The Bible in 7 Minutes a Day

04/11/2024

Segment 1 of 3, weekly episodes DESTINY CALLING

05/11/2022

Jesus said he is the “vine” and we are the
“branches.”
If we arent connected, we die. Its that simple.
How do we stay connected?
There are many ways: Praying, fasting, reading the bible, attending services at church, bible studies
and other gatherings.

The more you do, the better your life will get.

But STOP! God is not a genie in a magic lamp.

He doesn’t exist to give you “three wishes”.
But he IS a loving Father. If you ask, with the right heart, the right spirit, the right motives, its his pleasure to give it to you.

10/25/2020

NUMBERS 11: THE FOWL PLAGUE:
A TRAGICOMEDY

This is a really difficult passage of the Bible to comment on and study for the modern reader.
These passages are favorites for atheist who take great pride in pointing out how ridiculous God is.

At first glance it makes sense what they’re saying. Here’s a God Who orders the stoning death of a man who’s only crime was gathering sticks on the Sabbath.

Then, in the very next breath, he’s talking about blue tassels -as if nothing happened.
This might seem more like the mercurial gods of the Greeks than the God of the Bible who is “the same, yesterday, today, and forever.”

But that’s why you have to go deeper.

The Bible is not a superficial book.

It claims to be the deepest, most hard to understand, most mysterious, most mystical, document in the history of all humanity.

As a matter of fact, it even goes beyond that. For millions of Christians, the Bible is the “living word of God,” -which means that it’s not just words on a page, it’s a portal between heaven and earth, it’s a way in which God speaks individually to individuals concerning their individual situation.

So, understanding this, if you can accept this, and not everybody can, here’s the deal: It’s not easy to see the stoning of some guy just because he was out gathering sticks; to see God Almighty ordering humans to be so cruel to a fellow human.

I will admit that when I reread this a couple hours ago, I cringed. For a moment, my Faith was in question. And now that we’re off track, (Numbers 11) -allow me to explain how to deal, when you have these feelings.

First of all -don’t condemn yourself, don’t panic, don’t freak out. It’s OK! It’s OK to have fears and doubts about our relationship with God. That’s why it’s called a “relationship.”

God is not a machine or monster or AI; God is a loving being with whom we are in a love relationship, if you are a believer in Christ.

So don’t freak out if you come across a passage like this that just utterly disappoints you, shocks you, saddens you, makes you question the fact of God being an “all knowing” “all loving” being.

Second of all don’t be afraid to immediately cry out to God and say “what the heck is going on daddy?” “this is crazy, I dont understand; you how could you do something like this?”

OK, back to the incident where God ordered them to kill the guy gathering sticks.

If you put it in the right context, its actually pretty easy to understand. The context that I want you to think of, is Boot Camp and a drill sergeant. If that doesn’t work for you, maybe use the Kentucky Derby and a prized, million dollar race horse.

What I’m trying to get at here is a level of intensity that is not typical of daily life.

We tend to want to see our God in terms of typical daily living. But God can not be put in a box; He’s not just “typical daily living.”

God’s ways are not our ways, Gods ways are higher than our ways.

And think about it -when someone is in Boot Camp, they are being re-shaped into Warriors. Warriors are set aside humans, not “everyday humans.”

So God was preparing the Israelites as a nation, to take the promised land; they were about to fight fierce enemies.

To use the Kentucky Derby analogy, the race
can be won or lost in a fraction of a second, its an incredibly intense situation with no margin for error.

This is why God could not allow someone to break his Sabbath.

It actually has nothing to do with sticks, or Sabbath, or “work.”

It’s about respect.

If anyone would lose respect for Almighty God, it could undermine and weaken the entire community -because the relationship between Israel and their commander-in-chief, had to be one of complete and total devotion and respect.

When in this situation, there had to be this relationship, or Israel would not be able to win.

10/09/2020

NUMBERS 6:22 - YES, I WANT TO BLESS!

God spoke to Moses: “tell Aaron and his sons,
this is how you are to bless the people of Israel:
Say to them, God BLESS you and KEEP you, God SMILE on you and GIFT you, God know you INTIMATELY and make you PROSPER.

