Reading for August 13
Nehemiah 5:14-7:73
So the people who were working on the reconstruction of Jerusalem were focusing all their efforts on the completion of the wall around the city. The surrounding nations made many attempts to keep this from happening, because they knew that if the wall was completed, that Israel would begin to once again grow in strength. Well, they finished the wall in a little under two months and the other nations backed off because they knew that God had helped the Jews to finish it.
After it was completed, Nehemiah's brother was appointed as the leader of the Jews - not king - leader. Then they tally up all the tribes of Israel and the numbers are pitiful compared to the counts we saw in the books of Numbers and the start of 1 Chronicles. They are basically starting from square one. Just as God had hit the giant reset button when he flooded the earth and saved Noah, he once again hit the same button but only wiped out Israel and only saved a few, and these few were humble and scrappy and fearful of God - exactly what God wanted from his children.
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 2The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. 3But the man who loves God is known by God.A couple things about this. First of all, this is in stark contrast to all the writings in Proverbs about how wisdom and knowledge are the most important things in the world. Paul is saying that wisdom is good, but it's misleading. You learn a small morsel and you think you have all the answers (talkin to myself here), and in face you know nothing at all. In fact, I think the more you learn and understand, the more you don't understand. It's like each door of knowledge leads to a thousand other doors.
Such is the idea of God. A being that cannot be comprehended by wisdom and study, but only through love. Because if what I've been told is true, God is love. So to love God is to know him, to study him and analyze him is to deepen your confusion about him.
It's completely counter-intuitive to how most of us go about things. Let's take the example of a digital camera. You decide you need one, so most people would jump on the internet and start looking up reviews and features and eliminating things based on the specs they had in mind. They ask friends for suggestions, they study consumer reports, they wait for a sale and then finally pounce on the perfect digital camera. We cannot approach the understanding of God in that way - we simply have to love him. I say simply, but it is anything but simple - how do you love something you can't see? OR! How do you love something who is responsible for multiple genocides. And finally, how do you love something you can't understand? It would be like falling in love with a theoretical digital camera that your friend told you about.
It's a paradox of the mind. But I think the more we let go of our traditional thinking and approaches to understanding, the sooner we will all get what God is about.
Psalm 33:1-11
I really like this:
7 He gathers the waters of the sea into jars ;
he puts the deep into storehouses.
I just imagine God with a big back yard and a tool shed in the back with jars of ocean water and a lawnmower, or I guess a galaxy mower. (tee hee)
Proverbs 21:8-10
8 The way of the guilty is devious,
but the conduct of the innocent is upright.
9 Better to live on a corner of the roof
than share a house with a quarrelsome wife...HAHA
10 The wicked man craves evil;
his neighbor gets no mercy from him.
Good. night.
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