New Year: Luke 4-5 for Oct 29

It is difficult to say enough in praise of how strong an introduction to the ministry of Jesus Luke 4-5 are.

(Matthew 4:1 - 9:17 and Mark 1:12 - 2:22 are in sequence with Luke 4-5, when we view them "synoptically.")

The initiative with the disciples (5:1-11,27-32); the completely different views than the scribes and Pharisees (5:21-26,30-32,36-39); how Jesus dealt with those who were angry with Him (4:25-30); how he dealt with His own disciples who were afraid of Him (5:8-10); His teaching on the pull of tradition and the necessity to avoid it (5:38-39).

But something must be said about the time the Lord "was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil" (4:1-2).

The first-time reader might notice how "technical" these temptations are, i.e., the use of Bible verses, and that does it. But looking up the references, it turns out that we notice that the Lord uses verses from a part of the Old Testament that is not as well-traveled as much as some others. Many have heard the story of the Exodus, but who can say where "man shall not live on bread alone" is? Or "You shall worship the Lord God and serve Him only" is? Or where "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test" is (Dt 8:3; 6:13; 6:16)?

It's from a restatement section of the Old Testament, where Moses is restating what happened earlier. So there is secondary application of each of the verses: man shall not live on bread alone is a part of the original sentence, which goes on "but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord" (Dt 8:3). The verse itself is being employed in what the verse is saying a man should employ it to do, and not only that, it answers the temptation about bread.

Similarly, Luke 4:8, "you shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only" is what Jesus does in not bowing before the devil; as well as that, the content of the verse itself answers the temptation.

Similarly, 4:12. "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test": Jesus does not jump; therefore He does not put the Lord to the test. As well as that, the verse itself is employed to answer the temptation of Jesus to throw Himself down, as to why not. Jesus uses the Word of God in two concurrent ways during these three temptations: He follows it, and He provides it as sufficient answer to the temptation's issue.

New Year: Luke 2-3 for Oct 28

Luke 2 "says things" that you can't say in a textbook way about Christmas. Today there are two tasks laid out, to say something you may have overlooked about Christmas ("how is that possible?"), and to overlook something that others have said about these chapters, and substitute something better.

(Matthew 3:1:17 and Mark 1:1-11 are in sequence with Luke 3, when we view them "synoptically.")

There's something very interesting about the drama of Luke 2:8-14. In Luke 1, the reader can't help noticing that Mary and Zacharias spoke and prophesied about a "done deal": God has done something. At that point, Christ hadn't even been born yet, but was in Mary's womb. Yet to Zach and Mary, God "has brought down rulers" (Mary, 1:52) ... "God has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people" (Zach, 1:68). Done deal. See also Mary in 1:48, 53-55, and Zach in 1:69-71.

In 2:11, however, the fact has occured, "there has been born for you a Savior." The solitary angel ("I bring you," 2:10) gives the news, and the sign. Abstract news? No. "I bring you good news" (2:10). Just that somebody was born, in the "that's nice" kinda-non-newsy way? No. "...born for you" (2:11): for the shepherds. Those shepherds? Yes! One angel. Did you notice that before? In the sky? No. "There stood before them". The angel was right there in front of them (2:9).

Next (2:13), not in the sky, but "with the angel," the next event: "suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host..." On the ground! The Son of God in a manger, and angels on the ground. No need to be embarrassed that the Son of God was born on terra firma, and no need to stick these angels in the sky.

OK. The next task is to talk about how Luke says things that are better than what people have said about Luke 2-3. People have said that there is a gap in our knowledge of the Lord's life, between Luke 2 and Luke 3. Perhaps that habit of mind comes from seeing the date on each page of printed newspaper we read. Don't know. We do, however, have to allow Luke to say things as he wants to, and the Bible in general.

When a prophecy is true, then what it says is true, even if it is said before it happens. What Mary, and Zacharias, and OT prophecies already said about the Messiah is true, even if it is said before it happens, even if it not said after it happens.

Isaiah 53:2 says "He grew up before Him like a tender shoot / And like a root out of parched ground / He has no stately form or majesty / That we should look upon Him / Nor appearance that we should desire Him." Prophecy. It informs us about Jesus's growing up.

Prophecies, however, are not the only way that Luke has told us about the Lord's upbringing. He's been talking about it since 1:5! Zecharias and Elizabeth -- Mary's relatives, whom she stayed with while pregnant with Jesus -- they are lock-step with God's ways (1:6) and Jewish lineage as specific as Jewish lineage can be expressed (1:5). Angels visit both, announcing events! Luke is telling us of the way of life of these particular people, and of Mary's way of life in community with them. Joseph? Lineage of David (1:27). But was Joseph the father of Jesus? It was "as was supposed" only (3:23). But Jesus "of Eli!" (The Greek doesn't say "son",but the list is uniformly, "of A, of B, of C," etc. How could Jesus not be biologically "of" Joseph, but only the supposed descendant, yet be of Eli? Very likely through Mary, as Warfield has researched. So Mary was also daughter of David. The Lord's upbringing was as a son in the line of David. Anything else cluing us to the contents of Luke 2:53 - 3:00? What did Joseph and Mary, pointedly "His parents," do "every year" (2:41)? The required trip. Why did they "not find Him" (2:45) after a day's travel? Isn't the best explanation, that of His uniform trustworthiness?" Could it not be that He was so trusted by them, at this point, that a full travel day of trust was a matter of course, already a common thing.

Not just to hear about it from humans, how about God? Before Jesus even embarked on a single journey of teaching and healing, God appears, and says to Him "You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased" (3:22). What else could we ever want to have, which covers Him in every aspect including His upbringing until that point, along with His relationship to God the Father?"

New Year: Luke 1 for Oct 27

What is God doing? In Luke 1 God's dramatic work immediately prior to the births of Jesus and John the Baptist is given in great detail.

It's tempting to put Zacharias in a bad light, and Elizabeth in a contrasting light, because of the comment of Zacharias in 1:18 versus the comment of Elizabeth in 1:45. But Luke does not allow that generalization (1:6). In fact, Zacharias is not only the father of John the Baptist who "will be called a prophet" (1:76), but himself speaks prophecy (1:67), the final one before Christ's birth in Luke 2.

Zacharias's words (1:68-79) are not even all, or mostly, about his own son John. Some are (1:76-77), but they're mostly about what the meaning of those times are for Israel. Zacharias "was filled with the Holy Spirit" (1:67). Thus also Elizabeth, before she spoke (1:41). John the Baptist himself, "while yet in his mother's womb" (1:15), the same.

The angel speaks something to Mary (1:35) that thousands of years of theology about the Incarnation have not bettered.

New Year: Mark 15-16 for Oct 26

In Mark 15-16 the Lord's death and Resurrection are described in the same factual vein: "He breathed His last" (15:39) is the same reporting language as "He has risen; He is not here" (16:6): no hype in the language, no showiness of speech. When the women talked (16:11,13), the disciples didn't say something like "sweet story," but the disciples "refused to believe" (16:11) or "they did not believe" (16:13) at first. Later, that would change (16:20).

New Year: Mark 13-14 for Oct 25

The discussion/discourse of Mark 13, which goes to "the end" and beyond (13:13) towers over the events of Mark 14 to the same extent that the Lord does. There is a context into which these events of Mark 14 have already been put.

(Matthew 24:1 - 26:75 and Luke 21:5 - 22:71 are in sequence with Mark 13-14, when we view them "synoptically.")

This pattern is again evident, the teaching about the significance of future events preceding the events themselves (1:2,8,24; 2:9-12,20; 3:14,19,28-29;4:24-25; 5:28), and here it is explicitly punctuated and emphasized (13:23).

Peter, James, and John were the three at the Transfiguration (9:2), and in Mk 13:3, Andrew, Peter's brother, is also there. Mark 13 in certain parts has that same panoramic scope throughout time that we notice in Mk 8:38, 9:41, 10:40 as well. Finally, these four notice it, and have two questions in 13:4. The next section (Mark 13:5-13), like the telescoped saying in 8:38 takes His disciples throughout all time until the end, from that time until the end. The second part (13:14ff) starts by describing a single situation, and sounds for all the world like a situation which the Lord is preparing His four disciples and their contemporaries who are reading this for. Then He goes back in 13:24, "but in those days, after that tribulation....")

Looking at it that way, Jesus answers both questions of 13:4. When the taking down of stone from stone will be (13:14-23), and what the sign will be when all these things will be fulfilled, both those described in 13:2, the sign being 13:14, and those described in 13:26, the sign being 13:24-25.

Before going onto the time of the Lord's arrest, Mark describes the exhortation to alertness, which is not easily transmuted to be like an exhortation to "be good" for Santa, or an exhortation to be good. It is not "be good," as such, what we might expect, with an accompanying threat, but to keep on the alert, be on the alert. What has the Lord just given the disciples for all time, to be alert about? A possibly particular event in Judea, or at least that Judea would know about (13:14) ... and a world-wide event that "they will see" (13:26). The exhortation, fascinatingly, is against finding us "asleep" (13:36). It is pointedly not accompanied by a warning of something negative, just an exhortation to not be found asleep -- reminding me of what a groom might say to his bride, or even some surprise wrapped in the timing, for the Son, from the Father (13:32).

New Year: Mark 11-12 for Oct 24

Jesus is not only intimate with the details of the immediate future (Mark 11:3,6) but of the ties between far future and present (12:40).

(Matthew 21:1 - 23:12 and Luke 19:29 - 21:4 are in sequence with Mark 11-12, when we view them "synoptically.")

The parable of the vineyard owner (12:1-11) is heart-wrenching, but has a twist at the end (12:10-11), which makes it a real problem for those who think the church invented the applications of the parables. Here, the inexplicable actions of the vineyard owner are resolved only by 12:10-11. The Lord, about to be "rejected" and killed, "became the chief corner stone," (12:10). The people were often astonished (11:18), but they were also glad to listen (12:37). However, when "the chief priests and the scribes and the elders" (11:27) "understood that He spoke the parable against them (12:12), though they were also often amazed (12:17), they would characteristically just leave (12:12).

However, those he spoke against were not spoken against en masse, as if everything was a generalization against the label "scribe" or "elder" or "priest." For example, one scribe was highly commended (12:34), in a very enigmatic way that defies most systematizers.

The teaching to the disciples is of the highest and most inspirational quality (11:20-25) amidst all this. The Lord's time in Jerusalem was His as Lord of history, as much as any other time. All that the Lord said to the disciples here was for the quality of their ongoing lives (11:20-25; 12:43).

