Judges 5:1-31 Then Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam sang on that day, saying, 2 “That the leaders led in Israel, That the people volunteered, Bless the LORD! 3 “Hear, O kings; give ear, O rulers! I– to the LORD, I will sing, I will sing praise to the LORD, the God of Israel. 4 “LORD, when You went out from Seir, When You marched from the field of Edom, The earth quaked, the heavens also dripped, Even the clouds dripped water. 5 “The mountains quaked at the presence of the LORD, This Sinai, at the presence of the LORD, the God of Israel. 6 “In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, In the days of Jael, the highways were deserted, And travelers went by roundabout ways. 7 “The peasantry ceased, they ceased in Israel, Until I, Deborah, arose, Until I arose, a mother in Israel. 8 “New gods were chosen; Then war was in the gates. Not a shield or a spear was seen Among forty thousand in Israel. 9 “My heart goes out to the commanders of Israel, The volunteers among the people; Bless the LORD! 10 “You who ride on white donkeys, You who sit on rich carpets, And you who travel on the road– sing! 11 “At the sound of those who divide flocks among the watering places, There they shall recount the righteous deeds of the LORD, The righteous deeds for His peasantry in Israel. Then the people of the LORD went down to the gates. 12 “Awake, awake, Deborah; Awake, awake, sing a song! Arise, Barak, and take away your captives, O son of Abinoam. 13 “Then survivors came down to the nobles; The people of the LORD came down to me as warriors. 14 “From Ephraim those whose root is in Amalek came down, Following you, Benjamin, with your peoples; From Machir commanders came down, And from Zebulun those who wield the staff of office. 15 “And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah; As was Issachar, so was Barak; Into the valley they rushed at his heels; Among the divisions of Reuben There were great resolves of heart. 16 “Why did you sit among the sheepfolds, To hear the piping for the flocks? Among the divisions of Reuben There were great searchings of heart. 17 “Gilead remained across the Jordan; And why did Dan stay in ships? Asher sat at the seashore, And remained by its landings. 18 “Zebulun was a people who despised their lives even to death, And Naphtali also, on the high places of the field. 19 “The kings came and fought; Then fought the kings of Canaan At Taanach near the waters of Megiddo; They took no plunder in silver. 20 “The stars fought from heaven, From their courses they fought against Sisera. 21 “The torrent of Kishon swept them away, The ancient torrent, the torrent Kishon. O my soul, march on with strength. 22 “Then the horses’ hoofs beat From the dashing, the dashing of his valiant steeds. 23 ‘Curse Meroz,’ said the angel of the LORD, ‘Utterly curse its inhabitants; Because they did not come to the help of the LORD, To the help of the LORD against the warriors.’ 24 “Most blessed of women is Jael, The wife of Heber the Kenite; Most blessed is she of women in the tent. 25 “He asked for water and she gave him milk; In a magnificent bowl she brought him curds. 26 “She reached out her hand for the tent peg, And her right hand for the workmen’s hammer. Then she struck Sisera, she smashed his head; And she shattered and pierced his temple. 27 “Between her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay; Between her feet he bowed, he fell; Where he bowed, there he fell dead. 28 “Out of the window she looked and lamented, The mother of Sisera through the lattice, ‘Why does his chariot delay in coming? Why do the hoofbeats of his chariots tarry?’ 29 “Her wise princesses would answer her, Indeed she repeats her words to herself, 30 ‘Are they not finding, are they not dividing the spoil? A maiden, two maidens for every warrior; To Sisera a spoil of dyed work, A spoil of dyed work embroidered, Dyed work of double embroidery on the neck of the spoiler?’ 31 “Thus let all Your enemies perish, O LORD; But let those who love Him be like the rising of the sun in its might.” And the land was undisturbed for forty years.

This song celebrating the death of an enemy troubles me.

Regardless whether you are a pacifist or an advocate of “just war” there are parts of the Bible that you will struggle with. “Just war” proponents have Jesus saying that we are turn the other check. Pacifists have Old Testament stories such as this. We can not just ignore them; but, I am not always sure what to do with stories like this. I hate to just brush it off as, “well, it was a different time, a different covenant, and a different people.”

How do you incorporate this story into your understanding of God? If you are a pacifist how does your theology interpret the celebratory nature of this song?

