TWW Holy Cows-Holy Places

This lesson has to do with The current nation of Israel and what impact events in and through it might have on the whole world.

If you read the lesson and looked at any of the scriptures, what impact does this lesson have on you?

On how you live?

Holy Cows and Holy Places = More Tensions Between Israelis and Palestinians The Wired Word for the Week of May 26, 2024

In the News

What do Texan red heifers have to do with Al-Aqsa[mosque] and a Jewish temple? That's a question posed by a recent article on the Arab-world news organization Al Jazeera, which describes itself as independent, though funded in part by the Qatari government. The article went on to answer the question, and in that answer lies the reason that longtime readers of the Bible may well be interested. But it also explains another factor in why Palestinians and Israelis have found it so hard to coexist.

Let it first be said, however, many observers believe that the largest single reason for Palestinian animosity toward Israel is something called Nakba -- what is known in English as the Arab-Israeli War of 1947, which ended with Israel declaring its statehood on May 14, 1948, the day after which is recognized by Arabs as Nakba Day, the anniversary of which was observed this month by Palestinians. During that war, more than 700,000 Palestinians lost their homes and were displaced, and an estimated 15,000 killed.

Nakba and Shoah, the Hebrew word for the Holocaust, both mean "catastrophe" in English, and though the number who died during the Nakba is much smaller than those who died in the Shoah, the anger and pain over the loss of homes has never been assuaged. Some Palestinians are said to still carry with them the keys to their homes lost in the Nakba.

While the Nakba itself is not our topic here, it serves as a backdrop to the red heifer news. For a fuller account of the history behind it, see #2 in the "For Further Discussion" section below.

The red heifers are literally five red angus cows that have been imported into Israel from Texas, the gift of an evangelical rancher. (A heifer is a female cow that has never been impregnated.) The animals were acquired by the Temple Institute, a nonprofit organization based in Jerusalem.

The goal of the Temple Institute is to have the Al-Aqsa mosque, which for more than 1,000 years has been on the site where the temple once stood, relocated so that the "Third Temple" can be constructed on the site.

The First Temple was on that site from about 1200 to 586 B.C., when it was destroyed by Babylonian invaders, who marched many of the Jews off into exile. The Second Temple, built by the Jews who had returned from exile, stood from 516 B.C. to A.D. 70, when the Romans destroyed it. The Al-Aqsa mosque was built on that location about 900 years later.

It is doubtful that any Muslim anywhere would support the relocation of the mosque. It surrounds a rock on which, according to tradition, Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son and from which the prophet Muhammad made his miraculous night ascent into heaven. The mosque complex is the third holiest site in Islam.

If the Temple Institute succeeds in their goal, however, one of the red heifers will be sacrificed during an ancient ritual described in Numbers 19 as preparation to remove the mosque in Jerusalem and replace it with a Jewish temple

The ritual described in Numbers 19 was a procedure for Israelites to be purified from corpse contamination and thus be permitted re-enter the camp. In the understanding of that ancient time, contamination occurred through touching or simply from being in the proximity of a dead person. The Israelites considered anyone contaminated by death as an affront to God's life-giving holiness and were thus excluded from contact with others in the community until they had been decontaminated.

But, of course, people did die, and those left behind could not avoid contact with the dead, if only in burial procedures. So the Red Heifer ritual (see the commentary on Numbers 19 below) provided a means for the ridding or exorcism of the corpse contamination so that the individuals who had been defiled by such contact could be purified and thus return to daily living in the community.

As best we can understand, the sacrifice of a red heifer did not need to be repeated very often as the ashes from the procedure were kept and could be mixed with water to sprinkle on the person needing decontamination. Apparently enough ashes were left from the heifer and the other materials that were added to the fire that another such ritual might not be needed for 100 years. In fact, Numbers 19 is the only biblical mention of the ritual, and according to Jewish tradition, only nine red heifers were actually slaughtered in the period extending from Moses to the destruction of the Second Temple.

Where all this intersects with what's happening today between Israelis and Palestinians is that the Temple Institute says that a new temple cannot be built until Al-Aqsa is removed and the compound is purified, along with items and garments for use in the new temple as well as the purification of some men who have been trained for the priesthood and who would serve in the new temple.

While many in Israel consider the Temple Institute to be a fringe group, it apparently has supporters within the current government of Prime Minister Netanyahu and, as an educational organization, has received government grants over the past few decades.

From the Temple Institute website:

The Temple Institute is dedicated to all aspects of the Divine commandment for Israel to build a house for G-d's presence, the Holy Temple, on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. The range of the Institute's involvement with this concept includes education, research, activism, and actual preparation. Our goal is firstly, to restore Temple consciousness and reactivate these "forgotten" commandments. We hope that by doing our part, we can participate in the process that will lead to the Holy Temple becoming a reality once more.

