Ex. 33:12, Moses models prayer for us, prayer that is not afraid to hold God to God's promises, prayer that is not afraid to appeal to God's love for God's people, even over and against God's holiness. Moses, through this audacious prayer, succeeds in securing God's promise that God will indeed abide with the Israelites throughout their long wilderness wandering.
Moses, in other words, wins the argument.
But that's not the end of the conversation. There is this other matter about seeing God's glory. The fact that Moses' request is not granted reminds Moses, and us, that God is still God. . He cannot see God fully; he can see only God's back, the "afterglow of the effulgence of His presence," as Robert Alter describes it. Brueggemann claims that Israel is really experiencing a “crisis of presence.” The good news of this passage is that life keeps going after the calf. God stays with God’s people, and God propels them forward on a journey that is to be characterized by faithful obedience. However, that wasn’t readily apparent to Moses or the Israelites. Their temptation was to resort to fear: fear that God would abandon them, and fear that they would cease to exist as a nation.
As their leader, Moses knew that their survival depended on presence: the presence of YHWH and the identity the Israelite community found in YHWH” Moses does affect God. He sounds like Abraham bargaining for Sodom and Gomorrah.We hear different element s of the divine character lifted up here in anticipation of the great announcement in the next chapter.
Ps 99 praise and its difficulty. How little we hear praise of anyone or anything, even God. If we do, it is the numbing repetition of words such as awesome.
Beginning with the last -- the endurance of hope -- the Thessalonians seem to be particularly good at hoping. At the close of the first chapter, Paul asserts that they are waiting for God’s son from heaven. Paul’s well-known discussion about the return of Christ in chapter 4, shows that they have no doubt Jesus will come again; they only need some reassurance about those who have already died without yet seeing him. Finally, they are encouraging each other with the hope of the return of Christ (5:11).
Paul also expresses gratefulness for their labor of love. Paul doesn’t really even need to teach them about loving each other because God has been their teacher. They have heard it and now done it, loving not only one another, but the whole of the family of God throughout Macedonia (4:10). There is always room for more love, but this is an element of their faith, and to Paul, a vitally important one (think 1 Corinthians 13), in which the Thessalonians excel.
The work of faith-Paul gives thanks for their work. He lifts himself and his fellow Christians up as examples of those who worked with diligence even as they were proclaiming the gospel (i thes. 1:1-10 -WPreacher)
Mt. 22:15-22 confronting each of them with an unspoken question hanging in the air: “And you, my friend: Whose image do you bear?”pledging allegiance-We don;t wish to offer much to God; we don't wish to offer much in taxes to the government, but we are willing to offer our adult children in battle. We are willing to lose many to the cult of the gun. We are not given much help in what belongs to Caesar and to God. when do they overlap, if at all? Pledging allegiance- to the flag. Paul sees them pledging allegaince to a new way of life.
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