Deuteronomy 8—1 Samuel 15 with Shawn & Nathan
In this episode of the 13 Week Bible, Shawn and Nathan preview the Scripture for week three, that's the rest of Deuteronomy, beginning with chapter 8 and on through Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and 1 Samuel 15. We hope you'll enjoy their fun and informative dialogue as they continue their journey through the Bible in just 13 weeks.
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Transcript
Hey, it's Shawn and Nathan. We want to welcome you back to the 13 week Bible season two. We're in episode four. Sean and I are sitting down to provide a brief preview of each week's reading.
as we move through the Bible in just 13 weeks. Today we're previewing the rest of Deuteronomy, beginning with chapter 8. We'll also preview Joshua, Judges Ruth, and on through 1 Samuel chapter 15. Shawn, how are you?
Shawn (:I'm doing well, Nathan. How are you?
Nathan Stearman (:Hanging in there. Today was an early morning, but I'm here and we're here to do something we both enjoy. You mentioned to me last week how much you appreciated the opportunity to just kind of talk about the whole Bible.
Shawn (:Yeah, it's really fascinating and fun exercise to do where we're just literally only talking about the Bible. I know that sounds maybe strange to some people, but for me it's just been really enjoyable. We're not doing any application, which I think there's a place for that, a very important place for that, but we're just literally discussing the big themes of the Bible.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, something I really enjoy doing. So just an encouragement too, by the way, as you're listening to find somebody who will read or listen through the Bible with you, that you can also chat with, because you're gonna have questions and puzzles. So just go ahead and find that friend or group of friends and say, hey, will you do this with me? And again, also, if you are struggling to keep up, just hang in there, pull out that audio Bible if you need to and...
Just do your best to stay on pace because it really does pay off as you stick with it. You'll catch stuff even if you feel like you're rushing parts, but that's okay. I think the other piece is just tell yourself, I'm gonna do it again. So whatever I miss this time, I can always pick up next time. I think making a habit of it is something really worth thinking about.
So I'm gonna do a quick run through of the, by the way, before I do that, I was gonna do a run through of this week, the upcoming reading, but let's recap. Last week, in fact, over the last two weeks, we started in Genesis, and last week we finished with Deuteronomy 7. That's a huge amount of history, which we're not gonna recap today. We did two episodes for that. But I think it's worth stopping to just think about the fact that.
There's been mammoth changes in just two weeks of reading. We've read, I don't know, thousands of years, you know, a couple thousand years at least of history has gone under the bridge as we've read. Thinking of the creation story, thinking of the fall story and the fallout, and then the Abraham story, and then the Israelite story. I don't know if you had anything to say about that, but I mean, massive amounts of history.
Shawn (:Yeah, no, like you just said and we talked about last week, it's a flyby of that history. It does slow down obviously with the time after Abraham, but there's a lot of history that is covered there. It just again shows you where the real focus is, that being the story and family of Abraham.
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:as that's sort of the focus of the whole, maybe to some degree, the whole Old Testament narrative is God's promises to Abraham and his fulfilling of those promises as we work our way towards Jesus.
Nathan Stearman (:And so we found ourselves last week all the way at the end of the Exodus. They're standing on the, well, they hadn't gone into the promised land, but they're standing on the other side of Jordan where they can look over into what was promised to Abraham, this inheritance. Abraham had actually been there before, then his descendants had left, gone to Egypt, which was the end of the Genesis narrative. They found themselves in Egypt.
and then sometime later found themselves very prosperous and in slavery or in prosperous and then became enslaved because the Egyptians were afraid of them. And that's kind of the starting of the Exodus story. And so we followed that excess Leviticus numbers. Deuteronomy was the Exodus story, the forming of the nation, the instructions, laws, et cetera, bringing us to Deuteronomy, which is basically Abraham's farewell speech. Is that what you would
sort of pictured as.
Shawn (:Yeah, a very long one. I mean, hopefully they had chances to have a few breaks there in between. The message version, which I'm going through, actually kind of articulates it as Moses's farewell sermon. So these were separate articulations of his closing kind of thoughts.
