Exodus 32, John 11, Proverbs 8, and Ephesians 1
The Experience:
Though I’m sad to see Galatians go Ephesians will be great too, after all it’s all The Bible!
The Word:
Exodus 32 is so strange. These are the Israelites who’d been rescued by the Lord lead into the wilderness by him. They’re seeing the building of their community being handled by God yet they seek to make a false God and give it their worship.
The temptation in reading Proverbs 8 is to think that Christ is being introduced as ‘wisdom’; however he is not. Wisdom is being described in personal ways in each of the previous ways too. To understand this to be Christ would be to take the verse wrongly. If we understood wisdom to be Christ we’d have to attribute quite a strange number of things to him, including Proverbs 1:8 where wisdom is a she.
I hoped to be more involved in my churches (www.eastshorebaptist.org) men’s ministry this year moving through a bible study with the men. But, my work travel has been grueling and I’ve not been able to participate like I wanted. I say this because they’ve been moving through Ephesians so it’s cool to read it in my plan now. I don’t see how someone can maintain a position of choosing Jesus after having read Ephesians 3-10. The grace in Gods choosing of me glorifies him in that it’s foolish that I’d be saved and loving Jesus which works to his glory to confine the wise. I know that my salvation is secure in eternity as the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of my inheritance until I acquire possession of it (Ephesians 1:13/14).
The works of Jesus in John 11 are coming to a pinnacle he’s healed the blind and now calls forth a VERY dead Lazarus. As I read this story I laughed out loud as Jesus goes on minimizing Lazarus’ condition then has to spell it out to his disciples, “Lazarus has died (John 10:14)”. Interestingly they were STILL on the opening the eyes of the blind man (John 10:37). In light of the ability for man to choose for God I think the discourse starting in verse 47 is telling. They recognize the signs he is doing yet we see in verse 48 all this recognition does is make them want to stop or hide him. Strange these fallen natures and hearts of ours when left natural they seek nothing but personal gain.
