PSA Bible Reading Challenge 2023-2024

Do you remember Jonah who was given a mission to proclaim Good News to the Ninevites, even while God said that they would perish because they were wicked?  Do you remember how they repented and turned to God and God had compassion on them and rescued them?  Well, not so much in the book of Nahum.  We find ourselves in another minor prophet, and this time we find this prophet speaking many oracles against the nations, beginning with Nineveh. 

You may wonder about this seeming schizophrenic approach to a nation.  No, it makes sense, because in one, Jonah, we see that the grace of  God is allowed to extend to whomever God chooses to extend the grace of God.  In another, so in this case Nahum, we see  that the justice of God is allowed to extend as far as God wants the justice of God to extend.  He wants to be sure that Israel knows that God is an avenging and jealous  God.  Remember in the New Testament, in Romans, where God says vengeance is mine.  The implication is that we are not to take vengeance because God is able to do it on His own.  

When we get to verse 15 we find that the Gospel is proclaimed.  Remember that Gospel really means Good News, and so when we read about one who proclaims peace  and is able to help us celebrate with good news, well, that is Gospel.  The good news is  that the enemy is about to die, which will, of course, bring about peace. Nahum, like Joel, is also short, just 3 chapters.

We find ourselves at the end of Joel and a promise that the nation who had abused and taken Israel to battle will fall on the day of the Lord.  So I guess the day of the Lord is not so bad after all.  But actually, this is not the day of the Lord this all takes places after the day of the Lord.  Do you notice the anti-Isaiah 2:4 and the anti- Micah 4:3 which you find in vs. 10 and following?  While these verses mentioned talk about the time when the day of the Lord  will bring about peace, to the point where we will not learn war any longer.  Both of these verses describe a scene where swords are beaten into plowshares so that peace can truly infuse the land.

Well, not so much here in Joel.  Here we find the opposite taking place in vs. 10 where plowshares become swords and pruning shears become spears.  It  is not at all a time of peace, but rather a battle cry for people to take up arms.  As a result there is a promise that all of the old-time enemies of Israel will suffer.  So there is a prophesy against Egypt and also against Edom where they will become both desolate.  So ends Joel.  

We begin this chapter with a very in depth description of what the day of the Lord is going to look like.  Let’s just start by saying that it is not something that any of us will be looking forward to.  If you look at vs. 1 and 2 we see  that the day of the Lord is coming and then it is described as “a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness.”  

The army that is described to me sound like an army of locusts.  An army of locusts that destroys everything in its path and without any means of ameliorating its impact.  But then there is a transition that seems to take place in vs.12 as we read that we are called to turn back to the Lord, to actually return to the Lord.  It sounds like we have strayed from the Lord, these terrible things are happening, and now we need to turn back to the Lord.

We need to weep and fast but we especially need to rend our hearts and not just our clothing.  We are then reminded in vs.13 that God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  Okay, we needed to hear that after we got that terrifying image of the Day of the Lord.  Then there is a call for a congregational meeting.  Everyone get together now.  

We then are given even more hope as we find before us almost a promise that God will bring things back to a new normal where there is the ability to “rejoice” in the Lord.  And then the promise that, seen in vs.25, “I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten.”  Things seem to be looking a lot better now.

And then we find a series of verses which we use often for Pentecost, they are verses 28-29 where we get the promise that the Holy Spirit will fall on all flesh, sons, daughters, old men, young men, male and female slaves.  Again, the net is cast wide.

That is the vision that we have for the presence of the Holy Spirit which is that the net is cast wide.  It is given to all those who would come seeking His presence.  The promise that we get in these verses is that this will/has/does happen.

We find ourselves in a new book of the Bible: Joel.  The time of authorship is thought to be around 500BC, give or take a hundred years.  It is a minor prophet who declares  a crisis which is taking place and which includes the destruction of much of the agriculture of Israel.  Remember, Israel was an agriculturally based group of people.  Let’s look at chapter 1.

