Mid-Exodus
I love and adore the Song of Moses and Miriam! Although it is violent and bloody...I suppose that's because I love the song that, in my mind, "goes with" it. So very much of the scripture I know comes to me through music - specifically the music of The Community of Celebration and The Fisherfolk, with whom and with which I grew up.Very interesting about the worthless magicians of the Pharoah. Every time Moses and Aaron would bring down a plague, the magicians would try to match it. Duhhhh! Wouldn't it have been more productive and more impressive for them to have counteracted each plague (as they were able? Like, to get rid of the locusts...or have them chase Moses & Aaron. Guess the point was that they had some occult power but not very much.
I don't think I ever realized that, after the 10 Commandments, God gave a tremendous lot of OTHER, very specific instructions! Presumably these were part of the Law that got stored in the Ark.
So, why don't we read those parts in church? (or in my church anyway?) The Decalogue is a big deal, but we never go over the parts that talk about what to do with your slaves or how to punish someone who digs a pit and doesn't cover it up properly and an animal falls into it, and and and...
Exceptionally puzzling!
And those descriptions of the Ark...wow. I'm so lost as to how that all turned out.
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Well, I'm chugging along, and I'm now in Exodus. There is, of course, stuff I don't understand, but there is also much I love about this book...Moses and his inferiority complex...Aaron who comes alongside to help...The victorious exodus...The wonderful song of Miriam. I spent most of my day off reading, and still not caught up. :-) Ack!
The short answer to the question of why we don't spend a lot of time on the ritual law in the lectionary is that Christians are not bound by its rules.
I think it's important to understand them in terms of the way that the Hebrews used them to distinguish themselves from their pagan neighbors and emphasize their self-perception as a people set apart, a people with a special relationship to God.
Makes sense to me...I am VERY glad to no longer be "under law." Yay for the Book of Romans. :-)
I keep reminding myself that these were people on the move - dismantling and reassembling the tent of meeting again and again. It's just as well cos of all the blood ! But can you imagine how hard it all must have been?
Thanks, LutheranChik! That's right. And as I plod through this, I do keep remembering gratefully that at least we don't have to comply with all this nowadays...as we are saved by the grace of Jesus Christ!
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