Through the Bible in one year - Day 68

Psalm 68:7-8

O God, when you went out before your people,

when you marched through the wilderness, Selah

the earth quaked, the heavens poured down rain,

before God, the One of Sinai,

before God, the God of Israel.

This Psalm brings us to where we left off in our reading from Exodus yesterday. It continues with a telling of many of God’s interventions and blessings and on the nature of God:

Our God is a God of salvation,

and to God, the Lord, belong deliverances from death. (68:20)

Now, picture this: the Israelites have fled on foot, and are camped – without weapons or provisions at the edge of the sea and up comes the Egyptian Army well provisioned, battle hardened, and in chariots and with war horses. What would you do? What did the Israelites do? They said “is it because there are no graves in Egypt you have brought us out to the wilderness to die?” (verse 14:11) Then they tell Moses – it would have been better for us to stay as slaves than to die here in the wilderness-but don’t you see? They thought those were their only options. When in fact God tells Moses to bring them across the sea on dry land and watch as the Egyptian army will be swallowed up by the receding waters. Once this happens the people are amazed – as if in all their wildest dreams they never could have pictured this. Well, I can see that. It was the first time it had happened after all.

Hmm, we were going along in Ezra, as the Temple was being rebuilt, but today work stops – somehow the Persian King decided it wouldn’t be profitable for him to allow this work to continue...what will tomorrow bring here?

These last verses in Romans today are a little tricky. It begins by saying that through sin came death, and that all sin even if they don’t know the law – and even if they don’t know the law they all die. OK, I think I’ve got that – at least I know that everyone dies – whether a ‘good’ person or a ‘bad.’ And this seems to say that all of us our sinners in one form or fashion –even if we don’t know the extent of it. Then there is this last bit:

Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (15:20-21)

What is this about the law increasing sin? It seems that it increases our ability to recognize it – and perhaps amend our ways – and it also goes on to say that with this knowledge comes even more grace – this grace again that we cannot earn but a gift from God for our salvation. This story is not hard to believe as we have been reading God’s saving actions all along in the Old Testament readings. Paul is illustrating with new words, the same God, and this God is not just the God of the Israelites, this is the same God from the Exodus who told the Israelites to bring along the sojourner and graft them in.

Today’s readings: Psalm 68, Exodus 14, Ezra 4, Romans 5:12-21