Bible in 90, Day 01: The Pursuit Begins

Genesis 1-16

*image courtesy of Woopidoo2 at stock.xchng

I did not start out my New Year as I’d planned.  My wife and I were supposed to spend New Year’s Eve playing board games and waiting for  11:45 so we could go flip on the coverage of the Ball dropping, open our sparkling grape juice, toast, and kiss our way into the new year like we always do. (On a sappy note, I realized that Keelie and I have spent every New Year’s Eve together that we’ve known each other.  Even before we started dating, I was still at her house for a youth group party!) 

Where was I?

New Year’s! Right!  Instead, I received a distressing phone call at 4pm on New Year’s Eve that my father-in-law was spending his New Year’s in the hospital awaiting surgery.  Several minutes of frantic packing later, and my family was in the minivan, bound for North Carolina, 5 hours away.  Now it’s several days later, and we’re still here, doing our best to care for our family.  As I type, I’m battling a stomach bug that I’m sharing with two of my nieces, and hopefully no one else!  Now, I’m not griping, I have a point. 

I hate sin! 

We started off our reading for this 90 day challenge with 2 of only 4 chapters in the Bible that show a world without sin.  Genesis 1-2, and Revelation 21-22 are those chapters, and they offer precious glimpses into the world as God intended it. 

In those four chapters, there is no death, there is no separation, there is no sickness, there are no tears.  So often we talk about illness and death as just a natural part of life, but that’s only partly true.  Illness and death are normal parts of life, but not natural ones.  Everyone experiences illness and death, but that’s not the way we were made! 

Man was not built to die.

God told Adam that the consequence of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would be death, and Genesis 5 illustrates that.  We see a whole chapter of people dying.  They lived incredibly long lives, but eventually they all died (except of course for Enoch). 

The reason I’m in North Carolina right now caring for my family is that sin is in the world.  Hear me clearly, I’m not saying my father-in-law is being punished for some specific sin, I’m saying that the presence of sin in the universe and the fallenness of the world is the cause of his illness.  Thankfully, he’s doing very well and is recovering wonderfully.  However, one day, he will die.  I will die.  You will die.  Some illness or injury will take everyone of us unless Jesus comes back in our lifetime.

The beautiful thing is that as soon as sin entered the world and death through sin (Romans 5:12) God was immediately on the scene promising a Savior (Genesis 3:15).  God refused and still refuses to call it quits on mankind, and instead pursues us through time and space to bring us back to Him. 

I’m glad you’re with me on this challenge as we read through in 90 days that great love story between God and man.  Let’s remember that illness and death may be normal, but they are not natural.  Let’s praise God for His plan to restore the world to its right order, so that Revelation 21-22 is the restoring of Genesis 1-2.  Let’s live lives that reflect that hope in God!

Originally at Words of Reason

Bible in 90, Day 70: Got bread?

Matthew 16-26

image courtesy of holamaria at stock.xchng

An old man took a class that used some tricks to help improve memory function.  He was telling his friend about how amazing the class was when his friend asked the name of the course.  “I forgot!” he responded.  “Well use one of your tricks to remember,” his friend encouraged him.  “Good idea!  Ok, what’s the name of that flower that has thorns, and it’s red, and you buy a dozen of them…”  “A rose?” his friend responded.  “Right!  A rose!  Hey, Rose!” he shouted to his wife, “what was the name of that class I’m taking?”

How terrible we are about remembering things.  The disciples had just seen Jesus feed the 5,000 with five loaves and two fish, and the 4,000 with a tad more food on hand.  Yet, when they got in the boat in Matthew 16 and Jesus warned them to be on guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, their minds jumped to worrying about having enough bread for their journey.  Jesus had just had a run-in with the Pharisees and had this on His mind.  He uses the teachable moment to warn the disciples about them.  The disciples are obviously out of sync here, and when they hear the word “yeast,” their mind jumps to their lunch bags.

Do we have enough bread?  I didn’t bring the bread, I thought you were bringing the bread!  What did Jesus say?  He must’ve realized we don’t have enough bread with us.  Great!  We’ve got nothing to eat, what are we gonna do?

Jesus is a bit disappointed, and asks them if they remember how He had provided for them and the great crowds with virtually no food on hand.  Can you hear the sarcasm implied here?

You saw me feed the 5,000, right?  And then you saw me feed the 4,000, right?  So, why are you worried about the 13 of us having enough food to eat?  We had plenty to eat from just the leftovers from those two meals.

