Scripture of the week

This Sunday we’ll be continuing our “Off the Map” series, with a talk by Ashleigh Dunn titled ‘Ducking and diving…..or trusting and going?”. We’ll be looking at the excuses Moses used in his conversation with God at the ‘burning bush’. Our Scripture of the week is Exodus 3v1 – 4v20. It would be good to read the whole of this, but the verses below give the context and what Moses says to God.

As you read this passage you might like to consider the following questions:

• What injustices and cries of others are on your heart? Is God stirring something in you?
• Which excuse do you identify with most? What might God be saying to you?

Exodus 3

1 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight–why the bush does not burn up.”

4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.”

5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey–the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”…

13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”…

Exodus 4

1 Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?”…

10 Moses said to the Lord, “O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”…

13 But Moses said, “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.”

New International Version