Tag: obedience to God
The Blessing of Godly Parents
Scripture reading for January 19th: Exodus 1-2
It is a wonderful blessing to have godly parents! Godly parents seek to follow the Lord and are concerned about what God wants rather than what is convenient. Godly parents pass the faith that they possess on to their children and pray for them. God uses godly parents to prepare His children for their part in His saving mission! I know, because I had godly parents and they helped prepare me for my calling as pastor and teacher!
After nearly 400 years had passed in Egypt, the Israelites had multiplied and found themselves in slavery to leadership that had forgotten Joseph and his contribution to the Egyptian’s welfare. Pharaoh ordered the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to kill all male babies and let the female ones live. These women feared God and refused the orders given them. Because of their faith and their bravery, God took care of them by giving them families of their own. (Exodus 1:15-21)
A Levite married a Levite woman and they gave birth to a son. The woman hid her son for three months in order to preserve his life from Pharaoh’s death squads. When she could hide him no longer, she prepared an ark from a papyrus basket. She coated it with tar and pitch, making it waterproof. Then she placed the baby in the basket and carefully placed it in the Nile river near where Pharaoh’s daughter came regularly to bathe. The baby’s older sister watched as Pharaoh’s daughter approached. Noticing the basket, Pharaoh’s daughter had it brought to her. The baby inside touched her heart and Moses’ sister stepped forward, volunteering to get a nurse for the baby. It just so happened that the nurse was the baby’s mother! What “luck” that was!
So in God’s providence, He used godly Levites to raise this child, Moses, and placed one of His own people inside the court of Pharaoh. Moses got to learn the ways of Egypt and yet know his own God through the training of godly parents in this strange relationship. His education and training concerning Egypt were provided by the one’s who would face him as God’s leader a few years later. From his parents, Moses learned the promises of God to deliver His people. Thus, God prepared one of the greatest leaders of the Old Testament for delivering His people!