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- What attributes of God’s character does this passage reveal?
- How does the passage point to Jesus?
- How should the truth of this passage change me?
- How do the events of today’s reading help you better understand the grand narrative of Scripture?
Ex. 7-8
Why did God start by doing small acts and wonders that the Egyptian magicians were able to replicate? I know this did not take Him by surprise, so it must have been deliberate on His part. But why? Perhaps God wasn’t merely working to reveal Himself in this situation. Perhaps He was also working to reveal the depth of the human condition. How great man’s pride grows when he confronts God with defiance! God showed us that such pride leads to destruction. And how easily we are swayed by things that attempt to imitate God. He showed us there is no life in the imitations. God’s snake ate that of the Egyptian magicians, and those magicians evidently could not eliminate the summoned frogs.
It is not enough for us to know who God is. We also need to know our need for Him. If we don’t know our need, how can we seek our solution? More than that, though, I don’t think we can really understand who God is and not know our need for Him. Our need is a part of who He is. Would we know these things if God had simply moved Pharaoh to let His people go? Or if God had gone straight to the death of all the firstborn when Pharaoh resisted? I think maybe not.
Ex. 9
There it is. God told Pharaoh, “For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” (Ex. 9:15). God’s purpose was not simply to save His people. His purpose has always been bigger than that. We saw the same thing when Jesus came. God was not concerned with saving the Jews from Rome, but with something far greater. God’s sole purpose in everything He has done and will do is to make a way for us to be His people and Him to be our God.