In doing so, they will place my name on the people of Israel, I will confirm it by blessing them. “

(MESSAGE BIBLE)

There is a very famous teacher you’ve probably heard of named Joel Osteen. Millions of Christians and others are offended at his teachings.

They like to point out that all he ever talks about is how “God wants to make you rich.”

But when you read this blessing, you kind of get
the impression that this IS what God wants.

Notice this is GOD speaking; God is telling Moses
to tell Aaron, to tell the people that this is his “will” his desire-for the people, the community of Israel.

This is a KEY scripture, in my opinion. There’s so much speculation and misunderstanding about exactly what God wants for us, as humans.

And so far, up to this point in history, there certainly has been a lot of condemnation for humanity, even genocide, in fact. But here we are, here God pretty much lays it all down; this is what he basically wants for us, his children.

But this is also where we, as Christians, are forced to look ahead about 1300 years, to Jesus.

Why?

Because you’ll notice that God was giving this blessing to his people, his chosen people, the people of Israel.

At that point he had not blessed the entire human race. He had singled out one tribe, or rather a group of 12 tribes, and they were going to be his chosen “ambassador” to humanity, you might say.

The concept of “ambassador” is pretty easy to understand. When an entire nation of millions
of people wants to talk to another nation of millions
of people, everybody can’t talk, so one person is sent to speak for the nation.

That person is then called an “ambassador.”

So the same thing happened with God and humanity: God wanted to speak to the nations,
so he chose an “ambassador nation.”

(Why the Jews are the “chosen people”).

Israel was chosen. One of the first things God
chose to say to humanity, through Moses & Aaron -his Ambassadors, was, “YES I want to BLESS, all of you, all of humanity.”

But if the Jews, the “ambassador nation” were not first blessed, the credibility of God and his ability to bless, is thrown into question. If he did not give Israel, the ambassador nation, the prosperity, the blessing, that he was claiming to desire for all nations, why should anyone believe?

The great rift happened when around 1300 years later, the time came to extend that blessing to every tribe and tongue, around the globe. God was then making clear that his ambassador people, the Jews-who had built their very identity around the exclusive nature of their relationship with God,
-that those blessings, that relationship, was now available to every nation.

Many amongst the “ambassador peoples” were not happy to hear this.

They had grown accustomed to their “Ambassador VIP status special privileges.”

This is part of the reason that the rift appeared between Jesus, who was himself a Jew, part of the “ambassador nation” -and the church that he founded.

And now 2000 years later, we have, amongst us, teachers saying that “it’s not true that God wants us to be blessed.”

And yet here it is -right here in black-and-white- this is Gods will, his basic, fundamental desire:

NUMBERS 6:22

“God BLESS you and keep you, God SMILE on you and GIFT you, God Love you intimately and make you PROSPER” In doing so, God will place his name on his people, God will confirm it by BLESSING them.”

OK now lets look at Jesus’ public ministry: what did he do, primarily? Of course, everyone knows that he healed people, did miracles, fed the multitudes,
taught, died for our sins...he did so much that its not easy to sum it all up.

But whats the “bottom line?” If you could sum it up in just two words, WHAT DID JESUS DO?

He 1. blessed 2. us

How can this not be any more CLEAR?

APOLOGIES to those offended by the photo;
I honestly just saw it as a pretty girl who looks
thrilled about the blessings of God.

09/27/2020

NUMBERS 5-11 Here’s a passage about what happens when a wife is suspected of cheating on her husband.

Until now I have been able to argue in favor of
a kind, compassionate, loving God of the bible.

Sometimes we can even use the argument of “mystery” -that we just don’t and won’t understand a passage or chapter, because of the limitations of the “existential crisis” of being human.

In this case, the only way one can understand what seems like really terrible behavior or action by God is  to look at it like this: Humanity, human culture, human integrity, morals, and values is a very, very , long journey - a process.

It’s interesting that the Torah, according to the Bible, was written in stone.

This is very profound thing-the fact that it was written in stone. Because all of our values and traditions seem to be in such flux as we grow as a species, it seemed important -at a middle point in history, to have something more permanent, to have a permanent,
fixed value.

