The Young Family Farm »

Masthead header

Catchin’ up on reading! (One Year Bible Study)

So thankful for Sundays! A day of rest and renewal…and after arriving home last night back from Kentucky…I sure needed it! We were busier than we anticipated being at the conference leaving no time for blogging the One Year Bible Reading. Catching up this beautiful Sunday afternoon though!

Thursday’s Reading: Levitus 25:24-26:46

Leviticus 25 offers hope to the poor and enslaved. Those who have to sell their land will have it returned to them during the Year of Jubilee…and the slave’s family was also offered freedom during that year. This is one of those chapters that can be harder for us to read and understand because of the society differences regarding their laws—for me particularly slavery. However, the Lord even protects the slaves here by offering them protection from being mistreated and hope for freedom.

Leviticus 26 – The Lord will bless those who follow His ways and obey His commands, but will punish those who disobey. Check out how many times the word IF appears in this chapter. It’s one of the shortest but most important words in the English language…and in this chapter it would change everything were it eliminated. In our relationship with the Lord, “if” carries much weight.

Friday’s Reading: Leviticus 27:1-34; Numbers 1:1-54

Leviticus 27 -Redemption of Gifts Offered to the Lord – Worshippers would come and offer gifts to the Lord–but some times they would want to subsitute money for something that was given as a dedication to the Lord—a person, an animal, or a piece of property. Because their were plenty of Levites, it was assumed if you wanted to dedicate your son to the Lord–you would instead give the money that he would be worth–not based on worth as a person but rather on how much work he could have done at the temple.

This chapter ends Leviticus for us and while we would think it would end with words of God’s glory–it ends instead with a reminder to keep the commitments we make to the Lord. Do not forget about the commitments you make to the Lord—be faithful to Him as He has always been faithful to you.

Numbers 1 – The Lord tells Moses to register the people – Israel’s troops. Every man over 20 was registered except for the Levites as they were in charge of the Tabernacle of the Covenant.

Saturday’s Reading: Numbers 2:1-3:51

Numbers 2 – Organization of Israel’s Camp – This chapter lays out the camp organization…reminding me that our God is a god of order and not confusion.

Numbers 3 – This first part of this chapter appoints the Levites for service, the second part registers and counts the Levites and the third part shows how the Levites stand as redemption for the firstborn males of the Israelites. The Levites were set apart for the Lored in their place.

Sunday’s Reading – Numbers 4:1-5:31

Numbers 4 -Duties of the three seperate clans of the Levites are given in this chapter. The Kohathite clan (2,750 men) were responsible for the most holy, sacred objects at the Tabernacle. The Gershonite clan (2,630 men) were in charge of the general service and carrying loads, and the Merarite clan’s (3,200 men)only duty was carrying the actual load. The packing up the Tablernacle is CAREFULLY spelled out for the Kohathites as took down, wrapped and packaged for the moving of the sacred items–and they were instructed to never look at the sacred objects or they would die.

Numbers 5– This chapter starts out stressing the importance of purity in Israel’s camp. Chapters like this bring more power to the stories of the New Testament…like the story of the good Samaritan. You can see why even a priest might walk on the other side of the road and not stop had he focused too much on the purity in Israel’s camp—but the Lord is even compassionate for those who were left behind. And He sent Jesus to redeem them.

And the rest of this chapter…wow. That is all I have to say. I am all for faithfulness—and the Lord definitely lays down how He feels about unfaithfulness here. There is nothing recorded in scripture that this was followed through here…but maybe this was enough to keep unfaithfulness from regularly happening. Although there are some questions with this ritual for dealing with unfaithfulness, let’s not miss the message—faithfulness in marrage is important to God.

YAY!!! Doesn’t it feel SOOOO good when you are doing a reading plan to read through the Bible and you catch up on a sweet Sunday afternoon!!! I’m so excited to share some things this week I absorbed this weekend from the conference. I think though the things I learned most weren’t in the actual conference though but stepping back in the “in betweens”. Can’t wait to share!

AND…if you haven’t heard David Platt preach on his heart for the poor…YOU MUST! I recommend checking out his teaching here: http://www.brookhills.org/media and let those weekly teachings rock your face off. I totally dig his heart for the poor, the world and living radically for the gospel. Loved hearing him preach this weekend at the Adopting for Life conference!

Let us not give up on the reading of God’s Word! If you are trying to read through with us this year and you’ve fallen behind…do that Bible reading marathon to catch up! It’s going to be a great…even RADICAL year reading the gospel and applying it NOW to our life!

SHARE ON FACEBOOK SHARE WITH A FRIEND SUBSCRIBE
Kim - February 28, 2010 - 5:50 pm

Welcome Home. Looking forward to hearing about your lessons from the “in betweens”!
Love & Blessings from Hong Kong,
Kim

Dawn - February 28, 2010 - 6:31 pm

So grateful for friends that are helping me remember to keep up with the scripture! It has been a Blessing in our dark times, and a light to look forward too!

Shannon - February 28, 2010 - 9:41 pm

I just recently started watching the Radical series…you’re not kidding about David Platt! How cool you got to hear him at the conference!! Can’t wait to hear more about the conference!