Month: March 2017

The Bible in a Year – 20 March

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

20 March. Judges chapters 6-8

The story of Gideon is one of those beloved of Sunday school teachers, partly because of the very visual imagery and lots of action – threshing wheat, laying out fleeces, lapping water like dogs, smashing pottery and blowing trumpets.  Strangely, the trampling of captured enemy leaders with thorns and briars is not mentioned so much.  But the story is also popular as it illustrates a couple of things about living by faith.

 

Firstly, that quality is more important than quantity.  When called by God to lead his people into battle, Gideon started with 32,000 men – still a lot fewer than the 135,000 of the Midianite army, but all he could muster from the Northern tribes.  Yet God says that he still had too many, in case the Israelites took credit for a victory.  He gradually reduces the number to three hundred choice troops, those who were not afraid and who lapped water like dogs (one interpretation of this is that they remained alert and looking around them, unlike those who knelt down to use their hands).  With those 300, and under cover of darkness, Gideon achieves a victory by psychological means – imagine the terror of the Midianites roused in the middle of the night by the sounds of trumpets and lights suddenly appearing all around them! So one lesson is that by waiting for the right time when God gives the word, carefully selecting the right people, and making use of all our senses, we can achieve results for God  against what may seem impossible odds.

 

The other lesson that is often taught from these chapters is that of ‘putting out a fleece’ that is, setting a test for God to pass before we accept his will, as Gideon did.  I’m wary of that, as Jesus clearly said “do not put the Lord your God to the test”.  It’s not really for us to dictate to God how he should reveal his will to us.  If you have doubts about whether  a perceived call to Christian service, or word of prophesy, is genuine, it is usually far better to discuss it with the elders of your church, than to set random ‘tests’ for the Almighty.

 

The Bible in a Year – 19 March

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

19 March. Judges chapters 3 – 5

Chapters 3 and 4 recount the acts of the first four ‘judges’: Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar and Deborah.  Three men and a woman, and it is only the woman whose name has passed into Biblical history. Othniel and Shamgar are mentioned only in passing, and Ehud is remembered for slaying the King of Moab after diplomatically making peace with him. In any age, that would be counted a dirty deed of deception – this weekend the media have noted the insult that Donald Trump gave by merely refusing to shake hands with Angela Merkel – but how much more in the eastern culture of hospitality?

 

Deborah is also (in)famous for arranging the murder of an enemy by the hand of another woman, Jael, and chapter 5 is a lengthy poem or song attributed to her. No doubt it reads more poetically in the original language than in English, but remember again this is nearly 3000 years ago, whereas English written literature dates back no more than half that time. Among all the apparent glorification of war there is a human touch in the image of the warrior Sisera’s mother at her window, worried why he has not returned, and people around here reassuring her (although maybe they already know he is dead).

People sometimes think that before Margaret Thatcher, it was commonly believed that women cannot be powerful leaders of nations. But I don’t think that is true – besides Deborah (and a few other examples in the Bible) consider Cleopatra of Egypt, Boudicca/Boadicea of the Iceni (ancient Britons) and Joan of Arc, to name but three.

 

 

The Bible in a Year – 18 March

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

18 March. Judges chapters 1-2

The next book of the Bible that I am reading is that which covers the days of the ‘judges’ who despite the name used in translation were actually still more like military leaders than lawyers. They did however have the responsibility for upholding the religious/civil law as well.

 

These first two chapters are a bit confused.  Some material is repeated from the book of Joshua (e.g. the marriage of Othniel and Aksah). In chapter 1 Joshua is clearly already dead and the tribe of Judah is said to have captured and set fire to Jerusalem. But chapter 2 describes events in Joshua’s lifetime, and the Benjamites (in whose territory Jerusalem lay) fail to capture Jerusalem.  So maybe these two chapters got put in the wrong order somewhere along the line.

 

The lesson for us today, however, does not depend on resolving that.  It concerns the angel who appears to remind the people of the importance of obeying God. But even that, on top of Joshua’s exhortations and the people’s promise witnessed by the stone at Shechem (Joshua 24:26-27), fails to stop them reverting to idolatry within a generation.  God says he will continue to provide judges to point his people in the right direction, but even so he knows that most of the people will not listen to them and will bring judgement on themselves.

