according to plan

Just ran into this observation in a book I'm reading:

Clearly, a great deal of groundwork had already been done to prepare Hebrews to recognize their Messiah. The sovereign God had laid that groundwork milleniums before by incubating within Hebrew culture scores of redemptive analogies pointing forward to Him. John the Baptist and Jesus made a dramatic impact by explaining who was the
perfect, personal fulfillment of those redemptive analogies. They had, after all, been placed there milleniums earlier to be exploited at the right moment and in this very manner!

The gospel, coming as a message from another world, achieved its first ethnic conquest, not only by the demonstration of miracles, but even more significantly, by dynamic appropriation of Hebrew redemptive analogies. It had been God's chosen strategy for introducing the Christ.

Don Richardson, Peace Child

God's Word is so amazing, and His love in crafting and preserving the redemptive story is so amazing.

When we were at the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit on Saturday, I was reading one of the placards that said that Deuteronomy and Psalms were the two texts that were found in the greatest numbers.

Somehow, even though we read the Torah through during grade school studies with my mom, and even though she presented it as an exciting story of God's covenant and provision, my mind still carries some poison -- encouraged even by things I've heard pastors say -- that says that the first five books of the Bible are often dry or boring.

But looking at the actually handwritten transcription of covenant words from Deuteronomy, I realized once again how important it has been to the Father to preserve the story of His establishing His covenant and displaying His steadfast love to a rebellious people. Maybe this is silly, but it makes me wish that I could've been a scribe and devoted my life to copying those words for others to read.

But He's made provision for that, too!

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.

Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3 (ESV)