Reading from Saturday, August 7

Reading for August 7
Ezra 4:24-6:22
The temple is finally reconstructed. The way it's written here, it seems like it will stay up for a while. The Israelites have been humbled and are getting the full cooperation of their government and surrounding nations to work on this structure for their God. Not only are the surrounding nations cooperating, but they are under strict order to help them - and if they don't

a beam is to be pulled from [their] house and [they are] to be lifted up and impaled on it. And for this crime [their] house is to be made a pile of rubble.

 They're not messin around. You help them or pay the price. FO REAL!

Once the Temple is finally up, the Jews celebrate with a week-long Passover, which must have been awesome. Just like the last time they rebuilt the temple. Regardless, it seems as though this period is a time when there is peace between God and the people. No one has dropped dead in like 2 chapters.

1 Corinthians 3:5-23
Paul references Apollos here, and in a few other places. Apollos was apparently another teacher of Christianity, similar to Paul. They had different preaching styles and this caused the believers to segment themselves into "Paulists" and "Apolloists" (I just made up both of those words). As he's preached on before, Paul warns against breaking into different groups. He says

 ⁵What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. ⁶I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.

It's like saying that you are a George Washington Bridgeist because you like that way into the city, while someone else is a Lincoln Tunnelist because they like that way. But in the end, you're both going to Madison Square Garden to watch the Devils/Ranges game.

I also love this line:

¹⁸Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise.

There's a modern phrase that is similar to this - something like, "True wisdom comes from the knowledge that you know nothing." Something like that. Because of the vastness and greatness of God's character, no one can ever even come close to understanding Him. And if anyone claims that they do, they are fools. I have claimed to know God's will many times, only to be humbled by a slap in the face.

Finally, Paul talks about how we are all God's temple. The Temple of God in the Old Testament was where it was thought that God's spirit resided on earth. There was an inner room where no one could enter, except for the highest priest once a year. Now, that spirit that was so exclusive as to only see one man, once a year, is now living within all of us. There is no separation between God and man, they are one.

That is pretty incredible.

Psalm 29:1-11

³ The voice of the LORD is over the waters;
       the God of glory thunders,
       the LORD thunders over the mighty waters.
 ⁴ The voice of the LORD is powerful;
       the voice of the LORD is majestic.
 ⁵ The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars;
       the LORD breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.

It's cool to conceptualize what God's voice actually sounds like. It's one of those "tree falling in the woods" exercises that makes the mind twist into itself trying to rationalize the problem. 

Proverbs 20:26-27
 ²⁶ A wise king winnows out the wicked;
       he drives the threshing wheel over them.
 ²⁷ The lamp of the LORD searches the spirit of a man ^[a] ;
       it searches out his inmost being.

Boom.