Israel not to forget or to test the LORD, and again to teach their children to fear and obey the LORD.
Deuteronomy 7 – God commands Israel to utterly destroy the Canaanites, reminding Israel that they are set apart to the LORD, that God loves Israel and that his power will go before them.
Deuteronomy 8 – Moses again urges Israel to remain faithful to God, reminding them of God’s incredible goodness to them, and warning that they will perish otherwise.
Deuteronomy 9 – Moses warns Israel to take no pride in their victories, for God’s favor is not at all upon them for their righteousness; on the contrary, he reminds them of their many sins.
Deuteronomy 10 – Moses recounts God’s sparing Israel after the golden calf; he reminds Israel of God’s greatness, his goodness to them, and instructs them to fear, obey, love and serve the LORD, and also to circumcise their hearts.
Deuteronomy 11 – Moses urges Israel to love and obey God and to teach their children continually; he reminds them of the destruction of Pharaoh and entices them with rich promises and severe warnings concerning the fruitfulness of the land.
Deuteronomy 12 – Israel is to destroy all Canaanite places of worship, not seek after Canaanite gods, and bring worship and offerings to God in only one place; they may eat meat but not blood anywhere; they may not alter God’s commands in any way.
Deuteronomy 13 – Death is commanded for all who go after other gods, even to whole cities.
Deuteronomy 14 – Laws concerning clean and unclean food; tithes are commanded.
Deuteronomy 15 – The establishment of the seventh year, the year of release; firstborn livestock are to be dedicated to the LORD.
Deuteronomy 16 – Israel is to celebrate Passover, the feast of weeks, and the feast of booths; bribery and idolatry are forbidden.
Deuteronomy 17 – Death by stoning for doing what is evil; judges and priests are to adjudicate matters of the law; Israels kings are to remain humble and faithful to the LORD and his law.
Deuteronomy 18 – Provision for the Levites through tithes; laws against child sacrifice and divination; God will send prophets, but false prophets are to be put to death.
Deuteronomy 19 – Laws concerning the cities of refuge, property boundaries, and witnesses.
Deuteronomy 20 – Laws concerning war — the victory is God’s, sending men home, offering terms of peace, devotion to destruction, and care for trees.
Deuteronomy 21 – Laws concerning unsolved murders, female captives, inheritance, rebellious children, and hanging on a tree.
Deuteronomy 22 – Laws concerning fellow Israelites’ property, separation, and marriage.
Deuteronomy 23 – Laws concerning acceptance into the assembly, excrement, prostitution, interest, vows, and produce.
Deuteronomy 24 – Laws concerning marriage; miscellaneous laws ensuring justice.
Deuteronomy 25 – Laws concerning justice.
Deuteronomy 26 – A tithe is commanded after entering the land to recount God’s deliverance; summing up of Israel’s responsibility as God’s possession.
Deuteronomy 27 – An altar is to be built on entering the land; curses are also to be proclaimed and affirmed.
Deuteronomy 28 – Numerous blessings and curses are pronounced.
Deuteronomy 29 – Moses recounts God’s power, judgments and deliverance, warning Israel not to disobey lest God judge them.
Deuteronomy 30 – If Israel rebels but then repents, God will restore them. God’s commandment is not out of reach, but life and death are in it.
Deuteronomy 31 – Moses charges Joshua and Israel; God charges Israel.
Deuteronomy 32 – Moses sings of God’s greatness, faithfulness, judgment and compassion, in spite of Israel’s sin. God orders Moses to Mt. Nebo.
Deuteronomy 33 – Moses blesses Israel and praises God.
Deuteronomy 34 – Moses sees the land from Nebo, dies, and is buried by God. Joshua takes command.
Numbers
Chapter summaries in Numbers.
Numbers 1 – Moses and Aaron take a census of Israel’s warriors, except for the tribe of Levi, which is to serve with and guard the tabernacle.
Numbers 2 – God describes the arrangement of the camp, with all tribes surrounding the tent of meeting.
Numbers 3 – The sons of Aaron. God claims the Levites instead of the firstborn, who must be redeemed; each Levite clan is assigned responsibility for part of the tabernacle.
Numbers 4 – God gives further detailed assignments for some of the clans of Levites.
Numbers 5 – God sends lepers out of the camp, establishes a pattern of confession and restitution for sin, and provides a test for adultery.
Numbers 6 – Laws concerning a Nazirite vow of separation to the LORD; “the LORD bless you and keep you…”
Numbers 7 – The leaders of Israel give offerings and sacrifices at the consecration of the tabernacle.