Nathan Stearman (:Right.
Uh-huh.
Shawn (:departing reflections. Either way, this is a series of talks or one long talk where Moses, again, as we mentioned last week, he's largely speaking to people who were either children or weren't even born yet when they first left Egypt because now the older people who refused to go into the
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah. So.
Shawn (:These are people he's speaking to that may not either have a strong memory of or have no memory of because they weren't alive of, you know, the Sinai experience, the instructions that came throughout the rest of the Torah. So this is Moses kind of trying to just review all of that history in those laws.
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm
Yep, so I want to come back to that. Before we do that, a quick swing through this week's reading, we're finishing up Deuteronomy, which is Moses, as we've just been talking about finishing his farewell speeches, sermons to the people of Israel that have, again, these are the children of the original members of the Exodus. And then Joshua is recording the
settling of the land, the conquest of the promised land, and the allotment of territories. Judges is following the life or follows the death of Joshua where the people go through a very tumultuous time of rebellion and then suffering and then deliverance. We'll talk more in depth, but that's the judges. Ruth is an amazing story set in the time of the judges about
faithful non-Israelite woman and we'll get to that story but it's a beautiful story of redemption. 1st Samuel we get almost to the halfway point and 1st Samuel records the transition from the prophet, judge, priest leadership of Samuel and into the first king of Israel. So again we're covering massive change here and it's well worth following as you move through
the settling of Canaan all the way to the first monarch of Israel. All right, John, let's slow down and process through starting in Deuteronomy. Just chat through these, these sections of reading this week.
Shawn (:Yeah, that's a good thing to do as we were mentioning, getting a little ahead of ourselves. It's really a rearticulation or a reaffirmation of much of what came before, laws about how to govern relationships, divorce, etc. And then, of course, I'm sure we'll get here a little later.
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm.
Shawn (:the blessings and the curses, which is a whole topic that deserves a lot of attention. There's also reflections on cities of refuge, which shows God's heart for mercy and those types of things that, again, we've covered before in previous books and passages, but it's just a reaffirmation of those things.
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
hard time seeing it from our: Shawn (:Mm.
Nathan Stearman (:And just some of the honest, angry responses to the injustice and the brutality. And I think that's fair. I think it's OK for us to say this is nasty stuff that's going on. This is this is horrific stuff. And. And I think for me, one of the things that I say to that is. It's important for us to recognize the mess that is the story of fallenness and the mess into which.
Shawn (:Mm.
Nathan Stearman (:God is trying to speak and ultimately bring redemption. Like this is a huge mess. And I think just owning that there's no way to clean it up. We don't need to clean it up. We don't need to sterilize it. It's a mess. It's a horrible mess. And God is making the best of it as he tries to sort out and bring people redeem, restore.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think what was important to point out as well is that our lives are a mess as well. Like, our world is a mess. Our world is a mess right now. So, I mean, there's a certain level of maybe like acceptable conventionality that takes place in our societies now. I mean, especially in the western...
Nathan Stearman (:Oh, that's so true. Yes.
Shawn (:societies that we reside in that you and I do, at least Nathan, where there's like a respectableness about society now. And to be sure, there is a lot more law and order and we don't here in America have these mass, at least now we don't have these mass genocidal events and so forth and so on. But our world is not necessarily a whole lot better than it was back then.
Maybe our oppression is just more sophisticated now. Maybe our violence, I mean, we watch it on TV, right? We watch the violence on TV. So we, you know, as the saying goes, you know, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, maybe.
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm.
That's a great reminder. So I want to chat on two things. One is the you mentioned the blessings and curses. I want to get there. But before that, you also mentioned the recounting of history. And I find it fascinating how often you get this either direct instruction or implied instruction. Remember the stories. God showed up in your past. Remember the stories.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Hmm
Nathan Stearman (:If you forget the stories, your history is, your future is not going to go well.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
No, I think that's an interesting point, Nathan, because I spent a lot of time with Jewish friends, and they'll eagerly point out a common expression that's used is that Judaism or the Jewish faith is not a faith of creeds but of deeds. And that can be taken a few different ways, but one of them is, as I understand it, is that Judaism is a faith of history.
