Contemplative Bible Reading

Joshua 2:24 (New International Version)

They said to Joshua, “The LORD has surely given the whole land into our hands; all the people are melting in fear because of us.”

Joshua had sent three spies into Jericho to learn about the city and its defenses. This is the end of the report that the three spies gave. The people of Jericho and the surrounding area were melting in fear at the thought of Joshua and God’s people coming their way.

Why? Why were people afraid? Joshua was leading a nation without a land. Joshua’s group had wandered about in a wasteland for 40 years. It seemed as if they couldn’t find their way or walk in a straight line.

But there was another perspective here. Joshua commanded an army of about 600,000 men. Add the women and children and we have about two million people coming into the neighborhood. And then there is the livestock they had – sheep and camels and goats and … goodness. I cannot imagine how that all worked. How do you move two million people on foot? Just the noise of them walking would frighten me. Consider the cloud of dust they stirred.

Given this second perspective, I understand how the people of Jericho melted in fear. I better understand the miracles that God performed daily as he shepherded the wandering people for 40 years.

Deuteronomy 20:8 (New International Version)

⁸ Then the officers shall add, “Is any man afraid or fainthearted? Let him go home so that his brothers will not become disheartened too.”

In this and the surrounding verses, God is instructing His people on how to build an army when they need one. There are several situations in which God tells them to have someone go home instead of staying in the army. This is one of those exceptions to military service:

Is any man afraid or fainthearted? Let him go home…

What? How can you build an army with that policy? Let those who say they are afraid go home? Will anyone be left to fight?

Once again, God doesn’t seem to make any sense. Nevertheless, God is God, so there must be a point here somewhere, right? Yes, there is. I read at least one lesson into this. The lesson I find today is:

Know your limitations.

I have limitations. Everyone I know has limitations. The trick is to recognize those limitations with respect to any given situation. If something is beyond my ability, I should ask another person to come with me to meet the situation. That is a sign of weakness, and admitting my weaknesses will keep me and others out of trouble.

Of course, one of the persons I should ask to come with me to meet a situation is God. He strengthens me in many ways and allows me to do things that I usually cannot do alone.

God sends me into situations that are beyond my ability. He, however, doesn’t send me in to fail as He provides help for the afraid and fainthearted.

Joshua 22:9-12 (New International Version)

⁹ So the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh left the Israelites at Shiloh in Canaan to return to Gilead, their own land, which they had acquired in accordance with the command of the LORD through Moses.

¹⁰ When they came to Geliloth near the Jordan in the land of Canaan, the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh built an imposing altar there by the Jordan. ¹¹ And when the Israelites heard that they had built the altar on the border of Canaan at Geliloth near the Jordan on the Israelite side, ¹² the whole assembly of Israel gathered at Shiloh to go to war against them.

At this time, God’s people had come into the Promised Land and settled. Two-and-a-half tribes (Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh – RG1/2M) returned to eastern side of the Jordan River as they had agreed to do. RG1/2M then built an “imposing altar” by the river.

The other tribes assumed the altar was a break with them. The altar was to be a place of worship for RG1/2M; they would no longer worship with the other tribes. What else should they do in response but to gather for war?

It is fortunate that cooler heads prevailed. Representatives traveled across the river to ask for clarification. They learned that the “imposing altar” was not a sign of separation. Quite the opposite, the altar was a sign of unity, a sign that they would always be part of the tribes in spite of the river that separated them by geography.

Asking for clarification is a simple thing to do. It is not a sign of weakness; it is not a sign of timidity. I wish more people today would ask for clarification. I wish I would ask for clarification more often. Assumptions can bring us such trouble and start our own little wars. God, grant us cooler heads. Have us to ask for clarification.

Judges 9:1-6 (New International Version)

¹ Abimelech son of Jerub-Baal went to his mother’s brothers in Shechem and said to them and to all his mother’s clan, ² “Ask all the citizens of Shechem, ‘Which is better for you: to have all seventy of Jerub-Baal’s sons rule over you, or just one man?’ Remember, I am your flesh and blood.”