How quickly we forget God’s provision.  God gets us through a difficult time, and we don’t even think about it when the next difficult time comes.  He restores a broken relationship, but we think the next one can’t be saved.  This is why God calls us to remember, all throughout the Bible.  God’s people constantly recount the stories of the exodus, God’s giving of the Promised Land, and His bringing them back into the land after the Exile.  In the New Testament, we are called especially to remember Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, most vividly in the Lord’s Supper.

Let’s never forget what God has done in our lives.  Let’s be intentional about remembering.  Perhaps we can write down in a journal the faithful acts of God in our lives.  We can use times like Thanksgiving and Christmas, or other special family times to remind each other of God’s provision, grace, and love.  Let’s have the faith that God will be good today, just like He was good yesterday.

originally at Words of Reason

Bible in 90, Day 60: God has no grandchildren

Ezekiel 13-23

image courtesy of gundolf at stock.xchng

Congratulations!  Today we hit the 2/3 mark!

There’s an interesting passage in chapter 18 of today’s reading.  God lays out a few hypothetical lives spread over  three generations.  First is a righteous man who does what pleases God.  This man is commended by God.  Next is his son, who is wicked and lives nothing like his father.  He is condemned by God.  Third is the grandson who returns the family to his grandfather’s ways and lives a holy life.  He is commended for his actions, not condemned by his father’s.  Last is an unrelated man who turns from his wickedness back to God and is forgiven of his past.

God makes it clear here that each man stands before God on his own.  The son is not given credit for his father’s good deeds, and neither is the grandson punished for his father’s wicked deeds.  God had established this rule earlier in the law (Deuteronomy 24:16).  Elsewhere, there are passages that seem to contradict this (Leviticus 26:39; 2 Kings 15:9; Exodus 20:5), but these seem to be best understood not as a direct punishment of one generation for the sins of another as much as the tendency of one generation to fall into the same sin patterns as another.

This same principle is still in effect today.  A child who has parents that are completely opposed to God or religion can still put their faith and trust in Jesus.  My faith in Jesus Christ will not save any of my children.  The combined faith of my wife and I will not save them.  The only good that our children get out of us being Christians is that they will hear the gospel from a very early age and will hear it often.  My faith in Jesus makes me a child of God (John 1:12, 1 John 3:1-2).  But, there is an interesting truth within Christianity.

God has no grandchildren.

Each person stands before God on their own.  The faith of your parents will not grant you any forgiveness of sin.  But, like the fourth man in the passage today, anyone who turns from their sin and comes to God through Jesus Christ will find forgiveness and life.

Let’s never rely on the faith of our parents, or anyone else for that matter.  Just because our parents, or spouse, or even our children go to church does not mean we are right before a holy God.  Instead, let’s realize that apart from Christ, we are all headed in the wrong direction and turn to Him in faith.

originally at Words of Reason

Bible in 90, Day 49: Come, let us reason together

Isaiah 1-13

*image courtesy of ven- at stock.xchng

“Come now, let us reason together,”
says the LORD.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18).

Imagine a bride on her wedding day.  She has her dream gown on, perfectly white and pure.  She’s waited her whole life to put on this dress.  She’s doodled it on countless notebooks, scoured shops to find it.  Now, she’s wearing it.  She and her bridesmaids are all dressed and ready – the hair is primped, the nails manicured, the cheeks rosy.  But in the excitement, someone gets careless with a glass of wine.  Before the bride can get to the altar, her dressed is ruined, splattered in crimson.  The dream gown is destroyed, not because the fabric has ripped or the stitches come loose, but because of the stain.

Isaiah wrote to a people on the brink of destruction because of their sin.  Before going through a dirty laundry list of the nations (which today would include Judah, Israel, Assyria, and Babylon), he issues this decree from God – the stain can be removed.  Today’s passage did not list some small trivial sins.  There was pride, injustice, murder, infanticide, idolatry, lying, perversion, and the list could go on.  These were a stained people.  To say the garments of their lives were soiled would be an understatement.  God likens them to garments stained with blood, they are scarlet and crimson (see v. 15).

We are all stained.  We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).  All of our sins stain us like blood, we are all scarlet and crimson.  But we can be white as wool again.  We can be clean and pure as snow.  How do we do this?  Verses 16-17 lead us in the right direction.  We must wash ourselves, we must stop doing wrong, and seek justice.  How are we to be washed?  How can we cleanse the stains from our hearts?  Interestingly, what we must wash in to remove the crimson stains doesn’t seem logical –

Blood.