But that brings us back to this case of what God told Moses to do, when a wife is suspected of cheating.

For the modern reader, it seems decidedly anti-feminist, anti-progressive and archaic.

But, and I want to credit my ex pastor, Hank Fortner
for this teaching,-there is an easy to understand explanation.

It was like a light went off in my head, when I first heard it. So here’s the deal:

Other than the 10 Commandments, nothing is written in stone. Almost all of our values, morals, and traditions are constantly evolving and changing.

As the influence of God and his kingdom spreads around the world, humanities morals and values become more aligned with Gods. But God, as they say, “comes to us where we’re at.” He works with us. If we are toddlers, he doesn’t expect us to compete in the Olympics.

3300 years ago, humanity was morally like a toddler. Had Moses proposed equal rights for women 3300 years ago, he would’ve been stoned to death by the people, seen as a total lunatic.

This is what so many atheists, Bible haters and
God deniers, miss. They’re putting Gods actions
of 3300 years ago, on trial using a contemporary moral framework.

-That’s completely illogical, unjust and unfair in itself which invalidates their accusations.

They, thinking themselves morally sound, are judging God for things he did 3300 years ago.

But God was being loving -in trying to be relatable to a now-ancient people group, instead of imposing values they were not ready for. He was like a good Dad who gets down on his hands and knees, gaw gaw goo gooing to “get down” to a level his toddler would see as a “peer” rather than some huge, impossible to understand being.

09/25/2020

NUMBERS 11:26 - “WOULD THAT ALL WERE PROPHETS.”

This is an incredibly potent, powerful scripture that just jumped out at me from the page.

There are good, sincere, well-meaning Christians in every denomination in my opinion.

I am very close friends with a couple Roman Catholics, a Greek orthodox buddy and many charismatic evangelicals as well.

I’m not trying to make this Bible study into any particular camp. But this scripture is pretty obvious. In a perfect world according to Moses, everyone would prophesy.

Everyone would be a prophet.

But we can’t take this out of context.

We have to look at what just happened.

Moses had just complained to God about the people, who were complaining about the lack of meat. Moses complained that these people were too much of a burden to him and that he was not ready or equipped to be their daddy. (4-6)

God told Moses to gather together 70 men among the leaders. He would then take some of the spirit that was on Moses, or the anointing that was on Moses, and place it on them. (16-17)
So we already see something happening here.

We see an amazing interaction between God and his people. We see actual relationship. Just like the Israelites in Egypt who were under a heavy load, Moses was under a heavy load. Just like the Israelites cried out for Deliverance Moses was crying out for help.

And God answered.

In both cases, he answered.

And not just answered but he did something pretty radical- he was able to put his Spirit upon the people. He empowered them, enabled them, equipped and anointed them, -whatever phrase or word you choose to use, God did it and it’s a pretty mind blowing amazing thing.

God shared his superpowers with people.

And he didn’t just choose one or two people, he decided to give it to a bunch of people.

1300 years later, God would choose to share, the Holy Spirit with anyone who prayerfully asked for it. These are the true superheros, in my opinion.

I’m a big fan of Iron Man, SpiderMan and marvel comics.

But this whole idea of God sharing his powers is so much more incredible and real.

09/24/2020

NUMBERS 11
The people were eating manna in the wilderness.

Manna is an interesting thing.

Apparently they were a little small shiny seed like things that the people could grind and make like a tortilla from. Who knows maybe it was corn?

Regardless, God provided food for them.

Apparently the people were in great health and never got sick. This says a lot about our modern day diet’s. Maybe were just eating too much and that’s what’s making us sick.
They grumbled and complained and reminisced about Egypt -how they ate fish and it was free -and cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.

They demanded meat. Moses had had enough and prayed to God, saying “I’m through with these people; who am I supposed to be -their daddy, their mommy?”

God relented and decided to give them meat.

He also had mercy on Moses, telling him that he would fill a bunch of other people with the same wisdom he had given Moses so he would not have to carry the load of leading all the people, all the time.

09/23/2020

THE BOOK OF NUMBERS

One of the things about the Bible is that it serves many functions. Not only is it a moral guide, which I would argue, is its primary function, but it also serves as an intellectual catalyst.

