PSA Bible Reading Challenge 2025-2026

Our reading in Samuel really ends on a sad note: “The Lord was sorry that he made Saul king over Israel.” We see that it does not take long for Saul to lose the favor of the Lord. Within a few days he gets impatient and doesn’t wait for Samuel and takes matters into his own hands and from there Samuel tell him that God has removed his favor. This happens all the way back in chapter 13. You notice that in chapter 11 there is a little more fanfare and Saul is made king a second time, but this doesn’t prevent Saul from focusing on his needs and what he wants without relying upon the Lord. It is so easy to play armchair quarterback and say that if I were in Saul’s place I would have remembered how he became king and how God had lined up the miracles to make him king that we would obey. But do we not forget that we are able to see the miracles of the Lord daily in our lives and yet we forget as well?

So last reading I wondered if Samuel ever took on the title of Judge. Yes, he did, we read that Samuel had that role and judged Israel and would take turns among three cities to do his judging duties. But he was getting old and his sons were worthless and so the people of Israel were worried about their future with his worthless sons. They ask God for a king. God says no. They ask Samuel for a king, Samuel says no. The people of Israel ask again both God and Samuel for a king and finally God says yes, fine, if you want a king I’ll give you a king but there are no guarantees.

Saul happens to stumble across Samuel and he makes him a king. Okay, there was more to it than that, God had told Samuel that Saul was to be his king. Saul is more than hesitant and on the day of his coronation he hides among the luggage of the guests. When he is brought out they finally anoint him king and then everyone goes home. Keep in mind there is no single unifying entity among the Israelites. They were all tribes and bands of people without a central government. Saul, who was their king, lived in his own home. There was no government or anything, just Saul who was made king. Now what? We shall see.

Psalm 150 is awesome, it is one we should learn and memorize and one that has been immortalized by the contemporary community to point to the presence of God and the worship of God present in all instruments and in all ways.

We find ourselves at the end of the times of the Judges with Eli being the last judge that we read about. Eli was also the priest who was in charge of the ark of the covenant. The responsibilities which his family had were the responsibilities of the Levites. They were in charge of the worship of the people of Israel. But we see that the two sons of Eli, those who were going to be in charge of the worship of Israel, were evil and did terrible things to the people. God chose Samuel to take over as high priest. I don’t believe that he is given the role of judge, but maybe, we have to see in the next chapters. We see him growing up and how he came into this world. His mother made a promise to God that this son would be His if she could conceive and bear a son. She does and he does.

Psalm 8 is one of those songs that stays on your mind because of the song by Twila Paris that reminds us of the glory of the Lord. As I sit out and look at the sunrise this morning, with the redness of the sky, I can’t help but think: O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in the all the earth. This is seen in the ark of the covenant being so much more powerful than Dagon the idol that in the morning Dagon was forced to bow to the ark.

Let ‘s just begin by saying that this book of the Bible is very different from any other book of the Bible. It describes a king, Solomon, speaking about his beloved in fairly frank and overt tones. It describes her physical beauty, even those parts that we aren’t used to reading about in the Bible, they are mentioned. It is a beautiful description of two people who are in love and are having a hard time staying away from each other. There are two verses that I used periodically in weddings, and they are 8:6-7 which states quite plainly: “If one offered for love all the wealth of his house he would be utterly scorned.” There is no substitute for love that is mutually shared.

Chapter 3 of Colossians tends to be the key chapter and it has some of the memory verses that we can take with us. Look at 3:14 which tells us that above all things focus on love which binds all things together. That is a pretty powerful verse that we would do well to remember. The list given to us in 3:12 is also crucial as it lays out the way Christ is calling us to live: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. I think this is a good place to leave this for now.

I learned a few things about Ruth while I read this morning. I learned that this event took place during the reign of the Judges. That shouldn’t surprise me since Ruth is the mother of Jesse who then fathered David. So we are really close to the end of the time of the Judges since Saul and David close out that time as they become kings. I also learned that there was no scandal involved in the marriage of Boaz and Ruth. I had originally thought that there was so me conniving on the part of Ruth in order to get Boaz to marry her. But no, Boaz was completely upright and Ruth was an incredibly hard worker who worked day in and day out in the field from morning until evening without stopping. She seems to be portrayed as the hardest of workers.

