Judges

portrays Israel as really stupid.  They turn away, the Lord delivers with a judge, the judge redeems and rules justly for X-number of years, Israel turns away again, etc...  After a time of this it presents the picture of "there being no judge in the land and everyone did what was right in their own eyes."  Like a Levite priest throwing a concubine to a mob to be ravished, then cutting her into 12 pieces to send to the twelve tribes.  Whoa.  

Israel was commanded under Joshua to fully take the land and totally and utterly remove the foreigners, or else their pagan ideology would spread into Israel and it would be a snare to them.  Upon entering the promised land Israel saw it, claimed it, and cut there losses.  They hadn't totally removed the Philistines and Canaanites, but who cares?  They had more land then they've ever possessed before.  Manasseh, Gad and Reuben didn't even make it West of the Jordan before they claimed their inheritance.  

Hebrews 11 says:

And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. ¹⁴People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. ¹⁵If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

C.S. Lewis says our problem isn't that the world and its pleasures are so wonderfully enticing that we are distracted from what God offers, but rather that we are far too easily pleased.  The world is not so good that it competes for the goodness of what God offers, but rather we are so fallen that we can't even imagine the greatness of God and thus settle for what the world offers, thinking it is true joy. 

So it is with Israel, and often times me.  Reading through Joshua I was getting the picture that the Promised Land was like a modern day equivalent of Heaven.  But I don't share that thought anymore. The Promised Land is good, but still not home.  Israel saw the beginnings of their inheritance and settled with just that.  They received the land, but not fully.  They did not rout the pagan nations left, and a century later in Judges Israel sees fully the consequences of that.  The Philistines enslave them.  They take other nations as wives and begin worshiping their deities.  The Law in the Torah is almost completely forgotten, Levi priests serve households rather than Israel and carved images instead of the Lord.

Regardless of how good this world ever is to me, I never want to lose sight that my true home is not here.  

Politics take 3 - N. Korea

Thanks Economist.  Great cartoon, once again.

My wife said in psych class they used him as a case study for "Narcissistic." 

The Prodigal Son Without Jesus

A certain man had a son.  And the son said to his Father, "Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me."  So he divided his livelihood to him.

After many days journey the son arrived in a far country, and there wasted his possessions with wild living.  Having nothing left, he longing to fill his stomach with the same pods he saw pigs eating.  He said to himself, "Despite my wickedness I will return home to my Father and beg to be made a slave." So the son began the journey home.

While he was still a long way off, the Father saw the son and went to him and dragged him out to the city gates and said "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.'  Then all the men of the city stoned him with stones, and he died.  And so the evil was put away from among the people.  And all the people heard and were afraid.

Deut. 21:18-21

True justice is a scary thing.  How easy it is to take grace for granted.

God in a box

just doesn't work.  I just finished Numbers and was beginning to kid myself into believing whatever the patriachs asked God would grant, and that he was a jokster who enjoyed doing things like listening to Israel complain simply so that He could watch them squirm from plegues and snakes.  Abram begged God to spare Sodom in 10 righteous men were found in the town.  Moses presuaded God to spare Aaron after he constructed the golden calf, to spare Israel after they were stupid, and to provide healing from the vipers in the desert.

But just when I think God can be fit in a box, along comes Balaam to curse Israel.  But he can only return to the King and say "Must I not take heed to speak what the Lord has put in my mouth?"  With local dieties it was popular to petition them again and again until they did what you wanted.  But not the Lord.  He makes up his own mind.  His mind doesn't change. 

I used to think prayer was simply a formula: righeousness + consistant prayer = request granted.

It's not as simple as that.

Leviticus

Be holy, for the Lord is Holy.

Leviticus and my ethnic friend

After a little over a week I'm in Leviticus in my "through the Bible in a Summer" expedition.  It's slow going...

In other news, here's a pic of a friend of mine who on an impulse decided to raise money to fly to Hawaii by singing on University.  He made $42.

Thomas More

"Of worldly substance, friends, liberty, life and all, to set the loss at right nought, for the winning of Christ."

~A Godly Meditaiton

Al the Repair Guy

90-some years old. wicked tattoo on his arm.  Retired police cheif.  Blue-tooth headset savvy. Does good work fixing windows.

When I was messing with my curtains the other day I slipped on the couch and put my shoulder through the window.  The temp fix was cardboard.  Whoops...

Still not as bad as the vertical blinds episode...

The Gospel in Joseph

The effect of guilt: there is always something to fear.  God will realize the guilty one and execute judgement.  At the end of every conversation with Joseph the brothers bring it back to "We have killed our brother now our evil deed has caught up to us!  Surely God has found our iniquity and will bring justice."   Justice is Joseph killing the brothers who sold him into slavery when he first saw them.  Or when they returned for the second time.  Or when the cup was found in Ben's bag.  But Joseph instead spares them, loves them, and eventually feasts with them.

The situation: they are fearful that their actions a decade ago would be found out and punished by God.  They go to Egypt thinking their doomed.  Simeon, the second oldest and most influential outside of Reuben the oldest, probably played a major role in the plot to kill Joseph.  Reuben tries to save Joseph but fails.  Judah suggests to sell his own brother into slavery, even going so far to make money off him.  And the result?  Simeon is imprisoned for a time.  They narrowly escape Egypt a second time (or so the brothers think).  A cup is found in Ben's bag and he, the only innocent one among them, is sentenced to death.  Judah realizes he is the one who is guilty.  He sold Joseph, not Benjamin.  Something inside of him changed when he realized one who was innocent is taking the death he rightfully deserves.  He offers to take Ben's place.  

An innocent man died for me too.  That's why I love the Gospel.

And the climax?  Joseph weeps with joy over his brothers when he has every right to kill them.  

Gen 45:7 "And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.  So now it was not you who sent me here, but God..."

In God's mercy he always spared a remnant of wicked, undeserving Israel.  Jesus came to redeem the lives of others by a "great deliverance."  Not by His will did he endure the Cross, but because God said this is the way it must be.

My buddy Scraw has been writing posts about a guy who asks several influential Christians what they would write if they were told to Twitter the Gospel.  Though incomplete, this would be my answer:

I should die.  But instead I'm blessed.

Spring Break (finally...?)

mmm.  I like the beach.

Summer Goals

To read through the Bible over the Summer.

Aprox. pages: 1430

Pages needed to be read per day: 16

Pages I've read over the past 2 days: 26

...I'm already behind...

Unmanly List #86

Big dude walking small dog.

politics, take-2

~The Economist, KALs cartoon

I remember Bush looking quite similar as he progressed through his presidency.  All I can say is I'm glad I'm not president.  That's a tough job.  

Pray for morality and wisdom for the president.