Isaiah 56:6-9 “Also the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, To minister to Him, and to love the name of the LORD, To be His servants, every one who keeps from profaning the sabbath And holds fast My covenant; 7 Even those I will bring to My holy mountain And make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar; For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.” 8 The Lord GOD, who gathers the dispersed of Israel, declares, “Yet others I will gather to them, to those already gathered.” 9 All you beasts of the field, All you beasts in the forest, Come to eat.

God has not limited his family to one people, nation, tribe, ethnic group, gender, or nationality. God is inclusive and wants to be reunited with all people. God’s house is a house of prayer for all the people. God is gathering people from all places, and all times, into his eternal kingdom.

To be a part of the kingdom all that is required is the admission that God is greater than I am, by receiving and believing in Jesus.

Isaiah 54:1-5 “Shout for joy, O barren one, you who have borne no child; Break forth into joyful shouting and cry aloud, you who have not travailed; For the sons of the desolate one will be more numerous Than the sons of the married woman,” says the LORD. 2 “Enlarge the place of your tent; Stretch out the curtains of your dwellings, spare not; Lengthen your cords And strengthen your pegs. 3 “For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left. And your descendants will possess nations And will resettle the desolate cities. 4 “Fear not, for you will not be put to shame; And do not feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced; But you will forget the shame of your youth, And the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. 5 “For your husband is your Maker, Whose name is the LORD of hosts; And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, Who is called the God of all the earth.

Isaiah 54:10 “For the mountains may be removed and the hills may shake, But My lovingkindness will not be removed from you, And My covenant of peace will not be shaken,” Says the LORD who has compassion on you.

Isaiah 54:17 “No weapon that is formed against you will prosper; And every tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, And their vindication is from Me,” declares the LORD.

My reading of this passage is that Israel is the barren woman who will enlarge her tent and become numerous. I suspect this is a reference to the saving work of Jesus (see chapter 53) bring gentiles into God’s family.

The Lord will protect and defend those who are a part of the Lord’s family. We do not need to defend ourselves; rather, we can trust in the Lord to defend.

Isaiah 53 Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2 For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.

Man of Sorrows by Ronald Rae

3 He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. 4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. 6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him. 7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered That He was cut off out of the land of the living For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due? 9 His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth. 10 But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand. 11 As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, And He will divide the booty with the strong; Because He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors.

Purify by Richard Hearns

Isaiah 52:9-13 Break forth, shout joyfully together, You waste places of Jerusalem; For the LORD has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem. 10 The LORD has bared His holy arm In the sight of all the nations, That all the ends of the earth may see The salvation of our God. 11 Depart, depart, go out from there, Touch nothing unclean; Go out of the midst of her, purify yourselves, You who carry the vessels of the LORD. 12 But you will not go out in haste, Nor will you go as fugitives; For the LORD will go before you, And the God of Israel will be your rear guard. 13 Behold, My servant will prosper, He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted.

What does the phrase “The LORD has bared His holy arm” mean? Is it that the world can see God in this world? God has rolled up his sleeves and done a saving work? God is active and visible?

My other question: what is the difference between the Lord and the God of Israel in verse twelve? The Lord goes out before, but the God of Israel is the rear God. Is this a reference to the same being, thus suggesting that God is encompassing Israel? Is this a reference to two separate persons of God (two parts of the trinity)? Is this a reference to chronology; God working in the past and in the future?

I do not have the answers to these questions. This is a perfect time to go pull out some commentaries and look at how other Christians have responded to this passage.

Isaiah 21:5-10 They set the table, they spread out the cloth, they eat, they drink; “Rise up, captains, oil the shields,” 6 For thus the Lord says to me, “Go, station the lookout, let him report what he sees. 7 “When he sees riders, horsemen in pairs, A train of donkeys, a train of camels, Let him pay close attention, very close attention.” 8 Then the lookout called, “O Lord, I stand continually by day on the watchtower, And I am stationed every night at my guard post. 9 “Now behold, here comes a troop of riders, horsemen in pairs.” And one said, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; And all the images of her gods are shattered on the ground.” 10 O my threshed people, and my afflicted of the threshing floor! What I have heard from the LORD of hosts, The God of Israel, I make known to you.