Fish out of water

But we fool ourselves if we think that the state of Judaism today, without the Temple, is normal. On the contrary, we are like fish out of water. If 1/3 of all the Torah's commandments center on the Temple, it would seem that Biblical observance in the Temple's absence is but a skeleton of what G-d had intended it to be.

The major focus of the Institute is its efforts towards the beginning of the actual rebuilding of the Holy Temple. Towards this end, the Institute has begun to restore and construct the sacred vessels for the service of the Holy Temple. These vessels, which G-d commanded Israel to create, can be seen today at our exhibition in Jerusalem's Old City Jewish Quarter. They are made according to the exact specifications of the Bible, and have been constructed from the original source materials, such as gold, copper, silver and wood. These are authentic, accurate vessels, not merely replicas or models. All of these items are fit and ready for use in the service of the Holy Temple. Among the many items featured in the exhibition are musical instruments played by the Levitical choir, the golden crown of the High Priest, and gold and silver vessels used in the incense and sacrificial services. After many years of effort and toil, the Institute has completed the three most important and central vessels of the Divine service: the seven-branched candelabra, or Menorah, made of pure gold; the golden Incense Altar, and the golden Table of the Showbread. Other completed projects include the sacred uniform of the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest. This project was the culmination of years of study and research. The High Priest's Choshen (Breastplate), Ephod and the tzitz have been completed.All these and more can be seen at the Temple Institute Museum.

The Israeli government has granted a Jordanian charitable trust de facto control over the mosque compound. Tours and visits are allowed by non-Muslims under supervision of the trust's Muslim guards.

Many observers say that any attempt by Jews to take over the mosque site will raise the ire not only of Palestinians, but of the Muslim world as a whole. "These are the seeds of conflict and the seeds of the type of fire that could burn the entire Middle East," Palestinian academic Adnan Joulani told Newsweek. "This is the most dangerous plot of land to play with."

Hamas has long listed the fight against "Judaization" of holy sites as an additional reason for wanting to destroy Israel.

Yitshak Mamo, who was instrumental in bringing the heifers to Israel, reflected, "I cannot understand, even if they are right, why they have to slaughter and rape people to win their war.  Terrorists have been attacking us before we ever dreamed of these cows. They don't need them as an excuse to kill."

More on this story can be found at these links:

What These Red Cows From Texas Have to Do With War and Peace in the Middle East. CBS News

What Do Texan Red Heifers Have to Do With Al-Aqsa and a Jewish Temple? Al Jazeera

Holy War: Red Cows, Gaza and the End of the World. Newsweek

Temple Institute Temple Institute. Wikipedia

Applying the News Story

Using this lesson to talk about the red heifer ritual gives us an opportunity to learn about a Bible passage few of us have spent much time on (it's likely some of us have never noticed this passage before). But a larger purpose is to help us think about how our faith in God and trust in Christ are not dependent on any physical site. And a still further purpose is to enhance our understanding of the tense relations between Israelis and Palestinians today and how incendiary provocations come from both sides. Peacemaking in that part of the world is a nightmare task.

Confronting the News With Scripture and Hope Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:

Numbers 19:1-10 Numbers 19:1–10 (LSB) Then Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, 2 “This is the statute of the law which Yahweh has commanded, saying, ‘Speak to the sons of Israel that they take to you a red heifer without blemish, in which is no defect and on which a yoke has never been placed. 3 ‘And you shall give it to Eleazar the priest, and it shall be brought outside the camp and be slaughtered in his presence. 4 ‘Next Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle some of its blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times. 5 ‘Then the heifer shall be burned in his sight; its hide and its flesh and its blood, with its refuse, shall be burned. 6 ‘And the priest shall take cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet material and cast it into the midst of the burning heifer. 7 ‘The priest shall then wash his clothes and bathe his body in water and afterward come into the camp, but the priest shall be unclean until evening. 8 ‘The one who burns it shall also wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water and shall be unclean until evening. 9 ‘Now a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place, and the congregation of the sons of Israel shall keep it as water to remove impurity; it is purification from sin. 10 ‘And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening; and it shall be a perpetual statute to the sons of Israel and to the sojourner who sojourns among them.