Sometimes it can really spark your imagination and your thinking. The book of Numbers got me thinking. So I’m going to do a little detour here and instead of teaching from the scripture I’m going to let the scripture inspire my imagination and allow that to take us on a learning journey.

Moses did a census and there were about 2 million Jews during the time of the Exodus.
Now when you consider back then, people had an average of let’s say, 8 kids, -then the population is at least doubling, about every hundred years.

Doing the math, with the population doubling every hundred years, there should be 20 billion Jews alive today.

Considering the holocaust, where 6 million Jews died, that leaves a smaller figure but still -6 million out of 20 billion is less than 0.01% of the larger figure.

And of course, there was disease and wars, there were famines and plagues and locusts. There were deportations to Babylon and lost tribes in captivity.

Adding these numbers, you can certainly subtract millions, tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions of people, of Jews.

But here’s the rub: even subtracting hundreds of millions, you still arrive nowhere near to a 20000,000,000 figure.

Even subtracting let’s say, 500 million people lost to plagues, wars, disease and deportation, you should still have 19.5 Billion Jews.

Even given an astronomical plague like the black death, which killed one of every three people in Europe, you still arrive at a current population of 6.6B Jews!

What’s my point? My point is this:

Something really strange is going on with the repopulation and or depopulation, of earth,
of humanity.

If you just look at it as math, as raw science and data, it does NOT add up. Not even close!

And what about the general population?
We see basically the same phenomenon.
We see basically the world population of humanity hovering around 100 million slowly increasing up to 1 billion around the turn of the 20th century.

Then astoundingly, in my lifetime we’ve seen the population DOUBLE- from about 3.5 to 7 or 8 BILLION.

Obviously there was something here that was keeping human populations relatively stable.
Millennium after Millennium, the earth’s population remained relatively low- in the millions or hundreds of millions, compared to todays, near 8B.

it almost makes me think of seasons; how the earth is designed to heat and cool/heat and cool, in order to keep earth’s temperature relatively constant.

How do we explain this relative stability and consistency of human and more so, of Jewish population over the last few millenniums?

From an article I found:

“The fertility rate was commonly higher than 6 children per woman on average, as we discuss here. A fertility rate of 4 children per woman would imply a doubling of the population size each generation; a rate of 6 children per woman would imply a tripling from one generation to the next.”

But instead, population barely increased:
-Moses 1333 BC, to 1700 AD, the world population grew by only 0.04% annually.

A high number of births without a rapid increase of the population can only be explained by one sad reality: a high share of children died before they could have had children themselves.

So, 75% of children died before they were able to reproduce.

That leaves us with:

Fertility rate of 7 - 8 children, only 25% (2) surviving to reproduce (2) children, which equates to zero growth, or populations remaining stable, constant.

But something happened in the 20th century. There is a lot of speculation about exactly what happened but I’m not sure anyone really knows. Many scientists will cite vaccines as the reason. Yet the data that I’ve seen actually disproves that.

It’s just so odd to me that humanity went along for millenniums, for thousands and tens of thousands of years with stable population growth, then all the sudden, in the 20th century, it literally exploded like the BIG BANG. Many people tend to mistakenly assume the human population has been growing steadily since the start.

But it has not.

The earths population grew from what we assume to be one distant pair, to millions, but then it stayed at that level for thousands of years.

Clearly God has something to do with this and he makes it very clear in the book of numbers. He’s concerned with populations and numbers, thus the title of the book.

I’m not gonna go into the political aspects of the current debate regarding the depopulation, over- population, China, Bill Gates, vaccines.

I think there is some truth on both sides of this debate, however the only thing that is 100% clear
is that God is watching; God is involved, God
is behind the incredible population growth of
the 20th century and he’s not worried about it.

Just to give one quick opinion here without getting too political-anyone who’s ever flown across the Southwest United States and looked down at the ground knows this: -There are millions of acres of empty land in the southwestern and western United States.

The Technology we have today and resources available around the globe as far as food and water and agriculture go, should easily sustain current and higher populations.

The discussion then, should not about NUMBERS but about GOVERNMENT; how to administer the resources and technology that exist around the globe.