Revelation 7:15 tells us about those who washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb – Jesus.  Jesus’ death on the cross, the spilling of His blood makes the atonement for our sins.  If we turn to Him in faith, confessing with our mouth that He is Lord, and believing in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved (Romans 10:9-10).

So, let’s reason together.  Shall we stay in our sins, stained as we are?  Or should we come to Jesus, with nothing to offer of ourselves, and seek cleansing through His blood?  Let’s humble ourselves, admitting that we are in need of a Savior.  Let’s seek His forgiveness, daily, trusting that He will forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).  Let us wash ourselves, and be white as snow.

*originally at Words of Reason

Bible in 90, Day 33: I would not say such things if I were you!

2 Chronicles 23-35

*image courtesy of bewinca at www.sxc.hu

“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked.”  (Galatians 6:7)

The story of Sennacherib has always fascinated me (2 Chronicles 32).  I’ve often wondered how a man could be so arrogant, so spiteful, and so blind.  While trying to intimidate the king and the people of Judah, he spews out blasphemy like few people recorded in the Bible.  He has the audacity to compare the God of the Jews to the false gods of the other nations he has conquered.  Of course, in his sin-warped mind, he probably saw no difference.  He probably thought of Yahweh as just another inferior god whose people would be easily enough subdued.  He says in v. 17, “As the gods of the nations of the lands have not delivered their people from my hand, so the God of Hezekiah will not deliver His people from my hand.”

I would not say such things if I were you!

The Chronicler tells us that Sennacherib was directly trying to insult the Lord and to speak against Him!  What boldness!  What arrogance!  If you read the account of this event in Isaiah 36-37, especially 37:21-38, you discover that God has a direct answer.  He informs Sennacherib that all his mighty exploits and conquests were the result of His doing, not the king.  God then lets him know that he will not enter the city, or even fire an arrow into it.  The battle belongs to the Lord, and He already knows the outcome!  As expected, the word of the Lord comes true when Sennacherib’s army is wiped out by an angel, he goes home, and is eventually killed by his own sons while worshiping his false god.

When Paul wrote in Galatians that God cannot be mocked, he meant more than just words.  Certainly, anyone bold enough to openly mock God, such as Sennacherib and his servant Rabshakeh did, will face His judgment.  But do we mock God with our lives, while claiming to honor Him with our lips (Isaiah 29:13)?  We may not stand before the people of God and openly blaspheme His character, but do we deny Him with our actions?

God cannot be mocked.

Paul goes on to tell us that we will reap whatever we sow (Galatians 6:7-10).  That is to say, whatever we plant in our lives, we will harvest later.  I have  a garden in my backyard.  This season, my wife planted all kinds of seeds – cantalope, tomatoes, green beans, corn, squash, and peas.  Guess what we collected for the next few months?  Yep – cantalope, tomatoes, green beans, corn, squash, and peas.

If you plant watermelon seeds, in a few months you will be eating watermelon.  If you plant corn, you will eat corn.  If you plant sin, you will harvest destruction.  If you plant to please the Spirit, you will harvest eternal life.  And here’s the thing, all those seeds didn’t really look like much to start with.  We put a little tiny white thing in some dirt, and for a few weeks, it didn’t do a thing!  But after a little more time passed, we knew what were the green beans and what were the squash.  It might not seem like there’s consequences for sin in this worlds sometimes, but give it some time.  If the consequences don’t come here on earth, they’ll come later.

Let’s not plant sin in our lives.  Let us plant that which pleases the Spirit of the Holy God.  He wants what’s best for us, and so we are best to heed His commands and warnings.  Let’s not mock God, in word, or in deed. Let’s not profess the name of Jesus with one breath, and curse our brother with the next.  Let’s not claim to be children of God in the morning, and live like children of Satan that night.  Let’s let our actions match our passions and so not deceive ourselves, God cannot be mocked.

originally at Words of Reason

Bible in 90, Day 32: Someone drew at random…

2 Chronicles 7-23

*image courtesy of chutipron at www.sxc.hu

After many failed attempts to get into the courtyard of the Jade Palace, kung fu-geek Po finally succeeds by rocketing himself over the wall on a chair loaded with fireworks.  He manages to land right in the path of master Oogway’s pointing finger as he chooses the Dragon Warrior.  Oogway declares, “The universe has sent us the Dragon Warrior!” and celebration ensues.  Master Shifu, understandably, insists that this fat panda can’t possibly be the Dragon Warrior- that it’s all an accident.  “There are no accidents,” the old sage replies.

