How To Read The Old Testament

SUMMARY: What the Bible describes does not mean it excuses. The writers of scripture simply paint a sad picture for us of what happens when God is marginalized. Moreover, rather than justifying unrighteous behavior, these kinds of stories are to stand as perpetual warning signs to us when we put our needs, wants, and interests ahead of God’s purposes and plans. Without God at the center and circumference of our thoughts, feelings, and actions, life will ultimately stink! With him at the core of everything we do, we have his eternal promise to bless us with success, prosperity, and his smile: “Then you will be prosperous and successful.” (Joshua 1:8)

GOD SPEAKS — I OBEY // Judges 21:4-5, 25

Early the next morning, the people built an altar and presented their burnt offerings and peace offerings on it. Then they said, “Who among the tribes of Israel did not join us at Mizpah when we held our assembly in the presence of the Lord?” At that time they had taken a solemn oath in the Lord’s presence, vowing that anyone who refused to come would be put to death….In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.

Note: It would be helpful to read the entirety of Judges 21 to make sense of this devotional.

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Moral outrage that is not based on any kind of higher, propositional, and immutable moral truth might be real, but it can be and is usually wrong. It is selective, inconsistent, and hypocritical—and ultimately dangerous. That is why God calls us to live by his unchanging truth.

Let me get this straight: Israel has just basically wiped out one of their own tribes (Judges 20); they then vow that they will never allow their daughters to marry any of the remnant of that tribe, Benjamin (Judges 21:1); they feel really bad about it (Judges 21:2-3,6); they call a sacred assembly to offer sacrifices before the Lord (Judges 4); then they make another vow to kill anyone who doesn’t show up to their worship service (Judges 21:5). Now there’s a great way to increase church attendance!

What a mess! So, they discover that the people from Jabesh-Gilead had not attended church that day, so they ordered their execution: “The assembly sent 12,000 of their best warriors to Jabesh-Gilead with orders to kill everyone there, including women and children.” (Judges 21:10) But wait, someone then comes up with the idea that if they spare the unmarried woman of that city, they can then force them to become the wives of the left-over Benjamite men, then that tribe can repopulate, they won’t lose one of their tribes after all, and technically, they will not have violated their vow not to let their daughters marry anyone from Benjamin.

The problem was, there were only 400 of these girls from Jabesh-Gilead, and there were gobs of guys from Benjamin who needed wives. Just then, someone comes up with an idea that sanctions kidnapping brides from Bethel for the rest of the men as the girls are leaving one of their annual festivals. (Judges 21:19-22)

So, the assembly sent 12,000 of their best warriors to Jabesh-Gilead with orders to kill everyone there, including women and children. (Judges 21:23)

Then everyone went home and lived happily ever after. Not! Why not? Because as the last verse of Judges observes, “In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.” (Judges 21:25) They had no controlling moral authority to keep them between the lines of civility with their neighbor and righteousness before God, so they kept on coming up with social solutions, assuming that God was guiding them. At the end of the day, this only made their national mess bigger and far worse.

Now, as you read this chapter, and plenty of other chapters like it in the Old Testament, you, too, can assume that since it was recorded, and you find no condemnation of what is recorded, that God must approve of what they are doing. But notice in Israel’s crazy plan to get brides for Benjamin, there is no use of the phrase, “the Lord commanded.”

God didn’t tell the nation to annihilate their fellow tribe. God didn’t order them to make a rash vow. God didn’t instruct them to kill off the city of Jabesh-gilead for not showing up to church. God didn’t show them how to devise a dumb plan to kidnap child-brides for the Benjamites. God wasn’t talking in this chapter. They had pushed God to the margins, then blamed him for whatever they did next.

So, what does this have to do with how you read the Old Testament? Simply this, what the Bible describes does not mean it excuses. The writer is simply painting a sad picture for us of what happens when God is marginalized. Moreover, rather than justifying unrighteous behavior, these kinds of stories are to stand as warning signs to us when we put our needs, wants, and interests ahead of God’s purposes and plans.

Without God at the center and circumference of our thoughts, feelings, and actions, life will ultimately stink! With him at the core of everything we do, we have his eternal promise to bless us with success, prosperity, and his smile. (Joshua 1:8)

Never forget that when you obey, God blesses! When you don’t, well, just re-read Judges!

CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY: Justification of thoughts, feelings and actions without consideration for God is a dangerous thing. Is there an area where you might be guilty of that? If so, repent—ASAP!