09/14/2020

LEVITICUS: BYZANTINE BLING & BAUHAUS

Here is an amazing virtual tour of the Tabernacle in Leviticus.
I love how this design combines minimalism with bling. I love both Bauhaus (The German design school that's core revolutionary idea was "Form follows function.") but I also love Byzantine Bling.
Everything about this is so awesome. While I don't get many of the rules and regulations, the basic premise is: "We as a community have messed up.

As individuals, we have messed up. We have not treated each other right; we have not treated God right. Just saying "no worries, it's OK" is not enough. What can we do to make it right?

THIS is what this tribe did and it's pretty awesome.

This is a Virtual Reality tour of the Biblical Tabernacle. It was an incredibly valuable structure. In today's currency it would probably be worth over $100,...

09/14/2020

LEVITI”CUSSING” 10: LAMBorghinis &
STRANGE FIRE

The reason I say cussing is because there’s some pretty intense stuff going on in this chapter and in the book of Levitcus.

It’s that intensity that is the theme of this book. God wants his people to know that he’s not messing around. He’s not a plaything, he’s not a toy, he’s not a carved idol and he’s not a myth.
He is a real, powerful, all knowing, all seeing force. He’s not the “force” that is with us in Star Wars; He’s a personal God, not an abstract “force” like gravity.

The way I like to look at it is this. I live here in Southern California where freeways are a part of our daily life. There is an obvious, tangible, visible, incredible force going on, on the freeway.

You don’t mess with it.

You don’t stand in the middle of the freeway. You don’t walk in the freeway, or dance in the freeway, because if you do, you’re gonna die; it’s just that simple.

This is how I see the God of Leviticus. He’s making it known to us “Don’t mess with me, because I am incredibly powerful and if you mess with me you’re gonna die.” This is the basis of being a parent. If kids don’t respect the father, there can be no real parenting.

It must start with this obvious relationship between a toddler that weighs a few pounds and a 6’ 3”, 200 pound man. There’s no comparison between these two. There is an inter-dependency, there’s a love, there’s relationship, but on a mental, physical level, there’s just no comparison. If the toddler, or the four-year-old, or the six-year-old, does not understand the difference between themselves and the 6’ 3” 200 pound being, that has lived many, many decades and has the wisdom knowledge and experience behind it, the child or toddler will be in big trouble.

It has to start with respect because respect is based on reality. If the toddler doesn’t have a healthy respect for his father, the toddlers not living in the reality of the fathers power.

But I see another thing going on here that I haven’t heard a lot of people talk about:

What’s going on here is some thing that is completely absent from the pagan nations.

What’s going on is atonement.

What’s going on is, there’s a group of people that are focusing on how they screwed up, and how they can deal with their screwup and how they can get right with each other and with God.

I don’t see the other nations, the pagans, focusing on their own sin, on their own mistakes. I see the Israelites almost obsessively, trying to get right, to be good people, to be honorable people, to make their mistakes right again, to correct their mistakes.

This is an early picture of the people of God and the basics of what it means to follow God. This is a group of people, an isolated group who are obsessed with trying to get things right.

They seem obsessed with cleaning the slate and not living underneath a load of guilt.

Every human being has a conscience.

Every human being screws up, sometimes daily.

But how do we deal with this?

How do we deal with our own guilt and our own shame, the guilt and shame that burdens us?

In Leviticus we see how this group, how this tribe, dealt with their own sin.

Today, Jews no longer follow these practices, and Christians certainly do not either; however, we still have to deal with our sin, and we still have rituals and practices to do so.

Those groups that do not have ways to deal with their own sin, most likely end up in therapy where a therapist is their “priest.”

So what about the strange fire?

It’s hard to say for sure because none of us were there-what kind of attitude Aaron’s sons brought forth strange fire with. Were they pranking God or were they trying to get away with something, or was it just an honest mistake?

The Bible seems to be silent. But we know that, like kids playing on the freeway, whether they were pranking, whether was just an accident or whether they were drunk, they died quick deaths.

