Ps. 90
Funny, this prayer of Moses almost seems more relevant for today than for his time! He says that our lives last 70 or 80 years – this from a man who was 80 before he started his 40-year wilderness adventure with the Israelites! He also says, “For all our days pass away under your wrath” and, “Return, O LORD! How long?” Why would he say “return” to a God who was dwelling among them, right there in the center of their camp? But, boy does is seem like our short lives are passing away under the wrath of God, and how we long for Him to return to us! Yes, teach me to number my days, Lord, that I might live my life in your wisdom, that your favor might be upon me in all the work that you have given my hands to do!
Lev. 1-2
“You shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt.” (Lev 2:13) This seemed a strange detail to me, so I poked around in it a bit. There are some very interesting extrapolations of the purity, preservation, and precious properties of salt and both the practical and symbolic applications of those properties to a sacrifice of worship (which the grain offering was). Here is a link to a short devotional, if you are interested, that talks about this and applies it to daily living: https://enduringword.com/seasoned-with-salt/
But the most basic interpretation I found is that salt (presumably because of the aforementioned properties) was often used to ‘seal’ a binding contract (covenant) in Bible times. Thus, the use of salt in this worship offering was a sign that the worshipper was in agreement with the Lord and had every intention of upholding God’s covenants. It is symbolic, I suppose, of worshipping God with a pure and committed heart rather than just in practice.
Mark 5:1-20
Well, now – for all the times Jesus tells demons and people He healed to not say a word, here He is telling this particular man to leave Him and go and spread the word! What gives? What is different about this particular man? It seems to me that this is the first “evangelist”, if you will, in the Bible – the first one Jesus sends to spread the good news of Jesus Christ, even before He sends out His own disciples. Just speculating in my own mind on this, as to what is different in this situation, perhaps it is because the people of the region begged Jesus to leave. So since Jesus could not be there to teach them, He left this man, whom He saved, as a seed in His place. And, thinking about it a little more, I notice that this man witnessed in “the Decapolis” and note that there was a large herd of pigs there, and so it occurs to me that this region is actually Greek, not Hebrew. Since Jesus came for the Jews and not the Greeks, this may explain why he sent this man to witness in this region. What Jesus was doing coming to the region in the first place is a whole ‘nuther question, as is how any of this applies directly to my daily life in Christ. But it is interesting, no less.