Godenomics!

“Take a census of all the men twenty years old and older who are able to go to war…here is the final tabulation: 603,550.” Numbers 1:2-46

Yes I am now headlong into the book of Numbers.  The fourth book in the Bible.  And I have to say that it’s sort of well challenging.  I say challenging because of the amount of information that is recorded in this book.  And there are times that I am not sure what I need to commit all of it to memory.  It’s like sitting in class listening to the professor spill his knowledge to you and wondering what is actually going to be on the test.  That can get a little tiring.  But anyways.  Here are two things that I extracted so far…

1. God conducted a war draft.  I had no idea that God was for the draft.  I not sure politically where that would put God, but it’s kind of interesting.  Does that mean that God is for war?  That is not an answer that I am going to give, not here anyways.  But we see in the first few chapters of Numbers what would seem to be the first ever recorded draft.

Interesting…

On a more less war like note,

2. People who go to a small churches (and I do…thursdays) or maybe have maintained a certain nucleus of people over a long period of time,  often think that the mega churches are all about numbers.  I too have fallen prey to this line of thinking from time to time, (usually when in my faith, I am a little comfortable and a lot complacent ).  Part of this argument, maybe more toward the root of the argument is…jealousy.  There churches have stopped growing, stopped being relevant and therefor to no ones practical dismay have ceased to grow.  And have had to stand by and watch other churches pick up the ball where they dropped it. We can argue all day about whether God would want our churches overflowing with people, and said in that way would seem like a no brainer, but the reality is, God wrote a book all about well…Numbers.

I have heard this said a hundred times, God does care about numbers because every number is a person.  Someones child,mother, father,grandparent or friend.
This rereading of Numbers has helped me to again focus more intently on “the numbers”.  For instance,  Thursdays last night had over a hundred attenders!  That’s amazing!  And I have to think that that God was up in heaven counting, taking a roll call, pulling the misguided, the broken and the weak all together in one room. For a few hours.   To arm up, to wage war against life, and all that comes with it.  To be prepared for battle.

I guess you could say we were part of a draft?