THE PLAN
Every Monday I will post the reading for the week ahead. It will be about 10 chapters a week. You might want to read a chapter or two a day, and catch up at weekends. If there is a verse that especially spoke to you, a question that you have, or a thought that struck you, please share it with your fellow travellers by making a comment.
3 comments:
Judges has been hard to stomach. But 18:1 and 19:1 and 21:25 tell us what the problem is. Of course, they shouldn't have needed a King (see 8:23) because they had one in the Lord. And that's the dark backdrop that makes Ruth ("in the days when the judges ruled") so dazzling. The sovereign Lord is working out His sovereign purposes . In His mercy He will provide the King His people need. See 4:22. Not David, of course, but great David's greater Son. Praise Him.
"Where it not that I know who reigns, my soul would sink within me." Charles Simeon
Hmmm, spot on Mike. The darkness of the context makes the book of Ruth all the more amazing. I found the end of Judges so grim to read. Judges 19 echoes events in Sodom in Genesis 19, and the result is the dismemberment of a terribly abused dead woman and a bloody civil war. It’s crying out for someone to take charge. As dreadful as those events are, I love that about the Bible. Its writers do not shrink from telling it as it is. They are real about the magnitude of the problem. I am left amazed at the Lord whose sovereign purposes are not derailed by chaos (but then, of course they’re not, because he’s the Lord - need to get that into my head somehow!). Given the existential woes of the tribe of Benjamin in Judges 21, it is remarkable that Israel’s first king, Saul, comes from the tribe of Benjamin (1 Samuel 9:1-2). Not sure what to make of that. Perhaps a merciful answer to their anguished prayer in Judges 21:3? Striking also that a later Saul (Paul the apostle) also comes from the tribe of Benjamin (Philippians 3:5). Love the way the Lord always has the last word on history.
Ruth = welcome relief after Judges. I love that she just 'happened to' go to Boaz's field. It's a very hopeful book, showing that God is in charge of all things. And that he always preserves a remnant of people who follow him.
Post a Comment