ODEC Bible Challenge - Week Six

Hello, I’m Dan Ries and will be your Blog Guy for the next week. I hope you all are having a great adventure on your journey through the Bible.  During my 10 years as a student and then mentor for EfM at Old Donation, my understanding of my relationship with God has grown and been enriched by dialog with other sojourners. In EfM we shared insights, illuminations and issues as part of our study that were all helpful to me in understanding “where Dan is” in his relationship with God.  I will share several that stick in my mind from the recent readings:

1.       Why weren’t Ten Commandments enough? The ordinances and statutes that come after the ten in Exodus and Leviticus seem to focus on minutia and atonement and punishment.  Some seem ridiculous and irrelevant in today’s culture. Then again some of Virginia Beach’s city ordinances seem ridiculous and irrelevant. Are these ordinances and statutes required because we have stiff necks and hard hearts?

2.       Was the gold and silver given to the Israelites by the Egyptians extorted and given under duress? Was this the same gold and silver the golden calf was made from?  How about the Ark, was it made of this Egyptian gold?

3.       Why would Moses and the Levites murder 3,000 people as atonement for Aaron’s sin of making the idol? Idols appear to be the way the people at that time in history interpreted God. The Ark, tent of meeting and all the other stuff designated by God seems to be wasteful and excessive and possibly made from extorted wealth. Could this just be a different form of idolatry?

4.       Jesus seems to be saying to the Pharisees that they have lost sight of the true meaning of the purity of compassion by becoming obsessed with their laws on the purity of their compliance with the letter of the law. Can obsession with compliance become another form of idolatry?

I hope you are being challenged with questions as I am and I hope you will share some of your insights, illuminations and issues with the rest of us.