Dear church,

From Exodus 20:22 to Exodus 23:33, we can read what has been called the “Book of the Covenant.” This is a collection of laws that were applicable in the lives of the early Israelites. This is the Ten Commandments put into action in a particular time and a particular place and a particular culture.

The character and intent of the Ten Commandments can be seen in this collection of laws. God is to be worshipped, and idolatry is to be shunned. Human life is sacred, and so murder is wrong. Parents are to be honored, and so to curse them is a sin.

Some things, of course, are hard to understand from our own cultural context. How could God permit slavery? When we hear the word “slave” in our American context, something very clear comes to mind – the brutal treatment of the slaves brought here from Africa – and it is an ugly thing. I’m sure slavery in the ancient world trended toward that kind of violence and harsh treatment, too. But slavery in the ancient world wasn’t always like that.

The slavery allowed in the ancient Hebrew world, as you can tell if you read Exodus 21 carefully, was very different from the American slavery of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. For instance, American slaves were not released after six years of service – or after a tooth had been knocked out by his or her master!

And so we need to read these laws with an eye on the Ten Commandments and with a recognition that, while the details of these laws don’t necessarily apply today, the principles of these laws – as they relate to the preservation of life and justice – remain as something we should live by as God’s people today.

Off the top of my head, I can think of four principles for godly life that we can take from Exodus 21:  

1) We are to value human life. It ought not to be taken lightly. 

2) We are to treat people fairly and with compassion, especially those who come under our care for one reason or another – like children or parents or employees. 

3) We are to be diligent in safeguarding the lives of others. Cover the “pits” you dig, and keep an eye on any unruly “oxen” that you own!

4) Godly justice means the penalty ought to be, at most, in proportion with the crime – “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”

This last one deserves a little more thought. God here was drawing a line for his people when it comes to administering justice. If someone wrongs me, I might want to retaliate. It might even be fitting that I seek some compensation for the wrong that was done to me. 

But a temptation might be to retaliate with even greater force than that with which I was wronged. If someone punches me once, I might want to punch back twice. If I was cheated out of $1,000, I might sue to win back $2,000.

God tells us this kind of thinking is sinful. He draws a very clear line. The penalty must be, at most, in proportion to the offense. 

I say “at most” because Jesus reframed this principle in the Sermon on the Mount: 

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you” (Matthew 5:38-42).

Jesus told his disciples to go beyond the bare minimum of the Law when it comes to limiting how one administers justice in this life. The Law seems to point out a principle for life: Don’t be unreasonably and unfairly harsh. And Jesus seemed to take that to its extreme: Don’t be harsh at all. Be patient and forgiving. 

One of the great fathers of the faith, a man named Augustine, wrote that the principle of an “eye for an eye” is a “lesser righteousness.” By this, Augustine meant that the principle is a good one because it keeps us in check. Sometimes, he noted, we might be inclined because of anger to let the other person “have it” worse than that person gave it to us, or we might think that person deserves to be punished worse than we were harmed. 

The principle of an “eye for an eye” is righteous because it checks our anger or our own notions of what another person deserves. (The idea of what another person “deserves” is always a tricky concept because we then have to think about what we “deserve.”) Augustine said the concept of an “eye for an eye” is the “beginning of peace.” 

But Augustine said it is a “lesser” righteousness because the best kind of righteousness is to have no desire for vengeance at all. 

And this is what Jesus called his disciples to have. Jesus heightened the call of the Law and began to pattern it after his own life and actions. After all, he is God. The Law belongs to him, and he can apply it as he chooses. He showed us how to live out the principles of the Law in fullness. “I have not come to abolish (the Law or the Prophets) but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17).

So that is your food for thought for the day. Please read carefully and introspectively. Consider the principles behind the laws that were laid out for the Israelites and how those principles might apply today. And consider how Jesus would apply them in a “fulfilled” sense.

Chris

Dear church,

The story of the second commandment is the story of God’s transcendence. If we wanted to create an object to represent God, we would get it wrong. He is utterly different, totally greater, than anything we see around us or can imagine. A theologian once said God is “wholly Other.”

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image …” This doesn’t mean humans haven’t tried. But they have made God very small when they have done this. They have misrepresented him.

