Old Testament reading: Exodus 16-18
If you haven’t figured it out yet, one of the things I love about reading these Old Testament texts is seeing the New Testament and Jesus in particular. Today’s reading is a “no brainer” in this respect. Exodus 16 tells us about the Lord’s provision of bread and meat for His children in the wilderness. Exodus 17 provides the account of Israel receiving water from a rock. Let us remember that the Old Testament is written for our learning (Rom 15:4) and the things found therein are given to us as examples (1 Cor 10:11). One thing about the manna that I want to mention is the name. Many miss the meaning of the name, thinking manna is a synonym for bread or sustenance. Not so. Of this provision, in Exodus 16:15 we see the children ask, “What is it?” In verse 30, the name Manna is given, meaning, “What is it?” The New Testament picture is obvious; Jesus likened Himself to this manna, calling Himself the bread of God sent down from heaven that gives life to the world (John 6:32-33). In the first epistle to the church at Corinth, Paul spoke of Israel as all eating of the same spiritual food and drinking the same spiritual drink (1 Cor 10:3-4). Both the food and drink are called “spiritual” because they were miraculously given. Continuing with his illustration, Paul writes, “For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.” The people called the bread Manna, because they did not know what it was. Jesus might also be likened to Manna today in the sense that most do not know who He is. We can help them in this respect in our teaching and in our example.
New Testament reading: Luke 6-7
Today we read a shorter rendering of the Sermon on the Mount. By length, Luke’s account is about 1/3 the length of Matthew’s. Although this particular account and context coincides with Matthew’s account (Matt 5-8), we need to understand that Jesus did not preach a new sermon everywhere he went. The truths taught in Matthew 5-7 and Luke 6 were repeated throughout the course of Jesus’ ministry. Moreover, we must remember that the words we find in the biblical record are only a summation of a more extensive discourse (cf Acts 2:40).
Leave a Reply