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Pay Attention To The Benediction

SUMMARY: A good pastoral benediction is a reminder, a command, a promise of blessing all wrapped into one. It reminds us of who God is—the One who is great and awesome and rightly deserving of our loyal worship; of what we are called to do—to walk humbly, dependently, and dutifully before him; and what he will do as a result—bless our socks off. It is powerful and meaningful, and it bears repeating week after week as we leave the gathering of saints to go back into our respective worlds.

GOD SPEAKS — I OBEY // Joshua 22:5-6

Be very careful to obey all the commands and the instructions that Moses gave to you. Love the Lord your God, walk in all his ways, obey his commands, hold firmly to him, and serve him with all your heart and all your soul.” So Joshua blessed them and sent them away, and they went home.

I’m not sure how you feel about your pastor’s benediction. Maybe you zone out when he or she gives the final blessing. Perhaps you treat it like the flight attendant giving you the safety speech before takeoff. Or maybe the blessing is code for “I better pick my lane now so I can beat the crowd out of the parking lot—don’t want to get stuck in the back of the buffet line!” It could be that your church tradition has no tradition of benediction—I have been in churches where the final word from the pastor is something akin to “well, see ya later!”

Or it could be that the blessing at the end of your worship experience is a very big deal to you. I hope it is! And if it isn’t, I hope from this point on you will stop, listen closely, and absorb those words as not just from your pastor, but as words of blessing from God himself. That is the intention of the biblical benediction. And if your church doesn’t have that experience, encourage your spiritual leader to offer the blessing you so crave from God through his or her formal blessing.

In a sense, Joshua was the proto-pastor. He was leading his people into battle, settling them into their new life in Canaan, establishing worship practices of the spiritual community, and getting them ready for a transition of leadership as he came to the end of his assignment. He had fulfilled his divine assignment, and he had done it well. There was victory on every side, and it was now time for Israel to settle into a season of peace. After he had finished dividing up the land, he now spoke to the two and a half tribes who had decided to take land on the east side of the Promised Land, that is, on the east side of the Jordan River. They had faithfully done their part in helping their brother tribes conquer the west side of the river. Now Joshua was ready to dismiss them, and he did with this benediction—and it pretty well covered all the bases:

Those words were a reminder, a command, a promise of blessing all wrapped into one. And that is always the case with a good benediction. It reminds us of who God is—the One who is great and awesome and rightly deserving of our loyal worship, of what we are called to do—to walk humbly, dependently, and dutifully before him, and what he will do as a result—he will bless our socks off.

That is the pastoral blessing. It is powerful and meaningful, and it bears repeating week after week as we leave the gathering of saints as we return to our respective worlds. Not just as empty liturgy, it is to invoke the blessings of Almighty God for this particular week. Just like saying grace before a meal is recognizing our constant dependence on God for daily bread, so in the benediction, the pastor says, “God, I commit this people to you again today. Bless them with safety and provision as they go their way, and bring them back as the community of faith the next time we gather. Amen.”

And as I close this devotional blog, as you go your way, let me offer this benediction over your life today:

May the Lord bless you and protect you.
May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you.
May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace.

By the way, when that benediction was originally delivered in Numbers 6, we are told that it was literally God himself who was pronouncing it upon the people through the spiritual leader who delivered it. That is still the case when you receive the pastoral blessing.

May God bless you!

CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY: Take a moment to receive the blessing pronounced above as from God himself.

   

Selective Outrage – And What That Says About Us

SUMMARY: Moral outrage that’s not based on propositional and immutable moral truth might be real, but it’s characteristically wrong. It is selective, inconsistent, and hypocritical — and ultimately dangerous. That is why God calls us to live by his unchanging truth, and from his truth, to “judge with right judgment.” (John 7:24)

GOD SPEAKS — I OBEY // Judges 20:5-7

If you have been following this story from Judges 19, you have to question the outrage of this Levite. It seems a bit manufactured. After all, he is the one who pushed his wife out the door and into the waiting arms of the sexual perverts of Gibeah, who brutalized her throughout the night until she died. He cowardly offered her up to save his own skin, showing no concern for her safety, much less her dignity as a precious human being. Then, the next morning when he walked out the door and saw her lying there, he callously told her to get up and get moving. If you dare, read the story in Judges 19:25-29 — but be warned, it will turn your stomach.

