May I Gently Suggest - iTunes Feed Jon Behrens

God designed humans to exercise dominion over the earth and all its creatures. That design feature also drives people to try and dominate each other, often in inappropriate or harmful ways. What does God have to say about the proper exercise and limits to power relationships between people? It turns out, quite a lot.

Christ rose from the grave on First Fruits and so became the first fruits from the dead. There are a number of other resurrections in Scripture. What makes that one special?

Having failed to follow God's commandments and destroy the inhabitants of the land, Israel would never fully enjoy peace. They intermarried, followed other gods and reaped the consequences. Since they would not know peace, God set them up to study war.

In a private conversation on the Mount of Olives, the disciples ask Y'shua about the signs and timing of His return. Most of His answer is in the negative; listing events that will be disturbing but are not signs of the end. He is careful to emphasize that His coming will not be subtle and that He expects to find His servants doing what He tells them to do.

When God brought Israel out of Egypt, He did not take them directly to the Promised Land. Instead He began a process of teaching the former slaves how to be free. The first stage of the process took 50 days (seven sabbaths plus one day). That pattern is repeated in the Land, but in years instead of days. Every fifty years, Israel was to do a reset, restoring everyone to his patrimony, freeing all slaves and forgiving all debts. This teaches us that liberty is not easy and must periodically be refreshed.

Judges begins with Israel failing to obey God. They were instructed to wipe out the inhabitants of the land yet they took Adoni-bezek captive and humiliated him. This sets the tone for the entire book. Israel was not willing to carry through with the destruction of the Canaanites et al, so they were never to have peace nor were they able to have all the land that God wanted them to possess.