Month: March 2022

So probably the most precious and maybe some of the most important verses in the Bible are found in I Samuel 16:7.  God does not look as mortals see, they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.  Is this a blessing or a curse for us?  Is this good news or bad news for us?  What a great verse.  

We then have the all popular verses about the battle of David and Goliath.  One of my favorite places to go when we are in Israel is in that same location where David picked up his five smooth stones.  I have my own smooth stones that I picked from there and brought back home.  They remind me of how God continually does the impossible especially when we think it is not possible at all.  

We then get this interesting verse that the soul of Jonathan became bound to the soul of David and they are everlasting friends from that time forward.  Jonathan consistently saves David’s life as he warns him of his father’s anger for him and his unreasonable attempts at his life.  Twice King Saul looks to kill David with his spear and it isn’t until Jonathan suffers the same fate that he realizes that maybe my dad isn’t too crazy about David after all.  

The Psalm around 59 all contain times in David’s life when he is fleeing from Saul.  This one is called the psalm that David wrote when Saul ordered his house to be watched in order to kill him.  It is filled with pleas of deliverance and a recognition that God will absolutely save him from this fate of potential death.

We see the rise and fall of Saul in these chapters.  He rises high as he rallies the Israelites around the residents of Jabesh who are about to have their eye plucked out.  They say it is all fun and games until you have your eye poked out.  As a result of his initiative the people of Israel confirm his kingship and he has momentum that takes him into the next step.  

Samuel remains a central figure and gives a farewell speech which consists of making sure the people of Israel and Saul remember from where they came and that they must follow the commandments of the Lord.  Jonathan, the son of Saul, reveals himself to be quite a soldier with two instances where we see him overtaking the Philistines.  One of them is completely at his initiative which takes him out of the camp of his father for a bit and so he misses his father’s command to not eat until after the victory.  He almost loses his life over that one.

Saul leads the Israelites again on a rout but this time he does not obey God because he keeps the plunder and the king alive after the rout.  Samuel fixes the king part by killing the king in front of all Israel but tells Saul that the Lord has left him and that he will anoint someone else as king.  Nothing Saul says is able to change his mind and so we see that Samuel does not see Saul again.  We know that David is on the horizon, but his name is not yet mentioned.

Speaking of David, look at Psalm 10, it is a classic psalm of lament where the author asks the question: Why, O Lord, do you stand far off?  This could have been the question that Saul asks God or that David asks God later in his life as well.  The answer comes to the reader starting in vs.12 where we read that the Lord is King for ever and ever (vs.16).

The people of Israel had always asked for a king.  We find Samuel is described as a judge and his sons also were appointed judges as he got older.  There is a striking parallel between Samuel and Eli.  While Samuel is a priest, he is also the one who leads the Israelites to conquer the Philistines and take over those territories that they had taken over.  The tide shifts once Samuel takes the reigns and God continues to reveal Himself powerful and continues to fulfill the promises of the promised land.

But like Eli, as Samuel gets old and once he puts his kids in power they turn away from him and just look out after their own good.  They extort and they take bribes and they do things which are pretty common in the rest of the world today and that takes place in a regular basis.  But both Samuel and the Lord are unhappy with the situation.  The people of Israel ask for a king, and the Lord tells Samuel to get them a king.

Saul, after a series of events, is chosen as king, even if they had to find him in the luggage where he was hiding.  He is anointed king by Samuel and then he goes home.  A bit of a dénouement, but that is what we read.  I think we are just getting set up for when Saul goes into battle.  

Psalm 150 is one of my favorite Psalms and it is the one that I use to describe worship as being the most important thing that we do as church.  Everything else, all the other programs and all the other events that we take part in has to revolve around worship.  

We can’t ignore the importance of Samuel as he begins his ministry and the state of the priesthood in Israel as he begins his ministry.  Eli was the Levite in charge of the priesthood in Shiloh  and his two sons were coming up after him to take over.  They were obviously corrupt and Scripture describes them as taking food out of the hands of the people and sleeping with the wives of the people of Israel.  They were completely out of control and their hedonistic ways were known to all.  Nothing was hid.