When Israel first received the Ten Commandments, God was to be invisible. The people were to know he was present, and they were to know a bit about his character, but they did not know what he looked like. They did not know him completely. God remained a bit of a mystery. 

And God did not want the people coming up with their own ideas about him. He did not want them ascribing attributes to him that were not true. And so – no images. 

God would reveal himself to his people over time. The very prohibition against carved images of God allowed him the freedom to reveal himself in any way he chose. 

God’s ultimate revelation to humanity came more than 1,000 years after the episode on Mount Sinai. A man from Nazareth gave the world its first full visual picture of God himself.

“He is the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15).

“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Hebrews 1:3).

Here is an example where Jesus fulfilled the law (Matthew 5:17).

Of course, the full revelation of God was not what humanity expected it would be. Some refused to see Christ for who he is, and many still refuse: “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

The problem of humans using their creativity and intellect to craft images of God is humans always get it wrong. The “god” or “gods” created by humans always look a lot like the humans who created them. We end up making gods in our image.

And humans worship the gods of their own creation. Right now in America, many are worshiping the gods of social justice and anti-racism. Compared to the one true God – Jesus Christ – these false gods of the world are very light on justice and very heavy on racism. Love and mercy are altogether absent.

The apostle Paul would say this is the result of spiritual blindness. These people quit looking for the revelation of God and began to make their own “carved” images.

What’s the solution then? 

We need to look to Jesus with an open mind – an un-blinded mind. “But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty (read: Christ), and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing” (James 1:25).

Chris

Dear church,

God established boundaries for his people. They were not to go up on the mountain. In their sin, if they were to come into the presence of God, they would perish. To disobey the command of God meant death.

It still does. 

When a person dies and comes before God on the Last Day, that person will be judged by God. Those who are still in their sins will perish. It is very simple (Revelation 20:12). 

The only way to be judged favorably by God is to accept Jesus Christ and his atoning death on the cross. We let him bear the punishment for our sins. We won’t perish then. We will have eternal life (John 3:16).

Jesus is our high priest (Hebrews 4:14-16). In a way, he is the ultimate Moses, going into God’s presence on our behalf, standing there in our place. 

And the people of God, strangely enough, become priests themselves – “a kingdom of priests” is how God describes us. (See also Isaiah 61:6; 1 Peter 2:9; and Revelation 1:6.) This is only possible because of Jesus. When he wipes away our sin, he makes a way for us to come into God’s presence. In actuality, God’s presence comes to us in the form of the Holy Spirit. 

Just like a priest of old, we can come before God and hear from him. 

I hope you recognize how precious this gift is. Every Christian has complete access to God. Pastors are important, no question, but believers ought not to forsake their own calling as “priests.” You have access to God. He will speak directly to you.

Now, this doesn’t mean we don’t still rely on Scripture. We cannot put the Bible down. Our sinful nature still is being chiseled away. It is possible for us to mis-interpret the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Not all spirits are the Spirit. Not all angels are good ones (2 Corinthians 11:14).

And so we learn about the Holy Spirit from Scripture. We learn about God and his ways. We discern his character. And, over time, we come to understand the way in which God communicates to us through the Spirit.  

And as priests, we ought to be listening. Never stop listening.

Chris

Dear church,

In the wilderness, the Israelites encountered the Gentiles. First came the Amalekites, bringing war. Then came Jethro and the Midianites, bringing peace.

The people of God produce a variety of responses in outsiders, in those who do not know God. Some oppose the followers of God as vigorously as they oppose the idea of worshipping God and submitting to his claim on their lives. They want nothing to do with God or his people. And they would prefer if neither of them – God nor his followers – existed. 

And then there are those like Jethro who are willing to listen to the testimony. In other words, some will come to believe in God and his ways, and some will not. 

The Amalekites and Jethro ought to remind us of the two criminals who were hung on crosses alongside Jesus (Luke 23:39-43). They encountered the Son of God, and one opted for one response and the other opted for another. 

The presence of God’s people demands a response from those around them, and a lukewarm, indifferent response rarely seems to occur.

This text also is about how the people of God came to be organized, at least in part. Jethro gave them the wisdom they needed to do this. A non-Israelite left a lasting impact on the people. 

