Numbers 2:2 — What was the configuration of the tribes? Some say it was in the shape of a cross …
Configuration of the Tribes1
While others say it was more of a circle …
Configuration of the Tribes2
Numbers 3:39, 43, 46, 47, and 50 — Throughout history, God has used people of various professions. Even accountants can be used for precise work in God’s service!
Mark 12:12 — Everything works for God’s plan, even fear of the crowds!
Psalm 47 — We see a repetition format of synonymous parallelism:
clap/shout
terrible*/great
people/nations
inheritance/excellency
shout/trumpet
God/King
(no easily discernible parallelism)
reigneth/sitteth
princes/people
*Most people associate terrible with “extremely or distressingly bad,” but it also is “causing or likely to cause terror.” There is a healthy fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom!
Proverbs 10:24 — In contrast to the fear of the Lord, Proverbs warns about the fear of the wicked.
Leviticus 27:15 — Some people dedicate their house to the Lord today, and they invite their church family and the pastor over to pray that their new house can be used for the Lord’s glory. That’s an admirable thing to do. Showing hospitality is often mentioned in the Bible (Isaiah 58:7, 1 Timothy 5:10, Titus 1:8, 1 Peter 4:9), but sanctifying and redeeming your house was a lot more expensive under the Age of Law.
Congratulations on finishing your fourth book of the Bible! Great job and welcome to Numbers!
Numbers 1:2 — A census! We read about the census in Exodus 30:11-16. We can assume that they paid the census tax. So, as you read this list, it seems rather dull, but what is amazing is the precision to detail!
Map of Jerusalem
Mark 11:6 — Often we poke fun at the disciples, but in spite of their failings, sometimes they did obey. And when they did, they saw His plan.
Leviticus 26:1-4 — As a follower of the historical-grammatical method, I want to know what the biblical authors meant when they wrote the text. To do that, I need to understand what their challenges and situations were. Moses is warning the Israelites how they are to behave in the land.
The Israelites are:
Prohibited from making idols
Mandated to keep the sabbaths, and
Promised that God would bless with rain, increase, and fruit.
They had a choice (Joshua 24:15) between Baal and the LORD. Interestingly, Baal was the god of fertility and rain. The Israelites would be tempted to worship Baal for fertile crops, but God would withhold the rains creating a famine until the prophets of Baal were slain (I Kings 18).
Interestingly, Baal’s fertility came in seven-year cycles. But the LORD says if you trust Him with observing the Sabbaths (both the seventh day of rest and the seventh year of rest), He will give you rain, increase, and fruit, so much that “you shall eat your bread to the full.” Not only will they have physical blessing, but “I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people.”
Leviticus 26:14, 18, 21, and 27 — Obedience brings blessing, disobedience brings judgment. As the old hymn goes:
When we walk with the Lord, In the light of His Word, What a glory He sheds on our way; While we do His good will, He abides with us still, And with all who will trust and obey.
Trust and obey, For there’s no other way To be happy in Jesus, But to trust and obey.
Mark 10:34-41 — Jesus unveils His master plan – His trial, death, and resurrection. But His disciples are busy planning where they’re sitting when the Kingdom comes, and they get upset with each other for not asking first.
Mark 10:46 — Another gospel song is based on this verse:
One sat alone beside the highway begging His eyes were blind the light he could not see He clutched his rags and shivered in the shadows Then Jesus came and bade his darkness flee
When Jesus comes the tempter’s power is broken When Jesus comes the tears are wiped away He takes the gloom and fills the life with glory For all is changed when Jesus comes to stay
Psalm 45:6 — This verse is quoted in Hebrews 1:8 as applying to the Son. In verse 2 of this psalm, God is referred to in the 3rd person, while in verse 6 He is referred to in the 2nd person.
Proverbs 10:22 — A great comfort to those who need comfort and provision.
Share how reading through the Bible has been a blessing to you! E-mail us at 2018bible@vcyamerica.org or call and leave a message at 414-885-5370.
Leviticus 24:11 — Reading this verse reminded me of a scene from the movie “Time Changer” … amazing how few Christians are bothered to see the name of the Lord blasphemed.
Leviticus 25:10 — “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” Does this sound familiar? The 1752 Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, contains this phrase around the top of the bell.
Leviticus 25:23 — As we discussed earlier, the land is the Lord’s, and He governs its use.
Two months in! Great work staying faithful in God’s Word!
Leviticus 22:20 — Why the concern about blemishes? 61 times in the Old Testament it talks about blemishes.
35 verses of sacrifices being without blemish in the Pentateuch
5 verses of priests without blemish in Leviticus 21
8 verses on the Millennial Temple sacrifices without blemish in Ezekiel
1 verse in the New Testament explaining (1 Peter 1:19) that Christ was without blemish
1 verse in the New Testament telling (Ephesians 5:27) that the church will be without blemish
Biblical Holidays
Leviticus 23 — Welcome to the festivals! This is the Holiday Calendar, rather the Holy Day Calendar of the Israelite nation! Jimmy DeYoung discusses these feasts:
Each of the feasts has at least a historic and/or prophetic significance. These first three “spring feasts” are related to Israel’s past. The “Passover” is to remember the Exodus from Egypt and the journey to the Promised Land.