While the Eastern mysticism is a poor foundation, and terrible theology, Oogway’s declaration is nevertheless true.  As biblical Christians, we believe that there are no accidents.  God’s sovereign hand is at work in the world today, He is not a distant, uninterested God.

And so we saw today, illustrated in the story of the death of Ahab in 2 Chronicles 18.  This being the second time we’ve encountered this story (1 Kings 22), we should be familiar with it.  Micaiah prophesied that Ahab would die in battle.  Ahab decides to try and cheat death (and God!) by going into battle in disguise.  What’s worse, he tells Jehoshaphat to dress in his best royal clothes, which makes him a better target.  The plan almost worked, because the king of Aram had all his men gunning for the Ahab, king of Israel.   Then, the Scripture makes an almost humorous statement.

Can you picture it?

I like to picture stories as I hear or read them.  I always see this battle like a good war movie.  The fighting is intense.  There goes Jehoshaphat, almost defeated.  Suddenly, the enemy realizes they’ve been duped and it’s not Ahab.  They whirl around, trying to find their real target.  The camera pans about wildly, settles on an archer, and zooms in.  Dazed by the battle, he draws his bow and shoots it aimlessly.  The camera jumps onto the arrow, arcing over the chaos of the battle below, then screaming toward the ground.  The tip slides in between two pieces of armor on a random soldier.  Right at the moment of impact, everything slows down, the camera pulls back as the soldier reals in pain, and looks into the camera.  It’s Ahab!

Dun dun duuuuuuhhh!

Try as he may, Ahab could not cheat death on the battle field that day.  All his cunning and trickery was aimed at making himself a less valuable target on the field.  What he didn’t realize was that God never misses.  He used the seemingly random shot of an arrow to fulfill His Word through Micaiah.  What seemed like an accident in battle, was the perfectly timed and aimed arrow of the Lord.

There are no accidents.

Do we live like this?  Do we realize that everyday, God is at work around us, working everything together for our good and for His good purpose (Romans 8:28; Philippians 2:13)?  Seemingly random events are all part of God’s design.  Fractals, chaos theory, random chance – these are all God’s tools.  What should this do for our attitude when things don’t go according to our plan?  We should rest assured that God’s plan is better.  Paul wanted to go into Asia, and Mysia to preach the gospel, but the Spirit would not let them (Acts 16:6-10).  God had a better plan.  Perhaps you didn’t get the job you wanted, the job you thought God wanted you to have.  God has a better plan.  My best friend, Daniel, was all set to go for training to go overseas as a missionary, when suddenly he received a phone call that funds had dropped and they weren’t sending him after all.  He spent the next three years waiting on God to send him to Romania, and while he waited he became the interim youth pastor at my church, invited my wife (then girlfriend) and I to help in the youth department, and gave me my first taste of youth ministry.  I’m a youth pastor today, and Daniel is in his fourth year of ministering to the Roma people.

God had a better plan!

Let’s remember that there are no accidents.  God is at work in the world today, and he loves us.  Let us take every situation in stride, knowing that God is still on His throne, He is the King of the universe.

Bible in 90, Day 30: Ignorance is no excuse

1 Chronicles 10-23

*image courtesy of my buddy Billy at www.sxc.hu

There was an interesting story today that on the surface can be kind of puzzling.  In 1 Chronicles 13, we read the story of Uzzah’s death after touching the Ark.  At first glance, it appears kind of harsh.  The Ark was being carried along, and everybody’s celebrating before God.  Suddenly, the oxen stumbled, and Uzzah reached out to steady the Ark so it wouldn’t fall off the cart.  The next thing ya know, he’s been struck dead by God!

Harsh much?

So here’s the thing, this whole situation was wrong from the start.  It seems like everything was going along great and then some guy dies, right?  Wrong.  If you read down to 1 Chronicles 15, you’ll find out that David did some homework while the Ark stayed at the house of Obed-Edom and discovered why Uzzah was killed.  They had not consulted the Lord on how to transport the Ark.  Only the Levites were supposed to carry the Ark (Numbers 4:15; Deuteronomy 10:8).  No one, not even the Levites were to touch the Ark directly.  The Levites only touched the poles that were slid into rings on the side of the Ark, thus never touching the Ark itself.

If David had sought the Lord in the first place, the Ark would have been properly carried by the Levites.  It never would have sat on a cart, and thus would have never been in jeopardy of falling off.  Uzzah would have never reached out his hand to steady it, and thus would not have died that day.

