Reading from Saturday, April 17

Hey now. I'm drowning in work. It's out of control. And I'm behind on this. Crazy. Ugh. Bible time.

Reading for April 17
Joshua 15:1-63
This section continues the breakdown of the distribution of land among the Israelites - I'll be honest - it's incredibly boring. But looking a little deeper, this must have been incredibly rewarding for the Israelites. They were slaves, then they were nomads in the desert for forty years. During that time they suffered an immense amount of loss and struggles. Many of them were struck down by the hand of God for the unfaithfulness or disobedience. They were engaged in war after war where they were tasked with killing many people. I don't care who you are - killing people will mess you up. Now - finally they are at rest. And not only that, but they are being given immense tracts of land for their very own. God's grace finally poking its tiny little head out and making a brief appearance.

Luke 18:18-43
I just had an interesting thought. Jesus not only redeemed humanity through his life and death, but he also redeemed God himself. I guess, depending on how you look at it - you could say that it was God redeeming himself. Here is why I think this:

Jesus entered the city of Jericho as he was continuing his ministry. While he was in this city preaching the message, he healed a blind beggar who begged to be healed. If you remember, Jericho was one of the first cities that Joshua led an attack against when the Israelites inherited the promised land. Joshua led his people to brutally murder the people of Jericho so they could inhabit the land. Now here's Jesus coming back to this land and healing people and preaching a message of hope. Obviously, its not the same race of people living there, because they were all murdered, but the symbolism here I think is intentional. God is apologizing for his wrath against humanity. In a round about way I suppose...

Psalm 86:1-17

 ¹⁵ But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God,
       slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.

You know, I've always heard that God is slow to anger, but I've never seen him be slow to anger. It always seems like he just reacts to disobedience fairly quickly. And his reactions are usually to murder everyone. Now eventually this got so bad that he had to take a different approach and sacrifice himself and his son to save everyone. Gettin sleepy...

Proverbs 13:9-10 
 ⁹ The light of the righteous shines brightly,
       but the lamp of the wicked is snuffed out.
 ¹⁰ Pride only breeds quarrels,
       but wisdom is found in those who take advice.

Good. Night.