• "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." This is the promise that God makes to Moses. Moses makes God repeat it, because he knows that God's presence means good things for the Israelites. But I wonder if Moses expects a different kind of protection and presence than God has planned? I think Moses sees God's presence as a safety net, instead of a foundation. Do we ever see and treat God's presence that way?
• "you cannot see my face." Wanting to meet "face to face" usually is something we want so that we can be on equal footing with whoever we meet with. God reminds us that we are not exactly on equal footing with God! But still, that we see God, that Moses can be so close with and to God shows that God has a unique relationship with humanity. We can talk to God! Compared with other characteristics of deities that would have been worshipped in Moses' day, our God, this God of Israel, is a different kind of God . . .

Psalm 99:

• "lover of justice, you have established equity" - this is definitely my favorite phrase in this Psalm. God loves justice. And we don't need to wonder what is meant by justice in this case. This is not God-lover-of-justice who loves to punish and condemn. The justice that God loves is the justice that brings equity. That's equal-ness. Fairness for everyone. God tells us what justice means. Let's not try to define it on our own when God already does it for us.
• "you were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrong-doings." An interesting verse. God who is both forgiving and avenging. According to dictionary.com, avenge means "to inflict a punishment or penalty in return for" Can God forgive us and punish us? I'm not sure. I always hesitate to think of or speak of God in terms of punishing us, because I think our theologically can get really out of hand when we go there - we like to point out how God is punishing others who are not like us, or we worry that everything that happens to us that we don't like is due to God's punishment. But does God punish? What do you think?
• "Worship at [God's] holy mountain. For the Lord our God is holy". For the Israelites, the mountain was a holy place to meet God. For us, our sanctuaries are sometimes holy - what other places are those you consider holy places?

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10:

• Words of greeting open this letter from Paul. I've always liked verse 2: "we always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly" - It is nice to know that someone is constantly praying for you, isn't it? Do we remember to pray for one another in our ministry? To lift each other up before God?
• "and you became imitators of us and of the Lord." If someone was to imitate you, could they also say they were imitating Christ? What would it look like for someone to imitate you?
• "in every place you faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it." And this, could someone say this of your faith?

Matthew 22:15-22: