Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be taking an abbreviated look at a famous story in the history of Israel: the story of Balaam. If you haven’t heard of Balaam, you might recognize one of the most shocking parts of this story. Balaam’s donkey actually talks to him. We’ll see why God used this almost unbelievable method of communicating with a prophet. And we’ll take a journey through this story to see what God did and what Balaam wanted to do. If we just started with the narrative in Numbers, we might be confused (until we got to the end) about who Balaam was and why this story is included. So we’re going to take our first week and look at all of the other places in Scripture that refer to this story and what they tell us about the big picture. This is not only a way we can understand this story, but it is also a way that we work through to a better understanding of Scripture. Balaam presented himself as a ‘good guy’ but was in fact driven by money and power. God sees and holds back Balaam from cursing His people, but in the end, Balaam finds a way to bring devastation to Israel anyway.