THE BEAT e127 On This Side of the Garden, We Need Clarity and Good Decisions

This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.

Season 2 Episode 127

THE BEAT | On This Side of the Garden, We Need Clarity and Good Decisions

Quick Take

Hey human, in this episode we take a look at 15 judges, ignore Samson’s hair, and exercise our math skills. Evil vs peace? We consider the beauty of God’s transparency, his sovereign storytelling skills and the power of making the kind of decisions that put us in his story.

Join us for e127. Thanks for listening.

How is Jesus prompting your decisions today?

I’m Kathryn Bise, your host.

The word “judge” is pretty weighty, right? It tips the scale toward bad behavior and behavior with negative consequences. Where are we on the timeline of my read-through right now? Judges – 1400 BC (or up to 150 yrs later).

Fifteen (15) judges (counting Barak) created the context for Israel’s first king. As I read about each judge, I tracked the number of years lived in evil, and number of years lived in peace with a judge (called a “deliverer” in many cases). Before each judge was selected the Israeli nation “cried out to the Lord” – having been worn down by living a life succumbed to evil, they all came to the point of going to the only source, the Deliverer.

Tracking Evil vs Peace

Just tracking the numbers tells the story of the human condition. I did not AI this. I don’t remember important details very well that way. By my math, let’s say, 114 years of evil, 376 years of peace – roughly 3 times longer with God.  490 total, so about 500 years of worshiping other gods, crying out to the Lord, and living by the rule of a “judge” appointed by God. Training ground for the first king.

Their names:

Othniel – 8 years in evil, 40 years in peace

Ehud (left-handed) – 18 years in evil, 80 years in peace (he ran a sword through King Eglon of Moab)

Shamgar – struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad (“he too saved Israel”)

Deborah (a prophet) – 20 years in evil, 40 years in peace

Barak (asked by Deborah to team up)

Gideon – 7 years of evil, 40 years of peace

Tola – 3 years of evil (inc. Abimelek), 23 years of peace

Jair – 22 years of peace (so 45 years of continuous peace – Tola + Jair)

Jephthah – 18 years of evil, 6 years of peace

Ibzan – 7 years of peace (thirty sons and thirty daughters married outside his clan)

Elon – 10 years of peace

Abdon – 8 years of peace (so 31 years of continuous peace)

Samson – 40 years of evil, 20 years of peace

Eli (priest) – 40 years of peace (ministered Samuel)

Samuel (prophet) – over 40 years of peace (100 years of continuous peace)

So, Israel lived through this period with 114 years of evil in-between long runs of continuous peace, that ran like this: 45 years, 31 years, and then 100 years of peace with changing kings. And the first two judges, 40 years of peace, then 80 years of peace with only 26 years of evil in-between.

During the era of the judges, fifteen judges turned a people back toward God, repeatedly. And although it jumps out at us that they worshipped false gods as their “devoted things”, this is not what stands out when I look at the Judges era from a numbers lens. I see a nation of people who turn back to God and live in peace far much longer than by evil. Because God sustains, God empowers a peacemaker heart.

His people went from being led by a great warrior named Joshua to a time when the people needed daily justice to monitor their activities, their adherence to the law of Moses. A left-handed warrior, a man who slay 600 Philistines to move the storyline along, a fierce woman, a judge who married outside his clan (no lineage line to Jesus), a man with long hair that was his strength, a priest, the same priest who raised a prophet, that lead to Israel’s first king.

In All of This Mind-Heart Toggling, the People Needed Clarity

In all this mind-heart toggling , the people needed clarity. So do we. I am tipping the justice scales a little because there is a lot of commentary on the evil ways of God’s chosen people. That he did so much for them, that it would seem almost effortless to follow him.

But we know it is not. Because everyone on this side of the Garden, on this side of Adam and Eve are enslaved by making the wrong choice. Over and over again.

God’s inheritance, his people, received their inheritance, the promised land from Genesis. But because God is the Master Storyteller, he artfully creates a spiritual landscape that moves beyond being about the land. It was less about the land and more about where God would dwell. Because God dwells with his people. He started by walking through the Garden of Eden. Then he led his people to the mountains of Ararat with one family, Noah’s family, then through Israel, Egypt, back across the Jordan River to inhabit the Promised Land. God created Adam and Eve, made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then delivered his nation from Egypt by prophet Moses and conquered the promised land, took ownership of their inheritance by warrior Joshua.

At this point, through Judges, God is moving his people, his story into a kingdom context. It’s powerful to read it with this context in mind. That the people were managed by 15 judges, then they wanted a king. They were warned, but they wanted a king, an earthly king. They got Saul, David, Solomon. And we know that with Solomon’s sons comes a divided kingdom.

But it is amazing that as the people live within the earthly context, of judges, of kings, God is running a story arc that is divine in nature.

Enter Ruth. Because God is the Master Storyteller. His lens can zoom out and in for close ups to reach right into the human heart. This time around in my Bible read-thru I see the power of going from Judges to Ruth’s story. Zooming in to how the people were living and making decisions.

Trekking with a nation can feel so expansive. It’s easy to get lost in the movement over about 800 years at this point. But in the middle of it all, we have individuals like Ruth. In short, Naomi’s family moved from Bethlehem, in Judah to Moab to flee the famine. They were there 10 years, then her husband died, and later, her two sons died. Her daughter-in-law Ruth (who was a Moabite) chose to go with her when she returned to Bethlehem.

Ruth 1:8-18

 

8 Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. 9 May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.”

 

Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud 10 and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”

 

11 But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? 12 Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— 13 would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!”

 

14 At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.

 

15 “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”

 

16 But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” 18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

The Divine Royal Lineage

Ruth’s integrity, her reputation proceeds her. Boaz had “heard” and he assumed the role as her “guardian-redeemer” according to the Jewish culture. Boaz honored her father’s land by purchasing it with elders as witnesses to Boaz, redeeming Ruth’s name for her father’s land.

In fact, the earthly lineage of Jesus continues through people who did the right thing, the obedient thing.

• Naomi was willing to let Ruth and Orpah return to their land.
• Ruth followed Naomi. Orpah returned to her land.
• Ruth followed Naomi’s instructions regarding Boaz.
• Boaz approached the rightful heir of guardian-redeemer.
• Boaz became the designated guardian-redeemer the right way.
• Boaz and Ruth had a child named Obed.

Ruth 4:16

 

16 Then Naomi took the child in her arms and cared for him. 17 The women living there said, “Naomi has a son!” And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

Ruth literally bears the divine weight of giving birth and becoming a link in the royal lineage. The lineage of a King. A shepherd named David. And then THE KING. It is beautiful that this comes to be from her devotion to Naomi and her devotion to God. It is through her obedience we are inspired “to go where God goes.”

Tracing the lineage of Jesus through the Old Testament is a powerful way to deepen our love for God’s story.

Ruth’s is a simple story, with an enduring end. Read Judges this way, that we can bring our struggles, our complex decision-making to the middle of Samson’s story, Eli’s story, Samuel’s and the birth and annointmet of Saul. God gives us transparency. He gives us individuals to deepen our understanding. He lays bare the decisions they make to be part of His story.

We are witness to it. And we have a part in it.