Numbers 19:17–22 (LSB) ‘Then for the unclean person they shall take some of the ashes of the burnt purification from sin and flowing water shall be added to them in a vessel. 18 ‘And a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons who were there and on the one who touched the bone or the one slain or the one dying naturally or the grave. 19 ‘Then the clean person shall sprinkle on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day; and on the seventh day he shall purify him from uncleanness, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and shall be clean by evening. 20 ‘But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself from uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly because he has made the sanctuary of Yahweh unclean; the water for impurity has not been splashed on him; he is unclean. 21 ‘So it shall be a perpetual statute for them. And he who sprinkles the water for impurity shall wash his clothes, and he who touches the water for impurity shall be unclean until evening. 22 ‘Furthermore, anything that the unclean person touches shall be unclean; and the person who touches it shall be unclean until evening.’”

Hebrews 9:13–14 (LSB) For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Fire Bible: For purification from sin. Heb 9:13–14 contrasts the blood of Christ with the ashes of the red heifer. For the Israelites, the ashes were a ready means of purification. But NT believers have a much better means. We have the accessible fountain of Christ’s blood in which, by faith and repentance, we may find cleansing “from all sin” (1Jn 1:7). By this cleansing we may draw near to God, receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need (Heb 4:16; 7:25).

As explained in the "In the News" section above, the red heifer ritual was a procedure for Israelites to be purified from corpse contamination (AND purification of uncovered open vessels Numbers 19:15 ) and thus re-enter the camp. It answers the Israelites' question from Numbers 17:12-13: How are they to live in the sphere of divine holiness and not perish?

The central outcome of the ritual was the "water of cleansing," a purifying potion that contained ashes from the sacrificed animal and other materials added to the fire.

The ritual was unlike most others in ancient Israel.

The sacrifice was not on the altar in the tabernacle but outside the camp.

All other sacrificial animals were to be male; this one was to be female but never having done the uniquely female accomplishment of giving birth.

The other sacrifices were regularly repeated; this one is recorded as only having been done nine times.

Only this ceremony stipulates the color of the animal, with the red color possibly related to the color of blood.

And the heifer must never have been yoked, probably to preclude an animal that had been used for non-sacred work, such as plowing.

Paradoxically, all three individuals involved in performing the ritual become impure and thus must undergo separate acts of purification, involving the washing of clothes and bathing before reentering the camp.

Question: How is this Old Testament view of death related to the New Testament view of death? (For help with this, see #1 in the "For Further Discussion" section below.)

Look at #1 Further Discussion

2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction. He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God. (For context, read 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12.)

Most Christians believe Jesus will return, but some have used certain verses in the Bible and seemingly related current events to determine when that return might happen. The verses above are an example. Here Paul talks about Jesus' return but envisions a "rebellion" to come first in which a certain "lawless one" (The Message paraphrase of the Bible calls him "a partner in crime with Satan") "exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship," and takes a seat in God's temple, "declaring himself to be God."

Since the lawless one takes a seat in the temple, some Christians assume that a third temple will have to have been built for him to do so. Thus, some of those Christians support the Temple Institute in their effort to build the Third Temple.

Questions: What misconception about Christ's return do you think Paul was seeking to correct in verses 1-12?

2 Thessalonians 2:1–2 “1 Now we ask you, brothers, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, 2 that you not be quickly shaken in your mind or be alarmed whether by a spirit or a word or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.”

Since the lawless one is not himself called Satan, what forces afoot in the world do you think he represents?

The antiChrist.

Revelation 13:1–8 (LSB) And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore. Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names. 2 And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority. 3 And I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain fatally, and his fatal wound was healed. And the whole earth marveled and followed after the beast. 4 And they worshiped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him?” 5 And there was given to him a mouth speaking great boasts and blasphemies, and authority to act for forty-two months was given to him. 6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle, that is, those who dwell in heaven. 7 And it was also given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him. 8 And all who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.

1 John 2:18–22 (LSB) Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared. From this we know that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they were of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be manifested that they all are not of us. 20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. 21 I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth. 22 Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.

1 John 4:2–3 (LSB) By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.

Revelation 21:22-23 I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. (For context, read Revelation 21:1-27.)

Revelation 21 relates a vision of God's kingdom fully arrived, describing it as a new Jerusalem, a place to which all the faithful people of the earth stream. As John of Patmos has his vision-look around the city, he makes this observation.: "I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb" (the Lamb is a reference to Jesus). It is significant that in the kingdom of God, there is no temple, no "place," needed to symbolize God, because the presence of God so fills the realm that a temple would be superfluous.

While there are those within Judaism who want the temple rebuilt, others have a view not tied to brick and mortar. The late Rabbi Pesach Schindler of Jerusalem put it that "we have all our spiritual centers within us. That is where the temple should be built."  Or, to put it another way, the city of God is a place within, and our ultimate confidence is in the holy Presence in that "place."

