Judges 11:1-12:15, John 1:1-28, Psalms 101:1-8, Proverbs 14:13-14
Today is the 30th day of April, which means it is the last day of the month of April. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is great to be here with you on this last day of April, this last of the fourth month of the year and the 120th day of the year and the 100…well…this would be the 121st step of 365 steps that we take every year and leads us through the entire Bible. So, it’s exciting to be here with you at this threshold…well…I’m not sure it’s a threshold but it’s a necessary ending for us to move forward in our year. And, so, it’s exciting be here with you. We’ve been reading from the book of Judges for a bit here, learning of the different judges, the generations of leaders that followed Moses and Joshua and what became of the people during those generations. And, so, we’ll pick up there and then when we get to the New Testament we will begin a new book, the gospel of John, but we’ll talk about that when we get there. First, we’re reading from the Common English Bible this week. Judges chapter 11 and 12.
Introduction to the book of John:
Okay. So, as we mentioned yesterday we finished the synoptic Gospels when we concluded the gospel of Luke. And, so, as we end our fourth month on this adventure through the Bible this year we’ll begin the gospel of John, which is the final narrative describing Jesus earthly life and ministry. And, so, by way of reminder, the first Gospels, the first three – Matthew, Mark and Luke - are the synoptic Gospels because, although they were written to different audiences, they share many of the same stories. And John’s gospel has a completely different tone, a completely different texture than the other Gospels do. In fact, it’s about 90% different from the other Gospels, which gives us a different context, a different perspective for Jesus life and ministry. John was one of the disciples who walked with Jesus, who actually saw His ministry firsthand. So, he knew that the stories had already been written because he was actually there. And, so, rather than telling the same story he essentially wrote the rest of the story, at least from his perspective. And this is important because while the other Gospels were meant to offer the story of Jesus, along with a compelling reason to believe, John wrote this gospel, the gospel of John to those who already believed. He wrote it to strengthen and deepen the faith of those who were already following Jesus. So, in truth that probably includes most of us. Most of us probably do follow Jesus and believe. And, so, let’s drink deeply from this gospel written from an old saint who walked with Jesus and let it speak to us John 1:1-28.
Commentary:
Okay. So, it’s exciting to get to the book of John, it’s exciting to realize that we have reached in our year the final gospel. Although that’s also kind of a sad thing. We move through the gospel of John and that’s, you know, once we move out of the gospel of John we’ll be moving into the story that happens after Jesus ministry. So, we certainly never leave Jesus behind but in the Bible, we’ll be leaving the narratives of His earthly ministry life behind. And, so, let’s drink deep, pay attention, and just allow the gospel of John to really be a friend as we move through it.
And then, of course, we are learning in the book of Judges of the leaders of people who’ve kinda guided and ruled after Joshua and we can see that there are very, for the most part, very different than either Moses or Joshua. And as we read these stories, we can see the kind of time that it was, sort of the wild frontier, everybody does what they think is right in their own eyes kind of place with all kinds of clan warfare going on. So, it’s not the most peaceful time. And we come across the story of the judge Jephthah today who makes this vow before God that whatever comes out of his front door is what he’s going to sacrifice to God as long as God will give him the victory. Of course, this is a very, very different way of consulting the Lord in making vows and promises before the Lord then anything that Moses or Joshua laid out or instilled in the people. So, we can see like, that this is not in the law, “when you go to battle with your enemy make a vow before me that whatever comes out of your door, whether animal or human should be sacrificed to me and I will receive it as a sweet smelling aroma”. Like, that’s not in the law, that’s not in the Bible other than the retelling that Jephthah did this, right? We don’t have any place in this story where an angel came Jephthah or some prophet came to Jephthah and said, “here’s what you need to do to find victory. Vow that whatever comes out your door you’ll sacrifice to God”. This is something Jephthah did, right? And this is the kind of story that we come across and we’re like turned sideways by them because they touch us on a human level and we cannot fathom it, right? So, it’s his daughter that comes out of the door and as soon as it’s realized what’s going on she asks for a couple of months to lament basically that her life isn’t gonna go on. She’s not gonna be a mother. And then she comes back and the Bible says, Jephthah promises what he did. I’ve heard so many people try to explain this away, “like that’s not what happened. No, no, no, there had to be another way.” I don’t know. I’m just doing a straight reading and the Bible says she came back, she didn’t run away, she could’ve took off, got a two month head start, she could’ve took off but she came back and Jephthah did what he said. That’s horrible. That’s an unspeakable thing. You can’t even possibly imagine it. It’s pretty fresh in my mind, because I have a daughter that just got married a couple days ago. So, I don't…I can’t really put myself in the story…can’t even imagine. I also cannot imagine the tribal warfare and the violence of the time, the anarchy of the time with raiding parties and warlords and all of this stuff. I have no way to relate to that. The thing is that we must remember is that we are reading what happened between Joshua’s leadership and the conquest of the of the promised land and then the season of the monarchy where kings were put in place because things were disintegrating completely and utterly. I cannot imagine making a vow to God that I would sacrifice a human being that was of my offspring if that’s what walked out the door. No grid whatsoever to understand that. God didn’t ask for that in this story. In fact, if we will remember when the children of Israel were coming into the promised land, God said, “that’s what the people of the land of Canaan are doing, they’re sacrificing their children to their gods something I had not even thought of in my own mind.” That’s what God says about that act. Was one of the reasons God was willing to displace the people that were in the promised land. So, God didn’t ask Jephthah to do this. He just thought about it on his own and saw it through. Do we see greatness and blessing, and overwhelming power come to Jephthah because of this? No. He dies a few years later and that’s the end of the story. I bring this up because it’s these kinds of stories as we move through the Old Testament when we do not contextualize them that turn our hearts and estrange us from God because we don’t understand why a story like that would be in the Bible. When we encounter stories like this we have to look for where God is in the story. I don’t see any commands in the story to do what Jephthah did. It’s simply a retelling of what happened next, because we’re reading the book of Judges and we’re reading how things began to completely fall apart for the children of Israel after Joshua.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You for Your word, we thank You for bringing us to the gospel of John and we will drink deeply. We look forward to this final stroll, this walk through these stories as we understand Your personality, as we understand Your ministry here on earth Jesus, as we get to know You better and draw near to You. And we also acknowledge that moving through some pretty rough territory in the book of Judges because things were falling apart. And, so, it’s very easy for us to read things, to read our personal convictions or are biases into this story or into these stories without stepping back and just understanding this is the pathway that the children of Israel took. And because of the choices that they made this is the kinds of things that it led them to do. When we take a step back, we can understand that we systematically make our own choices that lead us to do all kinds of things that we have no business doing. And trying to include You or invoke You into those things and You’re not going to be in them because You are not in them. So, help us to find ourselves even in some of these more grisly or dark stories because we certainly can find ourselves. Come Holy Spirit we pray. Lead us forward as we continue our journey through the Scriptures. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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