The second feast, the “Feast of Unleavened Bread”, is also associated with Passover. For seven days, the Children of Israel were to stop eating the “sourdough bread” to eat “unleavened bread” for the purpose of “separating” the bondage and the journey into the Promised Land. The third feast, the “Feast of First Fruits”, was to be the celebration and thanksgiving of the very first of the “barley harvest”. These thoughts cover the historic aspect of the first three Jewish feast days. These feasts also have a prophetic significance.
The “Passover” was a prophecy of the “Crucifixion” or sacrifice of Jesus. “Unleavened Bread” was to honor the “burial” of Jesus Christ. Then on the first day after the Sabbath, after Unleavened Bread begins, or Sunday, would be the celebration of “First Fruits”, and that pictures the day of the “resurrection” of Jesus.
The historic record indicates that Jesus was indeed crucified on Passover, buried on Unleavened Bread, and did, in fact, resurrect from the dead on First Fruits, thus Jesus fulfilled the first three of the Jewish Feasts, in the proper day sequences.
There are three “Fall Feasts” when Jesus will come back, enter into the Temple, and set up His Kingdom on these three Jewish feast days. In our next devotional from the book of Leviticus, we will look more in depth into these future events, which are foretold in these feasts that God has given the Jewish people.
Leviticus 23:22 — Bible Trivia: Who would be a beneficiary of this Levitical command? The young Moabitess who would fall in love with the owner of the fields she came to glean (Ruth 2:3)!
Mark 9:42 — If Jesus is advocating the death penalty for those who offend the little ones from their faith in Him, what would He say about the secular education systems today? Ray Moore of Exodus Mandate and Jeff Keaton of Renewanation.org are encouraging pastors and church leaders to commit to Christian Education.
Mark 10:11 — Notice how Jesus reproves the fastidious legal observers for their neglect of the importance of marriage. Jesus is teaching about the true meaning of adultery in connection with the Pharisees. Luke 16:14-18 reiterates this teaching.
Psalm 44:1, 4, 5, and 8 — Notice the changes in the verb tense. Testimonies of God’s past actions prompt current faith, and hope in future victory.
“We have heard” – past perfect
“What work thou didst” – past
“Thou art my King” – present
“We will push down” – future
“Praise thy name forever” – eternal
Proverbs 10:19 — Or as our modern proverb says, “Silence is golden.”
Share how reading through the Bible has been a blessing to you! E-mail us at 2018bible@vcyamerica.org or call and leave a message at 414-885-5370.
_____ Image Credit: John Henry/Landmark Bible Baptist
Welcome to the 2024 Bible Reading Challenge, presented by VCY America. Join believers around the world as we together read through the entire Bible in 2024. Many people start a Bible reading plan but get lost in the genealogies, lack an easy to use reading plan, or just need friendly encouragement to keep going. We’ve provided the tools to help you succeed in your 2024 Bible Reading Challenge!
Three easy to use tools (print “daily reading” Bible, online mobile app Bible plan, or a booklet with the passages for each day) to help you track each day in the Word.
Joining our email team – we’ll encourage you each day to stay faithful. We’ll share observations, testimonies, and ways to get the most out of the Bible.
I was researching some figures in Church History and came across James H. Brookes, a Presbyterian minister who led the Niagara Bible Conferences – an interdenominational meeting committed to the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture. From Chapter 12 of his memoirs:
Many and many a time Dr. Brookes has been asked: “How did you obtain
your mastery of the Scriptures?” His answer was to the point: “By studying it.”
His idea of Bible study, however, was very different from that of most men. So familiar was he with the Scriptures, that it has been said in all seriousness by admirers: “If all the Bibles were destroyed, Dr. Brookes could produce one from memory.”
On one occasion, while preaching at a conference in Asbury Park, New Jersey, the editor of a New York semi-religious publication was present. He had heard of Dr. Brookes’ marvellous power of quoting the Scriptures, and he determined to test it.
On a note book, during the sermon, he jotted down every verse quoted. Utterly amazed, the man went to Dr. Brookes after the sermon, and pointed out that he had quoted verbatim, almost a hundred separate Bible texts; giving not only the words, but the chapter and verse.
From his earliest youth Dr. Brookes was a Bible student.
As a child he had been expected to learn and quote much Scripture; and his mother was scrupulously careful that the quotation was faultlessly exact. She held that to misquote in the slightest degree was something almost a sin. It was God’s Word, she said, and must be studied, and repeated exactly, or not at all.
(Alas, how would her soul be torn if she heard some of the wretched misquoting of the Scriptures — where any is quoted at all — in many pulpits, even Presbyterian pulpits, today! A sermon was heard by the writer in a St. Louis Presbyterian church, in 1897, in which the Savior was “quoted” as saying certain words which no man, even with a magnifying glass, can find in any portion of the New Testament.)