New Year: Mark 8-10 for Oct 23

There have been hints that the time of the Lord's being taken from the disciples would come (Mark 2:20). Here in Mark 8-10, especially accompanied by the picture of Mark 10:32, with Jesus walking alone ahead of the disciples, on the road going up to Jerusalem, the reader can also understand why "those who followed were fearful" (10:32).

(Matthew 15:32 - 20:34 and Luke 9:18 - 18:43 are in sequence with Mark 8-10, when we view them "synoptically.")

But the road is also a follower's road. The one who wishes "to come after Me" (8:34) is not being given initial conditions, but the conditions for each step: each step must be self-denial, and each step must be the taking up of one's own cross.

In the rebuking of the disciples for not yet seeing or understanding (8:17), not only do we see the specifics: the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod, which is 1) religious hypocrisy and 2) the submission of one's conscience to the pursuit of power (as Herod did with John the Baptist in chapter 6), but we also see that the Lord expected understanding from His disciples by this point (8:21).

There are a couple of verses that defy references in this section. For example, 9:13. There are no cross references in my normally full edition. Where is it that they did to Elijah "just as it is written of him"? The only thing I could think of was something like I Kings 19:2.

Chapter 10, in discussion about the entering into the kingdom of God (10:15,25) , and the disciples amazed (10:24), and even more astonished (10:26), it is often taught as a lesson on humility. It should be rather taught as a lesson on impossibility (10:27) for man.

New Year: Mark 6-7 for Oct 22

The huge extent and impact of the ministry of Christ in Mark 6-7 contrasts with the lacuna of Nazareth also described here (6:6).

(Matthew 13:53 - 15:31 and Luke 9:1-17 are in sequence with Mark 6-7, when we view them "synoptically.")

The Lord's ministry, a secular viewpoint might coin it about these chapters, seems charmed. Jesus is not the only person whose popularity skyrockets. Every day and every culture can display those whose popularity skyrockets. In what way does the Lord's ministry interact with this environment? In the last chapter we saw that Jesus gave strict orders "that no one should know" about Jairus's daughter being raised up (5:43). In our chapters today, the Lord takes the disciples to a secluded place for rest (6:31-32). It doesn't last. Crowds come and come, running (6:33), pleading for the smallest contact (6:36). So the feeding of the five thousand (6:33-44) was originally supposed to have been a retreat.

Similarly, the sending of the twelve in 6:7-13: Jesus tells the disciples not to prepare in the slightest any more than the preparation for a part of one day; that is what He instructed them to do (6:8-12). Why? In this gospel, we put two and two together again. We must conclude that Mark does not describe Jesus's ministry as a manipulation for greatness of effect. He tells those He has healed to keep quiet, giving glory to God in their locality (1:44; 5:19). The demons are silenced (3:12). He leaves places in which His reputation is spreading (1:38). In the teaching, the kingdom of heaven starts as the smallest seed (4:30ff). And in the enigmatic statement, often repeated in the gospels, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear" (4:19; 4:23) there is an invitation, based on the existing condition. Jesus is not ordering loudspeakers.

New Year: Mark 3-5 for Oct 21

Mark's own way of describing the teaching of Jesus in the context of His ministry is to encourage the reader to put two and two together.

(Matthew 12:9 - 13:52 and Luke 6:6 - 8:56 cover the same period as Mark 3-5, when we view them "synoptically.")

For example Mark 1:1 puts forth as the first thing we know about Him, that He is the Son of God. The next verse, describing Him as the OT Messenger, quotes two passages, saying in effect, put them together. In 1:17 Mark gives the invitation to discipleship for two brothers, and allows us to use it to modify our shock at the actions of the next two in 1:20. In 1:38, the Messenger goes on to more towns ... we need that explanation to understand His healing ministry.

Part of Mark 4 is a series of parables, which implicitly invites us to put two and two together. What could be behind productiveness, and non-productiveness in the parable of the sower and soils (4:1-9)? Could it be in another saying closeby, such as 4:24-25, as well as the other juxtaposed sayings and parables? If we combine thoughts, there is a sense that things that have happened, even sadder ones such as the crowds not understanding Him according to plan (4:12), or the disciples being chosen, including one who betrayed Him later, are according to plan (3:13). The sower is sowing -- the word, which is something that is purposive (4:14).

New Year: Mark 1-2 for Oct 20

(Matthew 3:1 - 12:8 and Luke 3:1 - 6:5 cover the same period as Mark 1-2, when we view them "synoptically.")

By the end of this very first chapter of Mark we are confronted with a figure of history whose appearance is like nothing if not "the Son of God" (1:1) -- Mark states the title, but we must fill its meaning in, inductively: we can see the unchangeableness and goodness of the Creator combined with the energetic goodness of the repeated and frequent actions of One to whom God says "in You I am well-pleased" (1:11).

This compelling action undertaken by "Jesus Christ, the Son of God" starts after John had been taken into custody. Repeatedly Mark mentions "preaching" (1:14,38, 39), teaching (1:21,22,27), and casting out what Mark calls unclean spirits and demons (1:23,26,27,34).

The compelling action Christ undertakes extends to His calls to His disciples: the calls are more like calls to join the Seals than the calls of a teacher or even preacher (1:17, 20). As God's "messenger" (1:2) there is need to go around to many cities (1:38), and the agenda does not change regarding His taking the initiative: it is the same initiative at the beginning, when nobody knew Him, to later, when everybody looked for Him (1:37). He does not surrender the initiative of His ministry up to others.

When we go behind the scenes and behind the doors (1:29ff) even though crowds will certainly be coming. there it is peace, healing (1:31), and regularity (2:13), though of an unexpected kind (2:16,18,24).

Thus the religious conflict between Christ and the scribes (2:6) does not at first come about through antagonism to His person as such, as in pure animosity, but because of the fact that they can't stomach the content of what He is saying (2:5,7). Christ does not dismiss their uneasiness, but addresses it (2:8-10). The teaching is bursting the skins of the existing system, however. This is stated as a principle or parable (2:21-22), as well as starkly and directly (2:28).

New Year: Matt 27-28 for Oct 19

The accomplishments of the Messiah in the gospel according to Matthew are presented to the OT-prepared readers. The fact that they included His death and resurrection was known to the reader from chapter 16 onward, and we've seen how they transpired in these last two chapters of the gospel.

Christ's identity as the Son of God as well is so well-attested that His enemies testify to it (27:43) at the cross. Neutral parties become convinced of it (27:54).

People often wonder at why the Resurrection itself (28:5,6) does not get its own at-the-time description. There is plenty of witness to the aftermath of it, the number one witness being, of course, Himself being present, with all the words and actions and physicality (28:9ff).

Part of the answer is that Matthew combines his own witness with the prophecies of the OT, and the readers are not trying to depend on something of which they have no other prior witness of. The traitor's price had a witness there. The Gentiles got their witness (27:19), but it wasn't of something they would be able to control. It was according to plan. Matthew showed the disciples (16:21) that Christ "must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day." This was what God made necessary. We are quite justified to expect His presence with us to the end of the age (28:20).

New Year: Matt 24-26 for Oct 18

One common theme in these chapters is the contrary-to-expection quality of what the Messiah will do in the future, both near and far-term.

Those who say that the whole idea of the future return of Christ is invented, and did not come from Him, have a problem on their hands that comes from the structure of the passages here. It is true that the events are taught in a setting that is far removed from the A.D. 30's, and sweeps across history (24:9). However, that is just as true of Matthew 10 (10:18-23)! The tenor of what Jesus is saying is unmistakably His in both places. It is not a patchwork.

Some of this unmistable tenor is as follows: the Lord asks us in many ways in this gospel, to not worry, yet here He is saying to beware lest something occur, and warns us to do certain things in case. To punctuate just one of these sections (24:15-24), He ends it with "behold, I have told you in advance." How is it that so many dark things will be happening, and we (as a unitary group from the time He spoke these things until He returns) told to watch out for this and that, and yet it is enough to hear "behold, I have told you in advance?" It must be because He's also predicting our safe passage. Being saved means being safe. "He who endures to the end" describes not their qualities of heart, but the ticking of their heart, and God bringing them to safety.

New Year: Matt 21-23 for Oct 17

Matthew 21-23 contains the most remarkable extended confrontation of Christ with the religion of outward pretense in all the gospels. And yet Matthew 23 ends on a hint of hope even for those He has confronted (23:39).

We have been gradually prepared for this confrontation from previous ones, from as early as chapter 2 (2:3ff). And we should expect that Matthew, who wrote presenting the Messiah from the first verse onward (Matthew 1:1, "Jesus, the Messiah,"), will present Him not only in His relationship to those in support, but in His relationship to those who oppose Him; in relationship not only to that which supports, but to that which opposes Him.

For the Lord knows to deal, in real-time, on the spot, with the sin of those who sin against Him. Where discussion suffices, He explains with discussion (21:16). When there is hypocrisy behind the discussion of a subject, He dismisses the subject, but not those discussing (21:28,33,40; 22:1), and continues until they themselves go off (22:15), at least temporarily (22:16). He confounds their intellectual traps (22:15), and conundrums (22:28-30), and along the way shows such an obvious mastery of the Old Testament (22:32,37-39,44-45) that not only are those kinds of questions stopped, but the crowds are astonished at His teaching (22:33). Along the way, the reader hears a summary of the whole Law and Prophets (22:40).

People might say not to memorize chapter 23, because it is so specific to those people and that time. Is it? Regarding people (23:12)? And is it, regarding the time (23:39)?

New Year: Matt 18-20 for Oct 16

We know lots more in these chapters about specifics of the Lord's teaching, all the more so because the people who He ministers to in these chapters are "all over the map." They want greatness (20:21); they want to have at least the knowledge of measure of personal greatness (18:1); they want their own specific formulations answered (18:21; 19:10), but His teaching breaks the formulations in every case (18:1-3; 18:18; 18:35; 19:9; 19:17; 20:14-16; 20:26-28).

So with the disciples searching for ways to do comparisons, the Pharisees doing their tests, mothers doing their preferment attempts -- not to mention the man trying to get to inherit eternal life in steps -- the Lord's teaching breaks this achievement-bound thinking in many ways. In 18:1-6 and 19:13-15 the Lord puts forward children, universally thought of as those who have not achieved, as those to whom the kingdom of heaven belongs (19:14), and from who something must be gathered, which everything depends on (18:3). For those who think of achievement as time spent, the Lord has a parable about the generous employer who ignores time spent (20:1-16). The needy (19:2; 20:29-34), and the ones who are too young to have done much or even anything, or too late to have worked much, are teaching the rest.

New Year: Matt 15-17 for Oct 15

We can't even just plain understand who the Son of Man is without help with a capital H. Big help. God needs to reveal who He is, to Peter (Matt 16:14-17).

