Yeah I know, it’s an old joke. But right now in the Read the Bible series we are in Exodus 27 and Moses is in the process of receiving the Law as well as instructions for building the tabernacle and everything associated with it. Do Christians need to keep the law and the feasts and do everything in the Old Testament? No. Do Christians need to read the Old Testament? Absolutely, it should be considered a must. You can learn a lot about God reading the Old Testament. Jesus quoted the Old Testament directly nearly 80 times and some scholars believe there are as many as 300 references or allusions. Not everything in the Old Testament points to Jesus but certainly everything about the tabernacle, animal sacrifice, priests, High Priest and entering the Most Holy Place are about Jesus. They help us understand who he is and what he does.

Look past the fact that it’s built on a Sponge Bob template for a moment and consider each passage of scripture presented. Now consider Hebrews 8, especially the first seven verses. After quoting Jeremiah 31 which prophesies a new covenant not like the one God made with the Hebrews when he took them out of Egypt, the chapter concludes with this statement: “In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.” Read the whole chapter, it’s only 13 verses. Consider each of the passage above, written by Luke, John Mark, the Apostle Paul and the unnamed writer of Hebrews. There are other passages we could cite from the Gospels such as Jesus speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well when he says “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.” (John 4:23) He was answering her question about where to worship; Jesus explained that soon she would not worship the Father on this mountain nor the mountain in Jerusalem.

Yet some people will look at every single passage I have shared from the New Testament and say “But God said ‘you will keep this feast forever.'” God said that, to the Israelite in the wilderness, but they never did it. And because Jesus is a better mediator of a better covenant, we never have to. Even in the Old Testament God said in Isaiah 1 “Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.” They were doing all of the things but God wanted them to cease doing evil and learn to do good. Jesus condemned the Pharisees for doing exactly the same things, keeping the letter of the law but neglecting the spirit of the law. Tithing out of your spice rack lets you check a box off your list but letting the widow starve to death in the street is not what God desires for his people to do.

Learn about the righteousness of God by reading the Old Testament. When Jesus said the greatest command was to love the LORD you God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and also to love your neighbor as yourself, he was quoting Leviticus and Deuteronomy. We don’t have to keep the week long Passover but do need to break bread and drink from the cup to remember that Jesus’ body was broken and his blood poured out. That’s how he ushered in a new covenant. Be God’s holy people, a command in both Testaments. In short, love God and love people. You prove the first thing by doing the second thing.

That looks so AI generated it’s not funny. But they are taking orders; I am linking the website. The price is $32.99 USD which is a reduction from $52.99. Let’s talk about that water. I first thought it was honey. It could also be Tennessee whiskey. The descriptions on the site are either AI generated or badly translated into English. I think it’s funny that someone is selling these, if they exist at all. I find it sad that some people will order them. I wonder what they will get for their money. Scammers in some third world nation will get their credit card info, that’s what they’ll get is fraudulent transactions billed to their account.

Speaking of AI, the AI overview summaries provided by Google Search now come with this warning. So if you remember the viral “water will not freeze at 26 degrees F because water freezes at 32” or my search the revealed Clark has never been used to name a tropical storm because letters like Q, U, X, Y and Z are not used to name storms, this blanket statement is issued to take their responses with a grain of salt. Those examples have been fixed by the way but they’re still sketchy. The information presented lacks artificial understanding. The water answer now reads “While the standard freezing point of water is 32°F, water can freeze below that temperature.” The storm answer is worse. There was a tropical storm named after meteorologist Gilbert Clark, Tropical Storm Gil, so it claims yes, a storm has been named Clark. UPDATE: I checked just now to verify and it has changed its tune again. It still cites the Gil Clark event though and says nothing about unused letters of the alphabet. Which goes to show “AI responses may contain errors.”

Mr. T pities the fool that does not love his mother. I didn’t see it until after Mother’s Day but Mr. T is still… whatever they call posting on X. If there is no Twitter I guess it’s not tweeting. Mr. T is a great guy that shares good stuff. Check him out sometime.

I might be the only one – I thought this was funny. The NASB section header calls the first part of Exodus 23 “Various Laws.” They could have just stuck that at the beginning of chapter 21 and not written anymore titles for several chapters. It doesn’t seem as funny now as it did the first time I saw it but I took the screenshot so I’m still sharing it regardless.

Good Guy Brock Bowers – Even after signing a contract with the Las Vegas Raiders, Bowers graduated from the University of Georgia last week with a degree in finance. He has played one season in the NFL and has three left on his contract but he also finished his course work and graduated.

Fun Fact? – Looking at maps may not be your thing and it’s possible you and I don’t have the same kind of fun. The Florida panhandle is in the Central Time Zone, farther west than the rest of Florida. Oregon is on the west coast but the largest city in sparely populated Malheur County, Ontario, gets included in the Mountain Time Zone because of its proximity to Boise, Idaho. So there are a few residents of Florida and Oregon that are only one hour apart from each other, technically, because time zones are funny like that.