Numbers 8 – The Levites are cleansed for service to God; Levites are to serve from ages 25 to 50.
Numbers 9 – Israel keeps the Passover; the Passover is to be kept even by those who are unclean; God’s cloud covers the tabernacle and leads Israel.
Numbers 10 – Silver trumpets are made for signaling and celebration; Israel sets out into the wilderness for the first time.
Numbers 11 – The people complain and God provides meat, but strikes some down. God sets his Spirit on seventy men to serve Moses.
Numbers 12 – Miriam and Aaron oppose Moses, and God sends leprosy upon Miriam.
Numbers 13 – Spies are sent into the land, returning with its fruit, but inciting fear.
Numbers 14 – Israel complains, God is angered and Moses intercedes. God sends Israel into the wilderness for forty years, and those who try to enter the land lose the battle.
Numbers 15 – Reiteration of laws for offerings and unintentional sin; a sabbath-breaker is executed; God commands the wearing of tassels to remember the law.
Numbers 16 – Korah, Dathan and Abiram rebel, along with 250 other Levites; God destroys them and sends a plague on Israel. Moses and Aaron intercede.
Numbers 17 – God demonstrates his choosing Aaron by causing Aaron’s staff to bud.
Numbers 18 – The responsibilities, sacrificial portion, and inheritance of the Levites.
Numbers 19 – Laws for uncleanness and purification.
Numbers 20 – Miriam dies; God produces water from a rock, but Moses strikes the rock in unbelief; Edom refuses Israel’s passage; Aaron dies.
Numbers 21 – God sends fiery serpents to discipline impatient Israel, but provides a bronze serpent for healing; God grants victory over Arad, Ammon and Bashan, and Israel settles in Ammon and Bashan.
Numbers 22 – Israel camps in the plains of Moab; Balaam is sent to curse Israel but is diverted by God.
Numbers 23 – Balaam blesses Israel twice.
Numbers 24 – Balaam blesses Israel and prophesies against the Canaanite nations.
Numbers 25 – Israel is enticed to Baal worship by the women of Moab and Midian; God orders the Baal worshipers destroyed.
Numbers 26 – Moses and Aaron take a census of Israel’s fighting men, and the land is to be divided proportionally. All who had rebelled in the wilderness are dead except Caleb and Joshua.
Numbers 27 – The daughters of Zelophehad are to receive an inheritance; Moses commissions Joshua to lead Israel.
Numbers 28 – Instructions for daily food offerings, Sabbath offerings, monthly offerings, Passover offerings, and offerings for the feast of weeks.
Numbers 29 – Instructions for offerings for the feast of trumpets, the day of atonement, and the feast of booths.
Numbers 30 – Laws concerning the inviolability of vows, and a father’s or husband’s right to repudiate a woman’s vow.
Numbers 31 – Israel executes vengeance on Midian at God’s command.
Numbers 32 – Gad and Reuben and half of Manasseh take land east of the Jordan, but must help conquer Canaan.
Numbers 33 – A record of Israel’s wilderness journey; God commands Israel to drive out all the inhabitants of Canaan.
Numbers 34 – God establishes the borders of Israel and gives instructions for dividing the land.
Numbers 35 – Forty-eight cities apportioned to the Levites; six of these are cities of refuge.
Numbers 36 – Land is not to be inherited across tribal boundaries.
Sanctification's dying
Everything worth keeping, it comes through dying.
— Caedmon’s Call, “Ten Thousand Angels,” Overdressed (Limited Edition)
The one thing that is “not good” in the original creation is Adam’s loneliness. And how does God go about addressing that imperfection? He puts Adam into deep sleep, tears out a rib from his side, closes up the flesh, and builds a woman from the rib. The solution to what is “not good” is something like death, and something like resurrection.
That’s always the solution. When God sees that something is “not good” in us, in our life situation, He tends not to ease us into a new stage. He kills us, in order to raise us up again. That has to happen, because it is a universal truth that “unless the seed go into the ground and die, it cannot bear fruit.”
— Peter Leithart, “Radical Solution”
Leviticus
Chapter summaries in Leviticus.
Leviticus 1 – Laws for burnt offerings of cattle, sheep, goats or birds.
Leviticus 2 – Laws for unleavened grain offerings.
Leviticus 3 – Laws for peace offerings of cattle, sheep or goats.
Leviticus 4 – Laws for sin offerings for unintentional sin for priests and Israel — a bull — and leaders and individuals — a goat or lamb.
Leviticus 5 – Some situations and accommodations for sin offerings; laws for guilt offerings of rams.