The Prayer

Have you ever prayed for God to deliver you from something; or maybe for God to make clear the path you should take? What do you do after you have made that prayer? Do you pay attention to how God is answering that prayer? Do you put up a “lookout” in your life?

The people of Israel were preparing for the day when Babylon would be destroyed and they would be safe for a time. This verse instructs them to watch for that day to come.

When I pray about a specific thing, I have a bad habit of praying and forgetting. I do not pay attention to how God is responding to my prayers. I have many good friends who use prayer journals as their “lookout”. They write down their prayers and then can go back and see the amazing things God has done.

I do not believe it is necessarily wrong to pray and then forget/leave-it-in-the-hands-of-God. However, you may miss out on a tremendous blessing.

Isaiah 20:1-6 In the year that the commander came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him and he fought against Ashdod and captured it, 2 at that time the LORD spoke through Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, “Go and loosen the sackcloth from your hips and take your shoes off your feet.” And he did so, going naked and barefoot. 3 And the LORD said, “Even as My servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot three years as a sign and token against Egypt and Cush, 4 so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old, naked and barefoot with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt. 5 “Then they will be dismayed and ashamed because of Cush their hope and Egypt their boast. 6 “So the inhabitants of this coastland will say in that day, ‘Behold, such is our hope, where we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria; and we, how shall we escape?’”

Did you catch what Isaiah did in this passage? He walked around naked for three years because that’s what God told him to do. In our culture walking around naked would cause a number of problem; you would probably lose your job, be shunned by friends and neighbors, be arrested, and either jailed or institutionalized. Also, your church would probably not accept your claim of nudity as a form of Christian discipleship. However, my understanding is that public nudity had an even greater social stigma in the time of Isaiah than in our culture. Yet, Isaiah was willing to do what God told him to do, regardless of the social stigma. What is God calling you to do?

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

Have a great weekend!

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

Have a great weekend!

Isaiah 9:6-7 For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. 7 There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.

This passage continues the messianic theme started in chapter 8. The child is the previously named Immanuel. The New Testament connects this verse to Jesus in the book of Matthew.

It is not obvious from the context of Isaiah that this is a future reference referring to a future Messiah. Is it fair to consider this to be a prophecy of Jesus? Or is it more a case of 20-20 hindsight? I think that is a fair question to consider.

Isaiah 9:18 For wickedness burns like a fire; It consumes briars and thorns; It even sets the thickets of the forest aflame And they roll upward in a column of smoke.

I like this verse; especially when you consider that it is speaking about Israel, whom God loved. God tempers those he loves with fire.

O Me of Little Faith: True Confessions of a Spiritual Weakling
By Jason Boyett

“I am a Christian. I have been a Christian for most of my life. But there are times – a growing number of times, to be honest – when I’m not entirely sure I believe in God.” So begins Jason Boyett’s poignant spiritual memoir in which he honestly confronts the challenges to his faith; the things the raise doubt within his soul.

Ultimately, a Christian faith is grounded on one assertion: there is a God. Throughout history different theologians have postulated theories in an effort to prove God. Boyett briefly acknowledges these theories, but also acknowledges that each theory has its own flaws. The conclusion Boyett reaches is that the existence or non-existence of God is improvable.

There are many Christians for whom the provability of God is not a stumbling block for their faith; they simply believe God exists. Boyett does not claim to be in this group. Boyett wrestles with the concern that his faith may ultimately be grounded in nothing. How does one remain a Christian with such doubt? Is it worthwhile to remain a Christian with such doubt? Boyett addresses these questions.

O Me of Little Faith never promises to give answers on how to resolve the doubts a Christian may face. What this memoir does is speak a word of hope into the hearts of those living a life of doubting faith.

The ultimate conclusion of boyett’s book is that doubt does not necessarily conflict with faith. In fact, doubt is often used by God to build up the faith of a doubter. Boyett believes that it can be a healthy thing to cling with one hand to your doubt, and with one hand to your faith; and so be led into God’s presence. There may not be an ultimate resolution (to this book, to our lives, to our faith, or to our doubts); but, it also may be okay to live a life that is never fully resolved.

If you struggle with doubt, read this book. If you do not understand why a Christian would doubt, then there are probably better uses of your time.