We can take this as an example of how the church should welcome the wisdom of those outside the church. And this is true. We can learn a lot about how to operate more efficiently from people who are not Christians.

We can take this too far, of course. Churches and Christian organizations are marked, unfortunately, by the so-called “wisdom” adopted from the non-believing world that has done significant harm to the church and its people. Sometimes the wisdom of the world is that the church should be more like the world and less like the bride of Christ.

We ought to keep in mind that Jethro respected the God of the Israelites, and Jethro worshipped Him. Jethro perhaps wasn’t as much of an outsider as we might make him out to be.

Chris

Dear church,

The water is falling off the roof from a winter’s worth of snow. It’s been doing this for days. This will run off and irrigate the western half of our continent. We have water in abundance, for now.

Meanwhile, the people of Israel said to Moses, “Give us water to drink.” Theirs was a dry place. No snow in sight.

Moses seemed to have had enough of these folks. He complained to God, “What shall I do with this people?” They were a family who grumbled and quarreled. They made their demands. They were hungry, and then they were thirsty.

It was a desert, of course, so perhaps we ought not to be too hard on them. There was a great lack, and there wasn’t much hope in sight for a natural solution. 

But at Massah and Meribah, we have the record of a great sin. The people “tested” God. After all they had seen him do, they asked, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

It was not enough that they walked out of their camp each morning to collect the bread that appeared like the morning dew. They still asked, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

God’s answer to this was not immediate destruction of the people of Israel. He didn’t cause boils to break out on them. He didn’t deliver them into the hand of a foreign army. 

No, he brought water out of the Rock.

We call this grace. This is the idea of unmerited, undeserved favor. God decided to do this of his own accord. The people, clearly, did not earn it.

God told the apostle Paul one time, “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Do you believe that is true? Or are you in a grumbling mood these days?

One of the key lessons of this text is that if you know that God’s grace is sufficient for you – that God always has a good plan for his children, even if we can’t figure out exactly what that plan is at the moment – then you will stop grumbling. You will wait with patient endurance (Revelation 2:3; 3:10).

God can bring water out of rock. He can make pools form in the desert (107:35). His grace is enough.

This chapter also calls to mind several other texts from Scripture – namely Deuteronomy 6:16-17; Psalm 95:6-11; and 1 Corinthians 10:1-5. Please read those when you have the opportunity.

Chris

Dear church,

A pastor friend of mine emailed the other day with a sad story. His large church had suffered a big hit during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said only 40 percent of his church attenders had returned to their in-person gatherings. Another 25 percent, he figured, were engaging with the church online.

“And 35 percent are AWOL,” he wrote. That means they are missing, and no one really knows where they are.

My friend was rightfully disappointed about this. As far as anyone knows, 35 percent of his church are no longer hearing the gospel each week. They are no longer going to small groups and Sunday School classes. They are no longer singing the songs of the faith. They no longer are joining with their brothers and sisters in Christ in prayer.

Thirty-five percent of the body of Christ – maybe a leg and an arm – is gone. Those who are gone will suffer. And so will those who remain. That’s 35 percent less spiritual encouragement, material support, and evangelistic influence. 

I do not want to say all those “AWOL” church members have lost their faith and no longer are Christians. We don’t know that. But when when one stops attending church gatherings, he or she automatically begins to move in that direction. The Christian life grows more vibrant the more one engages with his or her church family, and the Christian life begins to weaken when one cuts himself or herself off from that family. 

And so we rightfully should be concerned for those who have forsaken their church families, even in this time of pandemic.

We also ought to be aware of our natural proclivity to fall back into our old habits and to desire the things of our old way of life. “We sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full.”

The Christian walk demands something of us. We are saved by grace alone, certainly. But spiritual growth takes discipline. It doesn’t just happen by some magical formula. We don’t rise out of the baptismal waters looking and sounding like Saint Augustine or Mother Teresa or Billy Graham. 

No, we move from milk to solid food (1 Corinthians 3:1-2). And if we don’t take either, we will starve. 

And so we have to be intentional in our pursuit of these things – of the wisdom and the Word of God. If we aren’t intentional, we will fall back into our old ways, whether we like those old ways (as the Israelites seemed to) or not. 

