Bible Reading Challenge Blog

When we look at the minor prophets, such as Joel, we need to know that they were written primarily in the time when the both the nations of Israel and Judah were in captivity.  As a result there will be words that predict doom and destruction as well as restoration.  We find that in Joel.  We read about the day of the Lord that is to come and it is not a day that we often imagine.  When we think of Jesus coming back again we often think of a celebration that will take place as he takes his people to him.  We don’t often think about a day of destruction, but that is what Joel speaks about.

We also see in Joel the verses that we often use to describe the day of Pentecost in 2:28-29 where we see that all flesh will have the Holy Spirit poured out upon them.  There is also the reverse of what we read in Isaiah that we often quote as a time of peace in 3:10 where the plowshares become swords and the pruning hooks spears.  Not the promise of peace which we come to expect with the kingdom of God being established.

When we look at Psalm 138 we find a psalm of thanksgiving by David which reminds us that the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever.  That is a good one to end on.

There last chapters of II Kings contain the most celebratory and the most tragic of all the chapters in this book of the Bible.  We continue along that cycle of those kings of Judah, and we are only looking at the Southern kingdom at this point, of those who don’t do the will of the Lord and those who do the will of the Lord.  We have the extreme disobedience of Manasseh who even got the people involved again in human sacrifice as we see in II Kings 21:6 that he made his son pass through fire.  That would have been a human sacrifice.  As a result of the evil of Manasseh the Lord determines that he will destroy Judah including Jerusalem one day.  That day had not yet arrived, but he determined to do so.  

But then we have King Josiah who is the exact opposite.  He tears down all that was built up that was pagan and not pleasing to the sight of the Lord.  What is more, he discovered the book of the law and made all of the people pledge to follow the book of the law.  This has to be the highlight of the people of Judah as we see that they all follow the will of God.  It was an incredibly fruitful time.  The temple was repaired and all the other places of worship to the foreign gods were destroyed.  

Once Josiah dies, this go south quickly.  Babylon begins to move in and takes a group of people into captivity and leaves others in Jerusalem.  Those who are left in Jerusalem rebel and take just about everyone else and they flee to Egypt.  After that Babylon is angry and they take the rest of the people into Babylon and leaving behind just a few people to tend the land and then they destory Jerusalem and burn down the temple and take all that was in the temple, most probably the ark of the covenant as well.  It isn’t mentioned specifially but we can pretty much be sure that this is when it is taken.

Proverbs 8 speaks about the importance of wisdom and the importance of following in her ways.

We see the diametrical opposite result for both the northern and the southern kingdoms.  In the north we see Hoshea is the last king of Israel (the north) as the Assyrians come and conquer them and take all of the people into Assyria.  After they take the people they then transplant others into that territory so that the Israelites, the northerners, would not be able to resettle even if they escaped or got out of Assyria.  You can basically call it a wrap for the northern kingdom at this point.  We read in chapter 17 that this takes place because of the unfaithfulness of the people of the north.

We then transition to the south and we see a ruler who according to 18:5 – “Hezekiah trusted in the Lord…there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him.”  That’s pretty high praise.  As a result the Lord honors him and honors the people of Judah, the south.  The Assyrians who had just taken over the north now try their hand on the south.  But Hezekiah turns them back and they never do end up taking over the land or the people.  

One of my favorite places to go when we visit Israel is Hezekiah’s tunnel.  It is simply amazing.  Made by hand it is a long tunnel that stretches under Jerusalem and provided water for the city especially during sieges.  Interestingly enough Isaiah is the prophet who is alive during the reign of Hezekiah and so is the one who advises him that Assyrian would not take over the land of Judah.  Babylon, now that is a different story.

There is no Psalm more powerful than Psalm 139.  It is the one that I read the most when I make visits to the hospital because it reminds us how the Lord has made and created us.  It also reminds us of the deep knowledge that the Lord has of us.  Even while we were yet unformed in our mother’s wombs did the Lord know us.  That speaks to something pretty powerful there.

