Pictures from the past of the present and future

The old Stamps/Baxter “Heavenly Highway Hymnal” (Johnny Cash’s favorite Hymnbook) has a song in it that says, “This world is not my home, I’m only passing through.” Maybe that’s been the picture of the last few chapters in the book of Numbers. The people have been passing thru to the land promised by God. In fact, Chapter 33 gives a great overview of the entire journey since Egypt. This would be a great time to look at the trip in a Bible atlas.

But now what? What happens now that they are in Canaan? What are the key principles God puts in place, now that they are starting the process of living as a godly community in a stable, physical situation? First of all, where everyone will live is planned and the topic of the Priests is addressed. They did not receive a specific area, but instead some towns are set-aside in every tribal area for them to stay. “Command the Israelites to give the Levites towns to live in from the inheritance the Israelites will possess. And give them pasturelands around the towns” (35:2). Since the Levites were to teach the people the law of God, the land arrangement’s purpose was to scatter the Levites among the people where they could do the most good. In other words, these communities were key in keeping the worship of God at the center.

Another key in chapter 35, is the designation of the six cities of refuge. These were to be drawn from the forty-eight towns allowed to the Levites, three on one side of the Jordan and three on the other. When a murder occurred, the cities fostered justice and restoration. Forest Hill recently screened a movie called “As We Forgive” based on the restoration movement afoot in Rwanda and specifically, addressing the genocide that took place in 1994. This must be the same kind of situation, stopping feudal warfare. In relationships, there must be forgiveness.

One more note, the city of refuge had to be the killer’s home until the high priest died. Maybe someone had to die to pay for the death of one of God’s image bearers. This screams out Jesus’ significance, He is our refuge, and our high priest, taking our sins upon him and buying our restoration. Even now as we live out God’s kingdom life, we can know that one day, when we pass through to the Promised Land, we will meet the One who restored us in the first place.


Tips for Reading- (Observation tip no.26)

(Note: This section is help for Bible Reading in general. It will be building throughout the year under the topics of Observation (what the Scripture says), Interpretation (what it means) and Application (what it means to your life). Feel free to look back over last week to get the whole picture.)

We’ve been examining the idea of interpreting Scripture to find out the passage’s meaning and what the author was really saying. It is maybe a good time in the midst of the process, since it is the halfway point of the year, to let the Holy Spirit interpret our lives for a bit. Am I following the example of Moses in my own life? Do I have a well-ordered heart? Is Christ at the center of everything, not out of obligation but love? How does it affect my temperament at home? How does it affect what I watch on TV? How I shop? How I live out the Ten Commandments?

Here are some questions Christian author John Ortberg asks himself about organizing a well-ordered heart. Maybe you can amend them into questions you could ask yourself each day this week in an attempt to examine, if you heart is focused on Christ? Now even all of these can become rules; we may miss the point, they are only conduits for connecting us back to God.


How and when will I pray today?
How will I handle money in a way that draws me closer to God?
How can I approach work in a way that will help Christ be formed in me?
How will I be involved in Christian community today?
How will I show compassion today?
How can I fill my daily tasks with a sense of the presence of God?


I’ve enjoyed this first half-year of our journey. If you were to summarize the most important thing God has taught you this year what would it be? If you could, I would love you to post it on the blog to encourage all of us, as we continue into the next half. Grace and Peace, Robbi.

Notes from David’s Journal

Let me take a moment and talk further about the “cities of refuge” in the Bible. They were formed for two major reasons, to my knowledge. First, they were places to run to in order to control the law of retaliation, the law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. God knew the law of retaliation has no end. Therefore, when someone killed another, the “blood revenge” of that day demanded the family or tribe of the one wrongly killed immediately seek revenge by killing the one who killed their family and/or tribe member. One can easily and quickly see that the revenge cycle would quickly begin and heighten over days, weeks and years. Therefore, the killer could run to a city of refuge and seek immediate safety from the revenge killer(s).

Second, the cities of refuge were designed to protect someone who either accidentally killed another person or could present a rightful argument that would help ameliorate the situation. Justice then could prevail and also prevent revenge killing.

Spiritually, I think we can say Jesus is our own, personal city of refuge. We are guilty of sin against a Holy God. We deserve God’s most severe punishment: death and separation from Him. Yet we run to Him, crying out for grace and mercy. We enter into His presence through the gateway of the Cross. When we are forgiven, our accuser, the devil has no more rightful reason to condemn us. We are free. We are declared “not guilty.” There is never any reason for revenge killing, for any reason whatsoever.