So what does it mean to be intentional? Certainly, it means attending church gatherings (Hebrews 10:24-25). It also means reading God’s Word each day and maintaining an active prayer life. Other practices could be added to that list. 

The main thing, though, is that we continue forward in the faith. The apostle Paul said, “But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way …” (Philippians 3:13-15).

I love this passage. Notice that the mark of maturity to Paul was not spiritual perfection. Rather, it is an understanding that the “one thing” we always need to do is to strive forward in our walk with Christ. The spiritually mature Christian simply keeps doing this no matter what. It’s not complicated, and it’s not difficult. 

The Hebrew people weren’t doing this in Exodus 16 as they grumbled and longed for Egypt. The 35 percent of AWOL church members aren’t doing this now. 

But we can. Just keep moving forward in the faith. Pursue practices that help you to do this. Never give up. Understand that sometimes our walk with Christ will be a long slow slog in a desolate wilderness. The mature among us will keep going even still. 

Today is Sunday, so I hope you can spend some additional time in God’s Word today. As you consider Exodus 16, be sure also to read John 6. These two passages are interconnected. Think about the concepts of bread and manna and leftovers and food that perishes and food that endures to eternal life. Think also about what it means in both passages to grumble and turn back.

God bless!

Chris

Dear church,

The wilderness became a sanctuary of suffering. In that desolate place, God’s people would learn to put their hope in him alone. 

They would get thirsty and hungry. To whom would they turn? Only God could do these things. Forty years later, they would emerge as a people refined by trust. 

Of course, it was a difficult season, and they people frequently failed. Just keep reading. Their first failures already have emerged – on the shore of the Red Sea with the Egyptians closing in on them and now here in Exodus 15. They were thirsty. 

“And the people grumbled …”

Do you grumble? My guess is that you do, at least from time to time. Will God really take care of us? We need food and clothing and shelter. We want positive relationships. We want financial security. We want peace in our land. Where is God in this? 

We might grumble about these and a million other things. In a sense, we still are in the wilderness as God’s children, waiting for our full entrance into the Promised Land. And if this is the case, we are still in a season of training. This is where we learn. The desert wind might kick dust in our eyes. Get used to it. 

God told Moses to throw a tree – a log – into the water and it would become good to drink. Think here about the cross, or tree, of Christ.

Yes, God will provide for his children, for you and for me. Let’s learn to trust him. And let’s give up our grumbling.

Chris

Dear church,

When you read this text, think about the other parts of the Bible talk about the story of the Israelites passing through the Red Sea. If you start looking around the Bible, you’ll find numerous examples. 

The one that most stood out to me was the apostle Paul’s description in 1 Corinthians of what happened to the Israelites in this story: “For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:1-4).

Paul takes this story and puts Jesus Christ squarely in the middle of it. The passage through the Red Sea is linked to baptism. 

At least one ancient commentator, a man named Ambrose, saw some symbolism here: The people of Israel followed the pillar of light, which was symbolic of Christ, the light of the world. And as the people followed the pillar of light into the sea, they were followed by the pillar of cloud, symbolic of the sanctifying presence of the Holy Spirit. 

The symbolism is rich. Some modern Christians don’t like to break the story down in ways like this. They say it is kind of fanciful, and oftentimes I don’t disagree. But I think this particular reading is valuable because it does provide us a biblical picture of baptism. 

Read Romans 6:1-4. We enter into a kind of death in baptism – like the Hebrews entering the Red Sea. But, like in 1 Corinthians 10, we “pass through” the sea of death by following Christ. And the Holy Spirit then enters our life and sanctifies us. 

This fits pretty well with what apostle Peter said at Pentecost, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). Peter linked baptism to the reception of the Holy Spirit. 

I point this out to you to encourage you to read attentively, especially as we enter into this section of Exodus, which contains some very valuable pointers to Christ.

Chris

Dear church,

Our car was getting a little work done to it, and I was sitting in the mechanic’s lobby. I wasn’t alone. Several of us were loitering there, waiting longer than any of us thought we’d wait.

So often this happens. We think we will just be in and out. But then we’re not. We’re stuck waiting. 

