1 Samuel - The presence of God

I am struck by a couple of things in the life of Samuel as a child that are significant in shaping and moulding his life and ministry. 1 Samuel chapter 3 opens by telling us that “the boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli.” It then goes on to state that “the word of the Lord was rare”...God was not speaking to Israel. Eli, the High Priest had grown old, tired and fat....his sons were screw ups and he was neglecting his duties as High Priest. Samuel slept in the tabernacle “where the ark of God was” and the lamp of God had not yet gone out. (Eli as high priest was supposed to tend the lamps so that they never went out – see Lev 24:4)

The Jewish historian Josephus notes that Samuel was twelve years old at this stage and his mother had set him apart with a “Nazarite vow” – a vow that consecrated him apart the same way as the priests were.

Samuel was comfortable in the presence of God...he slept in the tabernacle with the Ark of the covenant, representing God’s glory and the altar of incense where the prayers of Israel symbolically rose to God. Samuel slept as close to the presence of God that anybody could without being deep-fried...the other side of the curtain was off limits – except to the high priest – once a year on the day of atonement – with a rope tied around him so that his friends could drag the body out if God zapped him. This is where Samuel slept for some years as a young child...comfortable close to God.

Perhaps this willingness of the young Samuel to draw close to God’s presence was the catalyst for God revealing Himself to him. Samuel had to have a few attempts to properly hear from God...but the old man Eli eventually figured out that God was trying to speak and instructed the boy how to respond.

1 Samuel 3 closes with a remarkable verse (v19)...”The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and He let none of his words fall to the ground.”

Perhaps when we spend time close to God – maybe even just resting – that He will speak to us and gives us words to speak to people that are precious and worth protecting.

Ruth - Cameo Appearance

When looking at the book of Ruth, it is usual to identify Ruth as the main character in the plot. Ruth returns, after the tragic death of her Jewish husband to Bethlehem in Israel with her mother in law Naomi. Ruth was born in Moab and now through no fault of her own finds herself an alien and a widow in a foreign land. Ruth is forced to collect the scraps and leftovers of the grain harvest just to survive.

It is in chapter two of Ruth where we meet Boaz, a relative of Ruth’s deceased husband.

The first thing that strikes me is Boaz’s generosity…He greets the workers in his field with “The LORD bless you!” (Ruth 2:4 – and yes….the exclamation mark is in the Bible) “The LORD bless you!” they called back. I don’t know about you but “The LORD bless you” is probably very low down on the list of things I would like to say to some of the bosses I have had over the years.

In verse 12, Boaz makes the following statement; “May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.” He goes on to instruct the workers in his field to intentionally leave some stalks of grain for Ruth to easily glean.

When Israel left Egypt some 200 years prior, God had instructed them not to oppress or mistreat aliens – and to remember what it feels like (Exod 21:21, 23:9)

To cut a long story short, Boaz and Ruth marry and have children who form part of the lineage of the great King David and then another great Bethlehem birth 1300 years later…that of Jesus.

Psalm 146:9 states clearly that the LORD himself watches over the alien, the fatherless and the widows. Boaz through his generous character, generous speech, generous treatment of his employees and his generosity with his wealth actually became the means that God himself blessed Ruth…and wrote himself one of the most interesting cameo appearances in Scripture.

In my country (Australia) we are surrounded by a sea of widows and fatherless children as a result of the growing tsunami of marriage failures. We are a country that is constantly arguing about immigration and accepting refugees. We struggle with hard choices about what to do with ‘boat people’ who arrive on our shores regularly from some of the world’s least desirable places.

Perhaps it is God’s plan that we should demonstrate through generosity of our speech, character and wealth that He is looking after our aliens, widows and fatherless.

Judges - Generation Next

I have read this passage differently on numerous occasions and have collected a number of margin scribbles. Set against the boom and bust cycle of sin and repentance in this particular part of Israel’s history, God regularly intervenes to bring them back to the straight and narrow…usually achieved via a long procession of righteous men and women (the Judges) that He raises up to lead and admonish Israel. Occasionally however, God intervenes in a more direct and personal fashion.

In this particular instance the ‘Angel of the Lord’…or literally the ‘Messenger of God’…arrives for a little chat with the (again) wayward children of Israel…with the whole nation in fact! Why is this so interesting? Let’s do some maths/history. The book of Numbers is a good place to start…seeing as it is primarily a record of the census data for the post-Egyptian Israelites. The last census happened around 65 years before this and is a good place to start our calculations. It puzzled me for a long time why only men old enough to fight were counted in Numbers. Perhaps during wartime, this is the most important indicator of national survival. Numbers 26 tells us that there were 601,730 fighting-aged men. If we assume that there were the same number of women and have a guess at the number of children I don’t think a total population of somewhere around three million is unreasonable…similar to the populations of Sydney or San Diego.