³ When the brothers repeated all this to the citizens of Shechem, they were inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said, “He is our brother.” ⁴ They gave him seventy shekels of silver from the temple of Baal-Berith, and Abimelech used it to hire reckless adventurers, who became his followers. ⁵ He went to his father’s home in Ophrah and on one stone murdered his seventy brothers, the sons of Jerub-Baal. But Jotham, the youngest son of Jerub-Baal, escaped by hiding. ⁶ Then all the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo gathered beside the great tree at the pillar in Shechem to crown Abimelech king.

Let’s start by reviewing the list of names:

• Jerub-Baal – another name for Gideon, the man who won a great battle with only 300 men and torches, pitchers, and trumpets.
• Abimelech – one of 70 sons of Jerub-Baal, a.k.a. Gideon.
• Jotham – the youngest of 70 sons of Jerub-Baal, a.k.a. Gideon.
• reckless adventurers – mercenaries who followed Abimelech for money.

Gideon had ruled God’s people as a judge for 40 years. After his death, there was a vacuum of leadership of sorts. Actually, there were a bunch of leaders – Gideon’s 70-or-so sons.

Abimelech steps forward. “Why have so many leaders?” he reasoned. “Wouldn’t it be better to have just one leader?”

Abimelech was probably right in his thinking, but boy was he ever wrong in his approach. He hired the reckless adventurers (what a great title) and they killed all his brothers with only the youngest one – Jotham – escaping alive. This  was crazy; this was hard to believe. Abimelech killed about 70 brothers, sons of his own father.

I could stretch this a bit, but just a little bit, to show that we do similar things today. Greedy, overly ambitious people start corporations, hire modern-day reckless adventurers, and pillage and plunder the marketplace with evil intent. There is no desire to provide good products and services to the public, only a desire for money and power. Maybe that isn’t much of a stretch; it may be too close to reality for us to admit.

Reckless adventurers – I guess we still have them with us today.

Numbers 11:4-6 (New International Version)

⁴ The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat! ⁵ We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. ⁶ But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!”

Sometimes it had to be tough to be Moses. Sometimes I wonder why God didn’t just end it all for His people in a flash of light. God could have ended it all for His people by doing nothing. God was performing a daily miracle for His people. Food appeared out of no where on the desert floor each morning. In fact, God had just the right amount of food appear each day.

God gave His people manna every morning – food sufficient for the day. What a miracle!

Yet, there were some people called “the rabble with them” who tired of a miracle every morning that kept them alive for another day. What are “rabble?” There are many definitions available. One of my favorites

The lowest or coarsest class of people.

These people weren’t happy with anything. What a bunch of losers, and that is easy for me to write several thousand years later as I sit in a house with central heat and air conditioning and I type on a computer as a form of mental exercise in the morning (how much longer can I make this list of modern luxuries?).

Are we like this today? Are we like the rabble? We have the miracle of God’s grace with us every moment of every day. Do we tire of a daily miracle that is sufficient for our salvation? Why doesn’t God just leave us alone and let us perish? He wouldn’t have to do anything but do nothing. Instead, He continues to provide us with grace and about a million other things that comes with grace.

Deuteronomy 17:18-20 (New International Version)

¹⁸ When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. ¹⁹ It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees ²⁰ and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.

God is talking to His people about having an earthly king to rule them. This is the “he” in these verses, the earthly king. Notice the second phrase of verse 18:

he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law

Taken literally, which I tend to do, this means the king is to transcribe or write a word-for-word copy of the law. That should be his personal copy that he reads often.

Transcription is a study technique that I use now and then. I open a Bible, set a notebook next to it, and copy the words from the Bible to the notebook with a pen. I read much faster than I write by hand. This gives me time to think about each word in the Bible’s text while I write them to the notebook. I have been given good insight into the text while doing so.

I suggest transcription to people. I don’t know that anyone has tried it, but I keep suggesting it.

Maybe one day I will copy the entire Bible to a notebook by hand. Maybe.