Leviticus 6 – Some interpersonal situations for guilt offerings; laws for the priests in conducting burnt, grain and sin offerings.
Leviticus 7 – Laws for the priests in conducting guilt and peace offerings; laws against eating fat and blood.
Leviticus 8 – Moses consecrates and ordains Aaron and his sons.
Leviticus 9 – Aaron conducts offerings for himself and Israel; the glory of the LORD appears to Israel and consumes the burnt offering with fire.
Leviticus 10 – Nadab and Abihu are consumed with fire for disobedience; further instructions for priests eating portions of offerings.
Leviticus 11 – Laws of clean and unclean animals.
Leviticus 12 – Laws for purification after childbirth.
Leviticus 13 – Laws for leprosy, burns, and contamination in garments.
Leviticus 14 – Laws for cleansing lepers; laws for contamination in houses.
Leviticus 15 – Laws for bodily discharge and for cleansing.
Leviticus 16 – The LORD institutes the annual Sabbath day of atonement after the death of Nadab and Abihu, involving sin offerings and a scapegoat.
Leviticus 17 – Sacrifices must be brought to the tent of meeting; laws against eating blood.
Leviticus 18 – Laws forbidding sexual immorality and child sacrifice.
Leviticus 19 – God is holy and requires his people to be holy; laws for interpersonal justice, and miscellaneous laws.
Leviticus 20 – Laws against child sacrifice, mediums, sexual immorality; God requires his people to be holy and separate.
Leviticus 21 – God requires his priests to be holy and clean.
Leviticus 22 – Laws concerning uncleanness and the holy things of the tabernacle; sacrifices must be without blemish.
Leviticus 23 – Feasts: the Sabbath, Passover, feast of first fruits, feast of weeks, feast of trumpets, day of atonement, and feast of booths.
Leviticus 24 – Lamp oil and bread for the tabernacle; death for blasphemy; an eye for an eye.
Leviticus 25 – Sabbath year and year of jubilee; redemption of property; kindness to fellow Israelites in poverty.
Leviticus 26 – Blessings for covenant keeping and severe discipline for covenant breaking.
Leviticus 27 – Laws concerning vows and tithes, and redeeming by adding a fifth to the value.
Exodus
Chapter summaries in Exodus.
Exodus 1 – A new Pharaoh subjugates Israel into hard labor and seeks to kill all male babies.
Exodus 2 – Moses is spared; Moses kills an Egyptian and flees to Midian; God hears Israel’s cries.
Exodus 3 – God appears to Moses and calls him to lead Israel out of Egypt into Canaan.
Exodus 4 – God encourages and rebukes Moses, appoints Aaron, foretells Pharaoh’s hardening. Return to Egypt; Israel encouraged.
Exodus 5 – Plea to Pharaoah; work is increased. Displeasure with Moses and Aaron; plea to God.
Exodus 6 – God encourages Moses; Israel despairs. Generations of Israel; Moses despairs twice.
Exodus 7 – God encourages Moses, foretells hardening and deliverance. Sign of rod, plague of blood.
Exodus 8 – Plagues of frogs, gnats, insects; Pharaoh remains hardened.
Exodus 9 – Plagues of disease on livestock, boils, hail; God purposes to proclaim his name. Pharaoh remains hardened.
Exodus 10 – Plagues of locusts and darkness; Pharaoh remains hardened.
Exodus 11 – Israel finds favor with Egyptians. God plans to kill Egypt’s firstborn, “make a distinction” between the nations, display his wonders.
Exodus 12 – Institution of the Passover. Israel is sent out of Egypt, in haste with plunder.
Exodus 13 – Firstborn sanctified to God; God leads Israel to the Red Sea.
Exodus 14 – Pharaoh pursues Israel; Israel rebels, but God delivers them through the Red Sea and they fear God.
Exodus 15 – Israel praises God for their deliverance. Israel grumbles and God makes the waters of Marah sweet.
Exodus 16 – Israel grumbles; God provides quail and manna.
Exodus 17 – Israel grumbles and God provides water from a rock. Moses raises his hands for the battle with Amalek.
Exodus 18 – Jethro returns with Moses’ wife and children, and sacrifices to God. Jethro counsels Moses to establish able leaders.
Exodus 19 – Pentecost: God, holy and merciful, charges Israel to obey and live as his people.
Exodus 20 – On the basis of their deliverance, God commands Israel to obey ten commandments, promising blessing to all who remember his name.
Exodus 21 – Laws about slaves, murder and livestock.
Exodus 22 – Laws about livestock, theft, negligence, idolatry, injustice and honoring God.