Some things are people's responsibility to understand; for example, in the Pharisees' and Sadducees' case, the signs of the times (16:3); the word of God (15:6), not to transgress (15:3) and invalidate it (15:6) for the sake of tradition.

There are things to beware of, in the pursuit of what the disciples need to know, for example, the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees (16:12). The disciples fail in the area of understanding (16:11), and it involves their not remembering what they have seen (16:9) and its significance, and it somehow should be associated with being "men of little faith" (16:8; 17:20) as well.

But it is not a quid pro quo. It's not that Peter achieved some ladder-like position of greater faith, but that God the Father revealed to Peter the two parts of his answer (16:16-17). The subsequent promises are also unilateral acts (16:18-19).

Previously, Jesus had antagonistic opposition to His actions, and, as we would have expected from early on (5:20), to His teaching. Now, some of the opposition is even picayune (15:2), or that of petty offense taking (15:12), or trap-setting (16:1), but some of it was of the worst consequence to the those who opposed Him (12:24-32). What kind of thing is opposition to the Lord's practice (15:2), to His teaching (15:11), to the continuing of His agenda without their approval (16:1)? Is it not ultimately over time ensuant of Jesus suffering and death (16:21)? Perhaps that's the leaven-aspect of the teaching He warns about (16:12). What is taught has effect.

Jesus introduces the subject of His suffering and death here, and we read of Peter and the disciples' (16:20) dealing with it for the first time. For Peter, James, and John, the Transfiguration, and the accompanying understanding they were given (17:5) did not prevent their grief (17:22-23).

New Year: Matt 12-14 for Oct 14

The combined acts and teaching of the Lord in these chapters draw the crowds and amaze the disciples. But these chapters more bring out the "ethical effects," we can call them, of His ministry (His own presence, His actions, and His teaching), upon various individuals, sets, and types of people. What are these ethical effects, and with what (individuals, sets, types of) people?

With "the Pharisees" (12:2,14,24), in "their synagogue" (12:9):
correction concerning religion in general (12:7), the Sabbath (12:8,12), and their view of Him (12:27-32).

With "His disciples" (12:1,49; 13:10-11,16-17,24,31,33,36; 14:22,31):
knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, (13:11-12); the seeing eye and the hearing ear (13:16); instances of courage and faith (14:16-18,26-33).

With the "large crowd" (12:15, 46; 13:2-3,11-15,34-36; 14:14,19); healing of all, teaching among them for the granting more to him who has, and the taking away from him who does not have (13:12).

With "this evil generation" as a whole (12:38-45): providing the one sign of Himself, and the many witnesses against it because of not repenting at at the opportunity and because of the return of evil afterwards.

With "all who were sick" (12:10-13,22; 14:14,34-35); immediate healing, and the preemminence of doing good above the Sabbath law.

With "his hometown and his household" (13:53-58): not many miracles, because of unbelief and the taking of offense at Him.

New Year: Matt 9-11 for Oct 13

There has not been a moment's rest from excitement to read the next thing, from the first verse of Matthew which mentions the Messiah, to now at the end of chapter 11, until that moment perhaps, there in that last paragraph of chapter 11, Matt 11:28-30, where Jesus directly promises rest.

Reading with anticipation what Messiah Himself was doing among the lost sheep of Israel's house (Mt 10:6), we saw that everything was going at a fast pace, combining authoritative teaching with a level of the miraculous that had never been seen before in Israel (9:33). But when the Lord sends His twelve disciples with His authority to do what He had been doing, a grand panoramic scope of activity over space, and over time unfolds (10:23). What it means that the Messiah has arrived for Israel covers not only all Israel, but all of the time until Christ, the Son of Man, "comes," and subsequent to that. The reception not only of Christ, but of those He sends, brings the consequences of the next age in (10:40-42; 11:20-24).

New Year: Matt 6-8 for Oct 12

Matt 6:2 --

Reading this verse woodenly, we might not see the irony, the humor, in the portrayal of the trumpet player. The clue is that "in the synagogues" and "in the streets" is where the acts would occur, but the trumpet playing, described for irony as a subsequent act, is not a subsequent act (Jesus was not talking about actual trumpet events at synagogue and in the streets!). The picture represents the appropriate high ridicule heaped on the act itself. How many times have people read this verse, not thinking, and thought, "hmm, of course I would never play a trumpet, i.e. brag, right after I gave to the poor ... how ridiculous." Good! But giving to the poor in order be honored ... IS playing the trumpet. No subsequent concert necessary, the trumpet has already been played. It's not bragging afterwards, which we would tend to easily laugh at. Therefore, let the humor of that instruct us.

New Year: Matt 3-5 for Oct 11

Having emphasized so much how things that transpired fulfilled the prophets, Matthew presents John the Baptist in the same vein (Matt 3:3). The time right before a unique and unrepeatable event is a unique and unrepeatable time, if somehow we become aware that it is at hand (3:2). The blessing of John the Baptist to the nation was just such a thing.

It brought those who came to him, even the "brood of vipers," into a correct preparation for what the prophets had predicted, the kingdom of heaven, but John did not, nor could not, do that himself. God warned those who came, to flee from the wrath to come. That was the answer to John's question in 3:7.

The exhortation to them therefore is not a dare, as if John taunted those who came to him to bear fruit because they could not. "Therefore bear fruit..." Since God has warned them, John exhorts those God has thus warned to flee, to do this, and not be inert like stones, which nevertheless God can transform even though they are inert. God has warned, and therefore it is God who says something should be done, actions taken. They are not stones, but have been given their warning to act, which stones cannot do.

This flight from the wrath to come will be a success if a tree bears fruit. The axe is laid at the root of all trees, since the kingdom of heaven is at hand, but the fruit bearing tree will not be cut down and will not be thrown into the fire.

What is the fruit? Is it the repentance? No, but it, the fruit, is in keeping with repentance. It fits with repentance. It fits also with the flight from the wrath to come. Since they are in flight, having been warned by God no less than Joseph was in his situation (2:22), John commends and points them to the bearing of fruit, Fruit in keeping with repentance is fruit in keeping with their flight.

John associates himself and his baptism with repentance, but promises something which is very close now, which is much bigger. He who is coming will baptize them with the Holy Spirit and fire.

He had just talked about fire (3:10), before saying that (3:11). That which John prepares them for (the kingdom of heaven) is coming upon them, and "He who is coming after me" is going to immerse them with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Whom? To whom will He who is coming after John do this? To those who came to John. So much the more, then, the call to bear fruit is urgent, since the one who is coming is the one who harvests the wheat and burns the chaff.

New Year: Matt 1-2 for Oct 10

The coming of the Messiah is good news for the Jews of Matthew's time -- pending investigation of the claim, that is. That is how Matthew approaches it. He gives the very important geneology, and starts with what is already known to be the case by the OT-steeped readers: Abraham, his descendants, and the names known in the history of Israel.

Thus Matthew doesn't assume the case of Jesus' Messiahship, but sets forth the facts to the reader, with all the awareness that one should not assume the thing one is trying to prove (1:16): "who is called the Messiah" is very circumspect language, and is right in the middle of the deployment of the evidence.

People who have trouble counting the fourteens can be helped by the following acronyms, which show the three sets of fourteens in 1:17: [AIJJPHRANSBOJD], [SRAAJJUJAHMAJ"D"], [JSZAEAZAEEMJJ"M"].

The logical steps of Matthew 1-2 are very clear: genealogy, birth, and parentage of the Messiah. Layed on top of this history is interwoven, with no apology whatsover, a staggering set of facts about the Messiah that are only explainable in two ways: that they are from God, and that they are from the Old Testament. But to the Jew, this is an OF COURSE, something to be expected, when and if God sends Messiah.

1. Stars guiding Gentiles, who seem to know something about the "born king of the Jews." Contra Herod and Jerusalem in toto. Their skillset, astronomy, is used by God, but in a totally divinely ordained way, and obviously so: they get guided by the star, lose track of it and have to detour to Jerusalem to get directions, from of all people, Herod! then, they find the star again, not knowing at that point the danger to the Messiah they have seemingly caused, yet God superintending this all!

2. This no normal birth, and Messiah is not merely David's son, but God's! All handled by the intervention of God not only with Mary, but into Joseph's life, guiding him in detail on what to do, from the beginning to the end. Old Testament prophecy confirms to the reader as well (1:23).

3. Most importantly of all, Matthew reports, not as his own theological reflection on Jesus, but as the pre-birth words of the angel, and thus as a message of divine origin, that Jesus, the child's name, is what Joseph will call Him, ... BECAUSE He will save His people from their sins! (1:21). Matthew reports this, as one of the details of an announcement to Joseph, and this conclusion has been the master of thousands of years of the best efforts at theology and the significance of Christianity. All wrapped up in one comment by an angel to Joseph, which Matthew reports.

New Year: Mal 1-4 for Oct 9

The prophet Malachi's word from God to Israel comes to them largely in the form of question-and-answer dialog with them (1:2,6-9,13;2:13-14,17;3:7,13-15). Mostly, God queries, and they have no answer. To their queries, God answers, but the answers don't affirm the nation's condition as satisfactory. The prophet closes the Old Testament with prediction of God's unilateral restorative action.

As in other prophets, present conditions are contrasted with a time yet future (1:5,11;3:1-5,10-12,17-18;4:1-3,5-6). The effect of these future actions of God is described in two ways: a delightful land and blessed nation (1:5; 3:12), and the separation of the righteous and wicked through the judgment of the latter, which "will leave them neither root nor branch" (4:1).

New Year: 1 Kings 5-6 for Apr 8

In 5:5 Solomon repeats things from the Davidic covenant given by the prophet Nathan to David in 2 Sam 7.

Solomon doesn't re-iterate 2 Sam 7:13, however. David had understood in 2 Sam 7 that there are portions that applied to the covenant, "that it may continue forever before You" (1 Sam 7:29). In fact, the whole prayer of David in 2 Sam 7:18-29 is a great example of what you can do, when the Lord has NOT just given you a to-do list, but what you can do and say to Him about what He has promised to do Himself (cf. 2 Sam 7:27-29).

Look, however, at some intervening events. In 2 Kings 2, David, as his "time to die drew near" (2:1), says things that have another reference and emphasis, telling Solomon that the Lord had said 'if your sons are careful of their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel'" (2:4).

This is quite a different emphasis than what is said in the language of the covenant, is it not? Is it not different in its emphasis than 2 Sam 7:14-16? "'I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, but My lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; you throne shall be established forever.'" It is different, but it is complementary, not contradictory.

