Numbers 27-29: One of the places where the rights of women were recognized, if in a limited way, is in the treatment of the daughters of Zelophehad, who asked, after he died: "Why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan because he had no son?" (27:4) It was not intuitively obvious to him, so he put the case before the LORD, and it was determined that daughters could inherit if they didn't have brothers.
This chapter also has the account of how Moses was to die without seeing the land God had given to the Israelites. Moses showed great concern for the Israelites and asked the LORD to appoint someone to take over, so they would not be "like sheep without a shepherd" (27:17). Interesting! Jesus used that language to describe the people of his day.
And Joshua is appointed. There is a clear plan for succession. Moses is to introduce him in his new role: The LORD says in v. 20: "You shall give him some of your authority, so that all the congregation of the Israelites may obey."
Then, strangely, Ch. 28-29 are concerned with offerings: which, when, why: a sort of refresher course of what has appeared previously in the Torah.
Psalm 49 Interesting joining of the ideas of "wisdom," "meditation," "understanding," "proverb," "riddle," and "music." These are not ideas we naturally think of in our day as part of the psalms. But perhaps when the theme of the psalm is wealth and the human accumulation of riches in an attempt to become secure, well-regarded, to outwit death… it makes more sense. Those are ideas that are a kind of riddle of human existence. The psalmist reminds us that all true security comes from God.
Romans 10 Paul's "heart's desire" is as much for his own brothers in Judaism as it is for the gentiles to whom he had been called.
A very famous and much-loved verse is often lifted out of this larger context: Romans 10:9-10: "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord ["Jesus is Lord" is thought by many scholars to be the earliest credal formation] and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved." Then Paul goes on to say, importantly, there is no distinction between Jew and Greek: the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him.
Whatever else Paul means here, I am pretty sure that you can't boil this down to a sort of promise that all you have to say is the magic password and you have your "get out of hell free card" in the cosmic Monopoly game. This is more a statement about God's consistently gracious and generous character than it is a formula.
I would also encourage people who have a tendency to doubt, especially in our modern/postmodern times, to not get too caught up in the hall of mirrors of asking if they believe "enough" that God raised Jesus from the dead. Many of us have doubts, many of us think that there is no way to prove that the resurrection occurred--even to ourselves, much less to others who doubt. Yet in the sense of trusting, of even staking our lives on the God who has revealed himself in scripture, we do believe. The Greek word for "believe" can just as validly be translated "trust."
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