Exodus 4:1-5:21
Ex. 4:1-17
Now I wasn't there, but my feeling from this whole exchange is that Moses is trying to get out of following God due to self pity. He was ready when he was 40, but now he's an old man and just throwing up excuses. God is merciful and patient with him, but even God gets ticked off.
As disciples we talk ourselves out of working in the harvest. We knock on a door and hope no one is home. We drive out to the place where we're doing our work looking for excuses to get out of making contacts. I hate it when I do that. I recognize it for what it is and go back and knock on a few doors just to spite myself.
Ex. 4:18-31
It is probably good to have a map of the area to get an idea of what is happening here.
When Moses ran from Egypt, he traveled completely across the Sinai Peninsula, east of the northern point of the gulf of Aqaba into the land of Midian. No wonder the Egyptians never found him. God is speaking to Moses at Mt. Sinai (Mt. Horeb, same place). He leaves and goes back north along the gulf and then east into Midian. There he says good-bye to his father-in-law. He gathers the wife and son and heads back to Mt. Sinai. God has already spoken to Aaron, and he is on the way to meet Moses at Sinai.
But back at the motel there is this strange thing going on. My take on it is this. Moses told Zipporah that Gershom had to be circumcised. She put down her foot and said no son of hers would be turned into a "girlie-man." Moses didn't press the issue until he got a deep and hard sickness in the inn. It was obvious to both Moses and Zipporah that God was doing this to Moses and that it was because of the circumcision issue. In God's ironic sense of humor, Moses is now too sick to do the cutting, so this very, very mad mother grabs the knife and goes after this teen boy who has never seen his mother this crazy, with a knife in her hand, made out of sharp stone. How sharp does stone get? I can't imagine it gets sharp enough for this purpose. She doesn't care. She'd use a car key if she had one. Anyway, she finishes and expresses words of adoration to Moses as she wipes the bloody foreskin against his feet. Although the operation had nothing to do with his vocal chords, Gershom is unable to speak for weeks. (I wasn't there so some of this might not be completely accurate.)
The meeting with Aaron and Moses seems to indicate that they had had a close relationship before Moses left Egypt. In a very abbreviated form, their meeting with the elders of Israel is mentioned and apparently, for now, it was a hit and all is well.
Ex. 5:1-21
There are lots of interesting things in these verses, but for me v.20-21 are important for us as disciples. Following Jesus in the harvest means going against the flow. Leading people to trust Christ or to live as disciples will create opposition. A disciple is not better than his master. When opposition comes and life gets hard, it tests our devotion to Christ, to just simply follow. That is exactly what is happening here. Even with the signs they had seen from Moses, their hardship stripped away their faith. They would rather be silent and live like slaves, although they are God's people, than deal with the wrath of unbelieving men.
A disciple is devoted to Jesus. Jesus' salvation and love and grace overwhelms our vision and our desire for life on earth. His truth frees our hearts to give our lives as he did, to make disciples in a lost, dying world.
Matthew 18:1-22
One note in this entire section is that you see Jesus using two illustrations that he's used elsewhere, here, though in a different context. For me, this adds a fuller sense of Jesus as a teacher. Jesus taught the same messages and preached the same sermons over and over. He probably had some stories or illustrations that he used over and over. Here, for the second time in Matthew, he uses the "eye-hand" illustration in a slightly different way. Also, he uses the lost sheep story in this context.
Matt. 18:1-14
So, how do you connect these paragraphs? Don't give yourself a headache, but do try to make sense of how these 4 paragraphs flow together in Jesus' thought.
There are a jumble of thoughts in the context that might help thinking about the paragraphs: the truth-suppressing teaching of the Pharisees, the thought that one disciple is better than another (comparison and degrees of worth), humility, pride, etc…
Jesus is saying that humility and simplicity of faith is the goal. Anything that complicates us, our motives, our focus, our purpose in life, gets in the way of faith. Faith in following Christ must be first. Age, intelligence or education are not factors if a person has true faith. So, what is the warning all about? What causes one of these little ones to stumble or sin? Pharisaic expectations applied to faith? Unbiblical religious requirements? These beliefs hamstrung the faith of a lot of people in Israel. And the same happens today.