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm.
Shawn (:It's not necessarily trying to articulate and promote these abstract ideas. It is pointing to a God who operates in history. He has a story, he has a narrative. So we need to recount that history. Even, you know, God repeats that in Deuteronomy 6, for example. Tell your kids this over and over and over again.
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:in the afternoon and the evening, like just promote these stories and, you know, tell them about how God delivered you from Egypt, how he brought you to the Red Sea. So a recounting of that history is such an important part of what it means to be, you know, the people of God.
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm. Yeah, thank you for that.
I think now we need to move to the blessings and curses. And one of the things I think about coming into this is the idea of, so if you look back to some of the genealogies, the Genesis story, you're going to find references to the names of the peoples that are referenced again in like Joshua and even.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:before Joshua as the territories being conquered. There's an interesting passage where God says, you can't go in now basically, because they're still, they still haven't sort of, there's this language of filling up the cup, and I'm not 100% sure if that, if I'm forgetting if that's used in the Pentateuch, but it is a biblical term of, like their opportunity to figure out life, it's not over yet.
Shawn (:Mm. Yeah. Cup of iniquity.
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:They're making a mess of it, but their story's not finished yet. And then there's this sense when Israel comes in where God says, they've had enough time and their wickedness has reached this level of darkness that they no longer have a right to inhabit the land. So I wonder if we just talk about that, because I think that's related to the blessings and curses, so I'm just throwing it out there as kind of kicking off this.
Shawn (:Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Nathan Stearman (:brief conversation on the blessings and curses.
Shawn (:Yeah, absolutely. I think what you're looking for is the Abraham story where God promises to bring them into the land and he says, in the fourth generation they shall return here. He tells Abraham that your descendants would return here. This is Genesis 15 verse 16, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:So there is a sense in which, yeah, this iniquity would mature, and it's funny to use the term mature in this sense, but it would grow to full fruition and it would come to a place, kind of like a tipping point, I guess you could say. So that, yeah, the reality of God's ways versus the ways of man and the ways of the evil,
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:the satanic forces are brought to full maturity so that people could see the degree to which each way was the way it was. So I think that's going on for sure. Now the thinker of me would say, well, how bad does it have to get before people are clear that these are clearly diametrically opposed?
ways of living. But yeah, I think that's a good insight that these surrounding nations needed to get to a place of completeness when it came to their outright debauchery and evil ways.
Nathan Stearman (:So, and we're touching on stuff that's complicated that as you read the text through, you're gonna be processing this. I'm still processing it. But one of the things that came to my mind is, because as you read the blessings and curses, what we find out is that God doesn't give Israel a free pass. He's not like those guys back there, they're all evil and horrible, the nations that were in Canaan. But you guys would get like this free pass. I'm going to, because you're my people that I called, I blessed.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:I'm gonna give you this free pass. God is very clear in the blessings and curses, like the things that brought these nations to their knees will bring you to your knees. So, and in the instructions multiple times, God specifically says, you need to destroy these peoples because if you take in any of their teachings and their idol worship, it's going to be your undoing as a nation.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Yeah, well, I think that's an important point because, you know, he says in Deuteronomy, I believe it's Deuteronomy, maybe numbers, I didn't choose you because you're better than anybody else, you're bigger than anybody else. I chose you because, yeah, you're small and insignificant. I chose you, and this is the theme of covenant, I chose you because I made a covenant with Abraham, and I have committed myself to you. I love you. And even in the blessings and curses.
Nathan Stearman (:Mm hmm. Yeah. You're small, he said.
Hmm
Shawn (:He pronounces all these curses, but then he basically says, yeah, but even still, I'm gonna remain committed to you. Even if you do violate the covenant, I'm going to remain faithful to you.
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm. That's beautiful. Do you have anything else you want to say about the blessings and curses?
