Category: OT
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A Time for Every Matter
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven The list that Solomon presents in Ecclesiastes 3 is all normal, everyday human activity. And the things listed here are often taken to be things that we arrange, as if the poem were telling us to make sure we do things…
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Song of Songs
The Song of Songs is both a mystery and a beauty. It is elusive, dancing lightly from image to image, and as such is difficult to get a solid hold of in any sort of narrative-historical or allegorical way. Even so, it has been counted by Jews and Christians throughout history as the height of…
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Salvation Before Law
In Deuteronomy 6, God says, “these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” God is establishing…
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At War Within You
David’s sin with Bathsheba is a prime example of the interconnectedness of whole body of the law. Though David had his own wives, he coveted another woman. He laid his hand on that which was forbidden and took her for himself, knowingly stealing another man’s wife. Of course, this is also adultery, and it leads…
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Deuteronomy 25
Deuteronomy 25 covers a few different stipulations. The first is a prohibition against excessive beating as punishment. The limit is set at forty stripes. This calls to mind the forty days of rain at the flood and the forty years wandering in the wilderness. These were the maximum punishment and an effective cleansing of the…
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Man of Sin
If we look at the law for kings in Deuteronomy 17, it prohibits the king from multiplying horses and chariots, wives, and wealth. This is exactly what Solomon is doing in 1 Kings 10-11. Chapter ten begins by commending his great wisdom, but then steps through his decline—that is, he begins violating the rules for…
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The Many
Man, when treated as a figure in a sum, does not try to go back to his uniqueness and singularity. -Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy This immediately calls to mind the 99 percent movement. Someone stands up and says, look, all you 99 percenters, we are being oppressed by the one percent. They have stuff we deserve! None…
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Brother’s Blood
In chapter three of John’s first letter, he draws a clear line between the righteous and the unrighteous. He lays it out in black and white, not black and shades of black, or white and off-white. Those who practice sinning are of the devil and those who practice righteousness are of God, children of God.…
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Shadow of Things to Come
Deuteronomy 16 covers the three yearly feast times which were required attendance for all Jewish males of fighting age. The Feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread was specifically a memorial of the deliverance from Egypt. The day after the Sabbath after Passover was the Feast of Firstfruits, from which the 50 days were counted to…
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Into the Name
Woven throughout the later chapters of Isaiah is the theme of a new Exodus, a return from the exile of Babylon. Yahweh opens the eyes of the blind, He frees the prisoners from the dungeon and leads them out. He causes His light to go before them, just as He did with the pillar of…