One
A company might have executives setting policy and strategy, engineers designing products, managers handling personnel and others handling various functions. They all do different things -- but if they're doing them with a shared underlying purpose, the company -- and the individuals in it -- will likely be successful. The Lord wants all human society to function in a similar way. We have different skills and individual loves, but if we all share a mutual love -- a love of serving others -- then society will function as one, will be a reflection of heaven and will be a good receptacle for the Lord's love. This can also happen within each of us, as we unify our talents and ideas around a central love. And in an abstract sense, it illustrates how a wide collection of varying ideas can be unified around a shared good intention. That is the kind of love pictured when “one” is used in the Bible, either as a specific number or in the sense of several people or objects “being one.” In more casual references -- when used to identify a specific person or object -- the meaning is relatively literal, and is connected to that person or object.
#151 Seeing the Lord in the Cloud
By Jonathan S. Rose
Title: Seeing the Lord in the Cloud
Topic: Second Coming
Summary: Why do so many passages in the Bible mention a cloud and glory at the same time? What do they have to tell us about the Second Coming and how we see the Lord?
Use the reference links below to follow along in the Bible as you watch.
References:
Genesis 9:11, 13
Exodus 16:9-10; 24:16-17; 40:33-34, 38
Numbers 16:41-42
Isaiah 4:5; 6:1, 4; 6:5, 8
Ezekiel 1:26, 28; 10:1-4
Matthew 24:30
Mark 13:26
Revelation 15:8
Matthew 5:8
Ephesians 1:15, 18
Exodus 14:19-20
Hebrews 12:1
Luke 17:20
Isaiah 25:9