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February 14

Reading 1 - Exodus 24 & 25

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24 v.1-8 This incident demonstrated the way that the people obtained grace under the old covenant, which, we notice here, even so long ago, was written down and could therefore be read out to the people. It is picked up in some detail in Hebrews (9:18-23) to illustrate further the argument that is being made there of the superiority of the new covenant under Jesus. There is also built into today's chapter an exhortation to reading. The people listened and were successfully encouraged to observe all of the words of the law. But this was not just a single reading. There was repetition - a very important learning tool for human beings - Deut.31:11-13, Acts 13:15, Col.4:16. And for our reaction? Consider the bad example of Israel - Jer.7:23-24, and resolve to do otherwise.
Peter Cresswell
25 v.3-8 - Did they have these things with them (from spoiling the Egyptians?) or did they have to embark on a very extensive search of the wilderness to find them? In either case, there was a very basic selflessness required here, as everything material is more precious (to the human way of thinking) in a place where there is not prospect of replacing it. The only way to obtain these items was for people to give them willingly (v.2). Quite a humbling thought.
Peter Cresswell
Chapter 24 - There are only two occasions when Aaron and Hur are mentioned together. On the occasion of the battle against Amalek 17:10 and here. He does not even get a mention at the incident of the golden calf even though he was charged, along with Moses, to take care of the people whilst Moses was in the mount. One wonders why he is not mentioned along with Aaron at the time of the incident of the golden calf.

Chapter 25 - This chapter begins the description of the items that were to be built to constitute the tabernacle. :10 the ark :17 the mercy seat :23 the table for the shewbread :31 the lamp stand. So the instructions start with the central piece in the tabernacle and work their way outward. So the focus is on the purpose for which the tabernacle was to be made - that God was to dwell amongst Israel.
Peter Forbes

ch.24 - This meeting with God provides language for Jesus in the last night of his mortal life.

Exodus
Language
Last Night
blood of the covenant
Matthew 26:26
Commandments that I have
John 13:34
Tarry ye here
Matthew 26:36,38
we come again
Matthew 26:40

25:8 Whilst there is a great amount of detail about the tabernacle the point that Israel needed to reflect on was that God was going to dwell among them - They were, in that sense, the temple and should have been holy. The lesson for us is clear.
Peter Forbes

COME TO ME

Reading through the instructions for making the tabernacle it is interesting to note that God begins giving his instructions at the center of the tabernacle and gradually works outwards.

At the very center is the Ark and the atonement cover - the place that God would meet with his people. In the same way that the Ark, the most precious piece of furniture, was at the center of the tabernacle, so we need to keep our God at the very center of our lives and let his influence spread outwards from us.

The table is the next to be described. It was used to hold the bread of the presence. It held twelve loaves of bread - one for each tribe. Jesus said, "I am the bread of life." (John 6 v 35) He came for us so that if we believe in him we would never be hungry. God has provided Jesus as our bread. And just as there was one loaf of bread for each tribe, so there is enough bread for each of us.

Jesus also said, "I am the light of the world" (John 8 v 12). In the same way as the lampstand gave light to those near God in the tabernacle, so Jesus is our light to show us the way to God.

Access to God, the bread of life and the light of the world are all thing that God supplies for us - things we need to have life. But there is one item of furniture missing - the altar of incense which represents our prayers to our God. It is missing here because we are being taught that God provides for us to come to him, but prayer is what we give to God.

What amazing grace he gives us in opening the way for us to come to him.
Robert Prins
Exodus 24:18 - "And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and got him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights" - During this period of forty days, and the second period when the tables were renewed, it appears that Moses neither ate bread nor drank water. Compare marginal references - Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 9:9. In like manner, Elijah fasted for forty days, when he visited the same place - 1Kings 19:8. They were the two who met our Saviour on the Mount of Transfiguration - Matthew 17:3, the one representing the law, the other representing the Prophets, thus shadowed forth in their own experience Jesus own Fast of Forty days in the wilderness of Judaea - Luke 4:1-13.
Cliff York

Reading 2 - Psalm 78

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v.67-72 - (Continuing, as promised, our 'Zion' theme) - Joseph was singled out specially - he was not the official heir to his father. Ephraim too. But now both are put on one side by God in favour of Judah - the tribe from which David came and later Jesus would come. Here is the start of the royal line - a king chosen (v.70) by God as a man after his own heart. Here is the place where God chose to cause his name to dwell there, as we have just referred to in Deut. above. This place is Zion (v.68) and it is David (v.70) and of course, it is Christ - our rest for ever (Heb.4:11) - the temple that we are to be part of (1Pet.2:5) - the 'home' of our royal priesthood.
Peter Cresswell
v.2-4 - Here we see a basic principle employed by God consistently that he might prove who are those that shall be given His grace. The concept of the parable is not that people might understand, but that people might not understand. Only those who make the effort to overcome and whose hearts become right before God will see the meaning. God knows in advance who those people will be (how can he not know?) but we do not, so we must strive to be amongst those that search and find the truth in Jesus.
Peter Cresswell
In this Psalm we have a parable - :1-2 say it is. So the way that God dealt with Israel provided them with a parable about life. Whilst the actual events took place they became a parable for those who came after. So in looking back at their history Israel would be able to receive instruction to guide their lives.
Peter Forbes
:19 In complaining about the lack of food in the wilderness Israel were doubting God's ability to feed them. David (Psalm 23:5) knew that God could feed him in the wilderness, and He actually did (2 Samuel 17:27-29)
Peter Forbes
TELL IT TO YOUR CHILDREN
The message of this Psalm is very clear. Tell your children of God's faithfulness, his power and his wonders so that they will learn to put their trust in God and obey him. The Psalmist very powerfully illustrates this with lesson after lesson from Israel's history. He tells how God did great things for Israel, brought them through the red sea, led them out of Egypt, delivered them by the plagues that came on Egypt, gave them water and food in the wilderness, drove out nations before them in the land and gave them a land flowing with milk and honey - but no sooner had they learned their lessons than they forgot them. They did not teach the lessons they had learnt to their children - they did not even reinforce what they had learnt for themselves. So what happened was that the next generation fell into the same ways and repeated the same mistakes as the last. This happened time after time until, at the end of the Psalm, David began to break the cycle. Let us also break the cycle of ignorance for the next generation. Tell your children of God'' faithfulness, his power and wonders so that they will learn to trust in God and obey him too.
Robert Prins
Psalm 78:25 - "Man did eat angels' food: he sent them meat to the full" - The margin has "Every one did eat the bread of the Mighty". Manna manufactured by God and distributed on the ground for the Nation to search for and collect early every morning 6 days every week for forty years, represents our own challenge to seek out and ingest the "Bread of the Mighty" for our own age - the Word of God - distributed in every household in the form of our Bibles. How do we view this our own Bread from Heaven? Is it for us, "the Bread of the Mighty Ones?"
 