In chapter 1 we set the stage for a destruction of all that is growing on a scale that is incredibly grand.  Everyone is affected without a doubt.  All should be weeping because there is no longer anything to eat or drink.  We  look at vs.14 as the prophet declares that a time of fast ought to be called.  But then in vs.15 notice what he calls this tragedy…The Day of the  Lord.

So when we think of  the Day of the Lord, we might even call it the day of resurrection.  When we think of the day that Jesus comes back to earth and gathers us it is almost always seen in a very positive light.  When we think of the day of the Lord,  we can’t wait for it to come.  It is the carrot that is at the end of this stick that we call life.  Okay, I don’t think that way, but you have heard that said.  But  here Joel says no, don’t look forward to the day of the Lord because it is going to be desolate.  Our task is to do what we hear in vs.14 and 19.  Our job is to cry to the Lord.  I’m not sure we are going to get a good  answer to what is happening here in the prophet Joel.  Let’s keep going to chapter 2 and see what we get.  It is only 3 chapters after all.

Did I mention that I have three daughters?  So…, what part of this chapter do you think is appealing to me?  How about…NONE OF IT!!  But don’t ever forget the reminder that we get in vs.25.  It is a reminder of why the decision that was made by the other 11 tribes of Israel to allow the Benjaminites to go and kidnap young women who were dancers, or to go and slay all the males of the tribe that did not come up when basically a census was done, in order that these women could be given to the surviving males of the Benajaminites.

I hope as you are reading this you are able to put it within the context that this is what happens when the Lord is not directly ruling over you, and, in fact, when no one is directly ruling over you.  Anyone who wishes that there would be no government really doesn’t understand what that might mean.  Sure, we get frustrated with our government, but it is still the best rule that is found in the world.  The government that we have in the USA, with the system of checks and balances, cannot be matched by any other country.

Now, having said that we are very, very error prone and we do sin as a country.  There is no country that is able to follow all things perfectly.  We, as a country, are far from that.  But we are pretty spectacular, especially when you hold it up to the light of the what was happening in the Wild West, also known as the time of the judges. Well, we are leaving that chaotic time and hopefully we will find ourselves in a time that is a bit more ordered.  Don’t count on it.

I’m not sure if you picked up on this or not, but this is an account of a civil war.  These are the tribes of Jacob, who is later called Israel, at war among each other.  The Benjaminites are the ones that raped the Levite’s wife until she died and so this is retribution for this act since the Benjaminites refused to send out to the rest of Israel the people who were involved in this  heinous attack.  As a result, after putting up a good fight, they were utterly destroyed.  

Do you notice how the author depicts the fighting of the Benjaminities?  A couple of times we read about how they were “courageous fighters”, vs.44, vs.46.  You wonder if the author of Judges wasn’t a little sympathetic to this tribe or if the author had some roots to these courageous fighters who were defending a rapist culture.  Not something I would want in my resume, but it is interesting how this battle is depicted. 

It is also important to see how the people of Israel lost the first two battles even though they followed God’s command on what was supposed to happen.  It brought them to tears, and doubt, as they wondered if this was actually God’s  plan all along.  They came back in tears and didn’t know if they had missed something or not.  Shall we go back out into battle, after two defeats?  Yes, go up.  This time it worked.  It looked like they didn’t have much of a strategy the first two times.   The third time we read about their strategy, it was cunning, and it worked.

Just because God says that He is  on our side doesn’t mean that we can just relax, pull up a soda and watch TV.  We are still given work to do in order to ensure the best that we possibly can before the Lord.

The wild west meets a horror movie.  What happens in this chapter is horrific.  I think one of you at some point said that while you were reading the Scripture you told yourself: you know, at this point I think I am going to stop reading.  I’m guessing this is as far as you got.  Why does the Bible have this terrifying story?  It must be to depict the atrocities that were taking place when the people were doing what was right in their own eyes.  There was no person to rule over them, and certainly they were not following the commands of the Lord.  

Does this story remind you a bit of Genesis 19:1-11?  Read  it again and see the similarities.  A similar aspect to both of these stories is yes, there was a desire by the men of the village to have sex with the men in the house.  That was an abomination.  But there is also the underlying sin of the people within the house were guests and there were very strict prohibitions against treating strangers in a way that was dehumanizing and not giving them hospitality.  