But liberal teaching does the same thing. "You'd have to be a fool to think that God did that without evolution." "God couldn't have done that in 7 days." "We don't have to believe all the Bible is trustworthy in every point because…." These are all crazy arguments on both the conservative and the liberal sides, and those with very simple faith stumble when all of this is laid on them as "truth."
Earlier, the "eye-hand" warning applied to doing something we like, that is doing us harm. It was personal. Here, it has something to do with our influence or modeling or leadership toward others. In the New Testament letters you find the writers fighting against two extremes that cause stumbling, traditionalism (Galatians and Hebrews) and liberty (1 Corinthians and Rom. 14). In both cases, faith in following Christ in the harvest is destroyed. Paul had the right approach in 1 Cor. 9:19ff. Jesus says that if what you are doing causes someone to stumble in their faith or growth in Christ as a disciple, get rid of it.
Funny how Jesus brings this section back to the focus on salvation. In the immediate context you would have to say that it is important to God that we work to save children, whereas most ministry is focused on adults. It still is true that most people come to Christ between ages 5-16. Go CEF!
Matt. 18:15-22
So, Jesus has mentioned "sinning" and "offense," so it is logical that He would answer the question, "what do we do if we find a brother doing this." Having given a warning about making others sin or stumble, Jesus is now going to give a warning about not forgiving .
Just some notes here.
First, this procedure is for personal offense against a person.
Second, this order is a command. We should use this order.
Third, as with anything, there are exceptions to the rule, for example, a rape victim is not required to have a personal meeting with her attacker before calling the cops.
Fourth, the church has spiritual authority. People might not agree with it and just leave to go to another church, but that particular group of believers has the authority to make a judgment and God will consider it binding. Look at 1 Cor. 5.
Fifth, although we are to forgive 70x7 when they ask for forgiveness, if someone has stolen $10,000 from you, forgiving doesn't mean entrusting them with another $10,000. There is a difference between forgiveness, restitution, trust and restoration of a relationship. I've learned to be cautious around people who try to push forgiveness too far too quickly.
Psalm 22:19-31
There's a lot of "salvation" going on in this portion of the psalm. A great way to end a psalm that begins with the foreshadowing of the afflictions that Jesus suffered.
In a sense it is the same for us as disciples. When we value our salvation, and when we see how He saves us from danger as we work in the harvest, it moves us to give greater and more confident praise of God to others.
Proverbs 5:15-21
Ok, who says obeying God is all work?
There is a lot of wisdom here and safety for the married man. Do this with the intensity of verses 18 & 19, and the other verses of warning will be just that, warnings. How else do you say it? Men should make their relationship with their wife their greatest passion and hobby. If men will lead and take the time necessary, there is a satisfaction here for both that goes to the soul and makes that thing that happens at the end seem trivial and anticlimactic. But that's all I'll say or I'll lose my PG-13 rating.
But here too, Solomon, like us, got distracted with all his work and hobbie. He became attracted to sensuality in other women, many of them, I'm sure, putting on a wild show so they could become part of his city of wives. But that one woman who really loved him, with whom the need of his soul would be satisfied, the one he wrote about in Song of Solomon, got lost….and so did he.
If you’re reading along and don’t have a One Year Bible, click on this link Every Day in the Word. If that doesn't work, go to http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/devotions/ and click on “Every Day in the Word.”
I'm writing these comments to and for those at New Song who are following a One Year Bible and involved in a discipleship cell. We're meeting weekly and discussing the texts, not necessarily my comments. We're growing together, learning to become and make disciples who make disciples. We will all be leading others in this process and training them to do likewise.
The comments I'm writing are in no way exhaustive, but meant to give some leading thoughts on how the text applies to us as disciples and to encourage and stimulate our growth in reading the Bible, with the effect that we will grow as disciples and encourage the growth of others as disciples growing in the word. If you would like a more descriptive commentary that is still readable and concise, I'd recommend the Bible Knowledge Commentary. It's keyed to the NIV, so the result is, the commentators are constantly telling you what the Greek or Hebrew is. That never hurts.
I am not endorsing any particular One Year Bible, in fact, no one in our church reads the version I do, die revidierte Lutherbibel 1984.
Anyone reading along with us is welcome to do so and encouraged to take their own notes and make their own observations. If the comments made do not agree with your particular tradition or understanding, that's OK. Nothing I've written is meant to criticize any point of view, but only to express the truth of what God has written to us, as I understand it.
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