logos redux

Biblical Horizons finally has an online catalogue here. Check it out. All the goods in one location.

(See Introduction Below)

First, we must not rebel against YHWH.

Rebellion against God. It is the oldest of sins; perhaps the most fundamental sin. Rebellion against God. It was the sin of Adam and Eve, and even before them the sin of Satan. Rebellion against God is, in a real sense the essence of sin.

But we may ask, what is behind it. What is the root of rebellion? Well, I’m not equipped to give a full answer to that question, but I think we make a good start when we realize that it has a great deal to do with not believing God. It is through unbelief that rebellion begins to foment in our hearts and minds. The children of Israel had been miraculously brought out of Egypt through the Red Sea, they had met with YHWH at Sinai. Moses says in Deuteronomy 1 that YHWH had carried them as a man carries his son through the wilderness. God had provided Manna in the desert, and meat beyond what they could eat when the Manna wasn’t enough. They had no reason to distrust YHWH their God. And yet they did. Unbelief and distrust had the day. The people began to say to one another that YHWH was a liar. He had brought them to this land to perish. And of course, as good subtle grumblers always do they pretended that their concern was for the weak and helpless. “Our wives and our little ones will become a prey.” As if YHWH did not know the numbers of the hairs of the heads of their wives and little ones. As if their wives and their little ones were not gifts from the very hand of YHWH there God. Indeed, despite the rebellion of the sons of Israel, as Moses says in Deuteronomy 1, “as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it.” Continue Reading…

In this passage the children of Israel, stand on the threshold of receiving the promised land. YHWH has brought them up out of the land of Egypt and through the Red Sea to His Holy Mountain, where he has made a covenant with them and promised to be with them and to give them a land, driving out their enemies. He has brought them into the wilderness of Paran and now Moses, at the command of YHWH is sending out a delegation of spies from each of the twelve tribes to spy out the land, and to bring back a report. We enter the story as the spies are sent. Continue Reading…