We begin our ping ponging back and forth between the rulers of Judah (the south and the home of Jerusalem) and Israel (the north and its capital being Samaria).  You should be able to see that for each ruler there is an overlap with the ruler from the other section.  Remember, these two lands at one time were united under Saul, David and Solomon, but now represent two separate and distinct kingdoms.  The north tends to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord and the south tends to do more what is good in the sight of the Lord.  It makes sense because the temple is located in the south.

We see in chapter 14 that the north is taken into captivity by Assyria which should not be confused with the Babylonian conquest which comes later.  

In Proverbs you have a clear description of someone who is called the adulteress and she is clearly blamed for leading those who come under her clutches astray.  It seems a bit, I guess silly is the word, to think that men have no power to say no or have no power to evade temptation and so we must blame the woman who is the temptress.  Not sure that would fly today.  We have to recognize that we cannot blame  the woman alone for adultery, and normally it is the man who is to take the primary blame, normally.

We once again find ourselves hearing about the life and times of Elisha as he leads Israel into the conquest of the Arameans and into a time of famine followd by a miraculous defeat of the Arameans simply by them running away and leaving all of their provisions behind without even a battle.  

We then transition to Jehu who cleans house, literally, and removes the king of Iarael and and all of his family and all of the family of Ahab including his wife, Jezebel.  Remember Ahab and Jezebel, the two who fought against Elijah on Mt. Carmel but were defeated by God bringing fire down?  Yeah, she is still around as well as the children of Ahab, 70 of them, and each with some right to the throne.  With the elimination of them Jehu is able to lay claim to the throne after Elisha sends his servant to go and annoint him.

As a reult Jehu kills all the prophets of Baal and destroys the temple of Baal while at the same time still hung on to the sins of Jeroboam and was willing to worship not just God, but also the golden calves of Bethel and Dan.  Even though he cleaned house in a very effective way, old bad habits die heard, and that still tripped him up.

Psalm 140 speaks of those who would use violence to bring about their desires and prays that their plans would not succeed.  It is somewhat ironic to hear about Jehu who is supported and encouraged by the Lord and the degree of violence that is a part of his life and yet he is doing God’s will.  Not somethign that in our modern day we would consider the way to do things at all, and Psalm 140 reflects that, but historically we simply know that God’s people took over control through violence primarily.  When Jesus came along he changed all that.

We begin a new book in the Bible and this time we also have the transition from Elijah to Elisha.  Isn’t it interesting that this book of the Bible is called Kings and yet it focuses on the prophet of the Lord and his interaction with the kings, even while the kings are very present and evident.  Elijah is taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire and Elisha sees it happen and as a result he is given the mantle of  prophetic leadership that Elijah had.  After receiving that leadership one of his first acts is to kill a bunch of teenagers who call him bald, yeah, that happened.  

The story of the widow’s oil is significant as is the healing of Naaman in the Jordan.  Both of those stories I have preached on numerous times as demonstrations of the love of God that manifests itself when we are willing to do God’s will even though at the time it is less than evident why we are doing what we are doing.

Proverbs gives us a series of warnings: against folly and against adultery.  Both of those things we find people of God caught up in and it changes and destroys lives.

We find ourselves in the last chapters of I Kings and the last day of king Ahab.  Remember, Ahab is that king who along with his wife Jezebel had that battle of the gods on Mount Carmel with the prophet Elijah.  He, along with the southern King, Jehosophat, are surrounded by yes sayers in the prophets around them who told them that they should go into battle against Aram.  But only one prophet, Micah, tells teh two kings the truth, they will be scattered o the battle field, meaning they would be defeated.  

They choose not to listen and go into battle and are defeated and Ahab is killed.  That ends the book of I Kings and the kingdom is still divided, even though they worked together for their own defeat here.

We then pick up in Proverbs with an extolling of wisdom as what we ought to be pursuing.  There are some who see in wisdom, the greek it would be Sophia.  Interestingly there is a whole movement in regards to Sophia almost defining her as a goddess.  

Chapter 5 gives the reader a chance to see the perils of adultery, and reminds the reader that it is probably better to “drink water from your own cistern.”  That’s a great euphemism for don’t cheat on your spouse.