This gets back to the idea of the right worship of God (see Day 8).  Combine this with the concept of God’s revealed will, and you can see what went wrong today.  There was a right and wrong way to worship God for the Israelites.  God had very specific commands on this (as we saw in Leviticus).  In addition, these commands and expectations were clearly laid out in the Law for all to see.  It was negligence of the Word of God which lead to the tragedy we read about today.

The same can happen to us today.  If we neglect God’s Word, the Bible, we can find ourselves in a mess we never saw coming.  We may find ourselves facing the judgment of God for treating something lightly which we didn’t even know about.  We may think skipping out on some taxes is no big deal since we haven’t read and heeded Romans 13:1-5.  We may come to the Lord’s Supper with no thought toward the condition of our heart because we have not read 1 Corinthians 11:27-32.

Let us not be guilty of the sin of neglect.  Much of God’s will for our lives is spelled out clearly in the pages of Scripture.  Let us make reading and study of the Word a habit, as this 90 day challenge is striving to do.  Let us seek the Lord’s instructions, and the Holy Spirit’s empowerment to live them out (Ephesians 5:8-10; Galatians 3:10).

Bible in 90, Day 28: The Bad Samaritan

2 Kings 15-25

*image courtesy of alitaylor at www.sxc.hu

Today we witnessed the down-hill tumble of both the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.  It wasn’t pretty.  If you’ve tried at all to keep up with which king was in which kingdom (which ain’t easy!), you may have noticed that all the kings of Israel were judged as wicked, and only some of the kings of Judah were judged as doing what was right in the sight of the Lord.  They both trace back to Jeroboam (the wicked king of Israel who set up the golden calves in Bethel and Dan, 1 Kings 12:25-33), or David.  Because of Israel’s idolatry, worship of false gods, and wicked kings, the kingdom fell first.  We also witnessed the birth of the people who would later become known as the Samaritans (1 Kings 17:1-6, 24-41).

In 722 B.C., Shalmaneser, king of Assyria deported the people of Israel to other lands, and brought people from other lands into Israel’s land.  This was to keep the people subdued.  When God’s anger struck the new settlers in Israel, Shalmaneser had some of the Israelite priests return to the land to instruct the people in how to worship the Lord, the God of Israel.  The people accepted some of these teachings, but continued worshiping other gods and simply blended the belief systems.  The Israelites left in the land also began intermarrying with these new people.  Thus, a new group of people arose who were both ethnically mixed, and religiously mixed.  This is why the hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans existed by the time of the 1st century (John 4:9; Luke 10:25-37).

First Kings 17:7-23 tells us that all this happened because Israel had sinned against the Lord.  The kingdom of Judah, unfortunately, doesn’t learn anything by watching this happen.  Even after the amazing reforms of Josiah (2 Kings 22-23), Judah still went after other gods and worshiped with idols.  God is a patient God.  He gave chance after chance after chance to both kingdoms in Israel.

And still they rebelled.

God sent prophets to warn the people.  He promised blessing if they would follow Him, and yet they rebelled.  He threatened cursing if the would not follow Him, yet they rebelled.  He sent disasters on them, trying to get their attention and draw them back to Himself, yet they rebelled.  Finally, he sent Israel off into captivity as He promised He would (Deuteronomy 28).  Even then, Judah did not listen.  In the end, Judah went into captivity at the hands of the Babylonians, just as God had foretold (2 Kings 20:12-21).

Let us heed God’s warnings in our lives.  Let’s not let sin so entangle us that we lose sight of who we are in Christ, and just how righteous He is.  Paul told the Corinthians that there were those who were weak and ill, even dead, because of sin in their lives (1 Corinthians 11:27-32).  Just as God sent warning after warning before taking Judah out of the land and into captivity, sometimes God may have to take a Christian out of the world to put an end to their sin and shameful blaspheming of Christ’s name.  Let us not be those who have to suffer the punishment of God before we repent.  Let us heed the warnings and turn back to Jesus in repentance, casting ourselves on His mercy.

Bible in 90, Day 23: I so hate consequences

2 Samuel 12-22

In 2 Samuel 12, David is confronted by Nathan the prophet concerning his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah.  God lays out three punishments, which aptly fit David’s crime.  1) Because he used the sword to have Uriah killed, the sword would never depart from his house.  2) Because he slept with another man’s wife, another man would sleep with his wives.  But though David did this in secret, his punishment would be in broad daylight.  3) The son conceived during his affair with Bathsheba would die.