Shawn (:No, I think we've kind of processed it before, outside the recording of this, where it seems as though, and this might be imposing our 21st century sensibilities on the text, but it seems as though it maybe is not as transactional as we suppose it is, that it's more, I don't even know the...
the term that maybe we use or you use, but it's more descriptive than prescriptive. In other words, these are going to be the natural results, the natural consequences. This is not God saying, okay, I'm mad at you, I'm upset at you, so I'm going to impose this from without. This is an external punishment, but it might be, and again, I might be imposing this on the text, but...
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:how I see it through the lens of Jesus and through the lens of just his law of love, that we often reap what we sow. So it's less externally imposed and more internally sort of, you know, internally derived and originating.
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and I, we did touch on this previously. We're going to touch on it again because it's actually really pervasive in scripture. But the idea that sin, sin has its own internal cost, sort of like jumping on a building. You jump off a building and when you hit the ground, God is not smashing your bones to bits. That's the pull of gravity and, and momentum and the laws of physics just working.
Shawn (:Hehehe
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:And so the law of love is the same thing. We're wired to love. And when we go contrary to the principle, to the framework of love, we start breaking things up and the consequence of that is embedded in the process of violation itself. There is a there's a cost when you jump off a building. Gravity is going to going to call your name when we step into violating others. There is.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
That's right.
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:a weight and an impact from that is inherent to the act of violation itself. So. Then I'm just trying to collect my thoughts for a minute. One of the things that I did notice is that this idea that God says, I want them to be afraid. And there is, you know, I like to think of fear, the fear of God as being like this.
Shawn (:That's right.
Mm.
Nathan Stearman (:this sense of deep reverence and awe. Like there is that sense where it's not terror, but you're in great, you're just astounded and in awe of God. And out of that is this deep reverence and respect. But that's not the whole picture. It's not the whole picture in Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus and Deuteronomy. There's literally, especially with the story of God's people, I think God is using fear as a stopgap.
Like that's not the end of the road. First John says that love casts out fear. Fear is not the operative world in which God wants things to exist, but it seems to be a stopgap measure to kind of keep things from going off the rails.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I think this is a recognition of the transcendence of God in the sense that, you know, God is otherworldly in many senses and there are realities that exist outside of me that I must step into and align with if I'm going to live by the rhythm of God's love.
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm
Hmm.
Shawn (:And I want to underscore my conviction is that God never asked of Me or anyone including the children of Israel He never asked of anyone anything that isn't ultimately for their own good. So his so when I'm invited to fear or respect or acknowledge God's otherworldliness his holiness his transcendence
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:He's not doing that because he's having an ego trip. He's not doing that because he has some insecurity he needs remedied. He's doing that for our own good. And it's a recognition of our limitedness, right? It's a recognition that we are finite, that I might not have it all figured out, that there are things that God
Nathan Stearman (:Exactly.
Mm-hmm. That's right. That's a great point.
Hmm.
Shawn (:sees and understands and knows that I may not be privy to. And so it's an act of humility, ultimately. It's an act of me surrendering to a source outside of myself that I acknowledge has greater understanding than I do. I mean, you know, the analogy that's often used is the person who designs a car kind of knows.
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Shawn (:how the car is supposed to operate better than the person who buys it on the car lot. So I think that's part of what it is. But that confronts me on some level, because here, again, in the United States and in the West, we have a very robust individualistic narrative, where we're the masters of our own domain, and we...
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:know everything and we have access to all knowledge especially in today's age of Google and AI and all that. We have access to everything. We know everything. And yet this is saying, you know what? I don't know everything and I'm going to surrender to the transcendent God who might see more of the picture than I do.
Nathan Stearman (:Mmm.
Mm hmm. Yeah. And one thing I wanted to touch on, I just I want to run it by you and see what you think. Because we move into Joshua, judges and where we've already been in the story, we see references and in the end, specifically also in the in the blessings and curses where God says, I'm going to do this.
You know, if you if you do the right thing, you're going to prosper. Your fields will always have produce, etc. If you. If you disregard me, if you violate my instructions, I'm going to. And then in the curses, there's, you know, the sky is going to be like an iron dome, a brass dome, and your crops are going to die. One of the ways I look at this, I'd love to get your feedback on this, Sean, is I see
in the story of scripture, there's the sense in which God is inseparable from what happens in the earth and the universe. In other words, God can't just sit back in his easy chair, in big air quotes, he can't just sit back and let the world tick by, because the world is sustained by him.