We find a lot of intruige and death and backstabbing an other events to ensure that one ruler remains ruler and another ruler and his family are completely destroyed so that no one in the family would lay claim to the throne.  It fascinates me that each person that comes up and rules over Israel does what is worse than what his ancestors does.  This culminates with the reign of Ahab and Jezebel.  Keep in mind, these chapters only talk about the kingdom of Israel, so that would be the northern kingdom.  It seems like during this whole time the southern kingdom, Judah, is reigned by Asa and while not perfect we did read last chapter in 15:11 that he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

We are introduced both to Elijah and Elisha in these Scriptures for today.  The battle of the prophets is classic as is Elijah’s experience with God in the cave where a still small voice came after a series of events that one would have assumed were theophanic experiences.  But none were, except, potentially, that still small voice, that whisper.  

In James we have some great moral teachings in regards to not treating other people with preference because of their wealth or their status.  

We now begin the cycle of a split kingdom and the kings who fall short of God’s desire for their reing.  David was a king after God’s heart, but Solomon, while being blessed with the gift of wisdom, pursued the wives of foreign nations and that caused the inevitable, apostasy.  God told the people of Israel a long time ago not to marry those from other religions because they would cause you to backslide and move away from him as the one and only God.  Solomon did not listen to the tune of marrying 700 foreign wives and having 300 foreign concubines.  You would think that this amount of influence would inevitably lead him down the wrong path, and it did.

He began accepting sacrifices and other signs of foreign gods in the land of Israel that God had established.  As a result God told Solomon that his reign would be taken out of his family’s hands, but not in the time of Solomon.  In fact, once Solomon dies then his son rules but the kingdom is divided with him only having one of the 12 families of Israel under his reign, and that would be in Jerusalem.  

So that begins the cycle of one ruler after another turning their back on God and God giving the land over to those who do not follow him.  This will all eventually culminate in both the Norther Kingdom (Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (Jerusalem or Judah) being taken over and driven to a foreign land, like Babylon and Assyria.   But that happens a bit later.

In Proverbs 3 we have the well known verse 5: “Trut in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”

The detail and the description of the building of the temple is esquisite.  You can’t read these chapters in Solomon without recognizing the wealth that was poured into the temple for the sake of the Lord.  This is something that a lot of people struggle with.  Why pour money into the temple when you can easily use that money for the poor, for programs that reach out to children an youth, for widows and other pastoral ministries?  That is a question that hits to the core of many decisions that are made at the session level.  How do you discern what is to be spent for the Lord’s work and what is exactly the Lord’s work?  

Not to compare material things to what Solomon is doing, like the organ or some other improvement made to our buildings, but there is a sense that what is done by Solomon is important work which is required of the Lord.  I know that I can say personally no more important work have I done than when I was in a setting where we did not own our own buildings but rather used all of our resources for the work of the kingdom of God which did not go into any physical plant.  But that is not where we find ourselves today.

I did think it was interesting that after the temple is built and Solomon asks the Lord to remember his people he does not say that the Lord resides in the temple, but rather look at 8:49 where Solomon describes the dwelling place of God as “heaven”.  He asks God that when the people come to the temple to pray that God, from heaven, would hear their prayer.  The temple serves not as the home for God, but rather as a gathering place for the people of God in order to do one thing in common, seek the Lord, call upon his name.  Of course, you can do that in other places and by yourself, but Solomon’s temple, and I would say church for that matter, is a place that is set apart specifically for that purpose and that purpose alone.

In Proverbs you see the moral benefits of wisdom which the king lays out very clearly.  Oh, one more thing I wanted to say about I Kings.  Not very often in Scripture do we find the reference to the wife of the king of Israel.  But here we see that Solomon marries the wife of a Pharaoh.  Now while this might be a problem historically, in the Scripture it provides a very clear path to peace with Egypt and also a clear path to Solomon’s wealth and influence in the land.  It also reminds us that clearly there were Jewish men and women of color since the very beginning.