 

That reminds me of two sayings. The first is that of Jesus – “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”  (Luke 16:31). One cannot rely on a mass response at a rally, or even a dramatic miracle, to convince everyone who is there to make a real change in their lives.  True conversion happens on an individual basis and is built on many encounters with God and his people.

 

The second is one often heard today in the Church – “the church is always one generation from extinction”.  If we do not pass on a living faith in some form to the young people of our day, the Church of Jesus Christ (in its widest form) will cease to exist.

 

The Bible in a Year – 17 March

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

17 March. Joshua chapters 22-24

Chapter 24 completes the allocation of land to the tribes, the distinction being that this is the “two and a half” tribes east of the Jordan, who because they were not actually in the Promised Land seem to have been regarded as not quite part of the family.  Their action in setting up an altar by way of marking their common heritage with the other tribes was quickly misinterpreted by the others as idolatry, and they immediately wanted to go to war against them.  Fortunately, Phineas (a priest rather than a tribal leader, since the offence was a religious one) who was sent to lead a delegation intended to issue an ultimatum, listened to and believed their account of the matter, and war was averted.  Too often in human history such brinkmanship goes the wrong way and disaster follows.  Whether within the family or in international relations, Churchill’s wise words deserve repeating: “it is better to jaw-jaw than to war-war”.

 

The last two chapters of the book are Joshua’s exhortations to the people before his death, similar to (but much shorter than) the record of Moses’ final speeches to his people in Deuteronomy. He speaks twice: first to the leaders, with an emphasis on passing on the Mosaic teachings and avoiding diluting the faith by intermarriage; and then to the rest of the people with an emphasis on not worshipping or even owning any idols.  As elsewhere in the Bible, a stone was erected as a witness to their act of re-commitment.

 

The Bible in a Year – 14-16 March

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

14-16 March. Joshua chapters 12 – 21

I have taken three days readings together here, since it takes a full ten chapters (admittedly some of them quite short) to recount the division of the land between the tribes.  And I will admit to having speed-read much of this, as much of it reads like the gazetteer at the back of a road atlas.  What I did find helpful was a map that I found on Wikimedia Commons  showing the areas given to each tribe:

12_Tribes_of_Israel_Map

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Just one particular point occurred to me: as well as the tribal areas and a list of their towns and villages, Joshua makes provision for some towns and their pasture lands to be occupied by the priestly Levites who had no territory of their own as such.  The Levites therefore were spread out across all the tribal areas, and their cities included Kedesh, Hebron, Shechem, Golan, Bezer and Ramoth-in-Gilead, which were the six cities of refuge (for those accused of capital offences, to protect them from vengeance until proper justice could be done).

 

The Levites, then, had no inheritance, but received the tithes of the people. They also had the privilege of being spread out in the community, and with a particular presence where people came for refuge.  There are several resonances there with the tradition of the parish priest in Catholic or Anglican tradition.

 

The priest (at least in the Catholic church) is expected to be celibate, and therefore without descendants. He (or she, in the case of the Anglican church in many countries) is expected to minister out in the community and not only to his or her own ‘flock’ in church. Priests are expected to move around several times during their training and subsequent ministry, and become familiar with all sections of society.  And they are to have a particular concern for the vulnerable: the secrecy of the confessional is traditionally sacrosanct (although in recent times a secular concern for safeguarding has obliged a priest to disclose pastoral secrets in certain circumstances).   The priest’s reward is not financial, and his or her lie will be long and demanding.  But their satisfaction will be in seeing lives transformed and people meeting with God through their sacramental and pastoral ministry.  The main difference between then and now is that priesthood is seen as an individual calling rather than a tribal duty.

 

The Bible in a Year – 13 March

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

13 March. Joshua chapters 9-11

These chapters tell in summary form what must have been a long campaign (the commentary I am following suggests seven years) of defeating the indigenous peoples of Canaan.  The massive Israelite army swept across the terrified country, capturing one town after another, killing all their inhabitants, with only the ‘kings’ (tribal leaders) singled out as individuals, and either burning or looting the towns.

 

Such a campaign of terror is not unique in human history – think of the Mongolian hordes that swept across Asia, or the Vandals, Goths and Huns who terrorised Europe at various times and whose names live on with different and diluted meanings. Or of course Daesh/Islamic State who have captured several areas of Syria and Iraq in recent years and are only now being driven back, with heavy loss of civilian lives.  What makes Joshua’s reign of terror different is that it was (according to the account we have received) carrying out the will of God.  But isn’t that what Daesh say they are doing?  Were Joshua and his army any better than them?