Shawn (:Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:So his response, whether he is active or passive, his response has direct implications in the human story. So for me, it's one of the ways of seeing that when God says, I'm going to do this, his act of doing could simply be him recognizing that when I step back, when I pull my hand back because you just don't want me to protect you, you don't want to go along with the way of love,
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:When I step back, there are direct consequences for me stepping back. I can't move in the universe, or I should say God can't move in the universe without that affecting the other inhabitants of the universe because our existence is so intertwined with the presence of God and the power of God and sustaining life of God. So I guess I see that as one way to sort of understand the declarations where God says, I'm gonna do this.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:doesn't necessarily mean that he's saying I'm the one inflicting destruction, but him recognizing that he's the one that when he moves back or forward, there's direct consequences for that action and he's simply owning that.
Shawn (:Yeah, I think that's good. I think I would also approach it from another angle as well. We're kind of, again, we're reading this with our 21st century glasses, which have been shaped by enlightenment thinking, which is a whole other story, which is good and bad, double-edged sword. But what jumped out at me in my reading of this section,
especially like no other time before, is I don't know if we fully appreciate the degree to which God is trying to establish monotheism throughout the whole Old Testament. We don't probably understand or appreciate the degree to which polytheism, first of all, was prevalent. And those of those who are listening.
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:just to define our terms, you know, monotheism, one god, mono, one theism, god, polytheism, multigods, many gods. Again, living in the 21st century, I know I sound like a broken record, the heirs of 2,000, 3,000 years of monotheism, we don't fully appreciate just how present and prevalent and destructive polytheism was.
Nathan Stearman (:Yep.
Hmm
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:Maybe what partly what God is doing is he's saying listen when your crops don't grow that's because of me It's not because of any other gods who have power over the crop. It's because of me. I am God and beside me. There is no other in the book of Joshua and judges This is god's constant battle in first samuel second samuel kings chronicles. This is his battle over and over again, he is
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:trying to establish his power as the one and only God. And again, he's doing that, he uses the term over and over and over again, I'm a jealous God. He's jealous not for his own sake, he's jealous for our sake. He knows that our highest satisfaction, our greatest success comes when we have no other God.
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, yeah.
Shawn (:very first commandment, right? John Calvin said repeatedly that we are prone to idolatry. We are prone to create other gods. We're prone to set up other idols. And God is wanting, wanted desperately to deliver his people from going after other gods. Because as we're gonna get to in these other passages, those other gods.
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm.
Shawn (:whether or not they truly existed or not is another story. But whatever, however they operated, they led God's people into some despicable, awful behavior that God wanted to protect his people from experiencing.
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
Yep, in fact, in Isaiah, and this is one I may remember later, but talking about child sacrifice, God said that never even entered my mind. Just so outside of the framework of God's thinking that he's like, that's not even something in my on my radar screen. It's so horrific. So and yet they were doing it. Yes.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
And yet they were doing it. They were doing it. You know, by, by first, you know, second Sam, first Samuel, like it's already a practice. First Kings, this is already a practice that they're sacrificing children, you know, in fire and just like, praise God that he wants to obliterate all the other gods. When you go into the land, get rid of all the other gods, get rid of all the other high places, tear down the altars. I don't want you involved with any of that. It's like
He was just trying to save them from such tragic behavior.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, and I think it's valuable to remember that we've already seen the human family fall off the rails more than once. I mean, you have the first fall, and then you have the fall before, or getting off of the rails, not the fall, but getting off the rails that precedes the flood. And then you have getting off the rails where God confuses their language at the Tower of Babel. And then they're off the rails again.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:in a smaller, more localized sense with the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. So and then God's entering the story, not superimposing, like you can't just come in and miraculously enlighten people. He's teaching them in the flow of their story who he is, communicating to people who can't conceive of him because their minds are so wrapped up in the cultural climate. And so
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, I think it's valuable to keep all those pieces in mind that God is moving into that context and introducing them to ideas and to himself that they don't have a framework for really identifying with. It's very new to them. And he's trying to help them see what they had not been seeing before.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, well I think I'm gonna get ahead of our reading here, but I want to mention it now because I probably forget it next week. But it's really clicked for me when God is speaking to Solomon and he basically says to Solomon, you know, I know I'm not going to bless you as much as I bless David because you haven't followed my ways as your father David did and I'm thinking to myself
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm.