The influence of that training was marked throughout Dr. Brookes’ career. The Bible was his vade mecum (a handbook or guide that is kept constantly at hand for consultation). He pored over it. He, so to speak, absorbed it. He knew it, and he knew everything worth knowing that had been written about it.
He kept himself thoroughly posted, too, as to the work of the destructive German critics (and their servile American “Men Fridays”) whose hope of recognition and worldly success, in the former country — and to a growing extent in our own— lies in their power to win notoriety, and gather about them a following.
There have been certain deluded men who have ignorantly implied that Dr. Brookes knew little but the English Bible.
It would not be charitable, though doubtless true, to say that he could have taught them Hebrew, Greek and Latin. But it is only a simple fact to state that he was an expert scholar in ancient languages. While in German and French he laid no claims to a profound study, as in the ancient tongues, yet he could easily read both those languages. He studied the German theological professors’ “sensation”-seeking utterances in the original, something which (let it be said under the rose) it is to be doubted if many of their subservient followers in American seminaries can do, with all their I’m-holier-than-thou air of philologic eruditeness.
This acknowledged champion of the Plain People’s English Bible knew all that they did concerning the Bible in the original [languages], and a great deal more, in numerous instances. Having delved deeply into the roots of words, and the textual study of men and times, he was fully equipped to battle with the destructive Biblical critics in their own camp. He saw through the pretensions of many alleged great textual scholars, and despised their lofty and exclusive assumption of sacred learning….
On blank pages of his Bibles, and on the margins of the printed pages, in small, perfect penmanship, he wrote down with the utmost care the rich results of his life-long labors. Only a photograph can adequately describe those marvellous “notes,” and only the multitudes who “heard him gladly,” and the greater multitudes who have read his books in many languages, know the value of them.
To make himself certain as to the use of any one word, he thought nothing of reading the entire Bible through for that particular purpose. If the word appeared three times that fact he established for himself. He believed in being his own concordance. (It should be added here, that he was urged scores of times to
write a concordance.)
It was often his custom to read the Bible through three or four times during a summer vacation.
When he wished to fortify himself as to any doctrine from the Bible, he, of course, read the Bible through with such especial end in view. The passages were carefully marked.
When he reached the end of Revelations, every text bearing on the topic was at his tongue’s end. He had gone to the court of last resort, and all was settled.
The results of that tremendous labor would then be written down, briefly and beautifully, in a portion of his Bible. Dr. Brookes was constantly urging men
to study first the Bible itself, and then the books about the Bible.
He believed too many preachers, young and old, held the books “about the Bible” to be far too important.
Yet he was a great bookman, and his library was a “thing of beauty.” The four walls of his large study were crowded with theological lore, and to the day of his last illness he kept close watch on new works, and secured all the worthy ones.
Williams, David Riddle. James H. Brookes: A Memoir. St. Louis: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1897.
Date: December 6, 2017 Host: Jim Schneider Listen: MP3 | Order Jim began with a question for Randy: How is our Bible IQ as a nation and as a church are we reading our Bibles?
Randy’s response my sound shocking but it’s true. He indicated that many people aren’t reading anything. A recent study found that one out of four adults haven’t opened up any book in the last year.
Randy quoted the following statistics from Al Mohler:
–Fewer than half of all adults can name the four gospels.
–Many Christians can’t identify more than 2 or 3 of the disciples.
According to data from the Barna Research Group:
–60% of Americans can’t name even 5 of the 10 Commandments.
–82% of Americans believe ‘God helps those who help themselves’ is in the Bible.
–The majority of adults believe the Bible teaches that the most important purpose
in life is taking care of one’s family.
–Over 50% of graduating high school seniors thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were
husband and wife.
–A considerable number of respondents thought the Sermon on the Mount was
preached by Billy Graham.
Obviously this shows a great lack of biblical literacy. This shouldn’t surprise us when you consider that only 45% of those who regularly attend a church read the Bible more than once a week. 1 out of 5 people who attend church regularly never read the Bible at all. And the most scary statistic Randy found? 80% of Americans have never read the Bible through even once.
On the flip side, Back to the Bible’s Center for Bible Engagement did a study of those who read the Bible just 4 days a week. Here’s what they found:
–You’re 57% less likely to get drunk.
–You’re 68% less likely to have sex outside of marriage.
–You’re 61% less likely to engage in pornography.
–You’re 74% less likely to engage in gambling.
–You’re 228% more likely to share your faith with others.
–You’re 231% more likely to disciple others.
–You’re 407% more likely to memorize Scripture.
The key is to have a plan and a way to get started. One way to do that is through the 2018 Bible Reading Challenge that was presented on this edition of Crosstalk. It involves use of The One Year Bible published by Tyndale. This King James Version paperback is divided into 365 portions. Each day (15 minutes per day) you’ll read a portion from the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Psalms and Proverbs.
More Information:
To obtain your KJV paperback edition of The One Year Bible for a donation of just $15 or more (price includes shipping) call 1-800-729-9829 or go to www.2018bible.org