One of the most poignant lines in the Bible is where it says that “when Aaron was told about this he was silent.” When can only imagine his grief and at the same time, he knew better than to speak against that same God that had just taken out his two sons.
So what exactly did they do? What was the strange fire? Once again, to use a modern, L.A. freeway analogy, think about it like this: let’s say you had a brand new million dollar Lamborghini that somebody had given you as a Christmas present. You pull up to the gas station and put the cheapest unleaded gas in it. Someone accidentally throws a cigarette and the car blows up and you die in the inferno..

The thing here again is respect.

Somebody just gave you $1 million present. If you don’t have the wisdom or knowledge or respect to put the right gas into this car, you are a total idiot and don’t deserve to have this car.

This is what the strange fire was.

Aaron’s two sons basically tried to put cheap unleaded gas into a Lamborghini.

09/11/2020

LEVITICUS: Holy BBQ!

What the heck is this all about?
-it sounds so strange to us,
to the modern reader.

Why are there all these detailed instructions about taking a cow and ripping its guts out and throwing it on a fire?

And then we were told you could do the same thing with the sheep or goat, then we’re told you could do the same thing with some grain or flour and some incense, some oil then we’re told you could do the same thing with a Dove.

What the heckellujah?

What we have here is the idea of imputation;
or of substitutionary atonement; in laying hands
on animals, worshipers believe that their sins are transferred to the animals...
-which then died in their place.

In modern terms, think of it like this: you murdered somebody because they were sleeping with your wife. Although you feel justified, you still are a murderer. and you deserve the death penalty.
So what if you could simply lay your hands on a cow, transfer your guilt -to the cow, then the cow goes to the electric chair in your place.

This is called “propitiation.”

Burnt offerings were the “propitiatory sacrifices”
of ancient Israel.

For the purposes of God’s justice, He had to punish sin. To forgive at the expense of His just wrath would be inconsistent with His Holiness- -sinners must die (Gen. 2:15–17; Rom. 6:23).

This satisfied the Lord’s wrath; justice was served; God and His people were “one” again or “at-one-meant.” (atonement)

The burnt offering temporarily accomplished propitiation (satisfied God’s wrath) or atonement in the Old Covenant.

09/09/2020

EXODUS 33-38 THE TENT OF MEETING,
TABLETS, DESIGNED FOR WORSHIP,
THE ACACIA ARK, WHOLLY OFFERING &
PRIESTLY STYLE

I am not going to comment on these chapters. I think that everything I said above is something to think about however you may get something different from them. I encourage you to read them all prayerfully.

EXODUS 40: TESTIMONY IN A CHEST ;
JESUS IN A CHRIST.
One of the ways the Bible describes the Ark is as “the testimony.” One of the words, also, -another word that the Bible uses for the ark is “the chest.” It’s one of the most fun things to do for me, to look at modern English words and how they may -or may not, have any relationship with the ancient Hebrew or the original intention of the writers.

This word "chest" is exactly such a word.

If we think of 'The Pirates of the Caribbean," for example, we are reminded of the TREASURE CHEST. Rarely has there been anything with such stunning wealth as those treasure chests apparently had. Whether mythical or real, one thing is for sure-
There was a vast wealth in gold that the Spanish encountered in the Aztec Empire. I have read numbers that seem to suggest that the gold in the Aztec empire was comparable to staggering amounts of wealth as high as $15B.

So, these treasure chests certainly could have held vast fortunes. Once again let’s not forget the lesson we just learned -that God did not put the ark in just any old, minimalist nondescript box. The chest that he gave very specific directions to build, had an incredibly high bling factor. Completely covered in gold sculptures of Angels on top of it, poles covered in hammered gold sheets.
So we can’t exactly say that bling in gold and material wealth is not spiritual. This is a danger and a trap that so many have fallen into.

Yes, Jesus did say “store up your treasures in heaven.”

-And yes we should seek the things of Heaven over gold here on earth, however both are important to God.

Getting back to the word "chest: - I’ve never heard anybody mention this but if you think about it, the ultimate treasure is the human HEART.

We can live without some of our organs, some of the body parts, however, we cannot live without our heart functioning.

The human heart is what God seeks above all things; its the greatest treasure of all, and where does God put it?

In a CHEST.