Psalm 78:49 - "by sending evil angels among them" - Notice that these are not "wicked" angels. They are not celestial angels that oppose God, or Immortal angels who can sin. God CANNOT immortalise wickedness. It is an impossibility! But there are "evil angels" - that is, angels who carry out God's work faithfully, though that work is regarded as "evil" by mankind - Isaiah 45:7; Exodus 12:23.
Cliff York

Reading 3 - Mark 10

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v.1-12. We are living in a society where these verses are made a total mockery. Here is an area where the laws and attitudes of society are at variants with God. Our young people growing up today have an ever-increasing problem trying to match the beliefs that they know to be correct with the attractive views of society. Perhaps it helps to remember what God wanted us to learn from this situation. It was an institution of great antiquity, going right back to Adam and Eve - v.6 - It is ordained of God, and underwritten by Him - v.9. It is part of a picture which is very much part of the most intimate aspects of our lives now - to point forward to the relationship which Christ has with his bride - Eph.5:25-33.
Peter Cresswell

v.1 Jesus and the disciples have passed over Jordan into what is now the Golan Heights. Part of the territory taken by the two and a half tribes.
v.21 Notice that Jesus asks the young man to 'follow me' He does not though the blind man at the end of the chapter, on being healed, did. Whilst the ruler who could 'see' was blind the blind man could 'see'. I believe that the spirit is wishing to stress the contrast for us.
v.33 Another 'unholy alliance' against Jesus The scribes and priests Matthew 2:4 16:21 20:18 21:15 26:3 57 27:41 Mark 8:31 11:18 27 14:1 43 53 15:1 31 Luke 9:22 19:47 20:1 19 22:2 66 23:10
v.36 the words of Jesus to the sons of Zebedee are strikingly like the words to the blind man Mark 10:51 Only the responses are different. They want glory. The man wishes to see. The lessons are clear for us.
Peter Forbes

:2-12 The question, which was designed to tempt Jesus, may well have been a more than simply a trick question. If we think about it we realise that the answer from Scripture is clear. However the leaders were trying to rid themselves of Jesus. We know that John the Baptist had been imprisoned and then beheaded by Herod because he had testified against him about the taking of his brother Philip's wife [Mark 6:18]. Could it be that the leaders thought that in getting Jesus to answer this question they would be able to report him to Herod, thinking that he might suffer the same fate as that great prophet?
Peter Forbes
The question 'is it lawful for a man to put away his wife ' :2 was clearly a question designed to trap Jesus. However it may well have had an origin in the vents of the time for John had reproved Herod (Mark 6:18) for taking his brother's wife.
Peter Forbes
Mark 10 - This chapter explains what it means to "Follow Christ." You will also find two famous Jewish "chestnuts" in this chapter - the question of "re-marriage after a divorce has taken place", and "how does one gain eternal life"? The Jews of Christ's day spent endless hours discussing those two questions, much like many in the Brotherhood tend to do today.
 
Mark 10:11-12 - "committeth adultery against her" - The Grk. word for "against" - 'epi' in the accusative case, is rendered elsewhere in the NT as "with". So the sense of these two verses would then be consistent with God's teaching in the OT. "Whosoever shall put away his/her wife/husband, and marries another, commits (an act of) adultery with her/him."  In other words, the act of re-marriage is an act of "adultery" against God's principles of marriage given in the Garden. And the re-marriage is counted as "a single act" not a "continuous state," for the sin is actually against God, rather than against any former partner - Genesis 39:9; Psalm 51:4. Both those verses make it plain that adultery is primarily a sin against God, though trespass has been wrought against another persons partner. Any new marriage, says Jesus here and in other places, violates God's lofty principle of "one man-one woman" for life, but it is a marriage nonetheless, for it is not possible for two people to be married to each other and committing adultery with each other at the same time. And of course, as with all sin, there may be serious consequences that follow through life, even when the sin has been forgiven.
 
Mark 10:17 - "there came one running" - Was this young man Barnabas, who later became a devout follower of our Lord? His question contains the seeds of the right answer. "Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" Normally a son or daughter has to do very little to inherit the family fortune or whatever as the estate is handed on based upon relationship primarily. A father passes the inheritance on to his children, rather than on to some stranger not known to him normally. Jesus' answer confirms this, for he encourages this young man to think of himself as a "human being" rather than a "human doing." For all this though, the young man left the presence of Jesus sad - Mark 10:22 - the only man recorded in the Bible as doing so.
Cliff York