I LOVE EXODUS! Moses is by far my favorite character in the Bible, and I cannot read the exodus story enough times! The logistics of the exodus drive me wild with curiosity!
How did hundreds of thousands of people cross the desert the way they did for forty years?
What would that have looked like? Imagine yourself in a helicopter. That's around six times the population of Yuma. Wouldn't that be a sight to see!
How often were they moving and how often did they stop and set up camp?
And when they stopped, did they have tents filled with their possessions, like you see in movies? That seems like an insurmountable amount of work!
I get excited just thinking about all of those minute details!
Jacob and I started reading Exodus the other day, and it's been a great experience. We are bouncing ideas and questions off each other. It's led to some great discussions!
Let's start from the beginning....
Chapter 1: Israelites Oppressed
Chapter 1 simply introduces us to the situation. Seems like a perfectly fitting place to start right? ;) Joseph has long been dead, and so has the Pharaoh that owed any sort of favor to the Israelites (Jacob's descendant's). As such, the new king has decided that the Israelites are much too numerous and he needs to put them in check. They are put to work as slaves on his building projects and he orders all Israelite boys to be murdered at birth. The midwives of the time are God fearing though and do not kill the boys. The Israelites continue to multiply!
Chapter 2: Birth of Moses
Chapter 1 leads right into the birth of Moses, and his mother's desperate attempt to keep him alive. We all know how it goes down: basket, river, picked up by princess. By verse 11 though, forty years have passed away. Moses sees an Egyptian worker beating a Hebrew. Couple questions:
At this point does Moses know about his heritage?
If so, does he have contact with his biological family?
Anywho, Moses kills the Egyptian. When it gets back to Pharaoh what Moses has done, Moses has to run for his life. He runs right into Midian where he spends the next forty years. He gets married to the priest of Midian's daughter, and has a couple sons.
Chapter 3: Burning Bush and Chapter 4: Signs
Then there's the burning bush! And here is why I love Moses so much...
He has an audience with God. God has chosen him above any other to go to Egypt to set the Israelites free from Pharaoh's captivity. What is Moses' response? It's just about exactly what mine would be!
3:11 "But Moses said to God, "Who am I..."
3:13 "Moses said to God, "Suppose..."
4: 1 "Moses answered, "What if..."
4:13 "But Moses said, "O Lord, please send someone else to do it."
Moses is NOT AT ALL comfortable with this idea. Moses is not confident that God has chosen the correct person. Moses is looking for any excuse to get himself out of this situation. Has this ever been you? You hear God clearly calling you to do something and you are racking your brain for a 'get out of jail free' card?! I have SO been there!
Moses is not a good speaker. Moses is not confident in his ability to convince the Israelites he is there to help them. Moses doesn't know what to say. He just knows that he is the wrong man for the job.
God had a different opinion though. God knew that Moses wasn't 'ready' or 'capable' or 'eloquent' enough to do this task. And that is EXACTLY why God chose him. If Moses were up to the task then he wouldn't need to rely on God. If Moses was well spoken, and sure of himself, then how could God have worked miracles?
It's amazing how much I see myself in Moses. I'm always looking for excuses for what I know God is calling me to do. I always want to feel 'ready' or 'prepared' or 'well versed' before I feel I can move ahead. That is just silly! If I feel ready or confident then I am going to miss out on the power of relying and leaning on God!
That is some powerful stuff! Food for thought.
Chapter 4 ends in a weird way and I have a slew of questions regarding verses 24-26. Get out your Bible and let me know if you have any insight into the situation that occurs in those passages...
My questions relating to 4:24-26:
Is Moses circumcised?
Are the Midianites followers of God?
Why would God kill Moses or his son, depending on the version?
How does Zipporah know what God's going to do?
How does she know circumcision will save Moses or his son?