There is a time in which God appears to Solomon himself, after this, in a dream, in 1 Kings 3:5ff. Here, this is what God says to Solomon ... compare it to what David had said in 1 Kings 2:4, because it is quite different, and also complementary, not contradictory: "If you walk in My ways, keeping My statutes and commandments, as your father David walked, then I will prolong your days" (3:14). And that was the final word from God to Solomon in the dream: "Then Solomon awoke, and behold, it was a dream!" (3:15).

Solomon, enlightened by 3:14, goes forward with his task at hand, the building of the temple. What happens if we peek ahead to later, especially 1 Kings 9:1ff, since there, the text is making a backward reference to 3:5, and see how God elaborates on the implications of the Davidic covenant He made in 2 Sam 7?

There are further events, together with God's explanations of them, coming. Compare especially 1 Kings 11:9-13.

New Year: 1 Kings 3-4 for Apr 7

The narrative leaves it to us to notice the difference between father and son literarily, in 1 Kings 3-4.

Are there psalms "of wisdom," displaying wisdom, reflecting wisdom on the part of the writer? Sure, but not explicitly so, like the introduction to Proverbs promises. Isn't that the nature of the case, that is, one difference between a person's prayers and a person's wisdom? How much wisdom does God require in order to seek Him, pray to Him, ask Him, beg Him, rejoice in His presence?

David did not become famous among the nations of his contemporary world because of his prayers. His contemporaries had their own religion and doubtless looked upon David's prayers to his God as the prayers to a national deity. But 1 K 4:29-34 describes something that attracted the nations. Proverbs, songs, science, wisdom, riches, and honor.

Can we call this gift great, and yet also call it second tier? Looking at the summary of Solomon's spirituality in 1 Kings 3:3, it would be appropriate to limit the praise of Solomon somehow. The Lord's illustration of Solomon is positive and wide, saying that wisdom greater than the wisdom of Solomon is there with Him (Mt 12:42). The superlative is reserved for Solomon's "glory," i.e., his outward glory, which Jesus puts second to that of the lilies of the field (Mt 6:29).

New Year: 1 Kings 1-2 for Apr 6

1 Kings 1-2, especially chapter 2, are not exactly eulogistic of David, nor are they exalted in their praise of Solomon as they introduce him. Note the absence of interpretive comment of any kind that the Lord commended the incidents of chapter 2, describing Adonijah, Joab, and Shimei's end at the command of Solomon. Perhaps there is a faint echo of the prediction of 1 Sam 8:18 on earthly kingships instead of the heavenly one.

These chapters are a comment on the perils of power and consolidation of power by the use of pretext. They are morally messy! Are the pretexts for Solomon's actions here concocted? In 2:22, Solomon describes a motive for Bathsheba's request that is disproportionate. 2:13 hints that Adonijah has peace on his mind, but the narrative doesn't necessarily endorse this. But immediately following this, the story of the treatment of Abiathar shows that Solomon's thinking was not pure pragmatism: "you are a man of death, but I will not put you to death at this time, because you carried the ark of the Lord GOD before my father David, and because you were afflicted in everything with which my father was afflicted." What an amazing comment!

Similar ambiguities exist for Joab's life and death, and Shimei's life and death. It is instructive to compare the one-sentence comment of 1 Kings 2:46b with 2 Samuel 5:10-12, although as a single explanation, it needs to be supplemented by all the actions prior to David's ascension and consolidation as king in 2 Samuel 3-5.

New Year: 2 Sam 22-24 for Apr 5

Some of the great highlights of Old Testament religion occur in 2 Samuel 22:8-20 and 23:1-7.

In 22:8-20 the poetic and even hyperbolic language must not be set aside. We are used to the more conventional language of 22:1-7, but the verses 8-20 go beyond that! Religion in the West, where influenced by Schleiermacher, was reduced to a description of what we feel about God. In contrast, Old Testament religion teaches -- from "page 1" -- that God is the active Initiator. Not only that, but He is the Intervener in the affairs -- of whom? Of whom He chooses to, of course. That is the point of 2 Sam 22:8-20. It is an intervention of the highest kind.

As for 2 Sam 23:1-7 ... "for He has made an everlasting covenant with me, / ordered in all things, and secured" and the subsequent verses about David fighting "the worthless" are primary examples of what is to be gained from the kind of God spoken about in 23:3-4 and in the previous chapter. If God were merely an intervener and initiator, and only acted unpredictably, however well and powerfully, then He would be like perhaps a Special Forces group, which intervenes, does great things, and is gone. But no. God has done something upon which David can rely forever. So in Christ is the same thing true of us: God in Christ has done something upon which we can rely forever.

New Year: 2 Sam 19-21 for Apr 4

There are loyalties like the morning mist in this section, and faithfulness to the heavens. Joab's loyalty to the king is like the morning mist, which was gone (2 Sam 18:14), comes back in a way (19:5ff), disappears again (20:10-12), and does it reappear in 20:20?

David's loyalty to Mephibosheth is faithfulness to the heavens. With the knowledge that God Himself is visiting the sins of Saul and his house upon the kingdom (21:1), he still withholds Jonathan's son from the Gibeonite revenge, because of the "oath of the Lord which was between them, between David and Saul's son Jonathan" (21:7).

New Year: 2 Sam 16-18 for Apr 3

If you think biblical religion is just an attempt to read God into everything, read this part of the history, 2 Sam 16-18.

Starting with chapter 13

New Year: 2 Sam 13-15 for Apr 2

There is fulfillment of Nathan's earlier words (2 Sam 12:11) in these chapters. The reader had expected it. Now it is fleshed out.

The previous chapter hinted -- barely -- at a future for Solomon (12:24-25). Nothing is said about Solomon yet, but lots about the perils of David's other sons' pursuit of something very like what their father had done (13:1-2, in Amnon's case -- passion; 14:30 in Absalom's case, echoing 11:15-17 in its manipulation).

Is there also a common thematic element of father-sons patterns in these stories? Amnon was the oldest, and David is "fooled" by devotion to Absalom to permit that which dooms Amnon (13:27). This is eerily like the patriarchal reversals of eldest sons' fortunes, but with a negative downturn: the younger (but not the youngest) carries out the prophet's words of 12:11-12.

New Year: 2 Sam 10-12 for Apr 1

The chequered aspect of the career of David is indicated in these chapters (2 Sam 10-12), and not lost on later writers (Mt 1:6b).

Nathan the prophet gains his voice back as well, which had been corrected from its halting initial false start in 2 Sam 7:3; cf. 7:4-7.

The matter-of-factness of how chapter 11 (11:6-17) describes David's actions is capped by Joab's providing a way of using understatement to "the messenger" (11:19), who repeats the whole thing through 11:24. This repetition makes us ask "why are the details portrayed not once, but twice?" For emphasis! Verily, verily! Lest we miss how devious David was. Lest we idolize him.

The next chapter (2 Sam 12) not only brings the moral conclusion of the previous chapter out (11:27), but expresses what God did about this sin in David. Is this a prefigurement of the way 2 Sam 7:14-15 describes the dealings of God with the whole house of David?

What did God do about this sin in David? There were permanent consequences of this sin (12:10-12). We definitely see an outworking of 2 Sam 7:14-15 in Nathan's words in 12:13. How is the reader to understand these consequences, combined with David's reactions to them? The outworking of these consequences are over a year, covering the birth of two sons to Bathsheba.

The most surprising and unexpected and dramatic comment in this whole story of consequences is about the second son, born after the first died: "Now the Lord loved him and sent word through Nathan the prophet, and he named him Jedidiah for the Lord's sake" (12:24-25). Not too many people know that Solomon is also named Jedidiah for the Lord's sake.

New Year: 2 Sam 7-9 for Mar 31

Although these chapters (2 Sam 7-9) speak for themselves, there are many aspects of this climactic section of the whole portion of the word of God since Joshua (2 Sam 7:11) to point out, and to continue to point out.

How have things gone for the people between the death of Joshua until now? Back in 1 Sam 8 the "elders of Israel" (8:4) demanded a king, yet God told Samuel this was "the voice of the people" (8:7). That voice was the same as what characterized them all the way back to the day they left Egypt (8:8). Could we ever say that Exodus through 1 Samuel is the story of the great accomplishments of the people?

When success comes to David, and David wants to build something that builds on his success, to God, even the prophet Nathan is convinced by that arrow (2 Sam 7:3). God begins this chapter by correcting Nathan and David (7:4-6). The arrow is pointed in the wrong direction. So the Lord rehearses David's life for him, so far (7:7-8), and points far into "the distant future" (7:19).

To the reader, at the very time we would love more explanation of the chapters and chapters of the history of so many failures so far, David's success makes us ask whether perhaps the idea David gets from his success (7:2) is not a worse thing than what he had been taught under his stressful past.

In any case, this correction, the correction of David's big idea to build God a big house, has been hinted at in various ways. The idea of taking care of God Himself is condemned in the stories of the punishments that come for trying to handle, literally, the ark. Just in the previous chapter, David was off base in dealing with it (6:6-9). The ark's use had to wait for a sign of God's blessing (6:12). It, and Whom it represented, could not be commandeered.

So the Lord has David at a time when he is quick to learn, and he uses Nathan the prophet: "the Lord also declares to you that the Lord will make a house for you" (7:11).

New Year: 2 Sam 3-6 for Mar 30

Is the gruesome "contest" of 2 Sam 2:14-16 also due to animosity between Abner and the men of Judah (2:4,8-10)? It reads like a type of warring, not a contest. It led to something else (2:17), which led to something else (2:19), which led to something else (2:23), and all that eventually led to what Abner did not want to happen (2:23), having to face with Joab's revenge, which was done in subterfuge (3:27).

David's his mourning and zeal are exemplary (2 Sam 1:11,16), but his politics are also shrewd: David is from Judah, and he merely announces his kingship of Judah to the others (2:6-7). The fair-mindedness about the issue of Abner and Joab is noticed by the population (3:36). It continues to be far greater than what consolidation of power was expected by some Realpolitik-advocates (4:8). It is coupled with a type of tending-to-business conquering of Jerusalem, which since the Judges had not been taken from the Jebusites. David was not interested in civil war. And somewhere along the line, David "realized that the Lord had established him as king over Israel, and that He had exalted his kingdom for the sake of His people Israel" (5:12). For "Israel" here, notice the national name.

New Year: 1 Sam 31; 2 Sam 1-2 for Mar 29

These chapters proceed in the bleakness of echoing bleak events, across the lines of the book and chapter division (1 Sam 31 - 2 Sam 2). Narrative history doesn't always tidy up with "the moral of this story is," even when it speaks teleologically throughout, as does 1 Samuel.

