[Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Wednesday, November 13, 2013

[Poppa Bear]

Thank you brother Paul for being so faithful to continue to send these out. 
God bless your heart and your faithfulness.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul" <oilofgladness47 at gmail.com>
To: <Christians_Today at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2013 10:15 AM
Subject: [Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Wednesday, November 13, 2013


> Hello and good day to all my loyal readers out there in cyberspace, 
> whether or not you comment on what the Lord has given me to post.  I hope 
> and pray that He is speaking to your hearts from what you have been 
> reading since these messages have been started.
>
> "The Significance of Shekem" by Thomas C. Simcox is the short article for 
> today, and I pray that you all will enjoy it.  It is rendered as follows:
>
> In Hebrew _schechem means "shoulder," an apt description of the town's 
> location in the narrow valley between Mt. Gerizim and Mt. Ebal, 
> approximately 40 miles (65 kilometers) north of Jerusalem.
>
> Today the world calls it Nablus, a Palestinian Authority city in the 
> so-called West Bank and destined to become Judenrein, "clean of Jews," in 
> a future Palestinian state.
>
> But Shekem was once a very Jewish city, and it was no accident that, in 
> his farewell to his people, an aged Joshua gathered the Israelites there 
> to beg them to follow God (Josh. 24).
>
> Joshua took Israel back to its roots, physically as well as historically, 
> in a powerful object lesson to reinforce the nation's ties to generations 
> past and all God had done.
>
> Scholars Carl Keil and Franz Delitzsch noted the magnitude of this 
> meeting.  "For this solumn act, he (Joshua) did not choose Shiloh, the 
> site of the national sanctuary, but Shekem, a place which was sanctified 
> as no other was for such a purpose as this by the most sacred 
> reminiscences from the times of the patriarchs."
>
> Why was Shekem so important? Because it was there that Moses, many years 
> earlier, had told the Jewish people:
>
> "This day thou art become the people of the Lord thy God ... These shall 
> stand upon Mount Gerizim to bless the people ... and these shall stand 
> upon Mount Ebal to curse" (Dt. 27:9, 12-13).
>
> Thus, Joshua brought them back to the very spot where God had warned them 
> to obey or be chastened.
>
> Even more important, said Keil and Delitzsch, Shechem was where Abraham 
> received the first promise from God (Gen. 12:6-7) and where Jacob settled 
> after returning from Mesopotamia, "and it was here that he purified his 
> house from the strange gods, burying all their idols under the oak" (Gen. 
> 38:2, 4).
>
> Through Joshua, God brought Israel back to its beginnings.  He recounted 
> Abraham crossing "from the other side of the river (Euphrates)" (Josh. 
> 24:3) hundreds of years earlier and arriving in Canaan.  And as God 
> promised, He multiplied Abraham's seed and gave him a son Isaac.  Later 
> God gave Jacob's brother, Esau, Mt. Seir, "but Jacob and his children went 
> down into Egypt" (v. 4).
>
> Then came Moses and the miraculous Exodus, which Joshua had experienced 
> firsthand.  He reminded them of the unbelievable military victories God 
> gave their forefathers and how God gave them cities they did not build and 
> "vineyards and olive yards which ye planted not" (v. 13).
>
> And it was outside Shechem where the Jewish nation then buried the bones 
> of the patriarch Joseph, within the boundaries of the land God had 
> promised to the children of Israel, "in a plot of ground which Jacob 
> bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for an hundred 
> pieces of silver" (Joshua 24:32).
>
> Today the spot is known in Hebrew as _Kever _Yosef, "Joseph's Tomb." It is 
> a Jewish holy site and yeshiva (Jewish school) that thousands of Jewish 
> people visited each year.
>
> In October 2000 the Palestinians destroyed it, set it on fire, and built a 
> mosque in its place.
>
> Well, what else would you have expected from the Palestinian Authority and 
> its government? And, while we consider what they did reprehensible, may I 
> remind those of us in the U.S. and Canada that our government also 
> systematically looted and desecrated sacred and holy American Indian 
> burial sites and other places sacred to them, so let's not leave our 
> governments off the hook so easily.
>
> I heard recently in a sermon that the site of Shechem was also the place 
> where Jacob's well was located near "the city of Sychar" (John 4) that 
> Jesus went to and had his encounter with the Samaritan woman.  She 
> mentioned that their fathers "worshipped on this mountain," most probably 
> Mount Gerizim.
>
> Beginning tomorrow and continuing through Thanksgiving Day, these Daily 
> Thought messages will be focused on the theme of thanksgiving.  I was 
> simply amazed by the number and quality of articles I found addressing 
> this subject, and I hope you will also.
>
> And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, 
> individually and collectively, in these last days in which we live.  Lord 
> willing, tomorrow we will present another Daily Thought message.  Your 
> Christian friend and brother, Paul
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