I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. In the interest of making this more useful to others, I have decided to start doing my Bible Study blog on the next day’s reading as listed at One Year Bible Online. I am doing this blog because it is a way for me to do a more meaningful daily devotion myself. I hope that, perhaps, some others may benefit from this and I welcome their comments.
In the previous chapter, we are told that the Israelites had gathered and wiped out all of the tribe of Benjamin except for 600 men who had taken refuge at a highly defensible location. This was done in response to members of the tribe of Benjamin who had committed atrocities and the willingness of the rest of the tribe to defend them. Here we are told that before going into battle the gathered Israelites had entered into two oaths. The first was that they would not give their daughters in marriage to a man of Benjamin. The second was that anyone from the tribe of Israel who did not join them in punishing Benjamin would be put to death. Now that they have sated their lust for vengeance, the Israelites regret the loss of one of the tribes, so they seek a way to find wives for the remaining men of Benjamin.
Upon taking a census of those present, they discover that the town of Jabesh-gilead had sent no one to the assembly. They decide to carry out their second oath, keeping any unmarried women as brides for the remaining men of Benjamin. In this way they find wives for 400 of the men of Benjamin. They then suggest that the remaining unmarried men kidnap women from the festival held at Shiloh, promising to make it right with the women’s fathers and brothers. I find today’s and yesterday’s passages troubling. The only thing I take away from today’s is a reaffirmation of the proverb, “Act in haste, repent at leisure.” I am sure that there will be times when I will read this passage and the Spirit will reveal other things to me, but not today.
Now we begin the story of Ruth. Elimelech and his wife Naomi leave the land of Judah in a time of economic hardship and go to live among the Moabites. They have two sons who marry local girls. In time, Elimelech and his two sons die leaving Naomi and her two daughters-in-law widows. Naomi hears that in the meantime things have improved in Judah and decides to return. Initially, her daughters-in-law accompany her. Before they get very far, Naomi thinks of the hardship her daughters-in-law will face being widows in a foreign land and tells them to return to their mother’s homes. One of the two, sees the wisdom in Naomi’s advice and, with deep regret, returns to her mother’s home. Ruth, on the other hand, is not willing to leave Naomi alone in the world and insists that she will stay with Naomi as long as they both shall live.
I think there are some important things here. Orpah did not do wrong by following Naomi’s advice and returning to her mother’s house. However, Ruth did better by staying with her mother-in-law. Thinking about the situation, if Orpah had joined them, it would not have significantly eased Naomi’s life any further than just Ruth accompanying her and it would have added another person to feed and find shelter for. Ruth, on the other hand, willingly allowed her entire life to uprooted and moved to live among complete strangers who followed different practices from those she had grown up with. She did this out of love and concern for her mother-in-law.
This is the passage of the Samaritan woman at the well. There are many lessons to be taken from this story, but today what strikes me is that Jesus refused to be bound my societal norms. Here we have Jesus, a Jew, making a request of a Samaritan woman, not just a Samaritan woman (as if that wasn’t bad enough), but one of questionable morals. She had been married five times and was living with a man she was not married to. I was reading this thinking that there must have been more to the conversation in order for her to believe he was the Messiah than what is recorded here, and I think there probably was. But, I think that what is recorded here is key. The woman was impressed with Jesus because he did not treat her as one who was incapable of understanding the Word of God. He spoke to her as if she was someone who could understand, if only someone would take the time to teach her, not as an inferior who needed to be carefully guided and was incapable of understanding the weighty points of theology. There was something about what He told her that she relayed to the people of the village that led them to believe. At the end, her fellow villagers tell her, “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us,” implying that they initially believed because of what she told them. This is a story about the power of treating people with dignity and respect.
Let the whole world know what he has done.
Sing to him; yes, sing his praises.
Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds.
This psalm calls on us to give thanks to God and to tell others of what He has done. We need to praise God and let everyone know what we believe about Him and His greatness. Further in the psalm tells us to continually seek God. As I read these psalms each day as part of my daily devotion, they lift up my spirit and lead me to praise His name. It is rather interesting because I started reading a Psalm each morning at the beginning of the year (and still do as part of my morning routine, separate from this daily devotion), yet they did not have the same impact on me until I started writing these studies. Even now, when I read the Psalm as part of this daily devotion it has more impact than when I read it a few days earlier as part of my morning routine.
This proverb needs little explanation. Telling the truth will save lives, while lying is a betrayal of trust. Our society no longer views honesty as a particularly valuable virtue, nor does it view dishonesty as a terrible mark against a person. Lying is considered just part of doing business. In some circles it has even become reversed, where the honest person is the one who is looked down upon.