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But wait, there’s more. The Levite then takes the dead body of his wife, a concubine, and cuts her into twelve pieces, sending a part to each of the twelve tribes of Israel in order to manufacture national outrage over what has been done to him. At this point, it’s no surprise to us that he had considered her nothing more than property — if that. To him, she was nothing more than trash.

Why the selective outrage? Isn’t this the height of hypocrisy? Of course it is. And it is the predictable result of people following a philosophy of moral relativism. When people have no controlling moral authority to keep them between the rails of decency and civility, they will do what seems right in their own eyes — which will habitually be so wrong. Ultimately, they will be anything but decent and civil. In one moment, they will do things and allow things that are beyond the pale without batting an eye. Then, in the next moment, they will blow a gasket in anger at what someone has done to them. Even though they feign tolerance of what somebody else thinks is right, they become insanely intolerant when that person’s thinking becomes action that personally affects them.

Their anger is selective; their wrath is manufactured. Make no mistake: it is real, but it is wrong. It is wrong in the sense that the moral outrage is not based on any kind of higher, propositional, and immutable moral truth. If truth is relative, then to be consistent, nothing can be consistently wrong. It might be wrong in this moment, but not in the next. At the end of the day, moral relativism is absurd. That is why this man’s outrage—and that of the nation—was hypocritically and fundamentally flawed. It was selective, inconsistent, and disengaged from God’s unchanging law. In a very real sense, it was worthless. And most likely, the guilt of the perverts of Gibeah that he was proclaiming was really the guilt he felt about his own immoral behavior.

“Whenever you’re upset at something, check yourself for personal consistency. Is your outrage selective? Is your disgust hypocritical? If you are to judge, then, as Jesus said, “judge with right judgment.” (John 7:24)

Dr. Ray Noah

That is what happens when a society thinks it can do better than God. Isn’t that what we see in our society today? We don’t mind aborting babies in the name of choice, but we will riot in the streets over genetically modified wheat. Crazy, huh. Not that GMOs are right, but taking life in the name of freedom to choose what happens to your own body, that is akin to what Jesus described as “straining at a gnat but swallowing a camel.” (Matthew 23:24)

Ok, enough of using our relativistic culture as a punching bag—although it deserves it. What about us? Do we do the same? Do we cluck our tongues in disgust at sex trafficking but consume porn in private? Do we gripe about the breakdown of society but tolerate divorce in the church? Do we decry world hunger yet ignore the needs of the poor in our own community?

I could go on and on, but the simple answer to all of the above examples is, “Yes, we do!” The point I want to make is this: whenever you begin to get upset at something, check yourself for personal consistency. Is your outrage selective? Is your disgust hypocritical?

Probably! That doesn’t make you an irredeemable human being. It just reveals that you are a sinner in desperate need of God’s grace. And it means that God is calling you by the power of the Holy Spirit to walk in a manner worthy of your calling as a redeemed child of God—consistently submitted to him.

The world is now famous for manufactured outrage. Don’t be of that tribe!

CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY: Wherever you are feeling anger, take a look at what God is revealing in your own life. Perhads He is calling you to repent and to consistently surrender to Him.

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Game. Set. Match.

SUMMARY: Total victory might take a while to achieve, and it will involve hard work, sacrifice along the way, and require a no-surrender spirit, but when you are on God’s side, and God is on yours, there will come a day when the Lord will give all your enemies into your hands and every single one of his good promises will be fulfilled to us. Game. Set. Match. And God will smile! That is the best victory: Making God smile.

GOD SPEAKS — I OBEY // Joshua 21:43-45

Total victory! It might take a while to get there, and it will involve hard work, sacrifice along the way, and with a no-surrender spirit, but when we are on God’s side and God is on ours, like Joshua and the Israelites, there will come a day when the Lord will give all our enemies into our hands and every single one of his good promises will be fulfilled to us. Game. Set. Match. And God will smile! That, my friend, is the best victory of all: Making God smile.

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For Israel, that took a very long time. Some of that extended time was the result of their stubbornness and rebellion—they had to repeated first grade several times; some of it was simply the nature of conquest—remember, this wasn’t a field trip, this was warfare, and warfare requires grit and determination; some of it gets chalked up to the sovereign ways of God—he lives outside of human time, so he is not a clock-watcher like we are as he develops his people into champions for life.

Not only did Israel take a long time, but it was full of hardship, battle, and testing. Again, chalk that up to the sovereign ways of God—he was preparing his people for possessing his promises, and they needed to first be tempered. Yes, it took a long period of walking, then waiting, then working, followed by a long period of working, then waiting, then walking some more, but none of the time was wasted.