It is hard to imagine, and difficult to understand, what was in the mind of this Levite, who just might be the same Levite that we have seen all along.  To offer his wife, and by the way the fact that she is called concubine should not be seen as any justification, it  was his wife!  The people of the village raped her to death.  

What happens next is a set up for what will take place in the next chapter, an insight into how there will be hopefully some order set up after an especially atrocious act takes place.  It should remind us that often it is only when something tragic takes place that action is seen.  You would think that there could have been some steps take before this to ensure that there was some civility in the land.  That was not the case.  Everyone did what was good in their own eyes, which meant that they could do anything they wanted with no repercussions.  

We have a very unsettled picture of what is happening in the territory which should belong to the Israelites.  This poor tribe of Dan is wandering around because they weren’t able to establish the land that was assigned to them.   We read about how the Danites were pushed out of their territory in Judges 1:34-35.  We can also read in Joshua 19:47 about this similar battle depicted in this chapter, which wasn’t much of a battle but more of a massacre of a peaceful innocent people.  But notice how Micah comes back into the picture.  We still don’t know the name of the Levite, but he was very much sought after.

This is a time of utter chaos within the land of Israel.  Not only did they not have a king, but it also seems like they don’t have a judge to rule over them.  Micah does not play that role, this wandering Levite doesn’t play that role, no one plays that role within this scene.  As a result a wild-west reality seems to take over the land.  If a band of marauding Danites wanted to take a home’s idol and their priest, they could do so.  If they wanted to threaten that homeowner, in this  case it was Micah, with bodily harm, they could and the homeowner would have to decide if it was worth it or not.  Micah decided it was not worth it.  

The Danites got their land in a time where might means right.  It seems like we are living in a bit of time like that as well now.  But keep in mind “might makes right” is not a Scriptural axiom, but rather a sign that chaos and ungodliness is ruling the land.  At least that was the sign of the times in the Old Testament in the 18th chapter of Judges.

Good intentions don’t always mean good decisions.  Here we find a man named Micah who stole money from his mom, gave it back to his mom, and his mom, out of gratitude decides to make an idol to use in order to worship God.  The son carries out her plans.  There are so many things wrong with this scenario, which simply underscores that statement which repeats itself and we find in vs 6: “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.”  This is an example of doing wrong while thinking you are doing right in your own eyes.

So what do we use as a guide to what we should and should not do?  Well, to begin with, Scripture tells us not to steal.  Okay, check.  Then it also tells us not to create or worship idols.  Okay check.  Then the mom said that the silver which was returned would be entirely consecrated to the Lord, but only 200 pieces out of the 1,100 were used to make the idol.  Maybe the rest was used to pay off this strange wandering Levite without a name who then becomes Micah’s private priest.  

The final line is telling to modern day prosperity gospel folks.  Because of all that he did Micah is convinced that “the Lord will prosper me”.  Well, we don’t really have that guarantee.  This is a clear chapter on what not to do.  

So a lot of poets and song writers have captured the troubled love affair of Samson and Delilah but none so convincingly as the Grateful Dead.  It is interesting how Samson tends to get himself into trouble over and over again, kind of like the people of Israel, with women who don’t really support him or are very loyal to him.  Delilah was offered silver in order to betray her husband.  She took the deal.

Oh, here is another song that includes these two heroes, well, at least one is a hero and the other is a villain.

I often put myself in the shoes of Samson and I wonder at what point do I figure out what my wife is doing in order to put my life in danger.  Three times it is obvious that she has done something that was told to her by Samson in order to put his life in danger.  But he still not only stays with her, but tells her a fourth time.  The Scripture implies in vs.16 that it was really Delilah’s fault that Samson gave in, but come on, he should have known by now that things were not going the way that he had hoped with this new wife.

Once he is captured and his eyes are poked out, then Delilah disappears.  He destroys the Philistine chiefs and his family takes him up and buries him and as an afterthought we read that he had judged Israel for 20 years.  I wonder how many of those years were behind Philistine hands as a blind man.