Reading from Sunday, October 24

Oh yes. Continuing down the road toward catching up.

Reading for October 24
Jeremiah 44:24-47:7
So in this reading there is a lot of detail around the specifics of the punishment for those Jews who flee to Egypt. One would wonder why would God take such a hard stance on fleeing to Egypt, but encourage them to flee to Babylon only a few chapters earlier? I think that Egypt still holds a mark of pain for God. It is where his people were arguably treated most poorly; and in the succeeding years after their emancipation from the land ruled by Pharaoh, there was a desire among a large group of Israelites to return there. The thought of this saddened God greatly back in the book of Exodus, and I think just the thought of them going back there, even though they probably wouldn't be enslaved anymore, is more symbolic to God than anything else.

I guess you could liken it to that scene from Forrest Gump where the adult Jenny returns to the house she grew up in. The house where she was abused by her father. When she comes across it, maybe thirty years after she fled, she has an emotional breakdown - throwing rocks through the window and weeping bitterly at all the negative and horrible emotions that were bottled up in her and just seeing that house brought them all back. I feel like that's kinda the way God feels about Egypt at that time.

2 Timothy 2:22-3:17
A way of life we can only hope to strive for:

²²Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace.

Psalm 94:1-23
¹⁴ For the LORD will not reject his people;
       he will never forsake his inheritance.

This got me thinking. In the sermon from last week, my pastor put forth the idea that Jesus fulfilled the covenant fully during his time on earth. Meaning he was able to do what no human being could ever do - follow the rules of God. But at the same time, at the end of Mark (I believe) Jesus says the now famous cry "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" So follow me here for a minute. Jesus while fully human, was able to fulfill the law of the Old Testament perfectly, and he was forsaken by God, while billions and billions of people throughout the generations were unable to fulfill the covenant, and yet were never forsaken by God.

This speaks extremely highly of both God's and Jesus' character, but they are kinda the same thing.

Proverbs 26:6-8
MORE FOOLS!

 ⁶ Like cutting off one's feet or drinking violence
       is the sending of a message by the hand of a fool.
 ⁷ Like a lame man's legs that hang limp
       is a proverb in the mouth of a fool.
 ⁸ Like tying a stone in a sling
       is the giving of honor to a fool.