Shawn (:What does that mean? David was more violent than Solomon. He certainly had a problem with flandering. He had multiple wives. I'm thinking, what is God talking about? Well, the difference was that David did not allow for any idolatry. He didn't allow for any worship of other gods. Solomon did. And so, God's like, David's following me unlike you. David followed me unlike you, Solomon. And what he was talking about was David did not allow
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:polytheism, he didn't allow the worship of other gods. And so again, that was God's chief aim. It's not that he didn't care about the other things, but he had to take care of that first, because that was the source of the other behaviors downstream.
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Exactly. Yeah, you get the God picture, the God relationship on track, and the marriage issues and the violence issues will in time, God can work through those because his people are following.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm, that's right. That's right.
Nathan Stearman (:So Joshua is the conquest of the land. There's a couple of, well, a couple of spots I was noticing in the story. One is the courage of Caleb. Caleb's one of the few, there was what? Caleb and, was it Caleb and Joshua? Am I forgetting someone? They're the ones who were, who came, who were part of the Exodus and-
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Caleb and Joshua, they're the one. Nope, no, they're the two.
Nathan Stearman (:entered into the land of Canaan. Caleb's an old man, and he's like, give me the toughest territory because I know that God is gonna be with me and I'm gonna just go get this.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Wow, well that'll preach. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But yeah, no, I was just going to repeat what you were saying where this was, you know, Israel going in and trying to take over the land and experiencing a lot of...
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, yeah. And he succeeded. Caleb succeeded.
And yeah, go ahead.
Shawn (:success in doing so.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, the tragedy of AI, which one of the Israelites took some stuff that was cursed because it was property in Jericho from Jericho. Sad story, but that's followed by the sun standing still. Fascinating story to read about a battle that God held the sun back. So they would have extended light to fight in. They didn't have night vision gear back then.
Shawn (:Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:Joshua 24 is a great chapter, wraps up the book with Joshua challenging the people to be faithful before his passing. Any other highlights for Joshua? We really got waylaid in Deuteronomy.
Shawn (:No, no, let's keep it keep it rolling, Nathan.
Nathan Stearman (:And then judges, judges is, and I don't have a lot in judges to say except, I mean, why don't you recap? What would you say are the, what's the big highlight of judges?
Shawn (:Oh.
No.
Well, I mean, the punchline that kind of comes at the beginning and the end, and says, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. You know, that's, I think a lot of people, whenever I've heard judges, you know, that's kind of the, the big idea. Certainly there were, you know, Deliverers and rescuers that rose up like Sampson, like Deborah, that, you know, brought some deliverance and peace to Israel. But, um,
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah.
Shawn (:Judges, oh man, there are so many stories in here that I'm just like, what in the world is this all about? And again, if we're taking sort of a code book approach or a literalistic approach in the sense of, I'm just going to read the Bible to glean instructions for my life. If you.
If you take that approach with judges, you're just like, you don't know what end is up and what end is down. And, you know, the story that just challenges me perhaps more than any other is the story of the concubine who, you know, she's cut into pieces and sent to all corners of Israel. And you're just like, okay, what what's the moral in the story? But but again, if you understand it.
Nathan Stearman (:Right? Yep.
Right.
Really?
Shawn (:that it's a part of the larger narrative. You don't get too stressed out about trying to glean some sort of application by which to live in 21st century America. You're just like, okay, this is part of the story where God is basically, I think, trying to communicate that, yeah, these people were messed up. And yeah.
