Friday, March 19

Hi. So, work is not letting up, and probably won't for a while. Everyone on our team is completely booked to capacity, so I don't have any right to complain, but its just taking its toll on me. I'm so mentally exhausted at the end of each day that I don't want to do anything else except go to sleep. Now I have to work for most of the day tomorrow to catch up on lost time. Buh.

Reading for March 19
Numbers 28:16-29:40
This is a particularly uneventful section of text. In last night's reading, God started to tell Moses what should be sacrificed on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. This text continues that through all the different Jewish holidays. There is:

• Passover
• Feast of Weeks
• Feast of Trumpets
• Day of Atonement
• Feast of Tabernacles

The feast of Tabernacles is the most interesting as there is a large sacrifice every day for seven days. Here is what is required:

• Thirteen young bulls
• Two rams, and 
• Fourteen one-year-old male lambs, all with no defects.

Every day for seven days, you had to make the exact same sacrifice, except each day, you would sacrifice one less young bull. So day 2 you would sacrifice 12 bulls, day 3 - 11 and so on...I can't really find the significance in that, so let's just say that it's cool and move on...

Luke 3:23-38
This section is purely Jesus' lineage. It goes all the way from Joseph, the father of Jesus, back to Adam, the first son of God. Now this is somewhat debatable because this lineage is based on the fact that Joseph was Jesus' father, when in fact, Joseph had nothing to do with the birth of Christ. If the Bible is to be taken at its word, Mary had an immaculate conception and gave birth to Jesus - Joseph still hadn't slept with her yet. So doesn't that make this entire lineage invalid? If the lineage had been traced to Mary that would have made more sense...

Now a couple things to note here. First off, the text says "Jesus was known as the son of Joseph" - so the author is aware that he wasn't actually the son of Joseph. The other cool thing is that this says that Adam was the son of God. I've never actually thought of Adam and Eve as children of God in that way, but it is very cool how that works. Later in the Bible, I think in Romans, there is something about how "though one man condemned the world, so too one man saved the world". It's just really interesting to think that both of those men are considered "sons of God".

Psalm 62:1-12

 ¹⁰ Don’t make your living by extortion
      or put your hope in stealing.
   And if your wealth increases,
      don’t make it the center of your life.

David gets a little proverby in this one. There is something very honest about that second half of verse 10 though. It's not condemning the wealthy people, its simply saying, "Don't let money control your life." I suppose by extension the thought should be "Let God control your life." But the fact that its not mentioned makes this even more palatable to a wider audience.

Proverbs 11:18-19
 ¹⁸ Evil people get rich for the moment,
      but the reward of the godly will last.
 ¹⁹ Godly people find life;
      evil people find death.

There seems to be a lot of talk about rich people in these past few days. I know a large portion of the Bible talks about giving your money away to the needy. Jesus says that its easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. And while that might be true in a lot of cases, I've known a few very wealthy people who were the most generous people I knew. Now that is most likely the exception rather than the rule, but it's still something to consider.

Alright, short one tonight I suppose. Later homies.