On the 20th of January 2009, two million people gathered to hear President Barack Obama’s inauguration speech. It is hard to imagine this occurring without the use of modern video relay and high powered PA technologies…but this is what the Angel of the Lord appears to have done to three million people. (Judges 2:4) I guess if you are the messenger of God, some form of supernatural delivery is not out of the question…they all got the message and repented.

The second thing I notice is this…while Joshua was alive, the nation of Israel served God. After his generation died out, a whole generation of people emerged who neither ‘knew the LORD nor what He had done for Israel.’ (Judges 2:10) The word ‘knew’ in this context implies an intimate relationship. (often used by Bible translators to avoid having to talk about sex!) Rather than complaining about how they dress, cut their hair or that the music they play in church is too loud, we should be encouraging the next generation and urging them on to their own intimate relationship with God.

Finally, the concept of ‘National Sin’ intrigues me. In New Testament times we are almost entirely fixated on personal salvation. Now, I don’t want to in any way diminish the importance of our own individual relationship with God, but I can’t help thinking…perhaps if the nations of the world who claim to be Christian (mine included) would humble themselves and pray….maybe God would heal our lands.

Joshua - The Longest Day

In Joshua 10:12-13 we read of a battle against the Amorites….a battle where Joshua prayed (with nothing short of audacity verging on the completely mental!) and the sun stood still for a day until the battle was completed.

The ancients believed that the sun revolved around the earth….obviously we know now that day and night is a product of the rotation of the earth. The implications of knowing this are immense….

The rotation of the earth is caused by ‘radial momentum’….the tendency of a spinning body to continue spinning. The amount of energy required to stop….and then restart the spinning of the earth are calculable but mind boggling! If the earth stopped spinning:

· We would have day for half a year and night for the other half
· One half of the earth would overheat while the other half alternately froze
· The world wind patterns would change
· Tidal patterns would change….the sea level at the equator would drop and rise closer towards the polar ice caps
· The earth’s rotation generates a magnetic field that is responsible for protecting us from radiation and particles from space
· The earth’s atmosphere would continue to spin at over 1600km/hour – the resulting winds would strip everything from every piece of exposed land

The scribble in my margin notes that the enemies of Israel would have worshiped the sun and the moon. The Israelites would have been all too familiar with sun worship – they had recently left Egypt where Ra – the sun god – was revered above all other gods.

Perhaps God answered Joshua’s prayer as an object lesson to the enemies of Israel – a demonstration of His total domination – infinitely more powerful than their god. Perhaps it was an unsubtle reminder to Israel of His Omnipotence.

The Bible concludes this account thus……”There's never been a day like that before or since—God took orders from a human voice!” (Joshua 10:14 – The Message)

I am not going to attempt to answer the ‘how’….I don’t even fully understand the ‘why.’ It just reminds us that nothing is impossible for God….if He created it then he can changes the rules for a day too!

Deuteronomy - Is God from Mars?

John Gray is famous (and RICH!) for making the observation that “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus.” Men and women are different – men do some things well – women do others well. Men are good at hunting/killing/problem solving – women are generally more nurturing and can multi-task!

From the outset I am going to confess that the note in the margin of my Bible next to Deuteronomy 32:18 has a mental question mark next to it.

“You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth” (Deut 32:18 – NIV)

Clearly, God refers to Himself (Herself?) as having both male and female attributes. In fact the first hint of this is in Genesis…

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Gen 1:26 – NIV)

There are a lot of other references in Scripture attributing female attributes to God. (a selection….Hosea 11:3-4, Hosea 13:8, Deuteronomy 32:11-12, Isaiah 66:13, Isaiah 49:15, Isaiah 42:14, Jeremiah 44:25, Psalm131:2, Psalm 123:2, Matthew 23:37, Luke 13:34, Luke 15:8-10)

Jewish mystical traditions, including Kabala, have a belief that the Shekinah – the settling or dwelling presence of God in the tabernacle and temple – was an expression of the “femaleness” of God. It is possible that what we have translated as “God Almighty” – El Shaddai - could actually mean “God the multi-breasted one” – a very female description of God. (Strong’s H7736)

Another thought…If Jesus is the Head of the church – and the church is His bride – he has a male head and a female body!

