Yes, there's a gap here. Let's just say that things got a little busier than I intended them to, and all the getting ahead I'd done a couple of weeks before Lent is now gone. So I thought it would be best just to start commenting where someone might actually read tomorrow…
Exodus 37-39
The skill and creativity of the Israelites, especially Oholiab and Bezalel, is offered to the LORD. What would be happening at our church if everyone could be offering to God their skills in an activity that was as absorbing and challenging as the assignment that these two men took on?
Finally, the work of creating the Tabernacle and its appointments is complete. "When Moses saw that they had done all the work just as the LORD had commanded, he blessed them" (39:43).
Psalm 29
The LORD is portrayed in this psalm as the majestic God of the Storm. That is giving him the characteristics of the storm gods of the surrounding cultures. But then universalizing. This is not JUST the Storm God; this is the God who "sits enthroned as king forever" and who is the God of the people of Israel.
Mark 2
Notice how much more compact Mark is than Matthew. With Luke, these first three Gospels are called "synoptic," because they see with one eye. That is, they share many similarities. Sometimes even the phrases are identical. But really what is the most rewarding to discover as we read is how each of these Gospel writers shapes the materials, even the materials that they share, to his own over-arching purposes in telling the story of the Good News of Jesus. Each writer's personality shines through!
What do you think of the charge of blasphemy in 2:7?
Levi is Mark's name for the disciple we also know as Matthew.
Notice how Mark puts "tax collectors and sinners" in a phrase he will use often.
Notice how Mark portrays the tensions between the religious status quo and Jesus' new perspective
in 2:7, 16, 18, 24.
Notice how Jesus calls himself the Son of Man in this Gospel, also. (2:28)
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