Reading from Saturday, June 5

Hey ho. So yesterday was pretty sweet. Brooklyn was awesome...me and Sole were talking about how its as close as you can get to a west coast, laid back mentality from all the people, and how it's ironic that its right across the river from what Sole called "the epicenter of assholes". No offense to those from Manhattan...It's just interesting how Manhattan is so fast paced and how Brooklyn is so laid back and leisurely.

Also, I did not participate in the vogue off. I would have ended up offending everyone, I think. All in all, it was a fantastic day. Hooray.

Reading from June 5
2 Samuel 23:24-24:25
I think there's some really great stuff in here if you look at it the right way. There is some stuff that I don't understand, but the message and symbolism in here is awesome. So for some undisclosed reason reason, God is angry with Israel. Probably because of all this king power nonsense that he told them would happen anyway. So because he is angry he commands David to take a census of the people. David does and counts over 800,000 men who are of fighting age. Now, for some other reason, David gets an immense amount of guilt from doing this, and asks God to punish him. God gives David three options for his punishment:

1) Three years of famine in Israel
2) Three months of fleeing from the enemies of Israel
3) Three days of a plague upon Israel

David chooses the third one and 70,000 people died from it - nearly 10% of the population. The thing that really sticks out in this story is God's "grief" about this. There is an angel that is afflicting all the people with this plague and God calls him off early saying "Enough! Withdraw your hand!"

The symbolism here is extremely rich. This entire scenario can be compared to the Jesus story - I think. Let me see how far I can get.

First - David chooses to sacrifice his people over his pride. Jesus sacrificed himself for his people, swallowing his pride - or lack there of.
Second - The plague lasted for three days, the same amount of time Jesus suffered and spent in death.
Third - God ended the suffering pre-maturely. In the same way, Jesus died much sooner than most others did when crucified.

While 70,000 Jews is no drop in the bucket, this is the first time we've seen God show remorse and - dare I say - mercy, since Noah's Ark. Directly before the flood, the text showed an immense amount of regret on God's part - a very intense emotion from our understanding, and here again we see God feeling extreme grief for the pain he was pouring out on his nation. Perhaps he already knew that Jesus was going to go through similar punishment and was dreading that - and that's where the guilt came from.

Acts 3:1-26
Something I forgot to mention from the last reading in Acts is the last paragraph. It talks about that "Biblical Communism" I was writing about a week or so ago. Here it is:

⁴⁴All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. ⁴⁶Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

How does that sound to you? Would you like to live that way, or are you too comfortable in the Capitalist society to change? I know for me, as much as I would like to live that way, there would be some difficult growing pains to get there.

OK - so today's reading. Oh yeah, there is some great stuff in here. This whole scene hinges on a miracle performed by Peter. There is a man who was crippled from birth who would beg for money every day at a city's gates. Peter heals him and everyone is amazed as they recognize the crippled man walking around and praising God. Peter uses this opportunity to really drive the message home of who Christ was and why he was so important.

It's often said that Peter is a great speaker, and like all great speakers, he knows how to play to his audience. So most of his audience being Jews, he fills his messages with imagery of the respected leaders of the Old Testament. He refers to God as "The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." He says that this God, whom his audience worships, has glorified Jesus, and just as it was foretold by all the prophets they claim to study, a leader will rise up out of Israel and they are all to follow his teachings. Peter reveals that Jesus was the man that the prophets spoke of.

Then, Pete goes into some really heavy stuff - and this sort of proves my theory of the Jews who sentenced Jesus to death were actually the key players in the grace you and I experience today, even though they're painted as the villains in the story. Check it:

15You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. ¹⁶By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see.  ¹⁷"Now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. ¹⁸But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ^[a] would suffer. ¹⁹Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, ²⁰and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus.

Boom. 


Psalm 123:1-4
Interesting imagery:

 ¹ I lift up my eyes to you,
       to you whose throne is in heaven.  

² As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master

I don't know if I agree with that - I wouldn't look at the relationship between man and God as a slave-master relationship. More of a willing servant, gracious leader relationship. What do you think? Should we act as though we are slaves to God? Didn't  he give us free will so we didn't have to be slaves?

Proverbs 16:21-23
 ²¹ The wise in heart are called discerning,
       and pleasant words promote instruction. ^[a]
 22 Understanding is a fountain of life to those who have it,
       but folly brings punishment to fools.
 ²³ A wise man's heart guides his mouth,
       and his lips promote instruction. <sup>[b]

Alright chumps - busy week ahead of me. Keep me in your prayers - I'll keep you in mine. 

Hey how about this? Would you be interested in submitting prayer requests? You can either submit them in the comments, or email me at brandonamurray@gmail.com.

I promise to keep everything confidential if you want it to be, or if you'd like me to ask others to pray for it, I can do that too. Then all two or three readers of this blog can pray for you together. I can post my prayer requests too and you guys could pray for me. How does that sound, is it stupid? Let me know in the comments if you think its a good or terrible idea. 

Thanks friends. Much love.</sup>