Reading from Saturday, July 10

Yes yes. Way behind you know. I've been having some serious computer problems as of late and thus I have fallen behind. Fortunately I picked up Ye Olde Papere Biblee last night and tried to catch up as best I could. So let's hit the catch up train, friends.

Reading for July 10
1 Chronicles 9:1-10:14
In my reading of my actual physical Bible, I was able to read some of the additional footnotes and summaries that were included that shed a little light on the idea of 1 and 2 Chronicles. The summary of the book says that most people won't enjoy reading through long lists of names, but the author suggested that we look at it as a bigger picture. Why was this included? What makes it important? That's sort of what I've been doing so far with this book. Realizing that while it's not interesting now, it was extremely valuable to the Israelites back in the day.

The other thing the summary noted was that 1 Chronicles is divided neatly into two sections. Chapters 1-8 are strictly names (except for the prayer of Jabez flamethrower) while 9-the end retells the History of the Jewish people. We see the beginning of this here with the lineage and History of Saul. Something interesting that the footnotes mentioned was that Saul was the first king of Israel, but because he was so disliked by God, his lineage did not continue. All three of his sons died in combat before reproducing and Saul killed himself after being critically wounded. So the royal lineage that was supposed to come from Saul's tribe of Benjamin was shifted over to David's tribe of Judah. Just an interesting tidbid.

Something else I picked up on in the footnotes (gosh I should really start reading my physical Bible instead) which is somewhat unrelated was that the twelve tribes of Israel equated to Jacob's twelve sons. However, if you'll notice, Joseph is not one of the twelve tribes. Joseph passed the honor on to his two sons Ephraim and Mannessah. That's why those tribes are referred to as the "half tribes". Ahhhh. Now I get it.

Acts 27:21-44
Paul's adventure begins to wind down.

So the storm on the prisoner ship continues to rage and Paul continues to pray. After fourteen days. the storm settled and they finally ate again - I assume they were fasting to appease God and calm the storm. Then Paul took bread, gave thanks and broke it for all the prisoners and shipmen and guards on board - 276 people in all. To me, this as an absolutely beautiful scene. Leading an act that is so reminiscent of Jesus and everyone comes to the table as equals. The prisoners, the guards and the crew all ate together and gave thanks to God. If that is not a perfect scene of true Christian love, I don't know what is.

Psalm 8:1-9
This is stunningly beautiful:

 ³ When I consider your heavens,
       the work of your fingers,
       the moon and the stars,
       which you have set in place,
 ⁴ what is man that you are mindful of him,
       the son of man that you care for him?
 ⁵ You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings ^[c]
       and crowned him with glory and honor.
 ⁶ You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
       you put everything under his feet:
 ⁷ all flocks and herds,
       and the beasts of the field,
 ⁸ the birds of the air,
       and the fish of the sea,
       all that swim the paths of the seas.
 ⁹ O LORD, our Lord,
       how majestic is your name in all the earth!

I like the idea of God delegating responsibility of the Earth to us.  This also gives us the responsibility to take care of our planet - I would imagine that Environmentalist groups use this passage a good bit.

Proverbs 18:23-24
 ²³ A poor man pleads for mercy,
       but a rich man answers harshly.
 ²⁴ A man of many companions may come to ruin,
       but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

All aboard the catch up (katsup) train. Woo woo!