Tag: Sin

Morning Musing: 1 Samuel 2:25

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“‘If someone sins against a man, God will mediate for him,  but if someone sins against the Lord, who can intercede for him?’  But they would not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of the Lord to put them to death.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

This is one of those verses that’s hard to get our minds around at first read.  And second read.  And third too.  The Lord willed to put them to death?  What happened to mercy and compassion and grace?  Who can survive if the Lord deigns to destroy them? Read the rest…

Morning Musing: 1 Samuel 2:17

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“Thus the sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the Lord, for the men treated the offering of the Lord with contempt.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Religious sin is disgusting.  Are you with me?  There’s something about seeing people use religion as a means of committing some kind of sin that is particularly repulsive.  We may not be able to give precise wording to it, but something inside of us recoils with especial revulsion when we see it.  There’s just something rotten about it.  Do you know what?  God feels the same way. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Joshua 7:1

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“But the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things, for Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things.  And the anger of the Lord burned against the people of Israel.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

The story of Achan is an interesting and sad one.  The people were coming off a major victory.  Their first stop on their tour through the land of Canaan had ended with them sacking a significant military outpost in the city of Jericho.  The city was famous for its incredibly high and thick walls.  The walls were so massive that archaeologists today can see in the various layers of rubble around the city where this battle took place.  So, the people are high on a sweet victory, but then things take a turn for the sour.  What happened? Read the rest…

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…

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…