 

In one way, yes. They made a treaty with the Gibeonites or Hivites.  That was not part of God’s plan, as the Hivites had been on the divine hit list.  But unlike the other tribes whose ‘hearts were hardened’ to resist Joshua’s forces, they acknowledged the power of the God of Israel and responded to the threat by suing for peace.  Admittedly it was done by deception, but from their point of view it was successful and they avoided destruction.  Instead they were made to undertake forced labour as woodcutters and water carriers.    Joshua, to his credit, refused to destroy them when he found out about the deception.  A treaty made in God’s name was not to be broken, whatever happened.  And so when the Hivites themselves came under threat, Joshua had to come to their aid.

 

Treaties are in the news at present.  Most obviously here in Britain with the country about to unilaterally break the Treaty of Rome by leaving the EU. But also with NATO coming under strain, both internally as Turkey and the Netherlands are in a diplomatic row, and externally as Russia threatens member states in the Baltic region.

 

We don’t know from the perspective of 2017 how any of these situations will turn out.  In 30 years time, say, Islamist terrorism and Russian aggression may be history, or they may have led to an irreversible attack on civilisation as we know it.  Britain may have rejoined the EU or at least be in a good trading position with it, or we may be an island nation as insignificant and “out in the cold” (metaphorically if not literally) as Iceland. What we can say though, is that a nation that holds to values of fidelity, openness to strangers and being willing to live at peace with those who do us no harm, is closer to doing God’s will than one that destroys other cultures ‘in the name of God’.

 

 

 

The Bible in a Year – 12 March

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

12 March. Joshua chapters 5-8

After crossing the river, the hard work of conquest begins.   Most of today’s reading is taken up with the account of the battles to conquer two cities – Jericho (achieved by psychological warfare, plus God’s miraculous flattening of the city walls, but without fighting), and Ai (conquered at the second attempt, following God’s instructions rather than the recommendations of the scouts).

 

But around these victories are accounts of actions of ritual significance – circumcision, Passover, and an appearance of an armed angel before the military campaign, and renewal of the covenant afterwards.  These remind us that Joshua is not just a book of military history, but the account of God claiming the holy land for his own people.  They themselves had to be holy in order to receive it, and so there had to be ceremonies of dedication to God (circumcision), remembrance of God’s previous victories (Passover being a re-enactment of the night before the Exodus), and receiving the law. The vision of an angel was given only to Joshua himself to encourage him as leader.

 

But one man’s sin in hiding booty for his own family was enough to lead to defeat of the whole army.  So the lesson is, that our plans alone, even if we believe them to be in line with Christian teaching, are not enough. We need to be personally close to God in the way we live, the principles we live by, and in our religious communities, if we are to achieve what he calls us to.

 

The Bible in a Year – 11 March

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

11 March.  Joshua chapters 1-4

Each of these chapters recounts a discrete incident in the story of the beginning of the occupation of Canaan.  Chapter 1 is where Joshua is given command of the nation, a great responsibility.  And even though he has the rare privilege of hearing God’s voice to him personally (as Moses did) still he has to be told four times (thrice by God and once by his own men) “be strong and [very] courageous”.  A leader of a nation, especially in times of war, does need these attributes, and yet a man who is strong, courageous and proud – even nonchalant, as President Trump was when he took office recently – does not make a good leader.   Strength and courage need to be balanced with humility and the ability to take counsel from others.  Such a leader was Joshua.

 

Next comes the story of the spies (or scouts).  Those we encountered in Exodus merely went over the mountain like the proverbial bear “to see what they could see”, and what they saw was tall people who terrified them.  That mistake put back God’s whole plan by 40 years.  This time, the two scouts actually make the acquaintance of a local person.  The fact that she was a prostitute, and one of the enemy at that, is no problem on this occasion.  Whether they availed themselves of her services or not, she is praised in the later books of Hebrews and James as being justified by the actions that enabled God’s plan to come about.  Whether she is the same Rahab named in Matthew’s gospel as the great-great-grandmother of King David is not clear, though she could have been.

 

The scouts actually heard what one of the enemy was saying, namely that her people had heard of the Israelite conquests elsewhere and God’s miracles for them, and were in dread of them. Thus the scouts were able to report back, after she had saved them from imminent danger, that the task ahead, though far from easy, would be less problematic than they may have feared.