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think the other piece is that we've talked about is this cause and effect reality. And God is letting, allowing his people to say, okay, that's the way you want to go. Well, I'm going to just step back for a minute and you can find out what it's like to pursue that idea, to worship that God, to do life that way. And they get themselves in a bind. They cry. He's like, sure, I'm here. I'll lift you up. Let's, let's deal with the scraped knees, the broken arms. We can, let's patch this thing up.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:and get back on board. So they would do that, but then like the candy across the street would look so tempting and they would go run in the street again, get run over by, you know, just this constant. And he was, I think, just helping to mature them or hoping to mature them by letting them experience the cuts and bruises of rebellion with the hope that they had recognized that the way of love is the best way.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I know. It gives me pause when I'm tempted to say, when I read scripture, it's like, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? Like, we want to do that. We think life is so neatly divided into the good people and the bad people. And, you know, even Samson, like, he was a messed up character. And yet, getting ahead of ourselves in Hebrews 11,
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm
Complex.
Shawn (:pointing to as somebody who lived by faith and you're like, okay, well, that really messes with me. Exactly. Even the very end, he's like, I don't know, he destroys the Philistines by pushing the pillars apart and you're like, okay, I guess that's good in some ways. But I mean, what was his motivation there? Is he doing it?
Nathan Stearman (:Which moment of Samson's life?
Shawn (:because of God, what was he doing out of revenge? And it's just like, okay, this just points me to the need for God's grace because everybody is messed up. And even, you know, we're getting the Samuel, even Samuel lies about, you know, why he's going to, you know, where he, you know, to visit David's family. And you're just like, okay, is it good to lie? Is it not good to lie? You know, so anyway.
Nathan Stearman (:The mess, this is a mess. And I think that is helpful though, for us to think about, you know, we can sit back in armchair, you know, Monday morning quarterbacking is the term is. We can look back at the plays and say, well, they should have done this, they should have done that. Well, you're not in the story, you're not on the field. And so it's recognizing this, just acknowledging the human story is a mess and the way to fix it.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
the
Nathan Stearman (:There isn't a shortcut, an easy way to fix this thing, to come in. And we like to think that God Almighty somehow gets a pass that, well, he can do anything so he can somehow magic wipe this thing, magic right this thing. And it's recognizing that the human story is not fixable quite so easily. With freedom and working within the context of free agency, which is required.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:to allow love to exist, that all of a sudden that complicates things at a profound level. And there are no quick fixes. It's a mess. And I don't know if that helps. It sort of leaves us hanging, but that seems to me like it's a big piece of the story.
Shawn (:Hehehe
Well, for those of us who are inclined and desire easy answers and tidy solutions, it is probably very discouraging. But that's one of the reasons why I love reading the Bible and doing so in a rapid pace is that it helps you, number one, realize that there's a lot of messed up people in the Bible. And number two, that I like to say that
anyone who thinks the Bible is simple and clear, you know there are parts of it that are clear, I think, but anyone who says that it's just plain and simple and easy, the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it, it's like, I don't know that you've actually read the Bible. Now, fortunately when we come to Jesus, he clarifies a lot, but even there, you know, it's still not just...
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, how much have you read and paid attention to? Yeah.
It does.
Shawn (:easy answers and fit neatly into boxes.
Nathan Stearman (:Yep, so I would say as we're moving through, just keep in mind this idea that God is with us and that God's idea, God's desire from the beginning is to be with his people. So he's with us through this journey in this mess. And then hang on because things do, the water does tend to clear more as we move into other parts of scripture into the Jesus story, there is some clarity that's that.
Shawn (:Mm.
Nathan Stearman (:comes as the story develops. So hanging in there is pretty important. Ruth is a good, is a bright story. Oh, go ahead.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm, that's right.
Yeah, I'm just gonna... Yeah, oh, it's no, it's a breath of fresh air. It's a breath of fresh air. It's such a beautiful story I'm just gonna add, you know, not to belabor the point, but you know David who's a man after God's own heart We're gonna get to David in a second David is a man after God's own heart But I mean would you really want David sitting next to you today if you upset him like, you know he'd be you know, he'd be liable just to
lop your head off. I mean, Solomon, you know, the wisest man on all the earth, would you want him sitting in a room with your wife? You know, like these are, these are, these are the types of complicating factors. But yeah, Ruth, Ruth is beautiful. It's a quick small story. I'm sure there's more to it than we read as well, but it is so beautiful. It gives us a picture of, of commitment of covenant faithfulness. Ruth is
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah
Right.