These “glimpses” of Jesus in the Old Testament only make our New Testament faith become more alive. To Him alone and always belongs all the glory!

Temptations of a modern variety

Who said that people are driven by sex and money? Was it Freud or Michael Douglas in the movie “Wall Street?” Whoever it was, they aren’t far off from our readings today.

First look at Balaam. Here was a man who was offered everything he could dream of, if he would do just one thing - curse the people of God. I would imagine there are a lot of ways to perform this kind of curse today. We could criticize ministries, or belittle people of faith who are not like us. But the point in this story is the offer. At the heart it is the same kind of temptation we get everyday. We are tempted to silence the Holy Spirit in our hearts, to have our main priorities to get further up the ladder, or to make our families look better.

What is being offered to you today? What part of your time, energy or soul will it cost? Notice, Balaam turned it down:
“Now when Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, he did not resort to sorcery as at other times…Then Balak’s anger burned against Balaam. He struck his hands together and said to him, I summoned you to curse my enemies, but you have blessed them these three times. Now leave at once go home. I said I would reward you handsomely, but the Lord has kept you from being rewarded.” (24:1,10-12)

I imagine the devil’s philosophy is “if at first you don’t succeed, try a different temptation.” Look at the next chapter of Numbers, “While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods.” (25:1)

The allurement of romance can cause us to make all kinds of crazy choices, can’t it? Here, because the men chose to disregard wisdom and to connect with all sorts of women, it led them into idolatry and an empty disconnect from God.

Therefore, we should be on our guard because our culture offers all of these same temptations. Look at our movies, music and broken lives all over the place. “Lord, we need your strength today to resist and to be reminded of your lavish grace.”

Tips for Reading- (Observation tip #25)

Note: This section is help for Bible Reading in general. It will be building throughout the year under the topics of Observation (what the Scripture says), Interpretation (what it means) and Application (what it means to your life). Feel free to look back over last week to get the whole picture.

This brings me to another aspect of interpretation: comparison.

Comparison is when you look at one passage of Scripture and compare it with another. This is one of the best ways to cross reference and see if what you are observing in one context is parallel to another one, which leads to good theology. This process offers a great safety net, because the greatest interpreter of Scripture is Scripture itself.

A famous theologian, Donald Grey Barnhouse wrote, “You very rarely have to go outside of the Bible to explain anything in the Bible.” He realized that the more we compare Scripture with Scripture, the more the meaning of the Bible becomes apparent. The individual passages take on meaning in light of the entire Bible. Remember, although we have about forty different human authors, the sixty-six books are ultimately the result of one primary Author, the Holy Spirit, who coordinated the entire message.

The best tool to help with comparison is a concordance. It is a tool that enables you to chase down terms and concepts from one book of the Bible to the next. Using a concordance, you can put together things that appear isolated in the text; and they take on greater meaning in relation to each other. For example, as I wrote about this story in Numbers I thought of I Peter 5:8-9, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kinds of sufferings.” This kind of cross-reference helps us to see all angles of the battle when we walk with Christ.

See if you can buy a concordance this week and put it to work. There are passages throughout Numbers that will help you launch into different places all over Scripture. The whole of Scripture builds upon the first five books of Moses.

Notes from David’s Journal

I’d like to play off what Robbi is teaching you today. When playing college basketball, I noted that my coach, Dean Smith, did pretty much the same thing year after year with outstanding results. He never changed a whole lot. In fact, I played in the early seventies, went to a practice in the early nineties and was amazed at how similar they were!

Do you know why he didn’t change much? Because it worked. The same is true with the evil one. His strategies throughout history haven’t changed much. In chapter 26 he tempted the Israelites with sex by the Moabite women. They fell and God punished. Today, he tempts most everyone everywhere with sexual sin. We fall and God punishes. The strategy is successful because it works!

Run from sexual sin! Be pure. Use sex as God intended (see Genesis 2:4 for God’s intention with sex: one man, one woman in a committed, heterosexual, monogamous relationship). When done God’s way, it’s beautiful and wonderful. When not, it degrades what God intended to be a beautiful way to cement a man and woman into one forever.

Someone once said the more we go through history the less we refuse to learn from it. I hope and pray we can learn this one too.

