God's Presence, Intimidating Blessing

At Saint Matthew, the congregation I serve as pastor, we're spending a year reading the Bible together. This week, we'll be starting on the Old Testament book of Numbers. It's a tough read! As my colleague and seminary classmate, Ken Pollitz, once told me, "You have to bear down pretty hard to get through Numbers." But it has real value and contains the Word of God.

Read what David L. Stubbs has to say about it:

One of the lessons of Numbers is that encountering God and the things of God is no light thing. God desires to bring blessing to his chosen people, to all nations, and to all creation, and central to this blessing is the gift of God's presence. For us sinful mortals, however, the warmth of God's life-giving presence is also a burning fire that tests us and ultimately cleanses us to make us holy. All this, in fact, is blessing.

I like that.