Recalling 1 Sam 28:19, "tomorrow you and your sons will be with me," and so it happened. But how? The armor-bearer, who "saw that Saul was dead" (31:5), fell on his own sword, and then Saul, wounded but not dead, encountered the Amalekite who killed him, and took his crown and bracelet (2 Sam 1:10). Then, the Philistines came and did what they did to a dead body and did not get his crown or bracelet, but only his weapons. Finally, the valiant men of Jabesh-gilead got Saul's body out from Beth-shan (1 Sam 31:9-10).

The rejection of implication from 1 Sam 28 is purposeful. The medium herself is abhorred at being misled, and her only concern is for the life of Saul. The book concludes and goes on in the next to the reaction of proper grief and justice, on David's part.

It is interesting that there is no moral summary based on Saul's failures. The only summary we get is David's lament (2 Sam 1:17-27). David calls Saul (not only Jonathan, but also Saul) "beloved and pleasant in their life" (1:23). The story makes us ask how that could have been, but David is consistent with his earlier description of his relationship to Saul, always having called him "my lord" and "my father" (1 Sam 24:10-11). What David said and did in 1 Sam 24:8-22, as well as what Saul said then, is now completely worked out.

New Year: 1 Sam 27-30 for Mar 28

I Samuel 27,29, and 30 easily can be shown to put forward some imponderables about David.

We should remember, as the reader would, that David himself has had sufficient knowledge of his future from 16:13 onwards. Samuel anoints him. Goliath confirms him to the nation. His battles confirm him (23:11-12); the women of Israel confirm him (18:7-8). His father confirms him (17:37). Jonathan the king's son confirms him (23:17). The king, in contradiction to his own actions, confirms him, multiple times (24:20-21; 26:25). The Philistines confirm him, both directly (21:11) and later, indirectly (29:9).

How then does David come to the conclusion "I will perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than to escape into the land of the Philistines" in 27:1? While there, he will personally distinguish himself to his lord Achish the Philistine, and will be all prepared to kill his own countrymen, according to his own brag (28:2), in the service of Achish, to whom David will express his loyalty (29:8).

Is not the text asking us to shake the cobwebs out of our heads and ask "what is going on here?" The king that the nation asked for comes to a point in which there is no guidance from God for him (cf. 28:6,15). The king Samuel says God has chosen next is in the army of Israel's enemies (29:2), and is prepared to fight in a battle against Israel. Israel is going to lose that battle (28:19), and its king finds that out ahead of time. How? Well, first he tries to find out from God, but God does not "answer him" (28:6). He finds that out in a forbidden way, a way that he himself had forbidden in a saner frame of mind (28:3). But the truth that he learns from the wrong place is truth about his death, the death of his sons, and Israel's defeat. Nothing is right about this whole picture.

Providence comes into play. The Philistines overrule one of their leaders, and nix David, sending him ostensibly back home. Then, incredibly, on his way back, he finds out that his own city has been captured and taken captive by a third group, a traditional Israelite enemy, the enemy that Saul should have taken care of ... the Amalekites. And this is definitely a turn no one expected -- especially that not a single person was killed (30:2), nor a thing of value taken as spoil (30:19).

David can't lead himself, and is in the wrong army. Saul can't lead himself, and needs guidance so badly that he resorts to the supernaturally bad -- and yet, God brings about, both with both king and future king -- both with their will, and against their will -- what He has appointed to happen (1 Sam 13:14).

New Year: 1 Sam 24-26 for Mar 27

David's compassion is highlighted in these three chapters, 1 Sam 24-26.

If God is using circumstances and coincidental events, He is going to use them. That is not the same as attributing all such things to God. Saul found that out in 23:20-21, 28. David knows this in 24:4. He overrules his advisors, and even persuades them that he is right, that the circumstance of Saul visiting them is not the Lord telling David to kill Saul (24:4-7).

David attempts something seldom seen between political or military rivals at the top: personal loyalty (24:10-11). There were glimpses of David's loyalty to Saul before, but in these chapters it reaches to the point of going way beyond what anyone could expect of a leader who is expected to conquer rivals for power.

David spares Saul twice -- not only spares him, but treats him as a father and calls him that (24:11). We know from chapter 25, that David is not doing this out of a personality weakness. In 24:12-15 David shows that sparing Saul is not because he thinks Saul doesn't deserve to be judged for his actions (24:12,13,15). Saul's time of reckoning is coming.

It is because kings are so expected to completely destroy all rivals that Saul makes an agreement (24:21) with David about his family. We would think that there would be smooth sailing for Saul and David after that. But never presume consistency. Perhaps Saul was confirmed again by the trappings of power to pursue David again in chapter 26. Perhaps his subjects egged him on (26:1). In any case, what is the purpose of describing yet-another-attempt by Saul to find and kill David? The event in chapter 26 affirms the importance of David's compassion, it is true. However, 26:12 inserts as a little tiny detail too brief to notice, that God was behind this thwarting of the attempt. From that, the text implies that we must infer that God was watching over David the whole time, not only by a miraculous act of causing a whole army to sleep, but during all David's times of fleeing Saul.

As for 26:25, Saul's blessing, have we not heard this before? In any case, David's part is not to fall in with Saul again (26:21-23), but to re-iterate that the Lord delivers and holds people to account.

New Year: 1 Sam 21-23 for Mar 26

If 1 Sam 21-23 were part of a movie, this would be part of a sequence in which the hero is in a chase and it seems like it will never turn out possibly right and it will turn out for the hero's demise at this stage.

There was no hint of Saul's antagonism to Jonathan at the point of 20:2, and even when David is missed at the new moon in 20:26, Saul is wont to make an excuse for him. David's made-up story told by Jonathan doesn't go over well at all, and elicits some pointed insults father to son (20:30).

Saul like nearly all kings is out for his son's kingly interests (20:31), while Jonathan tells David in private before the Lord, "you will be king over Israel" (23:17). In this chapter (23) there is ample illustration of what was prefigured in 18:10-15, namely, Saul's animosity toward David, from fear, and from fear for Jonathan and his family (cf. 24:21). David gets guidance from God in matters of battle (23:11-12). This is a contrast with Saul, who evidently had not (18:12).

While Saul's political and military choices are on display as misguided and unsuccessful from his point of view, they are not without an attempt to employ a piety (23:21). And yet they seem to be directed by Saul's peers. David will pick up on this in the next chapter (24:9).

New Year: 1 Sam 18-20 for Mar 25

This story of brotherly friendship (1 Samuel 18-20) also has clues in it about the nature of Saul's actions.

The phrase "an evil spirit from God" (18:10) is no less odious to the original readers as to us as readers. Some people think it is a description of what we call clinical madness of some kind. The phrase first came up in 16:14. In 16:23, whenever David played the harp for Saul, "the evil spirit would depart from him."

In other words, this was a cyclical occurrence. First of all, the text has been building a picture of the character of Saul from very early on. It has been a conflation of opposites, in a way. His strength was combined with impulse to do the extreme: we first see him going on a nationwide tour to find his father's lost donkeys, in chapter 9. God uses that. In chapter 10, Samuel gives him such step-by-step instructions that we wonder if he's trying to compensate for Saul's impulsiveness, at least until the point where he tells Saul "you will be changed into another man" (10:6).

But Saul has a bout with lack of confidence (or, at the least, lack of good timing during a public meeting!, 10:22), and though Saul did not inspire confidence in some who were evil (10:27), God saw to it that Saul attracted valiant men to himself (10:26).

Saul's first military triumph versus the Ammonites, and the crowning of him as king in chapter 11, was not only "before the Lord" (11:15) but it was that to Saul. Saul expresses the understanding of Israel and God's relationship here quite nicely (11:13). But by chapter 13, after Samuel tells Saul "you have not kept what the Lord commanded you" (13:14) the outcome of the kingship of Saul changed. What happened?

In Saul's own words, "I forced myself and offered the burnt offering." (13:12). In Samuel's words, which we should take as the correct moral evaluation of it, "you have acted foolishly" (13:13).

Is this Saul's psychology, "consequences," or punishment, or providence, or temporal setback? All of the above! Saul's kingship is an act of accommodation by God to the condition of Israel at the time. Part of the lesson of this is that this accommodation to Israel's evil, its wrong choice, brings consequences, punishment, temporal setbacks, all governed by providence. Israel's psychology is mirrored by Saul's psychology. As Israel forced itself to seek a king, so Saul says, "I forced myself." There is a parallel relationship, wherein Saul is modelling, in one person, the dissonance in Israel.

This same is true of Saul's life, that it is full of the governance of providence, consequences, punishments, and temporal setbacks. His personality is one of extremes, tending to madness. And this all after the explicit statement "God changed his heart" (10:9).

The is the same God whose Spirit "departed from Saul" in 16:14. Saul after that had an evil spirit which "terrorized" him. Even Saul's servants said that it was from God (16:15), and that's the estimate we are given to hold, as well.

What does it mean, both that an evil spirit from God terrorizes a person, and that it departs from him when David plays his harp (16:23)? That God both changed Saul's heart, and that the Spirit of the Lord departed from him later? Looking now at 20:13, and Jonathan's estimate of the situation, "May the Lord be with you as He has been with my father"! we believe that this is true: God has been with the dissonant person, and supplied music for this person, just as He has and will be with Israel the dissonant nation, and will bring about a king after His heart.

New Year: 1 Sam 16-17 for Mar 24

We should be not surprised that David spoke and acted toward Goliath as as he does in 1 Samuel 17:45-47. We have been prepared for something like this since 13:14.

So the events are just catching up with the actions of God taken prior. But even people who "know" that, don't always know it well. Samuel in 16:1 gets a push to get moving, because he's grieving over the current situation (15:35; cf 15:11): not just the situation regarding Saul's kingship, but over Saul himself. Samuel learns as he goes, just as we do (16:6-7). This "heart" emphasis echoes 13:14.

And how does David's heart relate to his actions? Is it simply that a great heart means an obvious outward superiority? That's what chapter 17 was for! ESPECIALLY 17:46-47. 17:46 was to convince the skeptic of the fact. 17:47 was to convince the reader of the reason behind the fact. God shows himself often in the negation of obvious outward superiority. We saw this recently in the choice of David himself -- the youngest, treated by his father as courier (17:17-19), and harassed by his oldest brother just as so many younger brothers can vouch for (17:28-29).

New Year: 1 Sam 13-15 for Mar 23

What we had forebodings about back at 1 Samuel 8:7 about Israel's rejection of God as king over them, turns out one way (15:26) rather than another (13:13) for Saul.

Saul was responsible, not for the Israelite choice of having a kingship, but for other specific choices as king: in 13:9, his impatience toward Samuel was not just about disregard of Samuel's priestly role in matters of the guidance of a theocratic state during war (13:9; cf. 10:8), but about God Himself's guiding role. Kingship -- being at "top" -- still has the obligation attached to it, concerning God: to be a "man after His own heart" (13:14).

