Friday, November 15, 2013

The Bible Challenge: Day 319

The scriptures read are Amos 6, Psalm 112 and Matthew 14.

Amos 6. God condemns the arrogance and self-indulgence of Israel. And they pick on the weak. Peterson's version is really good. Read it here.

Psalm 112. I passed up a crowd-pleaser contemporary Christian song based on the 1st verse of the psalm for this version by Vivaldi. You're welcome.

Matthew 14. Several major events take place in this chapter. Herod, one of Herod the Great's sons, one that he managed not to kill, is tetrarch of Galilee. He is also married to his brother's ex, which was forbidden by Jewish law. John the Baptist speaks up against this and is thrown in jail. Then executed. It sounds a bit like Herod feels guilty. He hears the stories of Jesus and thinks it is a resurrected John. (BTW, birthday celebrations were a pagan thing. Herod kept offending the sensibilities of his Jewish subjects.)

All 4 gospels tell of Jesus feeding the 5000. And since this number doesn't include women and children it could have been twice that many people. It would have been bigger than the population of a typical village in the area. This recalls what Elisha did in 2 Kings 4:42-44 but on a much grander scale.

Likewise, Jesus walking on water is mentioned in all 4 gospels. None of the Old Testament patriarchs or prophets did anything like this. They divided waters and walked on the dry land. Only God is mentioned moving over the face of the waters.  

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