One man in particular seemed to struggle with this. He would sit for a little while, and then he would get up and pace the room. Then he would go to the bathroom. Then he would disappear down the hallway. When he came back, someone else had taken his seat. He lost his seat, I would say, about three times during his long wait. It didn’t seem to bother him. He would just pace some more. He had a restless energy to him.

I tell you this because sometimes we can be restless spiritually. There can be times in our lives where we simply cannot sit still. We roam about looking for things that can spark our interest spiritually – different types of music or prayers or churches or preachers or spiritual disciplines.

None of this is wrong. Variety can help spice things up. But there are times we might wonder whether our spiritual life is vibrant enough. And we keep trying new things. We pace the room.

But the biblical picture of God’s people is that of the firstborn. The firstborn of Israel were to be consecrated to God. They were to be given over to him. “Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel … is mine.”

Israel came to see itself as the firstborn (Isaiah 44:2; Jeremiah 31:9). Read Isaiah 43 when you have time. The firstborn is redeemed and ransomed by God – protected through difficulty and precious in God’s eyes. 

The act of consecrating their firstborn was intended to be a constant reminder to Israel that they had been consecrated by God as his firstborn.

Of course, all of this is founded upon Christ – the actual “firstborn” of God (Romans 8:29; Colossians 1:15, 18; Hebrews 1:6). The sacredness of Israel and the church is built upon the sacredness of Christ. 

He was the firstborn of all creation before Israel or the church came to be. We are brought into the family through faith in the true firstborn Son.

In watching that restless guy in the mechanic’s shop, I was reminded of our need to rest in our identity as God’s children. After we put our faith in Christ, we may rest in Him. 

Spiritually speaking, we can grow restless, and we might wonder whether we are being faithful enough or morally upright enough – whether we are doing our Christianity well enough.

In those moments, we ought to rest in the eternal nature of Christ, which we are brought into when we put our faith in Him.

Chris

Dear church,

“Why do people like Starbucks?” My daughter asked me this as we pulled into the line of cars that wrapped around the Starbucks store. She’d had an early swim practice, and we were on our way home.  

It was her fault we were in that line, eight cars back, waiting to order a caramel Frappuccino – whatever that is. She had won a gift card to Starbucks after a successful swim meet. “Can’t we spend it now?” she asked. And I’m too soft sometimes when it comes to these daughters of mine.

And now we were waiting. The line was so long, I barely got off Grand Avenue as I joined it. I wondered about all these people who made a morning ritual out of the Starbucks drive-through lane. I prefer to make my coffee at home – because I don’t like lines and we live 45 minutes away. And I’m a cheapskate. 

I suppose the differences are pretty minimal. I stand and wait in the kitchen and listen to the coffee pot bubble. It usually is still dark outside, and I pay attention to the smell. There’s nothing like the smell of coffee in the morning. 

These are daily habits that come to be part of our lives. We don’t even think about them most of the time. And yet a day doesn’t seem to progress in the right fashion without our rituals. 

You have your daily rituals, too, if you care to think long enough about them. 

Of course, some rituals have more meaning than others. Your daily Bible reading is not simply a physical fix, like a morning coffee run. 

Other rituals have spiritual significance for our lives, too. “On the first day of the week, when they were gathered together to break bread …” (Acts 20:7).

The church decided upon the first day of the week for their gatherings because that was the day of the week on which Jesus rose from the dead (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1-2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1). A weekly ritual was established to recall the moment when Jesus set his disciples free from slavery to sin and death. 

It has a lot of similarities with the Passover celebration. “This month shall be for you the beginning of months … This day shall be for you a memorial day … so this same night is a night of watching kept to the Lord by all the people of Israel throughout their generations” (Exodus 12:2, 14, 42).

The people were brought out of slavery, and they took pains to remember it. And so do we when we gather every Sunday to break bread. 

This is not just a weekly or yearly fix, like my morning coffee. It is a ritual that causes us to remember the mighty deeds of the Lord. We bind ourselves again to Jesus Christ and that singular moment when the tomb opened up and the first dead man was resurrected to eternal life. It was a moment when slaves were freed.

But we do wait in this Sunday ritual of ours. It is a ritual of waiting, of proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes (1 Corinthians 11:26). We look backward, and we look forward. 

Chris