The theme of God appointing things way before they actually transpire continues, in 13:14. Indeed, these chapters vindicate that idea, in showing how Saul's character shows itself. If we castigate Samuel for over-reacting in 13:13, we see Saul's autocracy playing itself so large in 14:43-44 that the whole nation rejects it.

The portrayal of Saul is a complex portrayal: what is his attempt to use the ark in 14:18-19? What is his attempt to counsel the people in 14:34? The altar in 14:35? His following the priest's advice in 14:36? We already are pre-informed by Samuel that Saul's kingship will not continue. But Saul's story is not over yet, for many chapters. Here, these choices on Saul's part are contributory.

The narrative is giving us the events in which his choices work themselves out. They seem strangely worked out, almost star-crossed: Saul is trying to found out a sin (14:38), because God doesn't answer him (14:37). So he uses a lot to determine it, and Saul vows to kill the sinner, whoever it is, and when the lot (correctly) finds a sin in Jonathan -- unknowing (14:27) disobedience to a battle order -- Saul is stuck by the requirement of his vow, the people rescue Jonathan, by a ransom.

Yet all is not bleak for Saul (14:48). It is a complex portrayal.

New Year: 1 Sam 9-12 for Mar 22

The contrasts are palpable in these chapters (1 Sam 9-12) between the condemnation of the Israelite desire for a king and the way events march forward toward that end, including actions of God.

The reader might well ask, if God did not want Israel to have a human king (8:7), why did He not judge them for the choice, as He had for so many other things in which they rejected Him? We've seen so many instances of immediate judgment, especially in the wilderness wanderings under Moses, that the story deliberately provokes the question.

And yet it is the covenant itself that hints that God is capable of enacting His will among long periods of unfaithfulness on the nation's part (Dt 29; but not to forget Dt 30!). Here the scenario is eerily the same as in the desert, when God gives them what they wanted, when they didn't want the manna, but they were "greedy" (Nm 11:34).

Is then this turn of events something that is a permanent albatross that will take Israel out of the plan forever? If we've been reading along, we know better. If we read ahead, we know better. Is there not a resolution coming in 2 Sam 7? Let's elaborate then!

In the meantime, the narrative has its very characteristic ways of containing the situation. One is high mockery (10:22). The second is subtle mockery: Samuel tells Saul, way before Saul has a clue what's going on, "for whom is all that is desirable in Israel? Is it not for you and for all your father's household" (9:20)? And Saul's answer is basically, "huh?"

And God is not without His own celestial "sounds" during the outplay of all this (12:17-18).

Samuel's summary well expresses the tension: "You have committed all this evil, yet do not turn aside...." (12:20) ... "for the Lord will not abandon His people on account of His great name, because the Lord has been pleased to make you a people for Himself." (12:22). The covenant is still intact. Go figure.

New Year: 1 Sam 5-8 for Mar 21

Samuel's ministry is summarized militarily (1 Samuel 7:13), yet it is no more than a summary, in light of the amount of land gotten from the Philistines during his time (7:14).

Earlier his ministry was summarized personally and in regard to God (3:19-21). Yet these chapters give us more of a sense of the presence of God than of the succession of leaders. Indeed, that is one of the points of the problem being addressed in chapter 8, that God has been the Israelite king all along, but now the Israelites at the end of Samuel's years as judge don't want that (8:7). The summary of the reason why is very familiar.

The presence of God is distinguished early in the book in the way He characteristically chooses the unexpected and/or rejected (cf. 1:6) person. Even Eli fits into this mold: with all his problem with his sons (3:8), he had, as a ninety-eight-year-old, his priorities right (4:13,18) -- and so did his daughter-in-law (4:19-22).

And yet, with the capture of the ark, the way God works is more fully separated from the agents He uses. The extremely humorous (to the reader, not to the Philistines) story of chapters 5 shows that God Himself is sovereign through whatever means He decides to use: even the physical presence of a spoil of war that represents His name among the conquerers.

And what do we find God doing, and thus teaching the reader about? 1) His superiority, to the point of mockery over the gods of the other nations; 2) In chapter 6, the spread of the knowledge of Him to other nations (6:6); 3) The way even the twisted logic (6:4) of the Philistine "priests and diviners" (6:2) is used: their gold, in the shapes we can only imagine, and the cows' direction they took, are such that God even uses those things to instruct them, lest they miss the point of who He is (6:9).

When it comes to the Israelites, however, this teaching takes a more serious turn. The problem of syncretism was all over the country (7:3). Saying so evidently was not enough. There were two severe object lessons about the holiness of God that were learned at great cost (6:19-21). The first was a type of temerity: "they had looked into the ark of the Lord." The second was a disregard for the proper place of the ark's keeping (6:20-21).

We learn how completely God is "sovereign" over Philistia in Chapters 5-6, and how serious is His kingship over His subjects in the last part of chapter 6. The Philistines must have handled the ark many times, moving it from doomed city to doomed city, putting their little golden shapes all around it to get it ready for transport, etc.... But in Israel, the ark was not to be handled as a tool. Not a tool to win battles, as we saw at 4:11. Not as a tool of curiosity, or as a tool to just "keep around."

They got their idolatry (temporarily) straightened out (7:4), and their battles went great against the Philistines, under Samuel. But a pure military thing didn't last, because of the syncretism: they wanted something "that we also may be like all the nations" (8:20).

New Year: 1 Sam 2-4 for Mar 20

Did Eli rebuke his sons (1 Sam 2:25), or not (3:13)? At some point he didn't, plus, in any case, there was an over-ruling by God on the earlier situation.

Notwithstanding that, his character shows other fatherly qualities, especially toward Samuel. Eli is given to the reader as the one who explained to Samuel for the first time about the spiritual implications of what must have been very perplexing to Samuel (3:4-10). Lest we miss it, 3:6 explains: "Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, nor had the word of the Lord yet been revealed to him" (3:7) This distinction can help us understand the matter of Balak, no?

New Year: Ru 4; 1 Sam 1 for Mar 19

Ruth 4 and 1 Samuel 1 certainly give a great picture of piety at Bethlehem and Shiloh before the times of Samuel and David.

And like a good website, we can see that piety need not have much elaborateness attached to it: basically, access to God and to be able to express and act on it (cf. Ru 1:16; 2:4,12,20; 3:10,13).

A greater factual knowledge is exhibited by, of all people, the civic leaders of Bethlehem. They know the Patriarchal story (Ru 4:11-12)!

Ruth 4, and the following chapter, 1 Sam 1, continue the pattern of Judges in highlighting the relationship of the socially unexpected person, e.g., Hannah before she bore Samuel (1 Sam 1:8), to the purposes of God: often in Judges we had the role of women highlighted. The whole book of Ruth, not to disparage Boaz's importance of course, did that. Here, the same pattern exists: while not disparaging Elkanah, indeed, honoring him (1:8) for his love for Hannah (1:5), honors Hannah, who in an uphill battle in her prayers for obtaining from God what she wanted (1:10-11), has to defend her outward actions to a priest, who, when convinced, grants her a priestly blessing as best he has to give anyone (1:18).

The language of 1:19 describes what the best thing someone who prays could ever want: "the Lord remembered her."

New Year: Ruth 1-3 for Mar 18

There was a difference between marriage with a daughter of Moab (Ruth 1:4) and the actions of playing the harlot in Numbers 25:1.

The Israelites were warned not to be syncretistic by Joshua (Josh 23:10-13). Therefore when Ruth 1:4 raises the eyebrows, 1:15-16 answers the implied question: just how is it that intermarriage of an Israelite with a daughter of Moab going to be handled? Naomi explains just how, in Ruth 2:20: "the man is near to us, he is one of our redeemers." Redemption binds closer than racial origin, when syncretism is out of the picture (1:16).

Yet it was not automatic. Whatever the stipulations were, from Dt 25:5, and from Lv 25:25, Boaz was not necessarily next in line, as 3:12 shows. Boaz knew from 2:6 onwards, just who Ruth was. Even though Naomi had an uncanny sense of what could happen, or tried to make it happen (3:4), that was no guarantee that it would.

Naomi's counsel and actions in 3:3-4 are reminiscent of the Patriarchal narrative, told with the same light touch of humor: here, "... then he will tell you what you shall do..." (3:4). Why does the text tell us that Boaz' heart was merry in 3:7?

It is to explain the success of the secrecy of Ruth, yes, but also to show the extreme honorableness of Boaz. His heart was merry, but when he woke up in the middle of the night, Boaz had the Lord in his mind (3:10). He was going to go by the book, after all.

New Year: Jdg 18-21 for Mar 17

Instead of saying "civil war in Israel was bad," Judges describes them (e.g., Judges 20:18ff). The conclusion is obvious enough.

What then can be said of seeking the Lord's guidance about and during civil war? The surprise to the reader is not that the sons of Israel "inquired of God" (20:18) about going to battle against Benjamin, nor that God answered, but that the answers brought defeat to the inquirers. And then, that they did so again (20:27), and again (20:28). Is the lesson from that some kind of "be specific in your prayers," the way we might teach a grade-schooler (cf. 20:18,23)? It is not that the Israelites were not specific enough in their prayers ... God is not a machine. It is that God was working out His will in the two initial defeats: perhaps it coalesced Israel, so that they actually would battle against Benjamin more fiercely (20:37,48).

Again, like so much in Judges, the moral of this story is hidden behind its narrative statements. Israel was interested in justice for the guilty party at the beginning, not civil war (20:13). But there was desire for civil war in Benjamin (20:13-14).

But who was really behind this conflict? Looking at 20:35, this is more than a slogan for the victor. Other cultures may say, after the fact, that God was behind their victory, but we have seen this pattern over and over from Exodus onward, that God wants it to be clear, because that's the way the wars He enters go, that He does the striking in front of the side He's on, against the side He's against (20:35).

New Year: Jdg 15-17 for Mar 16

Samson's story is highlighted by only a few incidents, since he judged Israel twenty years (16:31). But the summary of it in Judges 13:5 is still valid, however these few incidents pique the curiosity of us all.