Today’s reading shows the unfortunate fulfillment of those prophecies.  The death of the child, the feud between Absalom and Amnon, the bloody fight for the throne that Absalom initiates, his subsequent violent death – all these are results of God’s punishment on David.  The second punishment is also centered on Absalom as he takes the ten concubines his father left behind when fleeing Jerusalem.  He puts tents on the roof of the royal palace and sleeps with the concubines in the sight of all the people.  This was not only a heinous sin on the part of Absalom, it was also a very strong claim to the throne on his part.  He was hijacking the harem of David, showing that David was incapable of protecting them and thus strengthening his claim to the throne.  Now, God had forgiven David’s sin (12:13), but that didn’t mean the consequences for those sins were removed.

I so hate consequences…

Don’t we all?  It is a fact that we will reap what we sow (Galatians 6:7-8).  This is not to say that God won’t sometimes override this.  However, we should not expect this as the normal course of things.  The alcoholic who gives his addiction over to Jesus and never goes back to it may still die of liver failure.  The murderer who repents, accepts Jesus, and secure forgiveness from God may still be executed or spend life in prison.

This knowledge may have the unfortunate effect of hampering us from seeking forgiveness.  Have you ever known you were guilty of sin, but didn’t want to fess up to it?  Maybe you were afraid of what the consequences would be.  Maybe you were just afraid of having to admit you had hurt someone with your actions.  Either way, the fear of consequences keeps us from confessing our sin.

Let us own up to our mistakes.  Let us confess our sins, not only to God, but to those we’ve sinned against on earth.  When we do, we will find that God is waiting to take us back like the father of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32).

Bible in 90, Day 19: Right in our own eyes

Judges 15-Ruth-1 Samuel 2

*image courtesy of jeffphoto at www.sxc.hu

So that last part of Judges is pretty rough huh?  Did you find yourself reading and thinking, “How in the world could they do these things?!”  How is it that the people who not long ago were begging Joshua to accept their vow to follow the Lord (Joshua 24:19-22) were now killing, raping, mutilating, and generally running amok?  The answer is found repeatedly throughout Judges (17:6, 18:1, 19:1, 21:25) – “There was no king in Israel.  Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

Mark Driscoll talked about this in a sermon last year.  In that sermon, he said that without God, we are capable of anything.  He’s right.  The old cliché “But for the grace of God, there go I,” holds true.  If we totally abandoned ourselves to our sinful desires, held no regard for the things of God, and kept ourselves outside of the means of His grace, we might be shocked at what we would be capable of.

Oddly, it is in the midst of this period that the story of Ruth is told (Ruth 1:1).  In the original Hebrew ordering of the books of what we call the Old Testament, Ruth follows right after Proverbs.  Proverbs 31 talks about the virtuous woman, and then is followed by an example of such a woman – Ruth.  It is noteworthy, and speaks to Ruth’s character that her story should shine in the midst of the dark, perverse time she lived in.  Interestingly, Ruth is a not a Jewish woman!  The most faithful and noble character in this story is a Gentile!  Ruth has the honor of being one of only two women to have a book of the Bible named for them (Esther is the other), as well as being one of a handful of women who are mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus Christ (The others are Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba, and Mary – Matthew 1).

After this story, we are introduced to a new character, Samuel, and a new era in Israel’s history.  The wickedness continues into 1 Samuel, and is found now in the priesthood!  But God has a plan in place to bring Israel back to him.  We see the first peeks of this plan as God honors Hannah’s prayer and brings forth a very special son.  “Samuel” is Hebrew for “God hears/heard” and will be an ironic pun used later when God calls him as a young boy.

There are at least two things we can take from the theme we’ve examined today.  The first is that God is always working out His plan.  No matter how dark and twisted the times may get, God is still on the Throne (see Day 4)!  God kept enough people for Himself to maintain the holy line of the Messiah and bring about a beautiful story such as Ruth’s.

Second, is that we must never allow the culture or our sinful selves to determine our values.  Everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes in Israel.  How similar this is to our culture today!  “If it feels good, do it!”  “I’m ok, and you’re ok, and that’s ok!”  “It’s all relative.”  We do not live a day of firm moral conviction and undeniable truth.  We live in a day of lax ethics, uncertainty, pride, and selfishness.  We are not the only society to raise our own views and thoughts above everything and everyone else.  Rome did it, France did it, even Israel did it!

Let us never assume that 50% + 1 equals truth or right.  Let us never assume that our own views, formulated in the selfishness of our own hearts are the best.  Let us look to God and His Word for what is good and just, what is evil and corrupt.  Let us not do merely what is right in our own eyes, but let us walk humbly before our God.