When Samuel comes along we see him gradually winning the respect of the people, but he is not in charge yet.  At the battle against the Philistines both sons die and then Eli himself dies which leaves the way open for Samuel to take over the priesthood just as God had planned.  We have the ark of the covenant taken by the Philistines, but they couldn’t handle it so they decide to give it back.  This sets the stage for Samuel to take over and bring back the priesthood to where God wanted it to be.

Psalm 8 is a beautiful Psalm and I couldn’t describe it any other way except with a song from Amy Grant.

I tell people that the Song of Solomon is the closest thing we get to an R rating in the Bible.  Wasn’t that interesting?  It is obviously a love song with three voices calling and responding.  You have the Beloved who describes herself in 1:5 as being dark and as a result was insulted and asks why she should hide herself.  There is also the Lover who is the male counterpart who is very descriptive in his love for his beloved.  We then also have the Friends who ask questions and are put to certain tasks like finding the Lover when he disappears.

This consistent call and response is filled with sexual innuendo and covered with love poems that each person tells the other.  There are times when they desire to be together so badly, and yet it seems as if they never quite get there.  Song of Solomon seems to be filled with lost opportunities and passionate desires that never quite seem to be fulfilled.  As you read through it you are cheering on both of them hoping that they would some day, some way, get together.  But it is never quite realized.

Not once is God mentioned in this book of the Bible and you might wonder how it got included.  Like Ecclesiastes it is attributed to Solomon, hence its longer title is the Solomon’s Song of Songs.

I enjoy reading through an entire book of the Bible from beginning to end in one sitting.  I don’t do that often, but it is so much better to read the Bible that way than single verses or chapters at a time.  Remember this is like an enews that Paul writes to the church in Colossae and he addresses issues and situations that have come up in the church and gives a way forward for this fledgling community.  If there is a controlling purpose for my work at FPC it would be found in Colossians 1:28 which states that we preach the Gospel so that each person may be found mature in Christ.  Striving toward maturity in our faith is the primary, if not singular, reason why we do what we do.  

There is a lot in these chapters, but look also at vs.22 where he states that Jesus has reconciled us to God so that he can present us to the Father.  This image of Jesus presenting us to the Father is stunning.  The glory of the Son will so overwhelm the Father that the Father will not be able to see our sin on account of the perfection of the Son.  That is the kind of advocate that we need.

When we get to the second chapter we find some warnings about being caught up in philosophical theories that may sound good on paper but in practice are useless.  There are a number of general warnings against getting caught up too much in the cultural norms that are present which would distract us from a perfect worship of our God.  Chapter 3 gives us a great verse that I have used often in vs.11 which reminds us that in Christ Jesus we are all equal.  There is no distinction and there is no hierarchy in our Savior, there is no male or female as far as roles within the church, but rather we are all saved equally and for equal service within the life of the church.  This concept is not shared by all people and churches.  

Chapter 4 and the end of chapter 3 gives us the disturbing verses that encourage slaves to be obedient to their masters.  This is an example where we can clearly say that the writing of Scripture to a certain extent are tied up to the time in which they were written.  That may be offensive to some of you, but I am guessing you have never been a slave, or a person of color whose ancestors were slaves in this very land, and so the offensive nature is not personal but rather theoretical.  I’m guessing if the Scripture said something that impacted you directly you would feel very comfortable in viewing that as culturally bound.  We need to be careful when we read Scripture that we don’t read it too much based upon our own cultural understandings which are incredibly limited.

The story of Ruth, I had forgotten, takes place during the reign of the Judges.  So we just read the account of the Judges and so it must have been during that time, probably when everyone turned and did their own thing and did not listen to the Lord, that the family of Naomi went to Moab to live because there was family in Israel.  When Ruth returns with her mother-in-law the entire story seems to be one of one act of righteousness after another.  Boaz honors Ruth and follows the law and gives her children.  

Keep in mind a couple of things.  Ruth, the foreign Moabites becomes King David’s grandmother.  That is pretty significant.  She is also in direct line with our Savior Jesus Christ.  That is equally, if not more, significant.  God works in such a way to pave the way even for the most lowly to become significant in His kingdom.