One of the ways the story with Delilah gets its point across, as we have seen in the Old Testament so far, is repetition: 16:6,10,13,15 are so monotonic in the moronity of the situation presented, that the text begs us to ask obvious questions: 1) Is Delilah so stupid as to ask the same question over and over again, after Samson obviously mocks the question with his fake answers, multiple times? Does she really think that multiple break-ins, which she announces to Samson, each one as it comes, doesn't add up to Samson, so that he knows they are caused by her duplicity? The reader knows Delilah is corrupt (16:5). Samson knows Delilah is corrupt, because he gives her fake answers. 2) There is a carry-over from the first wife's question (14:16). If Samson really wanted to, with Delilah, it would have remained a secret to her, just as it had to the woman in Timnah. Therefore, if there is even a repetition from wife to wife, what do the two times have in common? Samson! It is Samson who caves (14:17) in the case of the first wife, and the irony is evident even in the wording: "because she pressed him so hard." This is high-handed irony, given the metaphor of 16:29-30.

But of what? Is Samson not a vessel in God's hands to "begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines?" Of course. "The Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him" in 14:6. Previously, "the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him" in 13:25. Then in 14:19; again in 15:14. To punctuate that, God supernaturally quenches his thirst, as if to remind the reader of His ways with Israel, in which He had done the exact same thing during the exodus from Egypt. So with Israel, so with Samson. God was behind Samson.

So should we resort to slogans about it, such as "every Samson has his Delilah"? We can assume that the text is teaching something more interesting than that.

What is it, then, to live in a way that furthers the purposes of God? Samson's life did so. We have some highlights of his twenty years of power. Do the highlights show Samson's strength, literally?! It is thirty miles and more between Gaza and Hebron (16:3). Do the highlights show any strength besides the physical? Look at the description of his dealing with his own conscience, in 15:3. The text is not trying to condemn the "warriorness" of Samson, but instead, exalt it, from beginning to end. All in a day's work of twenty years.

But Samson's warriorness comes one event at a time, and Samson knows that (15:18; 16:28). It comes from God. Samson believes, and the text teaches, that it's tied to his hair and his Nazirite-ness. The story highlights that in a direct set of brackets from 13:5 to 16:17. The text puts this question, therefore, to the reader. Do you, reader, believe that God can give a man such strength, and in such a way that superhuman feats can be accomplished, like Samson did, using Samson's actions to further His purposes -- and all the while have the miraculous aspect tied to the discretion of someone with a weakness?

New Year: Jdg 12-14 for Mar 15

God appears to a barren woman, in contrast to those who have been previously described as full of children and grandchildren (Judges 12:9; 12:14; 13:2).

When there is a time of oppression by the Philistines, we know why it came about (Judges 13:1). But when there comes a time of deliverance from the Philistines, through the initiative of God, He begins doing so without telling us His reasons (13:5).

God's coming to those who by contrast aren't famous for their family is another example of His often-seen reversal pattern, reversing what is normally expected. We have seen this since the Garden, when the sound (Genesis 3:8) was not what the reader expected to be the sound Adam heard. In Judges we have it now ever-so-explicit, when in Judges 7:2 the Lord tells Gideon "The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, for Israel would glorify itself against Me, saying, 'My own hand has delivered me.'" This couple had no donkeys, sons riding them, grandsons, or donkeys for the grandsons. That strange detail in the previous chapter was deliberate!

As for Manoah and his wife, the privilege of beginning to deliver Israel from the Philistines was not theirs, but their son's -- yet they are visited by God Himself (13:22-23). Manoah wife is not named, as well. This should alert us to something, because we have seen this detail before (Gen 32:29). Manoah's wife is spoken to by God, who shares with this object of His compassion a little small detail: the inaccessibility of their names, each one's: her name, and His Name.

New Year: Jdg 9-11 for Mar 14

Jephthah's diplomacy with the Ammonites uses a piece of logic (Judges 11:24) that only a thorough-going supernaturalist could use.

Can you imagine a diplomatic argument over territory going on in this way nowadays, saying 'hundreds of years ago, our God gave us this land. Wouldn't you have the land your god gave you.'?

There's other "logic" that makes this chapter a fascinating study of human reasoning, faulty or not, besides 11:24, e.g., the vow of 11:31 and its aftermath in 11:39.

It has often been commented that OT narratives often seem to suspend judgment on key actions and actors, and that they deliberately do so, to bring the reader to a huge necessity, brought on by the weight of our conscience, that we must understand and express a moral judgment ourselves, upon what the narrative is saying happened.

Here in Judges this use of understatement is also evident. In the previous chapter we had the evaluation of Gideon's ephod, told in narrative terms (8:27). In chapter 9, we see, told in narrative form, a story of the kind 'what is due will come back to you', as a working out of the announcements and parable of Jotham (9:7-20).

In that case, the story is explicitly capped with its explanation (9:56-57). But in the case of Jephtha's vow, the narrative is given without a direct statement of the disapproval which it seeks from us. 11:39 is understatement. 11:40 is understatement. It cries out for response from us: the vow was not to have been made. Having been made, it was not to have taken priority over weightier matters of good and evil.

New Year: Jdg 6-8 for Mar 13

How does the story of Gideon show the progress of God's favor (Judges 6:17) toward someone? It is at least one example of it.

With Gideon, God had determined what He would do. But Gideon didn't know that; he was just trying to survive (6:11). God takes the initiative, not just approaching Gideon alone, but telling him about it: that He is "with you, O valiant warrior" (6:12).

In another great "who, me?" moment in the Bible, Gideon jumps to the conclusion that the Lord must be on his way to tell everybody, and Gideon happened to be the first stop, like the first restaurant at the edge of town coming in. So Gideon thinks God is telling everybody, and begins immediately to put his two cents in: "If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us ..." (6:13ff).

One of the hallmarks of God's grace is how it is patient for its objects to catch up -- not just patience, but direct action: the "Go" part of the next verse is built upon the reason He gives Gideon why that will work: "have I not sent you" (6:14)?

Another "who, me?" in 6:15: Gideon hears what God just said, takes it up for consideration, and comes up with "O Lord, with what shall I deliver Israel? ..." With what! (6:15, NASB, lit.), plus the standard resources check, netting nothing (6:15).

God makes a very specific promise to Him. It has two parts: which one is more important, or which one is more spiritual to believe if you don't have the other, is extraneous here, because God gives him both: "Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man" (6:16) The idea here is that Midian -- all its hordes (6:5), will be like just a single opponent.

Then, in one of the most amazing passages describing God's ways of motivating someone you'll ever read (6:17-18), look at what transpires.

Gideon becomes convinced that he himself has found favor with God. He has believed 6:16, because he makes a request, based on that, to God: "If now I have found favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who speak with me..." (6:17). Gideon wants to bring something to God, that he doesn't have right there with him. He's motivated to do this offering, to God, but has no clue if that's OK with God from His side. So he asks about it: "Please do not depart from here, until I come back to You, and bring out my offering and lay it before You."

And God said, "I will remain until you return." (6:18).

Gideon is a step-by-step guy, and at that point, that promise has to be the greatest thing Gideon could hope for. God gives Gideon time to do something proper and right toward Him. That is a huge motivation to get something done, isn't it, that God will remain, until we return to Him with it.

Rather than what transpires in 6:21-22, which makes Gideon anxious, so it doesn't function as the requested sign, I think the sign that Gideon got was that God remained while he got his stuff ready.

New Year: Jdg 4-5 for Mar 12

Colleges and post-colleges study this song (Jdg 5) all over the world, Mrs. Lappidoth and Mr. Barak's duet (5:1; 4:4). Mrs. Lappidoth is Deborah the judge, a prophetess. Barak is the general known by name to the opposition (4:12). Chapters 4 and 5 are a study, yet another study, in the same kind of reversal of expectation that "we" have been seeing since Gen 12:1-2. (Did you notice that part, by the way? In leaving his nation, one of the results was God making Abram into a great nation).

The forward movement from when "Israel again did evil" (4:1) to when "the land was undisturbed for forty years" (5:31) is through war, muster for war, and the initiative of God (4:6ff.), in reverse order.

There is an unsappy love of righteousness, and "those who love Him," in the OT that might even form a necessary background for understanding God's nature. In these chapters you can see this in the stylization of the mother of Sisera in Jdg 5:28-30. Here, the mother of the commander of the army that had "oppressed the sons of Israel severely for twenty years" (4:3) is waiting, like any mother, for the return of the son.

The love of an outcome, e.g., "a spoil of dyed work embroidered," 5:30, is combined with the worry about an outcome, e.g., "'Why does his chariot delay in coming?'", 5:28, creating the tension. Is it not true that every army has its supporting base which waits for it to return, whichever side the army fights for? Of course. The tensions in the minds of mothers of commanders are well-understood. However, this part of the dynamic of war is portrayed only to contrast it with something bigger (5:31): "Thus let all Your enemies perish, O Lord."

It's better, even to be imprecated, that the generals of the armies of the enemies of God perish, than that the outcomes their mothers would prefer to happen, happen.

Perish, how? That's what the poem is about, and celebrates (5:2-31a). Israel, which has this "feature" about them, that God does things for them like "I will draw out to you Sisera [the enemy general]" and "I will give him into your hand" (4:7), is not your regular army. These chapters are another example of that.

The war is so complete a victory that it's clinical (4:17). Sisera's fate is described in prose (4:18ff), then poetically for emphasis (5:25-27). It is not a sappy story.

The option is deliberately cut off (5:31) to moan for Sisera or his mother waiting. That whole option is brought up, in order to be put in context of 5:31. There is no such thing in creation for God to set aside righteousness just because of the existence of unrighteous people.

New Year: Jdg 1-3 for Mar 11

The explanation for the intermittency of the Israelites is "there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, not yet the work which He had done for Israel" (Jdg 2:10). The sequence is blatant: "Then the sons of Israel did evil" (2:11).

Of the 8.5 landed tribes west of the Jordan, only Issachar is not mentioned in Judges 1 as having areas of their allotment not taken into possession. So we look prior to 2:10 and see that there is a betrayal-of-covenant aspect to the military failure. Military folks are always and imminently aware of this aspect of war: the behind-the-scenes compromise, or sellout. And there it is, in 2:2, making a covenant with the inhabitants of the land.

What then can be made of the crying? And even the sacrificing (2:4-5)? They were not of sufficient effect, to say the least, in view of 2:10ff.

New Year: Josh 21-24 for Mar 10

The book of Joshua ends on a relative high note (24:31). It describes the cup as full, for a cup of that size.

The last two chapters of Joshua are a tremendous wrap up of the history from Gen 11:24 on. There had been very little about the patriarchs until here in Joshua 24:2-4.

Not only are these chapters a wrap up of the general history until the time of the death of Joshua's leaders (24:31), but there are resolutions and important details filled in, about particulars: 1) Balaam! Joshua 24:10 resolves what was going on in Numbers 22-24, because of which it seemed so odd, when reading Joshua 13:22, that the story would end that way! Finally we can better understand 2 Peter 2:15; 2) the witness of the Law! (cf. Gal 3:13) -- here, at the end of the time of Joshua with the nation, Joshua describes a dual function of the Law among the Israelites: it serves as a witness against them, and it serves as a deterrent to prevent them from denying God (24:27).