He is God and I am not

This week could be seen as Part 2 of an ongoing message reminding us of who God is and who we are.

The story in Numbers 20 is a tough one. Moses has been a faithful servant of God Almighty and with one incident he is banned from the Promised Land. What is behind the story? The people need water, and Moses comes to God asking for direction. God responds, “Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.” (20:8)

Simple plan, but Moses in the heat of the moment, tried something else. He said to the people, “Hear now, you rebels, shall we bring water for you out of this rock? And then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly and the congregation drank and their livestock. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” (Vs. 10-12)

I was always lost at why this had to do with belief. It seemed like Moses just lost his temper. His sister had just died at that time, the people were complaining and he lost it. But that’s not the case. When Janet and I were in Israel recently, we were able to see the area where this event occurred. There is a rock like shale that is very fragile and many times holds water under a light protection. A wise shepherd can shatter the rock and thus produce water. This is what Moses does. Instead of trusting God to provide water through speaking to rock, Moses provides it himself. So Moses gets the credit and the people trust the wrong one to be their provider.

How many times do I do that? I think I am my family’s protector and provider? Or think my counseling will rescue a soul? I am called to be faithful, but not a Savior. Long after I am gone, it will be God’s strength that saves marriages, protects folks in trauma and restores broken hearts.

Why don’t I just trust God now while I have the chance?

Tips for Reading - (Interpretation tip #24)

Note: This section is help for Bible Reading in general. It will be building throughout the year under the topics of Observation (what the Scripture says), Interpretation (what it means) and Application (what it means to your life). Feel free to look back over last week to get the whole picture.


The next topic of interpretation is about looking at the storyline of a specific biblical book. It is called theological context.

Theological context asks us to look at where the passage or book fits in the unfolding of Scripture. The Bible was not dropped out of the sky as a finished piece of work. It took thousand of years to put it all together. And during that time, God revealed more and more of His message to the authors. It’s important to locate your passage in the flow of Scripture. If you are studying Noah in Genesis, then you’re way before the Ten Commandments. In fact, Noah didn’t have a scrap of biblical text to work with. So what does that tell you when you read “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord”? How did he find favor with God? It was not by obeying the 10 commandments. It was not by memorizing scripture. Maybe it was not through anything he did, but whom he trusted.

Let’s examine the passage we’ve read today. It’s easy for us, 2,000 years after the time of Christ, to look back at what Moses did and say, how could he have hit the rock instead of speaking? Didn’t he listen to the Holy Spirit telling him to slow down?

It would be easy to look down on the people complaining about not having water in the desert (Numbers 21:4) and miss how the passage can inform me of my heart. For example, the people are described as “impatient with God.” If people are impatient in the desert, maybe this shows impatience is less about fast paced and more about trying to make God serve us, rather than us serve Him.

As we continue through the first five books of Moses, ask what you can learn about God’s work in us by reading their story in context.

Notes from David’s Journal

In these chapters there are two stories that stand out to me. The first is in Numbers 16. It is commonly known as “Korah’s rebellion.” Korah questioned Moses’ authority and basically led a rebellion. In fact, the total rebellion consisted of 250 of the most prominent leaders in the community of faith! This leads to a confrontation between the two men. As a result, God sides with Moses and swallows up into the earth Korah and his rebellious friends.

God loves unity among His people. However, He has also set up certain authority structures that He knows need to be heeded for unity to be achieved. It starts in the home with parents over children. It continues in the church with elders over the people. It continues into government with officials in authority over the citizenry. And, of course, all authority rests with God as ruler over all.

Therefore, if we should ever rebel against any authority, it should be because the authority is asking us to do something God forbids or is forbidding us to do something God requires. Otherwise, we are to remain under those authority structures. They are umbrellas built into God’s world for our safety. Korah stepped outside God’s authority, Moses. You see the result. God despises rebellious hearts!

Second, in chapter 20, we read the story of Moses striking the rock for water when God clearly told him simply to speak to the rock. The punishment for this disobedience for Moses was God’s decision never to allow him to enter the Promised Land. At first blush, this seems like a very harsh punishment, until you stop and think: Moses was responsible for getting these people into the Promised Land. This nation of Israel would then be the place where God would birth his Messiah for the salvation of the world. God needed Moses absolute, immediate obedience. He couldn’t tolerate even the smallest failure. The stakes were too high.