 

The crossing of the Jordan was accomplished by faith and God’s miraculous provision in much the same way as the Exodus across the Sea of Reeds.  As with all Biblical miracles, it is not helpful to ask scientific questions too much (was the river dammed by a landslide upstream? Possibly, but we cannot know). But somehow all the people and their flocks managed to get safely across the river in the time of flood. The ark going ahead of them symbolised God’s presence, and that gave them the faith they needed.

 

Finally for today, the twelve stones (one for each tribe) were set up as a memorial of the event.  Memorials are a universal human trend.  Part of my job involves dealing with churches that are no longer needed for worship, and most of them will have many forms of memorial in them, from a formal foundation stone and a war memorial, to individual plaques or monuments to people who have played a leading role in the community at some time. There may also be objects given in memory of someone. The moveable items can be returned to the families who gave them, and other memorials can sometimes be relocated, but it is sad to see a church close and the memory of those who had built and endowed it fade from local history.  Joshua’s stones themselves are presumably long since lost during the last 3000 years, but the memory of the memorial lives on as long as the Bible is read.

 

 

The Bible in a Year. 10 March

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

10 March. Deuteronomy chapters 32-24

There are two ‘songs’ or poems here, attributed to Moses (although since Moses is referred to in the third person in one of them, we may question the authorship!)

 

The second is easier to deal with since it is a song of blessing. As we saw earlier with Isaac and Jacob blessing their sons at the end of their lives, it is natural for old people to want to see their descendants prosper, to feel that their life has not been in vain if the next generations are doing well for themselves. But for Moses it is more than this, as his life’s calling was to bring the whole Israelite people, all twelve tribes, to this point of being about to cross the Jordan and claim the Promised Land.  Everything depended on them  being obedient to the teaching he had received and passed on.

 

That is why the first song reads as it does, lurching backwards and forwards between a vision of God as loving parent, and of the same God as vengeful and jealous.  For Moses understood the relationship that God had already showed, and would continue to show, to his people.  If they honoured and worshipped him, all would be well and they would prosper. There was no reason not to do so. But whether through human nature, or the influence of other cultures, or the Devil’s temptation – take it as you will – they would constantly turn away from this loving God, who would then both be angry with them (as any parent is angry with a rebellious child) and protective of them in taking vengeance on those who have led them astray.

 

So as Moses climbs the mountain, at the incredible age of 120, to glimpse the promised land before he dies, he has the bittersweet experience of knowing that God would always love and be with his people, but that the people would not always love their God.

 

And so ends the first part of the Bible.  The Law, the Torah, the Pentateuch, the Books of Moses.  The foundation for all that follows, the scriptures that Jews, Christians and Muslims all acknowledge.  Blessed be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. As it was in the beginning, as now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.

 

The Bible in a Year – 9 March

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

9 March. Deuteronomy chapters 30-31

As Moses completes his summary of the law, he once again presents it as a choice for the people: to obey means blessing, prosperity and life; to disobey (especially in ‘turning to other gods’) means curses, poverty and death.  He does his best to present it, to use a contemporary term, as a “no brainer”, or to put it another way, “what’s not to like about serving God?”  To choose to believe in God and take the commandments seriously is to follow a path that will result in a happier life not only for oneself but for the whole community, because the more people who do, the less hatred, crime and injustice there will be.

 

But it is a choice.  And Moses is all too aware, as is God himself, that in practice the people will, most of the time, choose to ignore God, and follow their own desires.  The scene is set for the next thousand years in which the ‘chosen people’ will rebel and return, again and again.  When Moses prophesies (30:4-5) of exile and return, he may have been given a vision of the exile to Babylon several hundred years in the future, or maybe even the greater diaspora in which the Jewish people would have no home in the promised land for nearly 1900 years.

 

How would he have felt about that?  To be told at the end of forty years of hard work leading the people to this point when they could claim a permanent inheritance, that soon after his death they would forget all he had taught them and go their own way. But always God gives a longer view, a hope that beyond rebellion is the call to return, beyond sin is the promise of forgiveness, beyond betrayal there is the possibility of restoration.  That applies as much to individuals as to the whole nation.  If I turn way from God, I know he will still accept me back, whether it’s the next day or much later in life.  Praise God for his constant love!