Reading from Saturday, June 12

Jilly left this morning for Chicago for a week. It always sucks when she leaves - I always think that I'll be perfectly content by myself playing video games, but usually it only takes an  hour or so after she's left that I get lonely and miss her. That makes me a sad panda. Well so far today, I've played about 5 hours of video games and watched about 3 hours of TV, so I figured  I should be a little productive and do some reading. I may also go out tonight and take some pictures of the local town. We'll see how I feel.

Reading for June 12
1 Kings 9:1-10:29
God appears to Solomon a second time.

So the first time God appeared to Solomon, God asked him what he wanted, and Solomon asked for wisdom. Because he chose wisely, God gave him wealth and power as well as the requested wisdom. This time God is appearing to Solomon to express his pleasure with him for building the Temple. He also responds to the prayer that Solomon prayed in the previous chapter where he asked for mercy from God on the Jewish people, and also for Israel's prosperity. God says that he will honor Solomon's requests if the Jews follow God's commands and decrees. This should be expected by now - the people ask God for something, God agrees on one condition - follow the rules.

Then God specifically addresses the finished Temple. There are some intriguing things about what God says here. He says basically that it was built out of the love of God and that because the people of Israel had been faithful to him, he will keep his "heart and eyes" there forever. But, again, if they stray from his commands or begin worshiping other gods, he will withdraw himself from the temple and it will become nothing more than an hollow building with no meaning or significance, and it will become a blotch of shame on the Israeli landscape.

Now what I find interesting about this whole thing is that at first, it seems like the people are doing God a favor - for lack of a better term - by building this temple. But it's actually the other way around, God is doing the Jews a favor by allowing a small piece of himself to reside in the world, in a building constructed by men. Maybe I'm stretching a little here, but  I think there's some symbolism in this when compared with Jesus. Jesus often refers to himself as a temple or the temple. In the same way that a small part of God lived within the actual temple, the whole persona of God lived within Jesus. Jesus became the new temple for the Israelites. Contrasting the actual temple and Jesus - Jesus' outward appearance was the epitome of humility while the temple was the epitome of luxury and excess.

I'll bet there's a ton of parallels between Jesus and the temple, and I can't wait to find them.

Acts 8:14-40
Woah woah woah. There is some dimensional time/space hopping this chapter. So Phillip is instructed by an angel to follow a chariot containing an Ethiopian man who was serving the queen of Ethiopia. This man was reading the book of Isaiah. Eventually, Phillip speaks to the man and asks him if he can help him understand what he's reading, as the passage is a prophecy about Jesus. Phillip talks and prays with this man and then the man asks to be baptized. Philip agrees and baptizes the man, but as soon as they come out of the water,

the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the [Ethiopian man] did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. ⁴⁰Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

What? He disappears and then reappears somewhere else? I often wonder about some of this pseudo-science stuff in the Bible and think it could be one of three things:

1) Completely legit and the only reason these things don't happen today is because we aren't as close to God.
2) Misinterpreted by  the writers, and because they didn't understand something, they assigned a miraculous event to it.
3) Intentionally misleading to try and prove the existence and divinity of God and Christ.

While I highly doubt that #3 is the case, I often sway between 1 and 2.

Psalm 130:1-8
Beautiful.

 ¹ Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;
 ² O Lord, hear my voice.
       Let your ears be attentive
       to my cry for mercy.
 ³ If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins,
       O Lord, who could stand?
 ⁴ But with you there is forgiveness;
       therefore you are feared.
 ⁵ I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
       and in his word I put my hope.
 ⁶ My soul waits for the Lord
       more than watchmen wait for the morning,
       more than watchmen wait for the morning.
 ⁷ O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
       for with the LORD is unfailing love
       and with him is full redemption.
 ⁸ He himself will redeem Israel
       from all their sins.


Proverbs 17:2-3
 ² A wise servant will rule over a disgraceful son,
       and will share the inheritance as one of the brothers.
 ³ The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold,
       but the LORD tests the heart.

Alright, I'll be back later tonight with another entry.