The family is afraid when they find their money still in
their bags when they arrive at home. They
have not paid for the produce they have taken from Egypt and this man, who
seems a hard man, who suspects them of being spies, has kept their brother
Simeon as a pledge against their bringing the remaining brother back. What will happen on their return now? Jacob cannot bear the thought of losing
another son and refuses to allow them to return with Benjamin, his last
remaining child from Rachel. Reuben, the
eldest, offers to allow Jacob, his father, to kill two of his children if he
fails to keep Benjamin safe. Jacob
trusts none of them. What a mess they
have gotten themselves into. You can be
sure they have gone over the transaction many times in their minds, you can see
them pantomiming the actions of handing over the money and trying to sort out
how it got back into their bags. Something
is definitely wrong here.
Jesus teaches in parables in order that the Holy Spirit
might do the work of bringing light and understanding to the people. Jesus rarely spoon-fed people. A Jewish attitude towards Scripture holds it
dear, precious even, but recognizes there is much not in Scripture that we
would like to know and which is also meaningful. Therefore, there is work to be done to
understand God's Word that requires study and prayer in order to ferret it
out. The reason there is both written
law and oral law is due to that very principle.
The oral law is the attempt to codify understanding of how to apply the
written law. It takes seriously both the
law and the rest of what is actually in the Word and tries to sort out one via
the other. In the parables, we are meant
to meditate on them and understand them on many levels. The kingdom of God is not meant to be hidden
but revealed but how do we either hide or reveal it, the mystery of growth
reveals that God is always active but has also prepared an environment where
things will grow, the mustard seed's size is not important but what is
important is the faith to plant it and trust what it will do. We are to ponder these as both realities and
mysteries.
Paul speaks of great mysteries while at the same time
pointing to concrete realities. The realities
are sexual immorality but also the sexual activities that are proper. Both have also a spiritual effect, the union
of two people becoming one. Sexual
immorality is a sin against the body but does Paul mean that literally or
figuratively? Surely the physical body
is not necessarily harmed in the activity but the body of which he speaks
includes the soul and the entanglement of the soul matters to the body, they
are one. We are not to be dualists,
believing that we are embodied spirits or souls, we are a union of the
two. When he further says our bodies are
temples he takes it up a notch. That temple
isn't only maintaining the body, it includes our hearts and minds. The brothers are dealing with both the
present reality of the money but more than that they are dealing with the past
and the sin that has yet to be exposed.
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