Month: July 2018

Morning Musing: Judges 21:6-7

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“And the people of Israel had compassion for Benjamin their brother and said, ‘One tribe is cut off from Israel this day.  What shall we do for wives for those who are left, since we have sworn by the Lord that we will not give them any of our daughters for wives?'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

You would think that here at the end of the book we would get some kind of a happy ending.  And as this chapter starts, it looks like we might.  The people collectively realize what they have done in nearly completely eliminating the tribe of Benjamin by civil war.  They also consider the gravity of having sworn an oath to the Lord together that they would not give their daughters as wives to the surviving men, thereby guaranteeing their eventually disappearance.  It leaves the reader finally cheering a bit: “Here, now they will finally turn back to the Lord and get back on the right track.”  But, that’s not the kind of book this is. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Judges 19:22

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“As they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, worthless fellows, surrounded the house, beating on the door.  And they said to the old man, the master of the house, ‘Bring out the man who came into your house, that we may know him.'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

For Israelites who were later being told this story as part of their people’s dark past, these words would have been chilling even before the narrative of what comes next.  This whole situation would have left them shuddering in terror.  This would have been a story you didn’t tell your children, but waited until they were a bit older and could handle it.  Even now, this isn’t somewhere I’d point my boys to read just yet. Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Judges 19:12

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“And his master said to him, ‘We will not turn aside into the city of foreigners, who do not belong to the people of Israel, but we will pass on to Gibeah.'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

This judgment on the part of the Levite is fraught with irony.  He doesn’t want to stay with these foreigners because of how his party might be received.  Instead, he insists on traveling a bit further at a time of day that was no longer safe for traveling, so that his party could find shelter among their own people.  And yet, when they arrive in Gibeah, all hell breaks loose. Read the rest…

Misplaced Anger

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In part three of our series, Hard Sayings, we look at Jesus’ hard assurance that if we stick with Him, the world is going to hate us.  This isn’t an easy truth to hear, but millions of Jesus followers around the world and in our own backyards can attest to the fact that it is true nonetheless.  Keep reading as we talk about why and what we can do about it.

 

Misplaced Anger

Have you ever held up someone as a hero only to have them fail you?  I’ve talked before about my being a Kansas basketball fan.  When I was growing up, Roy Williams was KU’s coach.  I idolized Roy Williams.  When I played basketball in grade school, I was convinced that I was going to play for Coach Roy someday.  I wrote him a letter to tell him about it and he sent back an autographed picture of the whole team.  I got to go to several KU games and watched with keen interest as Roy led team after team to victory. Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Judges 19:1

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“In those days, when there was no king in Israel, a certain Levite was sojourning in the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim, who took to himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Here we arrive at what is arguably the darkest narrative in all of the Scriptures.  The Passion sequence is bad, to be sure, but it at least ends with hope.  From nearly the first words of this chapter through the end of the story in chapter 21 not a single thing goes right.  Everything is wrong. Read the rest…