The Psalms are pretty typical royal psalms which depict a royal wedding that takes place between two who are beloved. We don’t hear about the love that Boaz has for Ruth, just his duty. In fact, he offers Ruth to the closest of kin, and when he refuses her, he performs his duty according to the law and marries here. I wish we had something about love here, but alas, we do not.

Then Proverbs provides us with the classic verses on a godly wife. Much like Ruth she is described primarily as the hardest of workers, not willing to sit around and do nothing.

We find ourselves in the middle of the story of Samson and it is where he finds his wife Delilah. From the moment that they met, it seems, she has been trying to find out what it is that makes him strong. As readers on the outside we can see clearly that she only wants to destroy him so that she can reap the material benefits that would come from his destruction. Somehow, he doesn’t see it. The final story of him tearing down the building and so killing more Philistines in that one act than he did his entire life isn’t lost on me. But that is in some ways the last story of a judge that would reign over Israel. Everyone else that comes up isn’t really a judge, and the stories are a bit strange.

We find a lot of slaughter and bloodshed in these stories. We see the almost total destruction of the tribe of Benjamin because of their horrific act against a woman who was under the protection of an Israelite. Keep in mind that the Benjaminites were the beloved people of the tribe of Israel, but it seems as if they had lost their way. That is to say nothing of the virgin daughter and the concubine being offered as an appeasement to the men of the city. That was not right either. There is a lot that takes place in these verses that leaves us scratching our head and wondering what exactly were people thinking and why didn’t God intervene. We leave the book of Judges with that one recurring phrase which we would be good not to forget: “ In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.“

Who doesn’t love the story of Samson? But notice how he decides to marry someone who is completely out of God’s favor. He asks for and receives a Philistine as a wife, but we know that this is the foundational command of the Lord was to not be unequally yoked because when we marry outside of our religion then more likely than not we will be dragged away from our beliefs. This is so true within Italy and the Waldensian and Methodist church. It is so difficult to find someone who has married within the church because the church is so small. As a result the children of the marriage tend to gravitate toward the religion of the people, which in Italy would be Catholicism. As a result the Protestant Church in Italy gets smaller and smaller.

But back to Samson. We see the beginning of his life will be a reflection of his later life where he is not able to keep to himself the temptation to please the wife to whom he is married and so give away of himself that which the Lord has given to him. It will lead to his downfall twice, but we just read about the first time.

We begin to see the list of judges that come into power in the land of Israel and the cycle of disobedience, appointing of a judge, obedience, the death of the judge, and disobedience take place. Sitting and reading Judges one could ask the question how are they able to forget how God has been so faithful to them. Think about what happens when a judge rules for 20 or 30 or 40 years and who is around to remember what God has done. Once that judge dies then a new way of doing things takes over and inevitably, it seems but it doesn’t have to be that way, the way of God is forgotten. We see here that the people of Israel fall into slavery once a judge dies because they do forget what God has done and abandon the ways of the Lord and then they are subjected to slavery under very many different rulers.

I wonder what parallel we can draw to today and how God is obeyed at times faithfully in the church, and then there are times that God is forgotten and obedience is not present for a season. The challenge of the church is always to return back to God after that season of disobedience. I guess the challenge would be to have no seasons of disobedience, but seeing what happens in Judges reminds us that it is often out of our hands and the disobedience follows almost inevitably.

This may be the most difficult time in the life of the people of Israel outside of any of the times that they were taken into captivity, like Egypt, and Babylon, and Assyrian. Even in these instances we see that they are taken captive by the Canaanites and forced into slavery. But it seems like every generation God would raise up a judge who would be ruler over the nation and then there would be peace in the land and their hardship would cease for as long as that judge was alive. But once that judge dies then the mantra we find is: everyone did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. This happens after every single judge that comes and rules the land.

My favorite judge is Deborah who is mentioned here because she is definitely unique. Not only as a woman judge but as someone who has a commander under her who will go to battle unless she goes to battle first. As a result he doesn’t get to the the most fun part of battle, which is killing the opposing side’s commander. Sisera is eventually killed by a woman just as Deborah had predicted. But still, Barak and Deborah are able to sing together a victory song, so we have that.