Walk in Wisdom
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These daily devotionals are written to help you remain rooted and grounded in God's Word each day. We have one devotional for each weekday, and one for the weekend.
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Latest Devotional
Laws on Slavery (An Introduction)
Exodus 21:1-2a
“Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. When you buy a Hebrew slave …”
I once had a book in my small library called ‘An Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties’ that I’d occasionally reference when a particularly difficult Scripture sent my mind into a tailspin, and I never encountered a more difficult reality in all the Scriptures than God’s rules here in Exodus 21 for the economy of slavery. For modern readers, the existence of slavery in Israel’s commonwealth is an existential crisis for Christianity. I wish I could just skip over Exodus 21 today and move on to something far more palatable, something like Psalm 23 or Isaiah 11 or John 3:16; but if Moses could draw near to God through the thick darkness of Sinai and come back more luminous, so can we.
Friend, mark this: it wasn’t enlightenment thinkers or American revolutionaries or civil rights leaders who finally put the truth in black and white that all men are created equal. It was Moses, in the opening lines of the first book in the Bible, in Genesis 1:27, who wrote as clear as day—“God created man in His own image—male and female he created them.” So before Renaissances and Reformations and Civil Wars, God already told us our intrinsic, unalienable worth. Yet, it’s taken us as societies thousands of years to wrap our minds around the wondrous idea, to calibrate our politics to the immovable proposition, to frame our constitutions in preservation of the truth. Which brings us to why Exodus 21 is such a difficult conundrum, because how God can so explicitly begin the whole redemptive drama by saying that all men are created equal yet allow for the subjugation of one image-bearing brother to another?
Let me recommend that we follow the examples of Abraham and Jacob and David and Asaph and Habakkuk and wrestle with the Lord for understanding as we go through Exodus 21. Beg Him for the wisdom and comprehension needed, not just for the sake of our own faith, but also for the sake of so many in our world today whose sensitivities might lead them to think of God as a slave-driver rather than the Servant-King He’s always been. -
The Art of Worship
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A Deep Light
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A Word on Honor
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Blessed Rest
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What’s in a Name?
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The Law in Essence
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Further In
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Lead Me to Calvary
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The Gospel Call
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Supreme Court Justice
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An Intervention
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The Tie that Binds
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Coming Around
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Pitching In
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Strong as a Rock
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How Long, O Lord?!
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Treasures in the Dust
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Mark My Word
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Heaven Sent
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In Between
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Meaning, as a Rule
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Fight or Flight
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If the Bones are Good
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Sabbath Psalm 34
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The Power of His Word
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A Song is Rising
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A Wake-Up Call
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Genesis, First-Hand
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Do or Die
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Sabbath Psalm 33
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Face Off
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Not on Auto-Pilot
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Oh the Radiance!
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Unbreakable Bonds
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God is Strong—for Starters
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Sabbath Psalm 32
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Indigenous Saints
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A Traveling Band
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A Blood Bath
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Reserved Seating
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Shadow and Substance
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Sabbath Psalm 31
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Another Genesis
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Wonderful News
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Post Traumatic Sacrifice Disorder
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A Great Glimpse
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Some through the Fire
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Sabbath Psalm 30
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Let There be Light
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A Painful Plea
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Sour Words
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From the Mouths of Babies
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Mustard Seeds
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Sabbath Psalm 29
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At the Heart of the Story
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The Hardened Heart Problem—Continued
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Mid-Life Crisis
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The Fuss—no Feast—of Faith
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Defining Lines
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Sabbath Psalm 28
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Absent-Minded Professors
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Temporary Relief
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So Close
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The Emperor’s New Trick
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Another Lying Serpent
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Sabbath Psalm 27
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Roads Not Taken
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Deep, Deep Waters
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Recharge
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Lost in Translation
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Feeling the Weight
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Sabbath Psalm 26
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Today: A New Testament
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Slipping Up
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Beating on an Open Door
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Says Who?
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Growing Pains
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Sabbath Psalm 25
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Holiness Hurts
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Mountain Climbers
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Playing Dumb
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Shepherding Made Easy?
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A Name to Bear
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Sabbath Psalm 24
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The Reluctant Hero
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The Art of Becoming
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Home at Last
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God Only Knows
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Over the Hill
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Sabbath Psalm 23
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Missing Pieces
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Anti-Hero
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Sealed with a Tear
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Like Father Like Daughter
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Motherhood: an Exhibition
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Sabbath Psalm 22
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An Ode to the Small
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Ignorance or Arrogance?
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A New Dawn