So, is Scripture culturally conditioned? – is God referred to as predominately male because of the patriarchal societies in which Judaism and later, Christianity were formed in? It is easy in Polytheistic religions to have both male and female gods – not a problem! When it comes to mono-theism however, it gets a little trickier.

It is interesting to note as well that the main ‘deity’ of the New Age movement is the “goddess” or the “mother goddess.” This is not a new concept – the goddess existed in the religions of the Egyptians, Sumerians, Mesopotamians and Greeks. Maybe the writers of Scripture were inspired to refer to God in the masculine as a deliberate direct contrast to the other prevailing contemporary beliefs.

There are a couple of problems – to go to the extreme and adopt a feminist theology and refer to God in gender-neutral terms probably just waters Scripture down – and maybe we shouldn’t be fiddling around with the Bible too much anyway. (see Rev 22:18!)

By referring to God in the masculine are we tacitly implying that females are inferior to males? What do we make of the teachings of Paul about women in leadership? (not going here today – maybe another post!)

I for one am glad that God made women – I like women! I sincerely believe that God is my Father – but I also believe that he loves me so much that he looks after me like my mother looked after me – God has an intimate connection to me like the intimate connection mothers have to their children.

God relates to us entirely. He has a relationship with us that is all-encompassing – He loves us in a way that encompasses how mums and dads love their children.

Numbers - Water of Life

Anyone who has scratched the surface of ‘Psychology 101’ will probably be familiar with Abraham Maslow’s ‘Hierarchy of Needs.’ Maslow proposed that humans have needs that are arranged in a pyramid – the base of the pyramid is our physiological needs – air, water food, sleep – with the apex of the pyramid what Maslow termed ‘Self-Actualization need.’

It is common wisdom that you can live for 4 minutes without air, 4 days without water and 4 weeks without food.

In Numbers 20, the children of Israel begin to complain again to Moses and Aaron…they were in the desert and there was no water to drink. “If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the LORD! Why did you bring the LORD’s community into this desert, that we and our livestock should die here? Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!” (Numbers 20:3-5 NIV)

God commands Moses to strike a rock and water then came out of the rock. This presents us with one of the most curious theological issues in the whole Bible…In 1 Corinthians 10:4, Paul states the following about Israel…”They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.” (1 Cor 10:3-4 NIV)

This is where it gets tricky….Firstly water does not come out of rocks, secondly - rocks do not follow you around. The Israelites walked on dry land through the Red Sea, they followed a pillar of cloud during the day and camped around a pillar of fire at night – so I guess a rock following them through the desert was not so strange!

Commentators are divided – some say the rock followed the Israelites, others say that the water followed them…but you cannot get away from Paul’s insistence that the rock was in fact Christ…I think you can deduce from Scripture that there are a number of different pre-incarnate guises that Christ pops in and out of history with – ‘The angel of the LORD’, perhaps ‘The Commander of the army of the LORD’ – and as rock that sustained the nation of Israel for 40 years in the desert. (See also)

Consider this….

“When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:7-14 NIV)

Jesus sustained the Israelites for 40 years – He promises us now living water – a drink that sustains us eternally.

Leviticus - The day of Atonement

At the outset, I must confess to struggling with Leviticus. It seems to be a whole book of rules – which may or may not be superseded.

I have always wondered that if we can preach Malachi 3:16 – “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse” from our pulpits – do we need our priests to observe the edicts of Leviticus too…Is it OK for a Christian minister to shave the sides of his beard off? (Lev 21:5) Priests cannot be dwarves, blind or lame. By the way…you cannot be a priest if your testicles are damaged…would this be on the application form or would there be some sort of test? (Lev 21:20)

The not in my margin at Leviticus 23:26 is a simple one – it states ‘Yom Kippur’ and refers me to Romans 11:25-27.

The ‘Day of Atonement’ is possibly the most important day on the Jewish religious calendar. Even today, synagogues have up to three times more people than usual. Perhaps it is like Easter n the west!

The Day of Atonement was the one day of the year that the High Priest could enter the Holiest of Holies – right into the presence of God to atone – or cover – the sins of the entire nation of Israel.

The High Priest would ritually cleanse himself and his co-priests would tie a rope around his waist. If God struck him dead, the rope would be used to drag his body back out under the curtain. I wonder how you would put this in your job description when applying for life insurance?

When He died, Jesus tore the curtain separating the Holiest of Holies where God’ presence dwells from top to bottom. The curtain was 18 inches thick and too high to be ripped by man – God ripped it.

Forever more mankind has access to the atoning power of God to forgive sin – we are covered every day of the year!

Today is the acceptable day of salvation – not just Yom Kippur.