In Stephen’s brief summarizing of Hebrew history in Acts 7, why did he dwell so long on the early life of Moses? Why did he point out the stark difference between how Moses thought his brethren would receive him and how they actually did?

Even back when he was 40 years old, Moses must’ve had at least an inkling that he would be the promised deliverer of Israel, according to Stephen. Unfortunately, there was something very wrong with how he initially tried to go about it. He tried to set the process in motion by killing an Egyptian.

He killed first, and spoke later. This grossly misrepresents a merciful God, who will always, always give a chance to repent before sending His judgment. Forty years later, Moses would come before Pharaoh and then rightly speak God’s command first, “Let My people go!”

In fact, I like the shifty-eyed evil the writer of the book of Exodus puts into his account.

One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. — Exodus 2:11-12

When God saw Moses kill the Egyptian, He must’ve thought, “Is this the attitude I want Moses to have when he leads My people out of Egypt? I think not.” I can’t help but wonder if, by this unwarranted murder of a man God loves no less than any Israelite, Moses may have doomed the Hebrews to yet another forty years of bitter servitude.

No, murder—the killing of wrongdoers without first giving the opportunity to turn from wrongdoing—is not part of God’s plan for leading Israel out of Egypt. To keep Moses from expanding on this wrong course of action, He instead chose to expose it. The scripture does not say how, but the next day it was common knowledge that Moses had killed the Egyptian taskmaster.

The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?”

The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.” — Exodus 2:13-14

From that moment on, Moses was a fugitive, as far away as one can get, in Moses’ own mind, from the deliverer of Israel he once thought he would be.

To be continued

It took me a few days longer than I expected, but I bid on, won, and paid for a replacement Palm IIIxe PDA from eBay just yesterday. For now, I’m still stuck with writing on a clipboard until it comes in.

During my exploration on eBay for the replacement PDA, the thought crossed my mind that maybe I should get a Palm Treo or Blackberry. Is it worth that kind of upsetting of the apple cart to go with a different device?

After all, the Palm IIIxe was great for the job I assigned to it, the gathering of data out in the field and keeping other data available to me out in the field. I tracked my spending with the MyCheckbook program, and tracked my gasoline usage using JMileage. Granted, I had to laboriously copy and paste Web articles into MakeDocJr for porting into the device, a job made obsolete by the Blackberry’s Web and email capabilities. What keeps me from jumping over to the Treo and Blackberry is twofold, the initial cash outlay and the possible loss of MyCheckbook and JMileage. I would need to know if Treo and Blackberry can do those things before I consider changing. I will need to do some research into what apps are available for them.

And the IIIxe had enough memory to hold a copy of the King James Version Holy Bible. That’ll be another tough thing to part with. But then again with Web capabilities I can surf to Bible Gateway. That problem is solved.

One of the things that really bites about having to go to work within minutes of leaving adult Bible study at my church Saturday afternoons is the fact that if I come away from the class zinged by something really profound, like I did yesterday, I have to work 8 to 9 hours, go to bed, get up and go to church the next morning, and then come home before I have any time to take up the subject again.

I’m having one of those “Whoa!” moments where I’ve been exposed to a concept around which I just can’t wrap my mind. I just found out yesterday that God misses us.

He misses us! He wants to be around us again.

Here’s the text I want you to consider, Revelation 21:1-4 (NIV):

¹Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. ²I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ⁴He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Feast your eyes on the word “Now”. At long last! Finally! The long wait is over! God gets to live with us again. That means there’s an immense happiness on God’s part, something that’s going to come through in the way He loves us.

We humans are the best thing God has ever created, more like God than anything else He has created. We’re the only thing created in God’s image, with a collaboration of the entire Trinity. Why else would God say, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground”? (Gen. 1:26, emphasis mine).

And there was nothing God loved to do better than go to earth and hang out with Adam and Eve. He has not had the immense pleasure of doing that ever since the Forbidden Fruit Incident, when the wall of sin rose up between Him and our first parents. He wants beyond all else to hook back up with the human race.

All I’m going to say is watch out! God has spent seven or so long millenia away from His most prized creation, so when New Jerusalem comes down, He’s not going to be able to contain Himself. Prepare to get smothered with hugs and kisses.

That’s the thing I can’t seem to wrap my mind around. Getting God’s arms wrapped around me in a big bear hug. I was expecting something slightly more dignified.