We too need to obey God, immediately, without dialogue. Often, the stakes are high: the salvation of others’ souls, the care for the poor and needy, etc.

Bottom line: when God speaks, do what He tells you to do! It wouldn’t be serious unless God meant it.

It’s not about me

On August 16, 2008, President Obama and Senator McCain both agreed “it’s not about me,” during their debate at Saddleback Church. “It’s not about me” is the first line of Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life” book, and all of us have heard this truth, yet we struggle to live it out.

In our readings this week, there are no less than six stories of rebellion. What is the commonality in them all? Look at a few of the phrases and see if they jump out at you:

“Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the Lord”(11:1).

“The people keep wailing to me, ‘give us meat to eat’” (11:14).

“Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? They asked. Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” (12:2).

“Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?“(14:3).

All of these stories are about selfishness - from the people complaining about food, to Miriam and Aaron’s attempt to become the leaders themselves.

Even the unbelief of the ten spies sent to the Promised Land is about the people’s own protection and not about God’s provisions throughout the journey. The people acted as if it’s not about God’s story, but the small self-centered thinking of safety, security and control.

What should have been a month’s trip through the desert, trusting God to direct, turned into 40 years of wandering. (By the way, they were not lost, they knew exactly where they were. They were reaping the effects of being self-centered). Maybe this reveals that in the deepest part of us, our biggest temptation is to take care of our own needs and not the community.

The last story in Numbers 16 is about Korah and his group who rebelled and pointed a finger at Moses saying, “The whole community is holy, every one of them and the Lord is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the Lord’s assemble.” (16:3)

Sounds good doesn’t it? Except, the very thing Korah is accusing Moses of, not caring about the community, is what he is doing. He’s setting himself above all others, including God.

As we read these stories, we should listen very closely to our own motives and see what our hidden agendas are and present them daily to the mercy of our Lord.

Tips for Reading- (Interpretation tip # 23)

Note: This section is help for Bible Reading in general. It will be building throughout the year under the topics of Observation (what the Scripture says), Interpretation (what it means) and Application (what it means to your life). Feel free to look back over last week to get the whole picture.

For the next couple of weeks we’re going to look at context in our interpretation work.

The Bible is a 66-book collection, but it hangs together as one Book. It’s a unified whole. We need to remember that the Bible is ONE book when we consider context. Look at what you are reading in light of where it fits in the big picture.

I recently listened to an interview with Bono, the lead singer for U2, and more importantly a representative to the world on behalf of the poor in Africa. During the interview, Bono represented compassion and grace very well. The following month I read an article from the same interview. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The words were twisted and taken out of context. I was upset.

That same thing happens to the Word of God all the time. In fact, every major cult is built on a violation of the principle of context. An amazing amount of doctrinal error could be corrected by simply asking, “Would you please read that verse along with the verses around it?”

For example, look at Numbers 15:32-36 about the Sabbath breaking man. How do the results of that story (his death) tie in with the topic we have been dealing with in the devotion, our selfishness? How does the punishment help the community understand their uniqueness in God’s eyes? How were his actions violating their covenant with God? How does our culture’s view of individualism make this reading very hard?

We will explore several kinds of context next time, but this one is called literary context and it simply looks at the verse in light of the paragraph, chapter, and book. Given the unity of Scripture, the ultimate context of any book is the entire Bible. Keep this in mind as you read the rest of Numbers.

Notes from David’s Journal

These chapters contain one of my favorite stories: the sending out of the spies into the Promised Land. Ten come back with fear in their hearts, believing the spies who occupy the land are too large to conquer. Only two, Joshua and Caleb, believe God can conquer them.

Interestingly, the spies also bring back a huge cluster of grapes from the place where the giants live and harvest their crops. I think God is trying to tell all the children of Israel, and us, this very important faith lesson: the grapes are the most delicious where the giants are the biggest!

What obstacle are you facing today? Does it seem like the “giants” in your life are just too big to conquer. I don’t know exactly what God may be doing in and through you today, but of this I am certain: where the giants live is the place where you will most undoubtedly find the most delicious grapes. There is something about conquering big giants with faith that only increases our faith in God. And, isn’t faith in God the ultimate goal of all life?

So, whatever you may be facing today, don’t look at the size of the giants in your life. Look at the size of your God! He is greater! He is able! Don’t give up! Those grapes will one day taste awfully good.