Questions: In what ways is Rabbi Schindler's comment about the temple similar to the Christian concept of having the indwelling Spirit of God, or of having Jesus in your heart? In what ways is it different?

From Temple Institute website: Why build the Temple?

Why this fuss over an ancient, seemingly outdated concept? What relationship does the Holy Temple have to our world today? The people of Israel have lived without a Temple for nearly 2,000 years, and seem to be doing fine without one. We don't seem to need it, and G-d certainly doesn't, so why think about rebuilding?

John 4:20 [A Samaritan woman said to Jesus,] "Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you [Jews] say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." (For context, read John 4:1-42.)

This passage is from Jesus asking a Samaritan woman at a well to let him have a drink of water.  The Samaritans were descended from those Israelites who were not taken into captivity after the Assyrian conquest. As a rule, Jews in Jesus' day looked down upon them as being not-really-Jews. Today, there remain just under 1,000 Samaritans in Israel and Samaria (West Bank); all hold Israeli citizenship, with those in Samaria also holding Palestinian citizenship.

The main distinction of Samaritans from the Jews was that the Samaritans considered Mount Gerizim -- rather than the Temple Mount in Jerusalem -- to be the mountain God chose to build his temple. The woman, recognizing that Jesus is a prophet, brings up this divide.

Jesus' answer to her is surprising: "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you [plural] will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem" (v. 21). He further explained that although the Jews worship what they know -- since salvation is from the Jews -- the hour is coming (and has arrived) when "the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him" (v. 23).

In other words, there is no most holy location to worship God; it is the worshipers who are holy to God.

Questions: What does Jesus' response say about holy places of worship? How can places of worship be "holy," and how is this holiness to be understood?

1 Corinthians 3:16–17 (LSB) Do you not know that you are a sanctuary of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? 17 If any man destroys the sanctuary of God, God will destroy him, for the sanctuary of God is holy, and that is what you are.

1 Timothy 3:14–15 (LSB) I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you soon, 15 but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.

1 Peter 2:4–5 (LSB) And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, 5 you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

The Big Questions

1. Does the fact that the ancient Israelites had a temple on the Jerusalem site centuries before the Islamic mosque was constructed give today's Israelis any supportable claim on the compound? Explain your answer.

2. How does battling over a holy site affect the site's holiness? How does the biblical narrative that Jerusalem -- including the Temple Mount -- was captured by King David from the Jebusites, and has been conquered at least 44 times over the millenia, affect your answer?

3. Beyond any physical building, where is the "home" of your faith in God and trust in Christ? What enables that to survive even if your church burns to the ground?

4. If you were a peace negotiator in the Middle East, what -- if anything -- would you want the Temple Institute to do with the red heifers and their goal to build the Third Temple? Why? What would you want the Palestinians to do? Why? What would you want Hamas to do? Why? What would you want the Muslim states to do? Why?

5. What rituals or practices are important to you even if they're considered outside the mainstream of either your Christian faith or of traditional social practices? And why are they important to you?

For Further Discussion

1. Consider these comments from The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. II, on the Red Heifer ritual in Numbers 19: "The ritual of cleansing with the ashes of the red heifer is the most detailed treatment of death in the Old Testament. Upon first reading, the priestly theology of death appears to be far removed from the New Testament, where resurrection from the dead is central. The priestly writers [of Numbers] do not share a belief in resurrection, but their theology of death informs New Testament teaching in a number of ways.             "First, death is defined over against holiness by priestly writers and in New Testament literature. Death is a power that is incompatible with the holiness of God, and thus it defiles. Those infected with corpse contamination are expelled from the camp (Numbers 5:1-4). In the same way, life in Christ and death are incompatible for Christians (Romans 5:12-21).             "Second, the power of death is combated through sacraments of atonement. Those contaminated from contact with the dead must be purified with the water of cleansing from the red heifer in order to re-enter the camp. Christians, too, are purged from the power of death through sacraments. Baptism defeats death (1 Peter 3:18-21), while the eucharist is a messianic feast in the kingdom of God.             "Third, the mediation between holiness and death is a priestly form of leadership. A priest is required to oversee the making of the ashes from the red heifer. In Christian tradition, Jesus becomes the ashes of the red heifer in his role as high priest (Hebrews 9:11-14). The administration of Jesus' cleansing power through sacraments remains a priestly function of ministry. Power in this situation is rooted not in personality, but in formal structures of healing that emerge from the holiness of Jesus. The defeat of death is central to the priestly writers and to the Christian faith. The points of continuity indicate how influential the priestly theology of death is to the formation of Christian theology and liturgy."

