Old Testament

A postcard from the edge (Gen 22) – part four

/ timmacbride

This week, we’re looking at the (in)famous story of Abraham and the command to sacrifice his son, Isaac. If you’re just joining us today, you really need to begin from the start of the story on Monday. We began by asking: why would God ask Abraham to do such a thing? On Tuesday, we looked at one part of the answer: God is showing that as Creator he has the right to ask for such a sacrifice – unlike the pagan, so-called ‘gods’ of the region who regularly demanded child sacrifice. Yet despite having the right, he doesn’t. He’s different from the gods around. And yesterday, we saw that maybe he did it in such a graphic, traumatic way in order to take Abraham (and us) to the brink – to fully appreciate an existence without a God who is loving, and merciful.

It makes us savour all the more how different our God is.

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A postcard from the edge (Gen 22) – part three

/ timmacbride / 1 Comment

This week, we’re looking at the (in)famous story of Abraham and the command to sacrifice his son, Isaac. If you’re just joining us today, you really need to begin from the start of the story on Monday. We began by asking: why would God ask Abraham to do such a thing? Yesterday, we looked at one part of the answer: God is showing (in a very graphic way) that as Creator he has the right to ask for such a sacrifice – unlike the pagan, so-called ‘gods’ of the region who regularly demanded child sacrifice. Yet despite having the right, he doesn’t. He’s different from the gods around. But we were still left with the question: why put Abraham through all that just to make this point?

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A postcard from the edge (Gen 22) – part two

/ timmacbride / 3 Comments

This week, we’re looking at the (in)famous story of Abraham and the command to sacrifice his son, Isaac. If you’re just joining us today, you really need to begin from the start of the story on Monday. And we began by asking: why would God ask Abraham to do such a thing?

But you see, this wasn’t an unusual command in the Ancient Near East. According to the religions of the surrounding nations, their pagan gods would often require the sacrifice of children in order to please them.  In fact, a few hundred yrs later God forbids this practice categorically in Leviticus, showing how widespread it was:

Lev 18:21 ‘Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech’ (a Canaanite god).
Lev 20:2 ‘Any Israelite or any foreigner living in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death. The people of the community are to stone him.’

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A postcard from the edge (Gen 22) – part one

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This week, we look at one of the most difficult passages in the bible to comprehend. Not that it’s hard to understand what’s going on – it’s a simple, powerfully-told story that a child could remember. And yet it raises questions for which we struggle to find answers. It brings up emotions we’d rather not feel. It goes beyond the ‘safe’ message that God loves us and acts to save us, instead exploring the outer limits of faith and the scarier side of God. This story that we’re about to read gives us a glimpse – a ‘snapshot’, a ‘postcard’– from the edge of faith. Let’s read it now.

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Jonah – Part 5

/ timmacbride

This week, we’ve been looking at the OT book of Jonah. On Monday, we saw how Jonah was a prophet who was given a simple message of judgement to deliver to a hostile people – but ran away in the opposite direction. Unwittingly, he himself becomes an object lesson as he embodies Israel’s failure to live out her calling to be a light to the nations. (You probably want to read Monday’s first, if you missed it.) God gets Jonah’s attention with a violent storm, and he has himself thrown overboard to save the others aboard the ship. God sends a giant fish to rescue him, and Jonah sings a song of praise – acknowledging that God has shown him undeserved mercy and vowing to complete his mission to Nineveh. Yesterday, he did just that: and all of Nineveh repented. Although Israel isn’t responsive to the steady stream of prophets God has sent, the evil Ninevites repent after just five words from Jonah.

Scene 5: God’s heart for the nations

But the story doesn’t end there. Jonah, it turns out, isn’t overjoyed at Nineveh’s repentance and God’s forgiveness. ‘Cause it’s exactly what he was worried might happen. This merciful God of his might be… well… merciful. How bad would that be! Listen to what he says:

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Jonah – Part 4

/ timmacbride

This week, we’re looking at the OT book of Jonah. On Monday, we saw how Jonah was a prophet who was given a simple message of judgement to deliver to a hostile people – but ran away in the opposite direction. Unwittingly, he himself becomes an object lesson as he embodies Israel’s failure to live out her calling to be a light to the nations. (You probably want to read Monday’s first, if you missed it.) We then saw God send a violent storm to get Jonah’s attention. To stop the storm and save the others onboard, Jonah has himself thrown overboard. And immediately the storm stops. But God sends a giant fish to rescue Jonah, and yesterday, from within the belly of the fish, he sings a song of praise – acknowledging that God has shown him undeserved mercy and vowing to complete his mission to Nineveh.

Scene 4: Nineveh repents

So Jonah finally gets on board with God’s call, although still a little reluctantly. Having just been spat up on the beach, he heads off to Nineveh to give the message God sent him to give.

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Jonah – Part 3

/ timmacbride

This week, we’re looking at the OT book of Jonah. On Monday, we saw how Jonah was a prophet who was given a simple message of judgement to deliver to a hostile people – but ran away in the opposite direction. Unwittingly, he himself becomes an object lesson as he embodies Israel’s failure to live out her calling to be a light to the nations. (You probably want to read Monday’s first, if you missed it.) Yesterday, we saw God send a violent storm to get Jonah’s attention. To stop the storm and save the others onboard, Jonah has himself thrown overboard. And immediately the storm stops.

Scene 3: God’s rescue

Last we left Jonah he was upside down heading to the bottom of the Mediterranean. But not for long, because he’s swallowed by a giant fish. Again, if you’re following the picture books, a fish with a big smiley face. (Looking just enough not like a whale to upset the Bible trivia pedants.)

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Jonah – Part 2

/ timmacbride

This week, we’re looking at the OT book of Jonah. Yesterday, we saw how Jonah was a prophet who was given a simple message of judgement to deliver to a hostile people – but ran away in the opposite direction. Unwittingly, he himself becomes an object lesson as he embodies Israel’s failure to live out her calling to be a light to the nations. (You probably want to read yesterday’s first, if you missed it.)

Scene 2: God’s discipline

The next scene is the one made famous by many Sunday School lessons. As soon as Jonah hops on the boat to Tarshish, things start going wrong.

1:4 Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.

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Jonah – Part 1

/ timmacbride

May, among Australian Baptists, is “mission month” where we raise awareness and support for Global interAction, the Australian Baptist cross-cultural mission organisation. So as we kick off in May, our studies will be around the theme of mission. But now for something completely different:

The famous Monty Python fish slapping dance (see video above) encapsulates, for me, the book of Jonah. Why? Not simply because he’s swallowed by a giant fish at the end of it. But because the book of Jonah was written as one big, fishy slap in the face to Israel. A wake up call about what it means to be God’s special people. At some level at least, it’s a biting satire about how Israel had failed to live up to her calling as a light to the nations.

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Exodus 12 – The Passover

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LastSupper

This is one of the most famous scenes in the world: Jesus’ last supper, reinterpreted through Renaissance eyes. (For a start, in the original they would have been lying down on their sides, and in a much smaller room!) What’s the story behind this scene? Why is Jesus celebrating this ritual meal? And for us – how did we get our communion service out of it?

The Lord’s Supper has a long history. It traces its roots back to the Passover, recorded in Exodus chapter 12. Yet as Christians we do not, now, simply celebrate a Passover meal. It was redefined – decisively – by Jesus just before his death. So what we’re doing today is looking at the Passover meal in Exodus 12, I and then a little later next week we’ll look at its transformation by Jesus as recorded in Matthew’s gospel. (We begin a pre-Easter series in Matt 26-28 next week.) But we must start with…

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