Exodus 23 – Laws about lying and injustice, Sabbath year, Sabbath, feasts, sacrifice. Promise of victory in Canaan.
Exodus 24 – Confirmation of the covenant, with sacrifices; Moses on the mountain with God.
Exodus 25 – Instructions for giving; instructions for the ark of the covenant, table for bread, and lamp stand.
Exodus 26 – Instructions for the tabernacle.
Exodus 27 – Instructions for the bronze altar, courtyard, and lamp oil.
Exodus 28 – Instructions for the clothing and ordination of Aaron and his sons as priests.
Exodus 29 – Instructions for the consecration of Aaron and his sons by anointing and sacrifice; instructions for daily sacrifices.
Exodus 30 – Instructions for the altar of incense, census tax, bronze basin, anointing oil, and incense.
Exodus 31 – Bezalel and Oholiab gifted and called to fashion the temple and its implements; command to keep the Sabbath; giving of the tablets.
Exodus 32 – The golden calf; Moses intercedes; the sons of Levi destroy 3000, and God sends a plague.
Exodus 33 – God will not go with Israel from Sinai; Moses appeals, and asks to see God’s glory.
Exodus 34 – God proclaims his name to Moses and renews the giving of the covenant; Moses’ face shone.
Exodus 35 – Moses reviews Sabbath law; Israel donates to the tabernacle.
Exodus 36 – Bezalel and Oholiab oversee the construction of the tabernacle.
Exodus 37 – Bezalel makes the ark, table, lampstand, altar of incense, anointing oil and incense.
Exodus 38 – Bezalel makes the altar of burnt offering, the bronze basin and the court. Accounting of materials used in the tabernacle.
Exodus 39 – The high priest’s garments; Moses blesses the work.
Exodus 40 – The tabernacle is erected and consecrated; Aaron and his sons are consecrated. The glory of the LORD fills the tabernacle.
Truth
Blaise Pascal (via Al Mohler) writes:
It is as much a crime to disturb the peace when truth prevails as it is to keep the peace when truth is violated. There is therefore a time in which peace is justified and another time when it is not justifiable. For it is written that there is a time for peace and a time for war and it is the law of truth that distinguishes the two. But at no time is there a time for truth and a time for error, for it is written that God’s truth shall abide forever. That is why Christ has said that He has come to bring peace and at the same time that He has come to bring the sword. But He does not say that He has come to bring both the truth and falsehood.
Fr Vincent Miceli writes:
The idea that unity is more important than truth is a particularly pernicious myth of our times. It leads to the disastrous conclusion that schism is a greater evil than the heresies and immoralities that penetrate and thrive within the Church. A doctor who cuts out a malignancy in time saves his patient, whereas one who leaves a malignancy untreated for fear of hurting his patient condemns that patient to certain death.
G. K. Chesterton writes in Orthodoxy (via John Piper):
What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert — himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt — the Divine Reason. . . . The new skeptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn. . . . There is a real humility typical of our time; but it so happens that it’s practically a more poisonous humility than the wildest prostrations of the ascetic. . . . The old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which makes him stop working altogether. . . . We are on the road to producing a race of man too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table.
Al Mohler writes:
This is our proper epistemological humility — not that it is not possible for us to know, but that the truth is not our own.
G. K. Chesterton writes (emphasis added):
Logic and truth, as a matter of fact, have very little to do with each other. Logic is concerned merely with the fidelity and accuracy with which a certain process is performed, a process which can be performed with any materials, with any assumption. You can be as logical about griffins and basilisks as about sheep and pigs. . . . The relations of logic to truth depend, then, not upon its perfection as logic, but upon certain pre-logical faculties and certain pre-logical discoveries, upon the possession of those faculties, upon the power of making those discoveries. If a man starts with certain assumptions, he may be a good logician and a good citizen, a wise man, a successful figure. If he starts with certain other assumptions, he may be an equally good logician and a bankrupt, a criminal, a raving lunatic. Logic, then, is not necessarily an instrument for finding truth; on the contrary, truth is necessarily an instrument for using logic — for using it, that is, for the discovery of further truth and for the profit of humanity. Briefly, you can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.
Kurtis Smith writes, referring to postmodernism’s misplaced relativistic attack on power:
Nazism and racism aren’t horrendous because they’re violent. They’re horrendous because they’re lies.
John Piper writes on the necessary connections between friendship and truth:
Friendship hangs on believing the same gospel. The main joy of God-glorifying friendship is joy in a common vision of God.
See also Peter Kreeft’s article Comparitive Religions: The Uniqueness of Christianity.
I gotta have my orange juice. 