New Year: Josh 18-20 for Mar 9

Judah can't get a break ... or does it? When they were last heard from (Josh 17:14ff), they were put off, in a way, in the request for more land, and in our chapters, 19:9 says that Judah's portion "was too large for them."

Someone might ask, in view of the existence of Providence, why is there a use of lots to distribute the inheritance (14:2)? The short answer was that it was commanded. But the longer answer has to do with just thinking about it a little bit. The lot was a sequential tool, that is, used to determined which tribe would be assigned next. It is not necessary to think that this tool also chose the parcel of land or its borders. In fact, the level of detail describing the borders is the amount we would expect when a mutually agreed upon decision is made that is not disputed.

All the more reason to be surprised at Joshua's reasoning with Judah at the end of 17: "you shall not have one lot" (17:17). There may be a reference there to future gains by Judah...

New Year: Josh 15-17 for Mar 8

The listing of the territories for Judah alone (Josh 15) would tax all but the greatest Bible memorizers.

What should be made of the fact that "Joshua took the whole land" (11:23), yet there are exceptions to this later stated (15:63; 16:10; 17:12-13)? This is standard military generalization, and well-reflects the truthfully stated case in wars, that there are decisive battles that are won and that indeed give control of a territory, but that there can be towns and places within territories that are not conquered.

Some Canaanites are not driven out completely ("because the Canaanites persisted in living in that land," 17:12) under Manasseh, and in Gezer under Ephraim, and at Jerusalem, which would be later under Judah. In two of the three cases, the inhabitants are described as those who would be "forced laborers" (16:10; 17:13). In Jerusalem, "the sons of Judah could not drive them out."

The promise of Joshua 1:5 stood, and "the land had rest from war" (11:23). The ensuing campaigns of the various tribes starting in chapter 15 are separated from Joshua's work. 13:1 had given the general scope of the ensuing task: "much of the land remains to be posessed," according to the Lord Himself. Joshua's time of leading into war was finished by chapter 13, and so the tribes take up their conquests, the new generation going on after the generation of Joshua and Caleb, after the generation of Moses and Aaron.

New Year: Josh 12-14 for Mar 7

On Josh 14:14, compare the end of chapter 7 and the end of chapter 9 for a hint at a time-reference within this document ("to this day") to the events it describes.

The last verse in our passage (14:15) says "the land had rest from war." This is surprising in the light of all that's left to be done (13:2ff.) Compare this to-do list with 12:12-24. Ancient cultures heavily documented their conquests, and inscriptions and depictions exalt the victors over the vanquished. Do you notice anything missing here?

First, is there an elaborate attempt of any kind to justify the conquest and annihilation? Any depiction, or even listing, of the sins of the Canaanites, at the very point where we would expect a natural desire to list the sins, to justify the annihilation? No. The one-sentence explanation in 11:20 is all we get, as if that is not enough to chew on. The writer certainly must assume we've been reading all the previous story so far.

It is so deliberate, even in the counting: the king of xxxyyyyzzzz, "one." the king of aaabbbbcccc, "one." Just the facts. No bragging.

New Year: Josh 9-11 for Mar 6

In Joshua 9-11 is it that the battles are victorious, then Joshua claims that God was merely an explanation for it? No, it is that God does things previous to them (10:8, 19), above them (10:12), fighting for them (10:14), and they take second place to Him in what they do afterwards (10:11).

Shouldn't we see to it, give place to God, for this kind of thing, and not merely claim Him as the explanation for our doing well? God is bigger than a mere explanation of us at our best.

New Year: Josh 6-8 for Mar 5

There are pacifisms of various degrees that can't stand citizens abetting war, much less war, much less conquest, much less by divine right, and least of all annihilation. What is NOT difficult for some, in Joshua 6-8? Did we mention claiming that a miracle occurs?

Take first, that a miracle occurs underlying the conquest of Jericho (Josh. 6:20). The "captain of the LORD's host" (5:15) is there for some reason, and God is with Joshua, speaking to him, telling him "'See, I have given Jericho into your hand'" (6:2), way before anything commences. The walls falling down is no accident or earthquake interpretation: it comes from God, as shown by God telling Joshua about it way ahead of time (6:5).

Therefore, this is no vanilla miracle story. It is announced beforehand. The nation is prepared to deal with adversaries (5:13). There is some kind of 'God doing the same thing as before' theme going on: the Jordan's waters dried up "just as the Lord your God had done to the Sea of Reeds" (4:23). The holy ground where Joshua is standing (5:15) is almost the same as Ex 3:5.

Therefore this is a claim to the miraculous. It is a claim to be working together with a miraculous God who has an army, a "host." If this is not clear to the reader already, the instructions for conquering Jericho could not make it plainer, although they do: God says "See, I have given [notice the tense, as if it's already a done deal...] Jericho into your hand, with its king and the valiant warriors" (6:2). These kinds of instructions have not successfully made it into the military strategy books.

IF this is truly a nation working together with the Creator of the universe plus His heavenly army, don't the other issues first mentioned take on a different light?

Instead of asking if someone (Rahab) was ethically justified to betray her culture, we must ask how God Himself got to her, singling her out for mercy.

Instead of asking if war is ever justified, we must ask how God successfully turned the nation we saw in four books of the Bible as failures into a nation that put together a whole army that was convinced, on the same day, at the same time, at the same moment, to rely on a miracle.

Instead of asking whether a nation is justified in conquering another nation, we must ask how a whole army can be disciplined to avoid taking private spoils and give everything of material value to the religious people.

Instead of asking how nations fool their armies into thinking their cause is right, we must ask how the very same army can be an agent of God in one battle, and lose the right to represent Him in battle the very next time out, because of one instance of greed (7:13), miraculously discovered (7:18).

Finally, instead of asking about the ethics of annihilation, we must ask that if the Righteous Creator removes all corruption, why is anyone still here?

New Year: Josh 3-5 for Mar 4

The three chapters for today culminate in Joshua 5:15. It is not a "literary surprise," but a God surprise. You might say the narrative at Exodus 3:5 until Joshua 5:15 culminates in Joshua 5:15.

Joshua 5:9 is also indicative of the conclusive significance of this time in Israel's history since even Exodus 1:8. What was the "reproach of Egypt?" The slavery, the suffering, yes, but also the possibilities Moses had mentioned in Ex 32:12. Now removed.

There is another piece of the reproach of Egypt that is also now removed, the one described in Numbers 14:4. Three reproaches are now removed: what the Egyptians had done, what the Egyptians might have said about God had the Israelites not crossed into the land, and what the Israelites had said about going back to Egypt along the way. All removed.

New Year: Dt 34; Josh 1-2 for Mar 3

It's great to see the seamless continuation of the story of the people of Israel across the end of Deuteronomy and into Joshua 1-2.

When Moses is called "the servant of the Lord" in Dt 34:5, and again in Joshua 1:2 -- by God ... -- we have verbal confirmation of the conscious continuation of the story across the two books. But that's just a verbal, external indicator that there is continuation. Much more evidentiary is the continuity.

Here are two evidences of continuity of Joshua with the perspective of the first five books of the story. First of all, just as God takes the initiative to call Moses, it is God, here (Josh. 1:1) who takes the initiative to speak to Joshua.

Secondly, in Josh. 2, who does not recognize the theme, in Josh. 2:9-10, of God as the God who acts in behalf of the Israelites? This is an unmistakeable biblical framework. God Himself is the architect of their commencement forward into the land (1:2,5,9,etc.)

New Year: Dt 31-33 for Mar 2

Deuteronomy 31, all by itself, is enough to showcase the major contrasts of the Lord's revelation toward Israel.

The Israelites, regarding their obligations to God: "they will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them" (31:16). God, regarding His promises, notwithstanding the former: "It is the Lord your God who will cross ahead of you. He will destroy these nations before you, and you shall dispossess them" (31:3).

These contrasts are within one chapter. When we continue with the song of Moses in chapter 32, we have it in three verses: 32:3-5; repeated with elaborations, 32:7-14 (God's side), 32:15-35 (their side), and 32:34-43 (God's side after their failure). We saw these post-failure actions also in Dt 30:1-10.

As if that is not enough to comprehend -- present failure, and future success -- chapter 33 speaks of blessings to the nation, coming from Moses, the one who not only personally failed in his stewardship (32:51-52), but repeats God's indictment of the failure of Israel that he received from God (31:26-29). One who has failed, talking to a people who have and will fail, about future blessings! Where do these blessings come from? Where does 32:9-14 fit in? What explains it?

Part of the answer is God's love: "Indeed, He loves peoples" (33:3, lit.).

Part of the answer is due to a few events of compliance: 33:8-10;16-19.

In summary, the great preponderance of the future success of the nation of Israel is due to what is described in 33:26-29, summed up as "blessed are you, O Israel; / Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, / Who is the shield of your help / And the sword of your majesty!/ So your enemies will cringe before you, / And you will tread upon their high places" (33:29).

New Year: Dt 28-30 for Mar 1

The covenant for the Israelites at Moab (Dt 29:1) is for their immediate and future well-being, theirs, and their descendants (29:22), "that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them" (30:20).

The coupling of the listening to the voice of God and the doing of all these commandments is repeated and unmistakable (cf. Dt 28:1, lit.; 28:15, lit.; 30:2, lit.; 30:8, lit.).

So what is this covenant, in its nature? Historically, it certainly didn't come into being at Horeb (29:16). It started before all but three of them, that is, Moses, Joshua, and Caleb, were born, and is "with those who are not with us here today" (29:15), a phrase we can gather, from a parallel in Acts 2:39, may mean succeeding generations. Cf. Dt 6:20ff. As far as their present moment goes, the Israelites are told to listen, as above, and also in 28:45 and 30:10. The covenant is from long ago, but for them, the present moment begins with listening to God. Then what?

There is a variety of expression in the verses listed, for what is to follow. We can learn from that what the model of obedience to God was in this covenant. Let's go through this phraseology, because the variety of expression is surprising.

28:1 -- "if you diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments ..."

28:15 -- "if you do not listen to the voice of the Lord your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes..."

30:2 -- "...and listen to His voice with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today ..."

30:8 -- "listen to the voice of the Lord and observe all His commandments which I command you today ...."

30:10 and 28:45 are very similar. The relevant phrases there are "to keep His commandments" and "by keeping His commandments and statutes."

What is at risk, at stake, here? The curses of chapter 27:15ff and 28:15-68. Those things are at stake on the negative side.

What is to gain, here? The blessings of 28:1-14.