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I Charge You By The Gazelles.

                 Let him lead me to the banquet hall, and let his banner over me be love. Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love. His left arm is under my head, and his right arm embraces me. Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires . (Song of Solomon 2:7) The next section of Scripture covered is one that has been controversial. I’ve heard it described as Solomon’s only proper relationship. That doesn’t seem sufficient merit to include it in Scripture, and that is the basis of the debate. God isn’t mentioned, and what is described is a dialogue that is far too intimate for “proper” society. Instead, according to Ellen Davis in Getting Involved With God, what we see is a third comparison of the relationship between God (the King) and man/Israel/The Church (The Shulammite Woman). The first relationship is God,...
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Abraham

                 When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. Then the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him.  For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.” (Genesis 18:16-19) Again, this passage begins a familiar story. The thing God chooses not to hide from Abraham is the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham tries to talk God out of it based on the number of the righteous in the city. What makes it such an important story is that it shows that God doesn’t fall apart when someone respectfully argues with Him. In fact, Abraham might almost b...
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Take Your Son

                 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied.      Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”   Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.    He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” (Genesis 22:1-5) I don’t need to include the whole narrative. If you don’t know what happened, you can go read the rest of the story in Genesis 22. This incident has been described as appalling. B...
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Go From Your Country

                 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation,     and I will bless you; I will make your name great,     and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you,     and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth     will be blessed through you.” So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. In comparison to the drama of the burning bush Moses saw, God called Abram with what might be described as a whisper. Abram’s father had moved th...
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Wrapping Our Minds Around It

                 Then Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, “Let me return to my own people in Egypt to see if any of them are still alive.” Jethro said, “Go, and I wish you well.”   Now the Lord had said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you are dead.” So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and started back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand. The Lord said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, “Let my son go, so he may worship me.” But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.’” (Exodus 4:18-23) The first thing Moses does on returning home is lie to his father-in-law. The...
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No, No, No, No, No, No, No

                 Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?” Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied.   The Lord said, “Throw it on the ground.” Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it.  Then the Lord said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. “This,” said the Lord, “is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.” Then the Lord said, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous—it had become as white as snow. “Now put it back into your cloak,” he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he ...
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Called

                 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” Moses said to Go...
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