2. Here is the fuller story behind Nakba Day. Following the dissolution of the Turkish Ottoman Empire after World War I, the British controlled what was named Palestine under a League of Nations mandate. In late 1947, the United Nations voted to end the British Mandate the following year, with the area to be divided into two countries -- one majority Jewish (56% of area) and one majority Arab (43%) -- plus a Special International Regime around Jerusalem.  (The Jewish area was larger, since it was expected that many surviving European Jews would emigrate to a country where they were not discriminated against.)             Neither Arabs nor Jews were particularly happy about the plan, and the ongoing Arab and Jewish insurrections against the British expanded into a more general civil war. The British mandate ended at midnight May 14/15, 1948, and the state of Israel was established at the Mandate's termination. Subsequently, several Arab states (Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Transjordan) launched simultaneous attacks on Israel.             To make a long story short, the Israelis were somewhat more successful than the Arabs, and Israel signed armistices with the bordering Arab nations from February through July, 1949, with Israel controlling about 78% of the former Mandate. Transjordan annexed what is usually known in the United States as the "West Bank," giving Arabs living there full citizenship and representation in parliament. Egypt occupied the Gaza area and governed it as a military protectorate. About 156,000 Arabs remained in Israel and became Israeli citizens after the war.  During the war, Israel lost about 4,000 soldiers and 2,400 civilians; total Arab losses are not known, but have been estimated to be at least 4,000 and possibly as high as 15,000.             The Syrian pan-Arabic nationalist (and non-Muslim) Constantin Zureiq (or Zurayk) analyzed the Arab initial military defeats and published Ma'na an-Nakba (The Meaning of the Catastrophe) during a ceasefire in mid-1948. The meaning of the term "nakba" has now shifted, and has mainly come to refer to the demographic movement of about 711,000 Arabs from the area of Israel in 1948. In the dominant Arabic narrative, these were expelled or driven out, while in the common Israeli narrative, most of them fled to avoid areas of military activity. It is likely that both narratives are partially correct; some fled, some were expelled and some emigrated to other countries. Similar narratives concern the approximately 10,000 Jews who were displaced by the war.             For comparison, at the end of World War II, there were approximately 11,000,000 displaced persons in Western Europe.  Estimates for displaced persons in Africa today run at about 17,000,000. In the decades after the 1948 war, approximately 900,000 Jews were expelled, fled or emigrated from Muslim countries.

3. Respond to these thoughts from TWW team member Frank Ramirez: "I'm not a big fan of the whole Star Trek thing … but I love the one line from a Star Trek movie where the Enterprise gets hijacked by the prophet of some god because this god needs a starship in order to bring peace and love to the universe. When the crew is taken against their will to meet with this god, they seem to be filled with awe and love, but in the midst of the lovefest, Kirk asks, "What kind of a god needs a spaceship?" Unmasked, the malignant intelligence lashes out but is destroyed by the kind of guy who cheats at the Kobayashi Maru [a training exercise in the Star Trek franchise designed to test the character of Starfleet Academy cadets by placing them in a no-win scenario].             "Seriously, folks, what kind of a God are we worshiping if we think breeding a particular colored cow will change the course of international politics, lead to the removal of a mosque at a site that is holy to our religious cousins, reestablish the temple, and bring the Jubilee. … If we want to bring in the Golden Age it behooves us to live in peace -- lambs, lions, and adders -- with our cousins, the three faiths that share the heritage of Abraham and the idea of a Book."

4. Read these verses -- Proverbs 3:5; Jeremiah 29:11; and 1 Peter 5:6-7. Taking these verses together, we might say that their theme is "let God be God." There are some who view Christians supporting the building of a Third Temple as a step toward Christ's return as an attempt to "force God's hand," which is hardly letting God be God. Of course, since the Lord is God, he will not hurry his plans because of our efforts. And, of course, God can use people to enact his plans as well.             In what ways can we influence the course of history for good? What matters should we not attempt to take out of God's hands? How might the saying "be careful what you wish for" apply to the end times?

Responding to the News

Three faith traditions -- Judaism, Christianity and Islam -- have varying and at times conflicting views on the importance of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. To help you more fully understand the ongoing Arab-Israeli tensions in the Holy Land, this would be a good time to acquaint yourself with these views and decide not only which view you hold but also whether that view contributes to the ongoing lack of peace in the Middle East.

List three things which God has the power to resolve for you and the strategy you have for taking them on or letting go.

Prayer

Lord, dwell in the temple of my heart, that I may do your will more perfectly. Grant the peacemakers in the Middle East wisdom, courage and determination. In Jesus' name. Amen.