I don't understand this bit:
ReplyDelete"If Moses were up to the task then he wouldn't need to rely on God"
Why would Moses need to rely on God at all? Wouldn't God, as a loving creator and patriarch, want Moses to reach his full potential as a person and not need his leaning on Him to get through? The way that comes across is God is somewhat needy and absolutely requires our dependency on him, which doesn't allow the statement "God is all loving and all powerful" to be true. If God is all loving, he'd want Moses, and indeed all of us, to be strong, confident beings able to do things, and if he's all powerful he wouldn't require any such thing.
First off, YAY! I'm so glad you asked a question. I like thinking critically about the Bible!
ReplyDeleteI understand your thought process here in regards to God loving us, but the problem is that you are asking why God doesn't love us the way we as humans think He should. God is above our understanding. Would you send your child to die for a bunch of awful strangers? I wouldn't. So right there He is accomplishing His own means in a way that doesn't make sense to us, and we would NEVER have done on our own fruition.
Jacob and I were just discussing why God would choose Moses. All Moses did was balk about the assignment. But if God had gone to someone confident and ready to take on the task, then that person would have been tempted to take matters into his own hands. God was not looking for someone to become a hero on his own. God had a purpose to accomplish and He knew exactly how it was going down.
That's not to say that God never wants us to be successful or confident in our jobs, lives, marriages, etc. but how can God's plans be accomplished if we are always relying on what we can do as humans? God can do so much more, and work in ways we never would have imagined.
Does that answer one of your questions??
Since we are openly discussing it. You are agnostic arn't you? And you did religious studies while at university right? What are your thoughts on God as a whole? I'm interested in what makes you believe or not believe.
"But if God had gone to someone confident and ready to take on the task, then that person would have been tempted to take matters into his own hands. "
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting take on it, i like that interpretation. And yes, it answers the question - i wasn't so much questioning God's love but rather the peculiarity that particular point posed to me.
Yeah I did Theology at university. I guess i'm an open minded sceptic, i have certain faiths and beliefs about spirituality, life after death etc but i don't believe in a deity. Most of my belief in that is about energy. Part of my doubt comes from just learning anything wherever i can, from books, scholars and documentaries and then trying to piece it all together as best I can. One of my courses in particular was about analysing the origin of the Old Testament so i was able to see what bits came from where and the different dates things were added in, and i think as we've come to know more things about geology, geography, environments and so on multiple Bible stories have been answered for me in an explainable way, like if we apply it to the modern day knowledge about tectonic plates and earthquakes for instance. But what i do like about the discussions is that no matter how much knowledge we have and knowing the physical reason for why something happened, it can never disprove that something else (i.e. God) put that in motion. I like that, keeps people on their toes ;-)
Don't know if that really answers the question, it's difficult for me to verbalise because i have so many thought processes on the whole subject - not just in Christianity but religion as a whole - that it's hard to really put into words. Definitely though my learning didn't stop when i left university and i'm as fascinated by it now as i was years ago, i just try to look at it from every angle - how does science fit in? what does the geology of that disaster assigned to God make of that event? does it matter that our acquired knowledge over the years has detracted from things we assigned to God? Can God really make a rock so heavy he can't lift it and what does that mean to his capabilities? (that last one is more in jest, but it's a solid principle i always thought). Why would there be just one God and what does that mean? If there are 6 billion planets in our universe does that make any difference to the stories of religion? Was Nietzsche right when he said that we had killed God as a sociological construct?
Those aren't questions to you by the way, just a snippet of what i may be thinking about on any given day.
I'm sorry I haven't replied! I haven't been on the computer lately thanks to mother duties.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to those overwhelming questions. We can never, as humans, understand the perfect God so I think it's only natural that we constantly wonder about the 'what if's' and the 'why's'.
Just to touch on one of your topics, in regards to science and religion, I don't understand why they have to be at odds all the time. If you believe in God, then it's only logical that God could have used evolution as part of his process. Why all the debate? Why does science have to stand alone with no presence from God? I mean I guess I understand that if you are not a Christian then you won't attribute stuff to God, but who cares if other people do?
Well now I'm just rambling. But those are some of the questions that go through my mind. :)