March 20, 2022 Bible Study — Even Those Who Have Experienced God’s Power Can Fall Away

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Judges 1-3.

While the first verse of the Book of Judges seems to be saying that everything described in Judges happened after the death of Joshua, we know from the Book of Joshua that the story of Othniel marrying Caleb’s daughter happened while Joshua was still alive.  Which leads me to believe that the account of what happened at Bokim might actually be about the same event from the end of yesterday’s passage.  Overall reading this I get the impression that there those living in the land whom the Israelites were unable to drive out and those whom the Israelites subjugated rather than driving out.  The latter lead to the message from the angel to the Israelites.  The other thing I thought about today that I do not believe has ever occurred to me before is that Othniel, the first of Israel’s judges, had taken part in the conquest of Jericho.  To be perfectly honest I had previously never noticed that Othniel was the first Judge of Israel.  So, the Israelites fell away from following God within the lifetimes of those who experienced crossing the Jordan River and the conquest of Jericho.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

March 19, 2022 Bible Study — Will We Serve The Lord?

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Joshua 23-24.

We often focus on Joshua’s commitment when he asked the Israelite people to renew their covenant with God.

choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve…But as for me, and my household, we will serve the Lord.

And that is a great quote to focus on, Joshua stated that no matter what the group chose, he had chosen to serve God.  We too should be willing to go against the crowd to serve God.  However, Joshua did not have to stand alone.  The people, inspired both by their experience of God’s power and Joshua’s example, also chose to serve the Lord.  They agreed with Joshua’s commitment and said, “We too will serve the Lord, because He is our God.”

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.