Book Description from Zondervan

O Me of Little Faith is a brutally honest, frequently hilarious look at the struggles of a self-confessed spiritual weakling. Jason Boyett invites you to ask the hard questions and remain hopeful as he examines how you doubt, why you doubt, and what (if anything) should be done about it.

In O Me of Little Faith, author Jason Boyett brings you a transparent and personal account of his own of struggles with doubts and unbelief in living out his faith. With humor and frankness, Boyett uses personal anecdotes and a fresh look at Scripture to explore the realities of pursuing Christ through a field of doubt.

After three decades of knowing God, understanding Christianity, and living a Christian life, Boyett has come to the place where he can voice the tough questions and travel the road of uncertainty with blinders off, candor on.

The message along the way is one of encouragement: Relax. Rely on the grace of a merciful God, a kind father who realizes that his finite creatures must have doubts, should have questions, and will have trouble making sense of an infinite Creator. Ultimately, Boyett concludes that doubt and faith are not polar opposites, but actually work together, existing side-by-side.

Uplifting, entertaining, hopeful, O Me of Little Faith will strike a chord with you and any Christian who’s dealing with the uncertainties of living life in pursuit of a God who occasionally seems to disappear.

Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream
By David Platt
This book was provided for review by the WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group.

David Platt is a pastor with a passion to spread the Good News of Jesus to the entire world. Platt asserts that Jesus is someone worth losing everything for; however, the willingness to lose everything for Jesus often flies in the face of the American Dream. The American Dream is predicated on moving from uncertainty to certainty, from need to plenty, from want to wealth. Giving up everything for Jesus is the opposite. Platt writes, “Ultimately, Jesus was calling [his disciples] to abandon themselves. They were leaving certainty for uncertainty, safety for danger, self-preservation for self-denunciation.” Rather than giving up all we have to follow Jesus, Platt sees modern Americans forming Jesus into their own image so they can maintain their desired lifestyle.

To combat the desire to morph Jesus into the American Dream, Platt sets out a challenge which he calls “The Radical Experiment”. The radical experiment challenges Chritians to take one year and 1) pray for the entire world, 2) read through the entire Bible, 3) sacrifice your money for a specific purpose, 4) spend two percent of your time in another context, 5) commit your life to a multiplying community.

Radical is an amazing book that I cannot recommend highly enough. I found to be encouraging, invigorating, and challenging. My hope is that you will read this book, take it seriously, and commit to Platt’s Radical Experiment for one year. It will change your life.

Christians who are not staunch Calvinists may have issues with chapter seven. In this chapter, Platt sets out to explain why it is necessary, within a Calvinist theology, to share Christ with all the world. He does a good job of working through this from a Calvinist construct. However, as a non-Calvinist reading this passage, I found the arguments unnecessary. Fortunately, an Armenian, such as myself, can skim this chapter and not lose the power of the rest of the book.

The only other criticism of the book is directed more at Platt’s editor. Platt repeatedly uses the phrase “begs the question” improperly. This may be more of a personal pet peeve, but it was such a common occurrence that I did find it distracting.

Go out and buy this book, read it, and then put it into practice.

Book Description from WaterBrook Multnomah

WHAT IS JESUS WORTH TO YOU?

It’s easy for American Christians to forget how Jesus said his followers would actually live, what their new lifestyle would actually look like. They would, he said, leave behind security, money, convenience, even family for him. They would abandon everything for the gospel. They would take up their crosses daily…

BUT WHO DO YOU KNOW WHO LIVES LIKE THAT? DO YOU?

In Radical, David Platt challenges you to consider with an open heart how we have manipulated the gospel to fit our cultural preferences. He shows what Jesus actually said about being his disciple–then invites you to believe and obey what you have heard. And he tells the dramatic story of what is happening as a “successful” suburban church decides to get serious about the gospel according to Jesus.

Finally, he urges you to join in The Radical Experiment –a one-year journey in authentic discipleship that will transform how you live in a world that desperately needs the Good News Jesus came to bring.

Evolving in Monkey Town
By Rachel Held Evans
This book was provided for review by the publisher

Rachel Held Evans grew up as a conservative Christian in the heart of the Bible Belt. Throughout school she took pride in winning the Best Christian Attitude award, and she spent considerable time learning apologetics. “I was a fundamentalist,” she writes, “in the sense that I thought salvation means having the right opinions about God and that fighting the good fight of faith requires defending those opinions at all costs.” Then she began to question her faith. It began by considering the specific case an Afghan Muslim woman, Zarmina, executed for alleged adultery after a sham trial. This woman had never had the opportunity to now Jesus, was she condemned to hell?

