Many of us know people who have married someone of another race or faith, or both. Sometimes it works well, but often there is friction. Even people with the same beliefs and customs disagree and have an occasional dispute. Every added complication gives another opportunity for the enemy to intervene.

The book of Leviticus includes lots of details concerning the laws God gave to Moses, and which Moses recounted to the Israelites. There must have been much heart searching after listening to the long lists of do-nots! The point was that The Lord was looking for a Holy People.

Read Romans 7 today. Imagine yourself sitting in that place where Paul was teaching. Would you be nodding in agreement, feeling guilty at some of the things, or wishing you could listen again to the message? Think about what it means to bear fruit for life, rather than for death.

The reason given for honouring our parents is that we will then have a long life! Who is there among us who does not want to have a long, happy and healthy life? Sadly there are people in our world who do not have a relationship with their earthly parents.

In our verse for today Joshua is sending the tribes of Gad, Reuben and Manasseh back to their families who had been settled on the east side of the river. These verses are included in his parting words to them which finish with a reminder of what God had commanded.

We must remember that Jesus came to earth about 1500 years after God had given the commandments to Moses. But here we have some Jews still strictly observing the Sabbath. As many of them do today. Our family have been blessed to have some strict Jews in our extended family.

The version of this story in Matthew gives us no response from the Pharisee after Jesus answered the question which the teacher of the law had come to ask. But Mark wanted us to know the Pharisee had truly understood what Jesus meant. This gospel writer gave us his response.

This man was used to teaching the law to others and was looking for praise or at least encouragement from this strange travelling preacher. The thing that attracted me as I read these verses is that Jesus did not answer the question. Rather He summarised the 10 commandments into two!

Jesus had been blessing the children. As He turned to leave, the man in these verses approached Him. What do you suppose was behind the question? Was he trying to trick Jesus as the Pharisees did? Was he genuinely seeking to get into Heaven by doing a single good thing?

This psalm is the longest in our Bibles. It was written by Asaph, who wrote several of the other Biblical psalms. He was a descendant of Levi, the son of Jacob and Leah. Levi was the fourth of the original twelve sons of Jacob, who was renamed Israel much later.