Psalm 45 and 58 are both kingly psalms where they describe the role of the king and how God is going to bless the king who is willing to do God’s will.  Proverbs 31 takes us to a beautiful description of a wife of noble character, at least for the time in which it was written.  But don’t forget vs.8-9, let’s read that.  “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.  Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

I’m not sure that there is any more disturbing set of chapters in the Bible than these that we just read.  Remember, throughout this entire book we have the theme that “everyone did as he saw fit.”  Samson is the last judge that we find who was actually put in place to judge and rule Israel by God.  He reigns for 20 years, and he is actually not someone after whom we ought to mold our actions.  

We then get a story of Micah and his idols and his hiring a Levite whose role it is to play the priest and to serve out those functions.  The Danites come and take this priest and make him their own, and surprisingly it seems as if the Lord does speak through this priest even though we read about the presence of idols and an ephod and other items that we consider to be used by pagans and idol worshipers.  There is a whole mishmash of theologies coming to a head when the people do as they see fit and there is no clear direction.

You then have this terrible story of the tribe of Benjamin raping the wife of a man (who was offered by that man by the way) and the rest of Israel going to war against Benjamin as a result.  We finish the chapter with the Benjamites being defeated and a creative solution found on how to supply the remaining men from that tribe with wives.  Let’s just allow them to go and kidnap young women from another tribe within our family that way we were not actually helping them.  All very strange.  I’ll be glad when they finally get a king to put things back in order.  

We continue on with the self-imposed leaders of Israel with Jephthah next in line.  We know that he was a mighty warrior, but we also know that he was kicked out of his father’s tribe because he was born to a prostitute.  But now Israel needs him back because they need a strong warrior.  He does pray to the Lord but he makes a very pagan deal with God which results in him having to sacrifice his daughter when he arrives home.  Not something that the Lord would ever require, in fact, the Lord is quiet in these verses and it seems as if this vow that Jephthah makes is one sided.  

Once Jephthah is out of the picture then we have another line of self-imposed rulers until we get to Samson who is clearly chosen by God to lead the people of Israel.  We read multiple times that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him.  I tend to see him as a bit of prankster whose pranks are on the scale of many magnitudes which include death and destruction for those that he pranks.  Samson gets married, but not to Delilah first.  But just like Delilah she is a Philistine and helps her people out much to the damage of Samson.  He is angry and breaks a few things, but apparently still loves her, much to the surprise of his father in law who had already given her to marriage to someone else.

Again, Samson gets angry, burns all the fields of the Philistines which leads to the burning of his wife and father-in-law.  Samson was not crazy about that.  He kills a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey, so, yeah, he had that going for him.  He led Israel under God’s tutelage and grace for the next 20 years.  He was definitely put in power by God.  

We then transition to Psalm 49 which is attributed to the sons of Korah.  Let’s look at vs.20 and call it good: “A man who has riches without understanding is like the beasts that perish.”  So that’s good to know.

We get into the area of Judges that provides little solace for those who would want to follow the Lord.  We begin with Gideon who is chosen by God to lead his people, and he does a tremendous job in battle and conquers with only 300 men against hundreds of thousands of men.  It is truly a miracle that he was able to conquer.  But then look at what happens in 8:27 where Gideon pivots from his battle which saw him victories but only because of the hand of God, to making an ephod which was used to prostitute the Israelites to other gods.  

From there disorder and chaos ensue with Abimelech, who was not chosen by God, this is key, he is not a judge but rather a self-imposed ruler.  He takes the reigns and leads the nation with much infighting until a woman drops a rock on his head.  Not a fun way to die.  We others who rise up to rule Israel but we don’t seen at anytime after Gideon, that they were chosen by God as judges to rule over Israel.  It seems as if they were all self chosen leaders.  We do see the people of Israel turning back to the Lord at the end of chapter 10 as the armies are amassing against them.  Who knows, maybe the Lord will respond?

Psalm 43 is a classic psalm of lament and one that I said much about on Sunday.  You can listen to the sermon if you wanted to see more.