Joshua 24:14-15 (New International Version)

¹⁴ “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. ¹⁵ But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

For me, this is one of the great passages in the Bible. Joshua is about to lead the people into the promised land. They have been through much – much more than I have in my exciting 20th-21st century life. Now  Joshua challenges them with one short, simple, yet profound statement:

choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve

Look at the elements:

choose – We have to select one thing or the other. There is no default position and no abstaining.

yourselves – Some translations use the work “you” as in “you choose.” We choose for ourselves. We can’t stand behind someone else and let them do the  choosing for us.

this day – Today. Right now. Not later.

whom – We are choosing a person to serve –  God or Satan. We are not choosing a philosophy or some vague notion.

serve – We will be serving this person. We will be working for them. We won’t be standing around until it is time to go home and eat dinner and watch television.

Ever need a sermon or a Bible lesson in short order? Pick this little statement. If you can explain it in short order, please send me the text of your lesson. I have been working on this one for a few decades and am still struggling.

Joshua 1:8 (New International Version)

Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

In this verse, God is instructing Joshua before Joshua leads the people into the promised land. I am intrigued by the first phrase of the verse. God tells Joshua to not let the Book of the Law depart from his mouth. That seems strange. I wouldn’t pause if the verse had written “don’t let the law depart from your heart” or “don’t let the law depart from your mind,” but “don’t let it depart from your mouth?”

I looked at half a dozen other translations. Almost all of them use the word “mouth” in a similar way here. A few don’t mention the mouth, but they don’t mention any other part of the body either. Where is the heart? Where is the mind?

Then I read the translation in Today’s New International Version:

Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

That figure of speech makes sense to me. To “keep something on my lips” means (to me) to keep saying or speaking it. God encourages Joshua to speak the words of the law, speak about the law, and (again for me) to think about and feel about the law daily.

God, help me to keep you on my lips, to think of you, your grace, your love daily, to feel your presence in my life, and to speak of you daily.

Deuteronomy 10:12-13 (New International Version)

¹² And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹³ and to observe the LORD’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?

Moses is speaking to the people of God. He summarizes pages of commands with these five phrases:

1. fear the Lord
2. walk in his ways
3. love him
4. serve the Lord
5. observe the Lord’s commands

That isn’t a long list. It is certainly short enough to commit to memory.

Now how about doing it? Oh, that is a little harder. Especially consider the longer version of 4.

to serve the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul

How do you do that one? The tough part for me is “with all your heart and with all your soul.” I don’t know that I’ve ever done anything with all my heart and all my soul. How would I know if I had done that? I have worked hard at some things in my life; I’ve been exhausted after working at things. Does that mean I put all my heart and soul into them? I don’t know. Perhaps I am misreading the words.

Whatever the case may be, what God asked of His people on this occasion in Deuteronomy, what He asks of us today – these things are not complicated. They are difficult.

God, help me to do what you ask of me.

Numbers 13:17-20 (New International Version)

¹⁷ When Moses sent them to explore Canaan, he said, “Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country. ¹⁸ See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. ¹⁹ What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified? ²⁰ How is the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees on it or not? Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the land.” (It was the season for the first ripe grapes.)

Only a couple years removed from slavery in Egypt, God’s people are about to enter the land He promised them. Before entering the land, Moses sends twelve men to explore it.

Note: none of them had ever seen this land. God’s people had been in Egypt 400 years. Those who went to Egypt from the land had died tens of generations ago. This was a strange place to them.

It is hard for us today to imagine what it was like for these people in this place at this time. I have never been to Australia, but if I were to go there, I could first read about Australia, look at photos in books, photos  on the Internet, videos on the Internet, documentaries on television, and on and on. I could learn so much that when I first set foot in Australia I would feel as if I had been there before.

Such was not the case for God’s people readying to enter the land He gave them. They knew slavery in Egypt and a couple of years of migration. That is all. Moses sending the twelve men into the land was truly an exploration of the unknown. Simply walking through the land required great faith and courage.

We know how the history ends. Ten of the twelve return and report that the land is too great and the people there are too strong to conquer. We chide these ten for their lack of faith and courage and the harm that their reporting does to a generation of God’s people. Perhaps we should  reconsider. Yes, they failed in their reporting, but still they were men of great courage and faith just to walk through an unknown place. That is why Moses chose them for the mission of exploration.