And now a word from God

Lorna Dueck gets biblical.

There’s a book in the Bible called Numbers that begins with God ordering a census of people wandering in a wilderness. Why the Almighty wanted the mathematical count seems to come down to the issue of nation-building. Numbers were going to be needed for Moses and his leaders to understand all that would be required to create community and the structures that would nurture and sustain it ... Author and theologian Eugene Peterson has observed, “counting and list making and rosters are as much a part of being a community of God as prayer and instruction and justice.”

For those of you following along at home, that’s Numbers, chapter 1, verses 1 through 54.