Evans has written an excellent memoir focusing on her journey from certainty to doubt. It is not evil, or un-Christian to ask good questions and express doubt about what our religion professes. Rather than doubt being a destructive force, Evan’s doubt allowed her to move to a fuller faith in Jesus.

I highly recommend this book. Anyone who grew up in the church and then experienced or is experiencing a time of doubt will relate to Evan’s book. Anyone who is part of the church but has never gone through an intense time of doubt would do well to read this memoir as a tool to connect with the disaffected and disinterested younger generation they are trying to reach. This generation does not care if you know the answers, rather, it cares that you know how to ask the right questions.

Book Description from Zondervan

Eighty years after the Scopes Monkey Trial made a spectacle of Christian fundamentalism and brought national attention to her hometown, Rachel Held Evans faced a trial of her own when she began to have doubts about her faith. Growing up in a culture obsessed with apologetics, Evans asks questions she never thought she would ask. She learns that in order for her faith to survive in a postmodern context, it must adapt to change and evolve.

In Evolving in Monkey Town, Rachel Held Evans recounts her experiences growing up in Dayton, Tennessee, a town that epitomized Christian fundamentalism during the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. With fearless honesty, Evans describes how her faith survived her doubts and challenges readers to re-imagine Christianity in a postmodern context, where knowing all the answers isn’t as important as asking the questions.

Using as an illustration her own spiritual journey from certainty, through doubt, to faith, Evans adds a unique perspective to the ongoing dialogue about postmodernism and the church that has so captivated the Christian community in recent years.

In a changing cultural environment where new ideas threaten the safety and security of the faith, Evolving in Monkey Town is a fearlessly honest story of survival.

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

The Church Through the Ages

Have a great week!

Here Burns My Candle
By Liz Curtis Higgs
This book was provided for review from the publisher

Here Burns My Candle is the story of one wealthy family’s struggle as live in Scotland during the Jacobite rebellion. A widow is living with her two sons and their wives. Against their mother’s wishes the sons join the rebellion. The entire family is forced to live with the consequences.

I am most definitely the wrong demographic for this historical romance. ***SPOILERS MAY FOLLOW*** The only reason I requested a copy of this book was because it was marketed as a Scottish retelling of the book of Ruth; that is an interesting idea. Unfortunately, this 454 page tome is a retelling of only the first chapter of Ruth. My understanding is that the story is continued in additional books.

I am not a fan of the historical romance genre because, typically, nothing happens. That is also my complaint with this book; there is a lot of pretty scenery, but nothing happens. It was with great difficulty that I pushed my way through the last half of the story.

If the entire series were condensed down to one book the size of Here Burns My Candle, then I could probably get on board. That would be a great story. As for this book, there is just too little story spread over too many pages for me to recommend this book. That being said, this book was not written for me. Those who enjoy historical romance will probably enjoy this book.

Book Description from Random House

Lady Elisabeth Kerr is a keeper of secrets. A Highlander by birth and a Lowlander by marriage, she honors the auld ways, even as doubts and fears stir deep within her.

Her husband, Lord Donald, has secrets of his own, well hidden from the household, yet whispered among the town gossips.

His mother, the dowager Lady Marjory, hides gold beneath her floor and guilt inside her heart. Though her two abiding passions are maintaining her place in society and coddling her grown sons, Marjory’s many regrets, buried in Greyfriars Churchyard, continue to plague her.

One by one the Kerr family secrets begin to surface, even as bonny Prince Charlie and his rebel army ride into Edinburgh in September 1745, intent on capturing the crown.

A timeless story of love and betrayal, loss and redemption, flickering against the vivid backdrop of eighteenth-century Scotland, Here Burns My Candle illumines the dark side of human nature, even as hope, the brightest of tapers, lights the way home.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
By Donald Miller

In A Million Miles in a Thousand Years writer Donald Miller explores what it is that makes up a good story and then applies these insights to his life.

