Musings From A Rolling Eyed Turtle

A pile of rocks to help you remember?  Really! Well, these were big stones, the ones you had to carry on your shoulder.  Perhaps that would make it more memorable.  And there were 12 of them, one for each tribe.  That might help even more in going down memory lane! God had commanded that these stones be set up as a memorial to help Israel remember what He had done.  Here’s how the passage reads: When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.” So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan . Each of you is to take up ...

“Remove your sandals from your feet!” In many Asian and Middle Easter countries, it is considered a mark of respect if guests remove their shoes when they enter someone’s home.  Aside from that mark of respect, removing your shoes before entering a home is an easy and courteous way to keep from tracking in mud and dirt.  This helps keeps the floors clean, especially carpeted areas of the home. In the Bible, Moses and Joshua were both told to remove their sandals: “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Remove your sandals from your feet, because the place where you are standing is holy ground.”  (Ex 3:5)   The commander of the Lord ’s army said to Joshua, “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so. (Josh 5:15) In both cases, they did exactly what they were told to do, they removed their sandals.    And while we can likely eliminate the possibility that i...

“Are you for us or against us?” “Neither!” We seem to have this predisposition to want to know whether people are for us or against us.  If they are for us, meaning they are in agreement with what’s important to us, then we can associate with them.  If they are against us, then we can’t associate with them. In this day and age of polarization, the “for or against us” predisposition seems to be even more prevalent.  Compounding it all, we seem to focus our “for or against us” on single issue items.  Perhaps it’s being for or against abortion or where we fall on gender and sexuality issues or our level of commitment to the environmental or our position on immigration.  But polarization really understates things as positions have become even more extreme and entrenched.  There doesn’t seem to be any room for common courtesy or looking for common ground or trying to understand the positions that we disagree with. So if I am asked if I’m for something ...

In many ways, it’s true that there’s nothing new under the sun! Take the Athenians, for example, and their goings on about two thousand years ago. The Bible says this about them:  “All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.” (Acts 17:21) Sounds a bit like today, doesn’t it.  But, just in case you aren’t convinced, see how other translations describe what they were engaged in and see if it compares to today:   spent their time on nothing else but telling or hearing something new;   spent their spare time talking or hearing about the latest intellectual fads;   looked for opportunities to tell or hear something new and unusual;   always used their time talking about all the newest ideas;   spent their time simply and solely in telling and hearing the latest novelty.   Is it okay to gather w...

A recent news story caught my eye.  It was a story about some auditors who were caught cheating on an ethics exam. The more I thought about it, the more absurd the whole situation seemed to be.  Just think about it, cheating is normally a violation of ethical standards and here the auditors were cheating on the exam that is supposed to measure their knowledge and understanding of ethics!  On top of all that, when auditors do an audit, they are supposed to look for irregularities (cheating) in business and accounting practices.  Since they cheated on the exam, how in the world would they even know what to look for?  Maybe the old expression, “it takes one to know one” applies here! But it also reminded me of how the Word of God describes some absurdities in regard to how some shepherds (leaders of people) were “shepherding” God’s people.  The descriptions reveal negligence at best and absurdities at worse.  Take a look at what these shepherds were...

In journalism, the “Five 'W's” help journalists address fundamental questions that should be answered in a story for the benefit of the reader or viewer.  These “Five W’s” are “Who,” “What,” “When,” “Where,” and “Why.” .     I was recently reading in John 4 about the type of worshippers that God seeks (v23).  While the type of worshippers is a topic for another day, a question came to mind:  if God is seeking worshippers, should worshippers also be seeking God?  To try to answer that, I applied the five “W’s to the phrases “seek the Lord” and “seek Him”: “That the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who bear my name,” says the Lord, who does these things.  (Acts 15:17) The “ who ” seems to be both us (mankind) and God (the One we should seek).   “Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.” (Dan 9:3) The “ what” seems to be that we tur...

Wings are a popular food item these days. There are even restaurants where wings are the featured menu item.  Or, if you prefer to cook your own, one cooking web site has 23 best recipes for wings.  And if that isn’t enough, another site has 30.  But neither come close to one web site that has 160 ways to cook them! As one allergic to chicken, I can’t say that I get excited about any of that.  But, I can say that I do get excited about God’s wings!  Ok, so God probably doesn’t really have wings but He does describe how He cares for us using some word pictures that involve wings.  For example: “He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.”  (Ps 91:4) Birds take their vulnerable hatchlings under their wings to shelter and protect them.  Being u nder God’s wings is a picture of God providing protective refuge, shelter and defense for us.  Then there’s this verse: ...