January 31 elevate review

For those of you who were unable to join us and or those of you who would like to catch up with anything you might have missed At the Last Elevate let me review.

We began a narrative review of the book of Exodus.
In the realm of background we saw that Joseph had provided a rich land for the descendents of Abraham to live on. And God provided a rich opportunity to grow in number.
This growing in number meant multiple births, basically zero infant mortality rate, and quick deliveries. Because of the growing number of workers and the rich land they lived on the Hebrews were able to produce much of what Egypt needed to live on. This supply and demand proved to be a wonderful and seductive combination for everyone involved. The Hebrews were the producers Egyptians were the consumers and everyone seemed to be getting along.
It was noted that when Joseph died he wanted to be brought back to the promised land when the Hebrews left Egypt. He seemed to recognize that with his passing the Hebrews should also look to be leaving and going back to where God had originally directed Abraham to live.
We noted how easy it is to forget what God has called us to do when our lives seem to be going so well somewhere else. And although God was blessing the Hebrews with many children, good land, and a strong sense of community he was doing it to fulfill his promise to Abraham to make of him a great nation, God was also doing it as a public testimony to all the idol worshipers in Egypt as to his power and life giving personality.
When Pharaoh noted that the Hebrews "filled the land" and was not that they had over popularized the area that they live it was because the Hebrews basically ran, or grew everything the Egyptians needed to survive. The Pharaoh and his advisers recognized that if the Hebrews ever left the country(which I'm sure they had heard the Hebrews mentioned) and went back to their promised land, or if they joined with another nation and attacked, then everything the pharaoh knew and loved would be destroy.
Their plan was to enslave the Hebrews thereby forcing them to live and serve forever in the land of Egypt. Egypt was not under attack and by all accounts seem to be living in prosperity. The way they began to enslave the Hebrews involved regulation, taxation, supervision, and work hour requirements.from their they moved into out right big dictatorship, and slave masters.
We explored the concept that this did not happen overnight and that somewhere in Hebrews had to start making choices to continue to stay in Egypt, or give up their home, country, and community that they had grown up in. Hebrews chose to stay in the land of the enslaved rather than leave.
God continued despite the incredible oppression to bless the Hebrews with multiple children, easy childbirth, and virtually no infant mortality.
the pharaoh recognizing this continued blessing of God decided to order the midwives to kill the Hebrew male babies as they were coming out about the womb. This order was given to the directors of the midwives and clearly expected to be obeyed without question. The midwives did not obey and probably over the course of a year the pharaoh figured out that there were an awful lot of Hebrew male babies still in his country.
The pharaoh then gave in order that all of Egypt to throw Hebrew male babies into the Nile River.
We gave the assumption that this probably was tied into some form of idol worship so that the Egyptians would feel like murderers but rather corporate worshipers of the God of the Nile and of course their god Pharaoh.

Some of the concepts we left out for discussion.
living by one of two philosophies....fear and scarcity, as exampled by Pharaoh during a time of peace and prosperity he feared the potential of loss and destruction.
.....peace and abundance as example by God continue to provide abundantly with children for his people, and bless those who obeyed his principles.
What enslaves us.
Do we hold on to blessings from God, until we become enslaved by them.

We look forward to continuing this narrative journey on February 14