While looking to become a better writer, and working on a screenplay for a movie, Miller goes with a friend to a Robert McKee writing seminar. After 36 hours of lecture Miller asks his friend what a story actually is and his friend replies, “a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it.” Miller uses this basic framework as he continues his writing; but, then wonders if this same framework can be used to explore his life. Miller asks the question “am I living a good story?” The rest of the memoir focuses on Miller defining his character, what he wants, and learning to embrace the inevitable conflict so it can be overcome.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years forces its reader to explore their own life and ask some basic questions: what kind of story am I living? What changes need to be made so I can be living a good story? How can I move my story toward and through conflict? How does God interact with our story? What are the stories we are writing our loved ones into?

Ultimately, Miller writes, “a story is based on what people think is important, so when we live a story, we are telling people around us what we think is important.”

Miller’s writing style is pleasant and affable; kind of like sitting on a porch and listening to a friend. His self-aware and self-deprecating nature keeps the book from becoming too narcissistic (a danger for any memoir). The writing may have benefited had it gone through another round of tightening, but the free-flowing nature of the narrative is part of the charm of the book.

There are stories and ideas in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years that will capture anyone’s attention and imagination. This is the perfect book to read if you are searching for something, but need a little push to fully know what that something is.

This quick read would be beneficial to any creative person, and is a book I imagine I will come back to for a second read in the next nine to fifteen months.

What is my character? What do I want? What are my obstacles? Is my life telling a good story?

Book Description from Thomas Nelson

Full of beautiful, heart-wrenching, and hilarious stories, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years details one man’s opportunity to edit his life as if he were a character in a movie.

Years after writing a best-selling memoir, Donald Miller went into a funk and spent months sleeping in and avoiding his publisher. One story had ended, and Don was unsure how to start another.

But he gets rescued by two movie producers who want to make a movie based on his memoir. When they start fictionalizing Don’s life for film–changing a meandering memoir into a structured narrative–the real-life Don starts a journey to edit his actual life into a better story. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years details that journey and challenges readers to reconsider what they strive for in life. It shows how to get a second chance at life the first time around.

Deuteronomy 28:1-6 “Now it shall be, if you diligently obey the LORD your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2 “All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the LORD your God:
3 “Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country.
4 “Blessed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground and the offspring of your beasts, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock.
5 “Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
6 “Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

This whole later section of Deuteronomy is very focused on cursing and blessing.

For Israel the only way into a relationship with God was through following the rules. Following the rules resulted in blessing. Disobeying God’s rules resulted in cursing.

For Christians today we are still blessed when we “diligently obey the Lord”. Our ability to have a relationship with God is not based on following the rules, but rather on putting our faith in Christ. Once we have put our faith in Christ, God wants to bless us in amazing ways. We enable that blessing by following God’s instructions. We avoid God’s blessing by following our own desires.

Deuteronomy 27:15-26
‘Cursed is the man who makes an idol or a molten image, an abomination to the LORD, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ And all the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’
16 ‘Cursed is he who dishonors his father or mother.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
17 ‘Cursed is he who moves his neighbor’s boundary mark.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
18 ‘Cursed is he who misleads a blind person on the road.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
19 ‘Cursed is he who distorts the justice due an alien, orphan, and widow.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
20 ‘Cursed is he who lies with his father’s wife, because he has uncovered his father’s skirt.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
21 ‘Cursed is he who lies with any animal.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
22 ‘Cursed is he who lies with his sister, the daughter of his father or of his mother.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
23 ‘Cursed is he who lies with his mother-in-law.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
24 ‘Cursed is he who strikes his neighbor in secret.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
25 ‘Cursed is he who accepts a bribe to strike down an innocent person.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
26 ‘Cursed is he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

People take about the Ten Commandments, but nobody ever spends time talking about the Dozen Curses (that would be an awesome name for a rock band).

Is this list of cursed activities specific to the time and context of the Nation of Israel, or is this a universal list of cursable offenses. It seems to me that this list is a good list to use when discussing cultural relevance.

I do find it interesting that fully a third of the curses deal with sexuality. Of course, just over a third (five of twelve) are related to issues of justice. The rest have to do with honoring God, parents, and the law.

The final cursing is to the one “who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.” This seems to be echoed in the New Testament statement that faith without works is dead (James 2:20). It is not enough to merely know what God is calling you to do; we must act on what God is calling us to do.

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

Have a great weekend!

Here’s some stuff I came across this week…

Have a great weekend!