No King in Israel (8)

The gory doings in Judges continue this week (and probably the next two) with the story of Jael and Sisera. I will probably not dwell on Jael’s novel use for a tent peg at great length, but scripture devotes two chapters to the deliverance of Israel from the king of Hazor and its aftermath, so we should probably examine some of the historical background to the chapters that Sunday school teachers tend to leave out.

Of special interest (to me at least) is the song preserved in chapter 5, which gives us far more detail about the battle than the summary in chapter 4, which takes all of four words: “the Lord routed Sisera”.

So he did. No great credit to Barak, the leader of Israel’s armies.

With One Hand Behind His Back

“This is the reason why I have so often been hindered from coming to you.”

It must be very frustrating to be Satan.

Picture this: you are bound and determined to thwart the will of God, to destroy his work, to make null and void his promises, to corrupt his servants and taint everything he touches, to remake the world in your own image and to make your name greater than his.

And God beats you every time. With one almighty hand metaphorically tied behind his metaphorical back.

Worth Dying For

When King David wrote, “He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze,” the great warrior-poet was not reaching for an apt figure of speech to describe some vigorous spiritual exercise. He meant it absolutely literally. David had men on every side who were trying to kill him with bows, arrows, swords and spears. His enemies were not looking for a bracing intellectual argument; they intended to spill David’s blood, and spill it in copious quantities.

Moreover, God was not standing aloof from David’s very physical struggles. He was right in there equipping his servant to pierce, crush, injure and maim his fellow man.

Marching as to War

“... making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel ... that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.”

This is not the only time Paul asks for prayer specifically for himself and for the work he was engaged in. Colossians 4 contains a similar request, as do both Paul’s first and second letters to Thessalonica. We may take it this was an apostolic custom. The writer to the Hebrews does the same.

I wonder why.

Of Generals and Foot Soldiers

“Seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.”

Here is a tall order, no? How exactly do we seek God’s kingdom?

Oh, I know we all have some kind of mental picture in view when we pray “Thy kingdom come.” I certainly always do. During the eight years of Barack Obama’s stewardship of the U.S., I regularly imagined the man’s surprise at getting his just desserts one day. I look forward to all deceivers being shown to the world for exactly what they are: right, left and apolitical alike. I picture the enthroned Christ dispensing justice, the wolf lying down with the lamb, and ultimate truth, love and discernment dictating all aspects of world governance.

There are all kinds of ways we may picture the kingdom. But seeking it? That’s something else. It seems like the sort of aspiration in which one’s reach easily exceeds one’s grasp.

Clerks and Dossiers

“Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins; the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary!”

That Psalm 74 is a doozy, and it doesn’t easily resonate when we try to apply it to church life in 2017 in our (comparatively) easy-going Western world. The Asaphian contemplation of Zion in ruins appeals to me poetically and dramatically, but in our day the “sanctuary” (assuming any of us would recognize a sanctuary if we saw one) is not burning, and the enemies of God have not recently taken their axes to the dwelling place of his holy Name.

Well, not visibly anyway.

Institutionality and Convergence

“Convergence” is a term originally coined by John Stuart Mill to describe the process by which a public policy consensus is reached. The term has been reinvigorated by former World Net Daily columnist Vox Day, who uses it to describe what happens when institutions are infiltrated and coopted by people pursuing agendas foreign to their original purposes.

Of course, an institution may survive and even prosper for a period of time while pursuing multiple goals. But no man can serve two masters, and no institution can simultaneously make two non-complementary goals its holy grail. Thus an institution can be described as fully “converged” the moment its pursuit of its new mandate begins to make it ineffective at doing what it was originally created to do.

Prime modern examples of the downside of convergence are tech giant Mozilla, Marvel Comics, the NFL and ESPN. All have prioritized social justice virtue signaling over catering to their core demographics, and each has seen its market share shrivel because of it.