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:devoted to Naomi. She says, your God will be my God. I'm going to go with you wherever you go. And it's so refreshing because it kind of turns things on its head as well because, you know, before it says a Moabite will not be allowed to come into the congregation of God for 10 generations and yet here's Ruth who's a Moabite. And so it speaks to the inclusive love and nature of God as well.
Nathan Stearman (:Yep, and the other piece is, Judges is this terrible back and forth where it seems like the people of God are bent on doing anything but following Him until they get themselves in trouble. And here's a Moabite, a woman who's part of a nation that you can imagine the Israelites may have been jealous of. We want her gods. We want to be like her. You know, whatever. She sees the God of Israel exemplified in...
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Nathan Stearman (:in the broken story of Naomi and her family and says, I want that God. So it also flips things on the head in a time where the people of Israel are running from God. Here is a woman who is far from God, at least in her religious circle, moving toward God because she sees who he is.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And that anticipates, you know, you made me think of Jesus when he marveled at the faith of the Roman centurion. He's like, I haven't found such faith even in Israel. So like, as you say, the faith is absent in God's people, but it's present in those who supposedly weren't God's people.
Nathan Stearman (:Yep.
Yep, and that's a theme that shows up over and over and over again in the stories in the Kings, which we're not in today. Story of Elisha, Elijah, there's interactions with non-Jews that are full of faith. So we're going to wrap up with first Samuel, which is starts with the birth of the last judge and who was also a priest or became a priest and a prophet and that is Samuel.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:great story, engaging, inspiring story of faith in a very awful time. The priests were just horrible in their behavior at the time of Samuel's birth. And you get a taste of that in the first chapter or so of the book. And.
Then fascinating story about the Ark being run off and coming back.
Shawn (:Cook.
yeah that's right that's right and of course you know the people want a king like the other nations falling a theme here and samuel discouraging god they're not rejecting you they're rejecting me never left him what they want even warn them saying hey this is what's gonna happen when you get a king he's gonna exploit you know take all your money is going you know we still want a king right uh... and so
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm.
Shawn (:Again, another complicated person, starts out good, seems to, even he even has given the gift of prophecy, you know, at times, but it doesn't, not to get ahead of ourselves, but it doesn't end well for Saul.
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
It doesn't end well. And we get a taste of it in chapter 15, where he doesn't carry out his mission like he's supposed to. You know, you were mentioning Samuel on the transition to a king. I think it's worth noting that Samuel's own sons seem to have contributed to the distaste of Israel for the prophet-priest leadership model. Because their behavior was despicable. So, Samuel, another complicated story here, he's very faithful, but his own sons kind of
Shawn (:Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:poison the well or poison the system because of their dastardly behavior.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm. Yep, absolutely.
Nathan Stearman (:And one last trivia point. Remember the cut up woman you mentioned. Back, I think it was in the cut up woman back in Judges. The concubine, yep, and that led to nearly the extermination of the tribe of Benjamin. Was that the right story? And then Saul is from the tribe of Benjamin, the first king of Israel. So I just think that's a funny little trivia piece.
Shawn (:I'm sorry, which one?
Yeah, yeah. That the concubine, the Levite. Levite's concubine. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Yeah.
Nathan Stearman (:in the story. So that is all for today. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.
Shawn (:That's right. Well, I was just going to mention, making sure we were clear on this as well, I said the Moabites were not allowed into the temple, and yet that's the line through which David comes, right? So Ruth and Boaz are the ancestors of David. So anyway, just want to make that connection as well.
Nathan Stearman (:Yes.
Yeah, that's right. Thank you, Sean. Well, that is plenty for today. Go and get at your reading for this week. God bless you as you move through the story. And may you see more clearly the beauty of God in the middle of the human mess.
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