Finally, the day came when Joshua declared, at least for this stage of Israel’s journey with God, “mission accomplished!” Game. Set. Match. God had given all of Israel’s enemies into their hands and fulfilled all of his good promises to them.

That is a true picture of the believer’s journey with God—periods of walking, waiting, and working, but never any wasted time. God is leading, guiding, strengthening, purifying, and tempering us into a holy people fit to possess his promises. And at stages in the journey, he brings us to places of victory and rest. We should anticipate those places, pray for them, and cooperate with God to get there as quickly as we can—knowing that our stubbornness, rebellion, and lack of trust will slow the journey down. But when we get there, we should continually remember that it was the good Lord who gave us the victory.

Game! Set! Match! That is the story the good Lord has pre-written about your life and mine. And while there will be other conquests until you reach heaven, when you reach victory in the present moment of challenge, remember who gave it to you. When you overcome a sin, receive an answer, and achieve a success, remember that it was the good Lord giving you a win over your enemies and fulfilling his good promises to you.

Likewise, remember that since God has a history of giving victory and fulfilling promises in your life, he will definitely be there for the next conquest, too. He is true to his character and faithful to his covenant with you—always. And he will never fail you—never!

So, enjoy the victory of this moment and be encouraged with whatever tomorrow holds. And between now and heaven, get ready to hear this a lot:

Game. Set. Match.

CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY: Are you in a season of victory—even just a small one? Rejoice—give God the glory!

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The Accommodating God

SUMMARY: God is a loving, caring, involved Father to his children. That was true back in the days of the conquest as he held Israel’s hand and settled them into a land of their own for the first time. And what was true of God back then is just as true of him today: God keeps an eye on his children, watching over even the smallest details of their lives, making accommodations for their weaknesses yet guiding them into the righteous living necessary to receive his undeserved blessings.

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The more I study scripture, the more impressed I am with God. I mean, I already love him, serve him, and worship him wholeheartedly, but as I get to know him more and more over the years, the more amazed I am at who he is—his character, his benevolence, his love for his people. And here in Joshua 20, as we learn of the cities of refuge he commanded Joshua to establish, I am struck by how accommodating toward his people he is.

We develop some very interesting ideas about God along the way; some of them entirely wrong and inaccurate, some of them flat-out heretical, some of them misguided, and some of them incomplete. Mostly our tainted views of God come from second-hand information—learning about him from extra-biblical sources, like parents, Sunday School teachers, Christian club leaders, etc. Now, there is nothing wrong with learning from the people who disciple us; that is actually the way of God. And we depend upon others to help form our understanding of God when we are children or new believers. So, I am in favor of human teachers and deeply appreciative of what they do for us. After all, I am one!

Yet we can end up with a view of God that has not been informed directly by the Word of God. That is why we can develop a theology that sees him as detached from our daily lives and common concerns, or that sees him as angry and spoiling to judge us, or as a grandfatherly-type cosmic deity who winks at our sin; one who is at our beck and call to give us our every wish. If you hold any of those views of the Almighty, it didn’t come from scripture; it came from people.

At some point, we desperately need to know God from scripture. When we do, we quickly learn that he is not perpetually angry, or disconnected, or wishy-washy about sin. In fact, we see from Joshua 20, which details his prescription for dealing with accidental deaths in the community, that he is very much concerned about both justice (the righteous punishment for sin) and the accommodation of our human frailty (his anticipation that there will be accidental deaths among the human race).

Furthermore, we see in the founding of these cities of refuge that God didn’t merely give rigid, inflexible rules to govern the social and legal needs of his people, but he took into consideration that there would be some gray areas of the law, as well as highly reactive human emotions to accidents and grievances. It also shows us that God went to great lengths to provide practical guidance for even the mundane matters of human life. Actually, it shows us that nothing about our lives is too small for his involvement.

God is a loving, caring, involved Father to his people. That was true back in the days of the conquest as he held the Israelites’ hands and settled them into a land of their own for the first time. And what was true of God back then is just as true of God today: he keeps an eye on his children, watching over the smallest of details of their lives, making accommodation for their weaknesses while guiding them into the righteous living necessary for his gracious blessings in their lives.

So be encouraged. God cares about your life—every last detail of it.

Of course, God cares about the small things. He has to, or he won’t care about anything. You see, everything is small next to the bigness of God! ~

Dr. Ray Noah

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